Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - Mary Baker Eddy (golden son ebook txt) 📗
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anatomy say when the cords contract and become immovable? Has mortal mind ceased 160:18 speaking to them, or has it bidden them to be impotent?
Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind
in one instance and not in another, and become cramped 160:21 despite the mental protest?
Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are
never so, - never capable of acting contrary to mental 160:24 direction. If muscles can cease to act and become rigid
of their own preference, - be deformed or symmetrical,
as they please or as disease directs, - they must be self-160:27 directing. Why then consult anatomy to learn how mortal mind governs muscle, if we are only to learn from
anatomy that muscle is not so governed?
Mind over matter
160:30 Is man a material fungus without Mind
to help him? Is a stiff joint or a contracted
muscle as much a result of law as the supple and 161:1 elastic condition of the healthy limb, and is God the
lawgiver?
161:3 You say, “I have burned my finger.” This is an
exact statement, more exact than you suppose; for mortal mind, and not matter, burns it. Holy inspiration 161:6 has created states of mind which have been able to nullify
the action of the flames, as in the Bible case of the three
young Hebrew captives, cast into the Babylonian furnace; 161:9 while an opposite mental state might produce spontaneous
combustion.
Restrictive regulations
In 1880, Massachusetts put her foot on a proposed 161:12 tyrannical law, restricting the practice of medicine. If
her sister States follow this example in harmony with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, 161:15 they will do less violence to that immortal sentiment of the
Declaration, “Man is endowed by his Maker with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the 161:18 pursuit of happiness.”
The oppressive state statutes touching medicine remind one of the words of the famous Madame Roland, 161:21 as she knelt before a statue of Liberty, erected near the
guillotine: “Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy
name!”
Metaphysics challenges physics
161:24 The ordinary practitioner, examining bodily symptoms,
telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case according to his physical diagnosis, would natu-161:27 rally induce the very disease he is trying to cure,
even if it were not already determined by mortal mind. Such unconscious mistakes would not occur, if 161:30 this old class of philanthropists looked as deeply for cause
and effect into mind as into matter. The physician agrees
with his “adversary quickly,” but upon different terms 162:1 than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician
agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees 162:3 only with health and challenges disease.
Truth an alterative
Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of
Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science 162:6 acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with
Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores 162:9 carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is
to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it
may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.
Practical success
162:12 Experiments have favored the fact that Mind governs
the body, not in one instance, but in every instance. The
indestructible faculties of Spirit exist without 162:15 the conditions of matter and also without the
false beliefs of a so-called material existence. Working
out the rules of Science in practice, the author has re-162:18 stored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease in
their severest forms. Secretions have been changed, the
structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 162:21 elongated, ankylosed joints have been made supple, and
carious bones have been restored to healthy conditions. I
have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs, and 162:24 healthy organizations have been established where disease
was organic. Christian Science heals organic disease as
surely as it heals what is called functional, for it requires 162:27 only a fuller understanding of the divine Principle of
Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule.
Testimony of medical teachers
With due respect for the faculty, I kindly 162:30 quote from Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famous
Philadelphia teacher of medical practice. He
declared that “it is impossible to calculate the mischief 163:1 which Hippocrates has done, by first marking Nature
with his name, and afterward letting her loose upon sick 163:3 people.”
Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, Professor in Harvard University, declared himself “sick of learned quackery.”
163:6 Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon to William IV, King Of
England, said:
“I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 observation and reflection, that if there were not a single
physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist,
druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be 163:12 less sickness and less mortality.”
Dr. Mason Good, a learned Professor in London,
said:
163:15 “The effects of medicine on the human system are in
the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has
already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 163:18 famine, all combined.”
Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Practice
of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, in a published 163:21 essay said:
“Consulting the records of our science, we cannot
help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 163:24 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the
imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps
so ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify 163:27 our vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the
humiliating view of so much absurdity, contradiction,
and falsehood. To harmonize the contrarieties of med-163:30 ical doctrines is indeed a task as impractible as to
arrange the fleeting vapors around us, or to reconcile the
fixed and repulsive antipathies of nature. Dark and 164:1 perplexed, our devious career resembles the groping of
Homer’s Cyclops around his cave.”
