Part 25 (2/2)
172:15 If man was first a material being, he must have pa.s.sed through all the forms of matter in order to become man.
If the material body is man, he is a portion of 172:18 matter, or dust. On the contrary, man is the image and likeness of Spirit; and the belief that there is Soul in sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, _alias_ 172:21 mortal mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must ”put off the old man.”
Ident.i.ty not lost
What is man? Brain, heart, blood, bones, etc., the 172:24 material structure? If the real man is in the material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon destroys 172:27 manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of a limb or injury to a tissue is sometimes the quickener of manli- ness; and the unfortunate cripple may present more no- 172:30 bility than the statuesque athlete, - teaching us by his very deprivations, that ”a man's a man, for a' that.”
When man is man
When we admit that matter (heart, blood, brain, acting 173:1 through the five physical senses) const.i.tutes man, we fail to see how anatomy can distinguish between 173:3 humanity and the brute, or determine when man is really _man_ and has progressed farther than his animal progenitors.
Individualization
173:6 When the supposition, that Spirit is within what it creates and the potter is subject to the clay, is individualized, Truth is reduced to the level 173:9 of error, and the sensible is required to be made manifest through the insensible.
What is termed matter manifests nothing but a material 173:12 mentality. Neither the substance nor the manifestation of Spirit is obtainable through matter. Spirit is positive.
Matter is Spirit's contrary, the absence of Spirit. For 173:15 positive Spirit to pa.s.s through a negative condition would be Spirit's destruction.
Man not structural
Anatomy declares man to be structural. Physiology 173:18 continues this explanation, measuring human strength by bones and sinews, and human life by material law. Man is spiritual, individual, and eter- 173:21 nal; material structure is mortal.
Phrenology makes man knavish or honest according to the development of the cranium; but anatomy, physiology, 173:24 phrenology, do not define the image of G.o.d, the real im- mortal man.
Human reason and religion come slowly to the recogni- 173:27 tion of spiritual facts, and so continue to call upon matter to remove the error which the human mind alone has created.
173:30 The idols of civilization are far more fatal to health and longevity than are the idols of barbarism. The idols of civilization call into action less faith than Buddhism 174:1 in a supreme governing intelligence. The Esquimaux restore health by incantations as consciously as do civi- 174:3 lized pract.i.tioners by their more studied methods.
Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to 174:6 baths, diet, exercise, and air? Nothing save divine power is capable of doing so much for man as he can do for himself.
Rise of thought
174:9 The footsteps of thought, rising above material stand- points, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; but the angels of His presence - the spiritual 174:12 intuitions that tell us when ”the night is far spent, the day is at hand” - are our guardians in the gloom. Whoever opens the way in Christian Science is 174:15 a pilgrim and stranger, marking out the path for gen- erations yet unborn.
The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount 174:18 are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth. Truth is revealed. It needs only to 174:21 be practised.
Medical errors
Mortal belief is all that enables a drug to cure mortal ailments. Anatomy admits that mind is somewhere in 174:24 man, though out of sight. Then, if an indi- vidual is sick, why treat the body alone and administer a dose of despair to the mind? Why declare 174:27 that the body is diseased, and picture this disease to the mind, rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel and holding it before the thought of both physician and pa- 174:30 tient? We should understand that the cause of disease obtains in the mortal human mind, and its cure comes from the immortal divine Mind. We should prevent the 175:1 images of disease from taking form in thought, and we should efface the outlines of disease already formulated in 175:3 the minds of mortals.
Novel Diseases
When there are fewer prescriptions, and less thought is given to sanitary subjects, there will be better 175:6 const.i.tutions and less disease. In old times who ever heard of dyspepsia, cerebro-spinal meningitis, hay-fever, and rose-cold?
175:9 What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of G.o.d, can produce suffering! The joy of its presence, its beauty and fragrance, should uplift the 175:12 thought, and dissuade any sense of fear or fever. It is profane to fancy that the perfume of clover and the breath of new-mown hay can cause glandular inflammation, 175:15 sneezing, and nasal pangs.
No ancestral dyspepsia
If a random thought, calling itself dyspepsia, had tried to tyrannize over our forefathers, it would have 175:18 been routed by their independence and in- dustry. Then people had less time for self- ishness, coddling, and sickly after-dinner talk. The ex- 175:21 act amount of food the stomach could digest was not discussed according to Cutter nor referred to sanitary laws. A man's belief in those days was not so severe 175:24 upon the gastric juices. Beaumont's ”Medical Experi- ments” did not govern the digestion.
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