Science and Health. Mary Baker G. Eddy
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SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
CHAPTER I.
SCIENCE OF BEING.
At the Oxford University, England, a prize of one hundred pounds has been offered for the best essay on Natural Science that refutes the tendency to attribute physical effects to physical causes rather than a final spiritual cause. A demand for metaphysics expresses the wants of the race. It is the one question to be considered, for it relates more intimately than all others to the progress of mankind. The age seems ready to verge upon this subject, to think briefly on the supremacy of Spirit, and to touch the hem of its garment and be made whole. The utter control of mind over body is no longer a question with us; we have gained its proof by demonstration, and have reduced our discoveries to a system, stated the principle upon which it is based, and the rules for applying metaphysics to the treatment of disease.
After careful examination of the discovery in metaphysics that mind governs the body not in part but wholly, we submitted our metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical proofs. Our theory has gradually gained ground, and established its own [ 10 ] proof whenever it has been employed honestly and under circumstances that permitted its demonstration as the most effectual curative agent in medical practice.
As time is working wonders in the world we call material, the swift pinions of thought are soaring to the realm of the real, the first cause of all things. A material basis whence to deduce all that is deemed rational is yielding slowly to a metaphysical basis of reasoning, changing from matter to mind to discover cause and explain effect. The honored materialistic philosophers, Professors Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz, and so on, appear to challenge to final combat physics and metaphysics; and at this Utopian period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes to battle with the Goliath. The theories that we contest, stated fairly, are these: that all is matter; else matter originated in mind, and possesses the actual of mind—sensation and life. The first-named theory, that all is matter, is quite as feasible as the second, that Mind and matter coexisted and co-operates. But the fact remains that one of the following statements can alone be true; namely, that all is matter, or that all is mind: which one is it? The conservative position that gives place and power to both matter and mind falls to the ground: science is radical, and permits no half-way positions for a rule. The metaphysical statement that all is mind is not supported by the evidence before the senses until we take the principle and rule of this statement to prove it; then we can arrive at no other conclusion. Our discovery that mind produces all the action of the body set thought to work in new channels, and we found the above statement true and demonstrable. Few will deny that an intelligence apart from man formed [ 11 ] and governs the spiritual universe and man: and this intelligence is the eternal Mind, and neither matter nor man created this intelligence and divine Principle; nor can this Principle produce aught unlike itself. All that we term sin, sickness, and death is comprised in the belief of matter. The realm of the real is spiritual; the opposite of Spirit is matter; and the opposite of the real is the unreal or material. Matter is an error of statement, for there is no matter. This error of premises leads to error of conclusion in every statement of matter as a basis. Nothing we can say or believe regarding matter is true, except that matter is unreal, simply a belief that has its beginning and ending.
The conservative firm called matter and mind God never formed. The unerring and eternal Mind destroys this imaginary copartnership, formed only to be dissolved in a manner and at a period unknown. This copartnership is obsolete. Placed under the microscope of metaphysics matter disappears. Only by understanding there are not two, matter and mind, is a logical and correct conclusion obtained of either one. Science gathers not grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Intelligence never produced non-intelligence, such as matter: the immortal never produced mortality, good never resulted in evil. The science of Mind shows conclusively that matter is a myth. Metaphysics are above physics, and drag not matter, or what is termed that, into one of its premises or conclusions. Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul. These ideas are perfectly tangible and real to consciousness, and they have this advantage—they are eternal. Mind and its thoughts comprise the whole of God, the [ 12 ] universe, and of man. Reason and revelation coincide with this statement, and support its proof every hour, for nothing is harmonious or eternal that is not spiritual: the realization of this will bring out objects from a higher source of thought; hence more beautiful and immortal.
The fact of spiritualization produces results in striking contrast to the farce of materialization: the one produces the results of chastity and purity, the other the downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity.
The exalting and healing effects of metaphysics show their fountain. Nothing in pathology has exceeded the application of metaphysics. Through mind alone we have prevented disease and preserved health. In cases of chronic and acute diseases, in their severest forms, we have changed the secretions, renewed structure, and restored health; have elongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, made cicatrized joints supple; restored carious bones to healthy conditions, renewed that which is termed the lost substance of the lungs; and restored healthy organizations where disease was organic instead of functional.
Aside from the opposition to what is new, the greatest difficulty in introducing our metaphysical system is to express metaphysics in physical terms, and then to be understood metaphysically. This difficulty is overcome only by teaching the student the metaphysical meaning of the terms in common use. Out of twelve lessons to our class a shorthand writer produced over twelve hundred pages, all of which were unfit for use, owing to her ignorance of our subject, misapplication of our terms, and omitting our full statement as we translated physics into [ 13 ] metaphysics, the original text of all things real and eternal.
The science of Mind explains cause and effect, lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body, reveals the scientific relation of God to man, unwinds the interlaced ambiguities of being, sets free the imprisoned thought, and explains the divine Principle of man and of the universe. This metaphysical science explains man and the universe spiritually, and reveals them only as spiritual, not material, and harmonious and eternal. The discovery of harmonious being is more important than the discoveries relating to astronomy, or any advanced idea that science has promulgated.
Human views, conflicting opinions and beliefs, are mortal mind that can emit a poisonous atmosphere more destructive to health than what is named material miasma.
Nothing but the understanding can correct this atmosphere, invigorate and immortalize the body. But, before this result is obtained, understanding and belief must be classified as Truth and error, that meet in a war of ideas, until the thunderbolts of belief shall burst and die away in the distance, and the rain-drops of Truth refresh the parched earth.
Because we apply the word science to Christianity, and Christendom resists this word, we shall lose no faith in Christianity, and Christianity shall lose no hold on us. The Principle of things must interpret them; and we should never attempt with an opinion or belief to steady the altar of science. God is the Principle of all that represents Him, that is harmonious and eternal: and science alone reveals Principle; therefore divine science, as demonstrated by Jesus, alone reveals God, the [ 14 ] Principle of all that really is, and whose government is supreme over all. There is no physical science. All science proceeds from a Divine Intelligence: it cannot be human, and is not a law of matter, for matter is not a law-giver. Science is an emanation of Mind: it has a spiritual and not a material origin, and is a divine utterance, the comforter that leadeth into all truth.
We learn from divine science that the unerring and eternal Mind is omnipotent and omnipresent, a universal cause and the only Creator, and there is no other causation, He alone creates the real and it is good; therefore evil, being the opposite of good, is unreal, and cannot be the product of God. In the original text good was the term for God, and all that He made was good like unto Himself. Because Spirit