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

or joy for mortals before

Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error

helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension 548:15 of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on

hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true

ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.

 

Prediction of a naturalist

548:18 Speaking of the origin of mortals, a famous naturalist

says: “It is very possible that many general statements

now current, about birth and generation, will 548:21 be changed with the progress of information.”

Had the naturalist, through his tireless researches, gained

the diviner side in Christian Science, - so far apart from 548:24 his material sense of animal growth and organization, -

he would have blessed the human race more abundantly.

 

Methods of reproduction

 

Natural history is richly endowed by the labors and 548:27 genius of great men. Modern discoveries have brought

to light important facts in regard to so-called

embryonic life. Agassiz declares (“Methods 548:30 of Study in Natural History,”) “Certain animals, besides the ordinary process of generation, also

increase their numbers naturally and constantly by self-549:1 division.” This discovery is corroborative of the Science

of Mind, for this discovery shows that the multiplication 549:3 of certain animals takes place apart from sexual conditions. The supposition that life germinates in eggs and

must decay after it has grown to maturity, if not before, 549:6 is shown by divine metaphysics to be a mistake, - a

blunder which will finally give place to higher theories

and demonstrations.

 

The three processes

549:9 Creatures of lower forms of organism are supposed

to have, as classes, three different methods of reproduction and to multiply their species sometimes 549:12 through eggs, sometimes through buds, and

sometimes through self-division. According to recent

lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of 549:15 new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation

of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individualities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look 549:18 upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of

the most complicated corporeal structures, including those

which we call human. Here these material researches 549:21 culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily

attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are devoid of metaphysics.

 

Deference to material law

549:24 In one instance a celebrated naturalist, Agassiz, discovers the pathway leading to divine Science, and beards

the lion of materialism in its den. At that 549:27 point, however, even this great observer mistakes nature, forsakes Spirit as the divine origin of

creative Truth, and allows matter and material law to 549:30 usurp the prerogatives of omnipotence. He absolutely

drops from his summit, coming down to a belief in the

material origin of man, for he virtually affirms that 550:1 the germ of humanity is in a circumscribed and non-intelligent egg.

 

Deep-reaching interrogations

550:3 If this be so, whence cometh Life, or Mind, to the

human race? Matter surely does not possess Mind.

God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms 550:6 and preserves the individuality and identity

of animals as well as of men. God cannot

become finite, and be limited within material bounds. 550:9 Spirit cannot become matter, nor can Spirit be developed

through its opposite. Of what avail is it to investigate

what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be-550:12 gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being

and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it

will hereafter.

 

Stages of existence

550:15 Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The

continual contemplation of existence as material and corporeal - as beginning and ending, and with 550:18 birth, decay, and dissolution as its component

stages - hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes

our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-550:21 point whatsoever, then the great I AM is a myth. If Life

is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embryonic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for 550:24 Deity.

 

Embryology supplies no instance of one species producing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor 550:27 does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed

monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous

and absurd as the supposition that Spirit - the pure and 550:30 holy, the immutable and immortal - can originate the

impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science

repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses 551:1 must father these absurdities, for both the material senses

and their reports are unnatural, impossible, and unreal.

 

The real producer

551:3 Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is

first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity,

called matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro-551:6 duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural

history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual

history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.

 

The ascent of species

551:9 One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring

from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he

adds that mankind has ascended through all 551:12 the lower grades of existence. Evolution describes the gradations of human belief, but it does not

acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma-551:15 terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that

all Science is of God, not of man.

 

Transmitted peculiarities

 

Naturalists ask: “What can there be, of a material 551:18 nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs, -

themselves composed of the simplest material

elements, - by which all peculiarities of an-551:21 cestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from

generation to generation?” The question of the naturalist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans-551:24 mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and

doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on

materiality. From a material standpoint, “Canst thou 551:27 by searching find out God?” All must be Mind, or

else all must be matter. Neither can produce the other.

Mind is immortal; but error declares that the material 551:30 seed must decay in order to propagate its species, and

the resulting germ is doomed to the same routine.

