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a necessity for nerves to convey the man-160:15 date of mind to muscle and so cause action; but what does

anatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 160:18 speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent?

Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind

in one instance and not in another, and become cramped 160:21 despite the mental protest?

 

Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are

never so, - never capable of acting contrary to mental 160:24 direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid

of their own preference, - be deformed or symmetrical,

as they please or as disease directs, - they must be self-160:27 directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mortal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from

anatomy that muscle is not so governed?

 

Mind over matter

160:30 Is man a material fungus without Mind

to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted

muscle as much a result of law as the supple and 161:1 elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the

lawgiver?

161:3 You say, “I have burned my finger.” This is an

exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mortal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 161:6 has created states of mind which have been able to nullify

the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three

young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; 161:9 while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous

combustion.

 

Restrictive regulations

 

In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed 161:12 tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If

her sister States follow this example in harmony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, 161:15 they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the

Declaration, “Man is endowed by his Maker with certain

inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 161:18 pursuit of happiness.”

 

The oppressive state statutes touching medicine remind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, 161:21 as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the

guillotine: “Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy

name!”

 

Metaphysics challenges physics

161:24 The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms,

telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case according to his physical diagnosis, would natu-161:27 rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure,

even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 161:30 this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause

and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees

with his “adversary quickly,” but upon different terms 162:1 than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician

agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 162:3 only with health and challenges disease.

 

Truth an alterative

 

Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of

Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 162:6 acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with

Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 162:9 carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is

to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it

may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.

 

Practical success

162:12 Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs

the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The

indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 162:15 the conditions of matter and also without the

false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working

out the rules of Science in practice, the author has re-162:18 stored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in

their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the

structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 162:21 elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and

carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I

have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and 162:24 healthy organizations have been established where disease

was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as

surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires 162:27 only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of

Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.

 

Testimony of medical teachers

 

With due respect for the faculty, I kindly 162:30 quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous

Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He

declared that “it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163:1 which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature

with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 163:3 people.”

 

Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard University, declared himself “sick of learned quackery.”

163:6 Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of

England, said:

 

“I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 observation and reflection, that if there were not a single

physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist,

druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be 163:12 less sickness and less mortality.”

 

Dr. Mason Good, a learned Professor in London,

said:

163:15 “The effects of medicine on the human system are in

the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has

already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 163:18 famine, all combined.”

 

Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice

of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published 163:21 essay said:

 

“Consulting the records of our science, we cannot

help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 163:24 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the

imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps

so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify 163:27 our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the

humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction,

and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of med-163:30 ical doctrines is indeed a task as impractible as to

arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the

fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164:1 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of

Homer’s Cyclops around his cave.”

164:3 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal

College of Physicians, London, said:

 

“No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases 164:6 or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or

anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe

guidance in practice.”

164:9 It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medical practitioners are grand men and women, therefore

they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris-164:12 tian Science. But all human systems based on material

premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much

yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is 164:15 saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased

thought-germs are exterminated.

 

If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of

human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental

assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition

that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality miscalled life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from

sin, disease, and death. “When this corruptible shall have

put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 164:27 immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass

the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in

victory” (St. Paul).

CHAPTER VII - PHYSIOLOGY

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what

ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body,

what ye shall put on.

Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? - JESUS.

 

He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their

destructions. - PSALMS.

165:1 PHYSIOLOGY is one of the apples from “the tree

of knowledge.” Evil declared that eating this fruit 165:3 would open man’s eyes and make him as a god. Instead

of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man’s God-given dominion over the earth.

 

Man not structural

165:6 To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the

brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to

subjugate intelligence, to make mind mor-165:9 tal, and to place this so-called mind at the

mercy of material organization and non-intelligent

matter.

165:12 Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has

not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since

man-made material theories took the place of spiritual 165:15 truth.

 

Causes of sickness

 

You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause

distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then 165:18 you consult your brain in order to remember

what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting 166:1 the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own,

and the human mind is all that can produce pain.

166:3 As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels,

acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking

from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made 166:6 on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the

body is lost.

 

Delusions pagan and medical

 

The Mohammedan believes in a pilgrimage to Mecca 166:9 for the salvation of his soul. The popular doctor believes

in his prescription, and the pharmacist believes

in the power of his drugs to save a man’s 166:12 life. The Mohammedan’s belief is a religious

delusion; the doctor’s and pharmacist’s is a medical

mistake.

 

Health from reliance on spirituality

166:15 The erring human mind is inharmonious in itself.

From it arises the inharmonious body. To ignore

God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. 166:18 Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of

bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of

strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn 166:21 that He can do all things for us in sickness as in

health.

 

Failing to recover health through adherence to physi-166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops

them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns

to God. The invalid’s faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted

to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be

with matter by most of the medical systems; but when 166:30 Mind at last asserts its mastery over sin, disease, and

death, then is man found to be harmonious and

immortal.

167:1 Should we implore a corporeal God to heal the sick

out of His personal volition, or should we understand the 167:3 infinite divine Principle which heals? If we rise no higher

than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and

Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not com-167:6 prehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only

as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil de-167:9 termines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our

longevity, and our Christianity.

 

The two masters

 

We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Sci-167:12 ence with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot

successfully usurp the place and power of the

divine source of all health and perfection. If 167:15 God made man both good and evil, man must remain

thus. What can improve God’s work? Again, an error

in the premise must appear in the conclusion. To have 167:18 one God and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you

must love God supremely.

 

Half-way success

 

The “flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” The flesh and 167:21 Spirit can no more unite in action, than good can coincide with evil. It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position

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