Part 78 (1/2)
550:15 Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The continual contemplation of existence as material and cor- poreal - 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 G.o.d, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry- onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for 550:24 Deity.
Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro- ducing 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 quant.i.ty, 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 de- scribes 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 G.o.d, 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 s.e.x, are brought down from generation to generation?” The question of the natu- ralist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans- 551:24 mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompa.s.s thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality. From a material standpoint, ”Canst thou 551:27 by searching find out G.o.d?” 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 hy- potheses 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 a.s.sumption 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 ac- company 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 a.s.sume that individuals have grown or been 553:12 formed under circ.u.mstances which made material con- ditions 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 appear- ance 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 G.o.d, 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 errone- ous, because it is dest.i.tute of any knowledge of the so-called selfhood of life, dest.i.tute 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, ”G.o.d made you.” The first effort of error has been and is to impute to G.o.d the 554:18 creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.
Mendacity of error