 

Causation not in matter

 

The ancient and hypothetical question, Which is first, 552:1 the egg or the bird? is answered, if the egg produces the

parent. But we cannot stop here. Another question 552:3 follows: Who or what produces the parent of

the egg? That the earth was hatched from the

“egg of night” was once an accepted theory. Heathen 552:6 philosophy, modern geology, and all other material hypotheses deal with causation as contingent on matter

and as necessarily apparent to the corporeal senses, even 552:9 where the proof requisite to sustain this assumption is un—

discovered. Mortal theories make friends of sin, sickness,

and death; whereas the spiritual scientific facts of exist-552:12 ence include no member of this dolorous and fatal triad.

 

Emergence of mortals

 

Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an

egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, “Man 552:15 that is born of a woman is of few days, and

full of trouble.” Mortals must emerge from

this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck 552:18 open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward

and upward. But thought, loosened from a material

basis but not yet instructed by Science, may become wild 552:21 with freedom and so be self-contradictory.

 

Persistence of species

 

From a material source flows no remedy for sorrow,

sin, and death, for the redeeming power, from the ills 552:24 they occasion, is not in egg nor in dust. The

blending tints of leaf and flower show the

order of matter to be the order of mortal mind. The 552:27 intermixture of different species, urged to its utmost

limits, results in a return to the original species. Thus

it is learned that matter is a manifestation of mortal 552:30 mind, and that matter always surrenders its claims when

the perfect and eternal Mind is understood.

 

Better basis than embryology

 

Naturalists describe the origin of mortal and material 553:1 existence in the various forms of embryology, and accompany their descriptions with important observations, 553:3 which should awaken thought to a higher and

purer contemplation of man’s origin. This

clearer consciousness must precede an under-553:6 standing of the harmony of being. Mortal thought must

obtain a better basis, get nearer the truth of being, or

health will never be universal, and harmony will never 553:9 become the standard of man.

 

One of our ablest naturalists has said: “We have no

right to assume that individuals have grown or been 553:12 formed under circumstances which made material conditions essential to their maintenance and reproduction,

or important to their origin and first introduction.” 553:15 Why, then, is the naturalist’s basis so materialistic,

and why are his deductions generally material?

 

All nativity in thought

 

Adam was created before Eve. In this instance, it is 553:18 seen that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam.

Eve was formed from Adam’s rib, not from a

foetal ovum. Whatever theory may be adopted 553:21 by general mortal thought to account for human origin,

that theory is sure to become the signal for the appearance of its method in finite forms and operations. If con-553:24 sentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the

point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief

will immediately supersede the more ancient supersti-553:27 tion about the creation from dust or from the rib of our

primeval father.

 

Being is immortal

 

You may say that mortals are formed before they 553:30 think or know aught of their origin, and you

may also ask how belief can affect a result

which precedes the development of that belief. It can 554:1 only be replied, that Christian Science reveals what “eye

hath not seen,” - even the cause of all that exists, - for 554:3 the universe, inclusive of man, is as eternal as God, who

is its divine immortal Principle. There is no such thing

as mortality, nor are there properly any mortal beings, 554:6 because being is immortal, like Deity, - or, rather, being

and Deity are inseparable.

 

Our conscious development

 

Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement 554:9 of life, following from a misconception of life, is erroneous, because it is destitute of any knowledge

of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of 554:12 any knowledge of its origin or existence. The mortal

is unconscious of his foetal and infantile existence; but

as he grows up into another false claim, that of self-con- 554:15 scious matter, he learns to say, “I am somebody; but

who made me?” Error replies, “God made you.” The

first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the 554:18 creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite

Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.

 

Mendacity of error

 

Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation 554:21 better than we can, when he said, “He is a liar, and the

father of it.” Jesus also said, “Have not I

chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 554:24 This he said of Judas, one of Adam’s race. Jesus never

intimated that God made a devil, but he did say, “Ye

are of your father, the devil.” All these sayings were to 554:27 show that mind in matter is the author of itself, and is

simply a falsity and illusion.

 

Ailments of animals

 

It is the general belief that the lower animals are less 554:30 sickly than those possessing higher organizations, especially those of the human form.

This would indicate that there is less disease in propor-555:1 tion as the force of mortal mind is less