Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Mary Baker Eddy

      CHAPTER I.

       PHYSIOLOGY.

       Table of Contents

      Here in the body pent,

       Absent from Thee I roam,

       Yet nightly pitch my moving tent

       A day's march nearer home. — Montgomery.

      In the year 1868 I discovered metaphysical healing, and named it Christian Science. The Principle thereof is divine and apodictical, governing all; and it reveals the grand verity that one erring mind controlling another (through whatever medium) is not Science governed by God, the unerring Mind. When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned certain truths: that all real being is the divine Mind and idea; that the Science of Divine Mind demonstrates that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of Science and Truth, named Error, is the false supposition of a false sense. This sense is, and evolves, a belief in matter that shuts out the true sense of Spirit. The great facts of omnipotence and omnipresence, of Spirit possessing all power and filling all space, — these facts contradicted forever, to my understanding, the notion that matter can be actual. These facts also revealed to me primeval existence, and the radiant realities of good; and there was present to me, as never before, the awful unreality of evil. This vision announced the equipollence of God, consecrated my affections anew, and revealed the glorious possibilities of the petition, “Thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven.”

      In following the leadings of this revelation, the Bible was my only text-book. The inspired volume seemed illumined, reconciling right reason with revelation, and establishing the truths of Christian Science. No human tongue or pen has suggested the contents of “Science and Health,” nor can tongue or pen ever overthrow it. My book may be distorted by shallow criticism or by inaccurate reporters, and its ideas forced temporarily into wrong channels; but its truths will remain for the Christ-inspired to discern and follow.

      Jesus demonstrated the power of Divine Science to heal mortal minds and bodies; but this Science was lost sight of, and must again be spiritually discerned; and it must be demonstrated (according to Christ's command) with signs following, to as many as shall believe on Him.

      No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Pantheism, Gnosticism, Spiritualism, or Infidelity, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the so-called power, will, or reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the Divine Mind, expressed through Science. In Truth, and its marvellous ability to reveal God, there is nothing supernatural, for this is its normal function.

      A prize of £100 has been offered in Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, — an essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical effects to physical causes, rather than to a final spiritual cause. This incident is one of many which show that Christian Science expresses a yearning of the human race.

      Causation is the one question to be considered, as more than all others it relates to human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to think briefly upon the supremacy of Spirit, to touch the hem of its garment, but nothing more. Mind's control over man is however no longer an open question, but demonstrable Science; and I have shown its principle and practice by healing sickness and sin, and so destroying the foundations of death.

      After a careful examination of my discovery in 1866, that Mind governs all, not partially but supremely, I submitted my metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical tests. Since then this system has gradually gained ground; and it has proved itself, whenever scientifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent in medical practice.

      All science is natural, but all science is not physical. The Science of Soul is no more supernatural than the science of numbers; but departing from the realm of the physical, as it must, some may deny it the name of Science. But Metaphysical Science is more scientific than it would be if it were unchristian. Its Principle is God, or Good. Its practice is good, its rules are demonstrable. Its Metaphysics reverse the perversion named Physics, and the human sense of the hypothesis of Deity, even as the science of optics explains the inverted image. Human reason acts slowly in accepting spiritual facts, but calling on matter to remove what the human mind alone has occasioned is fatal.

      The fundamental error is to suppose that

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