Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/234

220 hath not yet found that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge.”

The character of this personal or material sense or so-called consciousness, and the doctrine of Science concerning it, are stated in these graphic words from the text-hook of Science:

Personal sense defrauds, lies, cheats, will break all the commands of the Mosaic Decalogue, to meet its own demands. How, then, can this sense be the channel of blessings or of understanding to man? How can man, reflecting God, be dependent on such material senses for knowing, hearing, seeing? Who dare say that the senses of man can be at one time the medium for serving sin, and, at another, for communion with God?

An affirmative reply would contradict the Scripture, for “the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter waters.”

The so-called senses of matter are the only source of evil or error. Science shows them to be false; since matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight, or make it the medium of Mind.

Outside of the material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense—of God, man, and creation—is nonsense, or want of sense. Belief would have the material senses sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines these so-called senses as human beliefs, whose testimony can not be true of man or his Maker—of whose reality, or immortality, the senses can take no cognizance. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibers of a plant. Mind alone feels, sees, tastes, smells, and hears; therefore these faculties continue when organization is destroyed. Otherwise the very worms could unfashion man. If it were possible for the real senses of man to be injured. Soul could reproduce them in all their perfection; but they can not be disturbed, since they exist in Soul.

“Science and Health” gives plain, practical rules by which the origin and classification of all the objects or images appearing in consciousness can, first, be instantly recognized; and, second, can be dealt with understandingly and on their merits. It thus simply affirms that states and conditions of consciousness can be gradually and progressively controlled and changed from fear and suffering to happiness and serene confidence. It teaches how to eliminate from consciousness, how to destroy all objects that are opposed to harmony, through the cultivated understanding of Truth. The operation of this understanding results in gradual elimination of material sense, and beliefs of matter that are its concomitant, from the individual, and thus from the race, consciousness. The improved state of consciousness thus resulting is what constitutes “Christian Science Mind-healing.”

Hundreds of thousands of persons, found in every city, town, and village, are living this Science. They have destroyed, individually, and in the measure of their several understandings of Science, the beliefs and fears of matter, and have come into a state of measurable, relative health and harmony. That all who