Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy [the dot read aloud .TXT] 📗

194:18 as to the frailty and inadequacy of mortal mind. It

proves beyond a doubt that education constitutes this so-called mind, and that, in turn, 194:21 mortal mind manifests itself in the body by the false

sense it imparts. Incarcerated in a dungeon, where

neither sight nor sound could reach him, at the age of 194:24 seventeen Kaspar was still a mental infant, crying and

chattering with no more intelligence than a babe, and

realizing Tennyson’s description:

194:27 An infant crying in the night,

An infant crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry.

194:30 His case proves material sense to be but a belief formed

by education alone. The light which affords us joy gave 195:1 him a belief of intense pain. His eyes were inflamed by

the light. After the babbling boy had been taught to 195:3 speak a few words, he asked to be taken back to his dungeon, and said that he should never be happy elsewhere.

Outside of dismal darkness and cold silence he found no 195:6 peace. Every sound convulsed him with anguish. All

that he ate, except his black crust, produced violent

retchings. All that gives pleasure to our educated senses 195:9 gave him pain through those very senses, trained in an

opposite direction.

 

Useful knowledge

 

The point for each one to decide is, whether it is mortal 195:12 mind or immortal Mind that is causative. We

should forsake the basis of matter for metaphysical Science and its divine Principle.

195:15 Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed

by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, 195:18 thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.

 

Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive 195:21 and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal.

 

It is the tangled barbarisms of learning which we 195:24 deplore, - the mere dogma, the speculative theory, the

nauseous fiction. Novels, remarkable only for their

exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens 195:27 of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes

and sentiments. Literary commercialism is lowering the

intellectual standard to accommodate the purse and to 195:30 meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of for

improvement. Incorrect views lower the standard of

truth.

196:1 If materialistic knowledge is power, it is not wisdom.

It is but a blind force. Man has “sought out many inven-196:3 tions,” but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can

save him from the dire effects of knowledge. The power

of mortal mind over its own body is little understood.

 

Sin destroyed through suffering

196:6 Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from

its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures

which tend to perpetuate this dream. Sin 196:9 alone brings death, for sin is the only element

of destruction.

 

“Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body 196:12 in hell,” said Jesus. A careful study of this text allows

that here the word soul means a false sense or material

consciousness. The command was a warning to beware, 196:15 not of Rome, Satan, nor of God, but of sin. Sickness,

sin, and death are not concomitants of Life or Truth.

No law supports them. They have no relation to God 196:18 wherewith to establish their power. Sin makes its own

hell, and goodness its own heaven.

 

Dangerous shoals avoided

 

Such books as will rule disease out of mortal mind, - 196:21 and so efface the images and thoughts of disease, instead of impressing them with forcible

descriptions and medical details, - will help 196:24 to abate sickness and to destroy it.

 

Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single

post mortem examination, - not from infection nor from 196:27 contact with material virus, but from the fear of the

disease and from the image brought before the mind; it

is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the 196:30 body.

 

Pangs caused by the press

 

The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and

diseases among the human family. It does this by giv-197:1 ing names to diseases and by printing long descriptions

which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A 197:3 new name for an ailment affects people like a

Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one

hastens to get it. A minutely described dis-197:6 ease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What

a price for human knowledge! But the price does not exceed the original cost. God said of the tree of knowledge, 197:9 which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, “In the

day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

 

Higher standard for mortals

 

The less that is said of physical structure and laws, and 197:12 the more that is thought and said about moral

and spiritual law, the higher will be the standard of living and the farther mortals will be re-197:15 moved from imbecility or disease.

 

We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. It

was the ignorance of our forefathers in the departments 197:18 of knowledge now broadcast in the earth, that made them

hardier than our trained physiologists, more honest than

our sleek politicians.

 

Diet and dyspepsia

197:21 We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate

helped to make them healthy, but that is a mistake.

Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this 197:24 period. With rules of health in the head

and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would

still be dyspeptics. Many of the effeminate constitutions 197:27 of our time will never grow robust until individual opinions improve and immortal belief loses some portion of its

error.

 

Harm done by physicians

197:30 The doctor’s mind reaches that of his patient. The

doctor should suppress his fear of disease, else his belief

in its reality and fatality will harm his patients even more 198:1 than his calomel and morphine, for the higher stratum of

mortal mind has in belief more power to harm man than 198:3 the substratum, matter. A patient hears the

doctor’s verdict as a criminal hears his death—

sentence. The patient may seem calm under it, but he is 198:6 not. His fortitude may sustain him, but his fear, which

has already developed the disease that is gaining the

mastery, is increased by the physician’s words.

 

Disease depicted

198:9 The materialistic doctor, though humane, is an artist who outlines his thought relative to disease, and then

fills in his delineations with sketches from text-198:12 books. It is better to prevent disease from

forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the

body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before

the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant,

- perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving another direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs,

until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture

of healthy and harmonious formations.

 

A patient’s belief is more or less moulded and formed 198:24 by his doctor’s belief in the case, even though the doctor

says nothing to support his theory. His thoughts and his

patient’s commingle, and the stronger thoughts rule the 198:27 weaker. Hence the importance that doctors be Christian

Scientists.

 

Mind over matter

 

Because the muscles of the blacksmith’s arm are 198:30 strongly developed, it does not follow that

exercise has produced this result or that a

less used arm must be weak. If matter were the cause 199:1 of action, and if muscles, without volition of mortal

mind, could lift the hammer and strike the anvil, it 199:3 might be thought true that hammering would enlarge

the muscles. The trip-hammer is not increased in size

by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as 199:6 wood and iron? Because nobody believes that mind is

producing such a result on the hammer.

 

Muscles are not self-acting. If mind does not move 199:9 them, they are motionless. Hence the great fact that

Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its

mandate, - by reason of its demand for and supply of 199:12 power. Not because of muscular exercise, but by reason of the blacksmith’s faith in exercise, his arm becomes

stronger.

 

Latent fear subdued

199:15 Mortals develop their own bodies or make them sick,

according as they influence them through mortal mind.

To know whether this development is produced 199:18 consciously or unconsciously, is of less importance than a knowledge of the fact. The feats of the gymnast prove that latent mental fears are subdued by him. 199:21 The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes

the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this

rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble 199:24 faith.

 

Had Blondin believed it impossible to walk the rope

over Niagara’s abyss of waters, he could never have 199:27 done it. His belief that he could do it gave his thought—

forces, called muscles, their flexibility and power which

the unscientific might attribute to a lubricating oil. His 199:30 fear must have disappeared before his power of putting

resolve into action could appear.

 

Homer and Moses

 

When Homer sang of the Grecian gods, Olympus was 200:1 dark, but through his verse the gods became alive in a

nation’s belief. Pagan worship began with muscularity, 200:3 but the law of Sinai lifted thought into the

song of David. Moses advanced a nation to

the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and il-200:6 lustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed

by immortal Mind.

 

A mortal not man

 

Whoever is incompetent to explain Soul would be wise 200:9 not to undertake the explanation of body. Life is, always

has been, and ever will be independent of

matter; for life is God, and man is the idea 200:12 of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not

subject to decay and dust. The Psalmist said: “Thou

madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy 200:15 hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet.”

 

The great truth in the Science of being, that the real

man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; 200:18 for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither

inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike.

 

The suppositional antipode of divine infinite Spirit 200:21 is the so-called human soul or spirit, in other words

the five senses, - the flesh that warreth against Spirit.

These so called material senses must yield to the infinite 200:24 Spirit, named God.

 

St. Paul said: “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” 200:27 (I Cor. ii. 2.) Christian Science says: I am determined

not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and

him glorified.