164:3 Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the Royal
College of Physicians, London, said:
“No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases 164:6 or of therapeutic agents, ever yet promulgated, is true, or
anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe
guidance in practice.”
164:9 It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medical practitioners are grand men and women, therefore
they are more scientific than are false claimants to Chris-164:12 tian Science. But all human systems based on material
premises are minus the unction of divine Science. Much
yet remains to be said and done before all mankind is 164:15 saved and all the mental microbes of sin and all diseased
thought-germs are exterminated.
If you or I should appear to die, we should not be 164:18 dead. The seeming decease, caused by a majority of
human beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental
assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian Science; 164:21 rather does it evidence the truth of its basic proposition
that mortal thoughts in belief rule the materiality miscalled life in the body or in matter. But the forever fact 164:24 remains paramount that Life, Truth, and Love save from
sin, disease, and death. “When this corruptible shall have
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 164:27 immortality [divine Science], then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory” (St. Paul).
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? - JESUS.
He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their
destructions. - PSALMS.
165:1 PHYSIOLOGY is one of the apples from “the tree
of knowledge.” Evil declared that eating this fruit 165:3 would open man’s eyes and make him as a god. Instead
of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man’s God-given dominion over the earth.
Man not structural
165:6 To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the
brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to
subjugate intelligence, to make mind mor-165:9 tal, and to place this so-called mind at the
mercy of material organization and non-intelligent
matter.
165:12 Obedience to the so-called physical laws of health has
not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since
man-made material theories took the place of spiritual 165:15 truth.
Causes of sickness
You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause
distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then 165:18 you consult your brain in order to remember
what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting 166:1 the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own,
and the human mind is all that can produce pain.
166:3 As a man thinketh, so is he. Mind is all that feels,
acts, or impedes action. Ignorant of this, or shrinking
from its implied responsibility, the healing effort is made 166:6 on the wrong side, and thus the conscious control over the
body is lost.
Delusions pagan and medical
The Mohammedan believes in a pilgrimage to Mecca 166:9 for the salvation of his soul. The popular doctor believes
in his prescription, and the pharmacist believes
in the power of his drugs to save a man’s 166:12 life. The Mohammedan’s belief is a religious
delusion; the doctor’s and pharmacist’s is a medical
mistake.
Health from reliance on spirituality
166:15 The erring human mind is inharmonious in itself.
From it arises the inharmonious body. To ignore
God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. 166:18 Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of
bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of
strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn 166:21 that He can do all things for us in sickness as in
health.
Failing to recover health through adherence to physi-166:24 ology and hygiene, the despairing invalid often drops
them, and in his extremity and only as a last resort, turns
to God. The invalid’s faith in the divine Mind is less 166:27 than in drugs, air, and exercise, or he would have resorted
to Mind first. The balance of power is conceded to be
with matter by most of the medical systems; but when 166:30 Mind at last asserts its mastery over sin, disease, and
death, then is man found to be harmonious and
immortal.
167:1 Should we implore a corporeal God to heal the sick
out of His personal volition, or should we understand the 167:3 infinite divine Principle which heals? If we rise no higher
than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and
Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not com-167:6 prehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only
as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil de-167:9 termines the harmony of our existence, - our health, our
longevity, and our Christianity.
The two masters
We cannot serve two masters nor perceive divine Sci-167:12 ence with the material senses. Drugs and hygiene cannot
successfully usurp the place and power of the
divine source of all health and perfection. If 167:15 God made man both good and evil, man must remain
thus. What can improve God’s work? Again, an error
in the premise must appear in the conclusion. To have 167:18 one God and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you
must love God supremely.
Half-way success
The “flesh lusteth against the Spirit.” The flesh and 167:21 Spirit can no more unite in action, than good can coincide with evil. It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position
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