Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/172

160 The absence of Truth we name Error. But did God create error? How could He create the absence or opposite of Himself? He is ever-present and He is the all. The same fountain sends not forth sweet and bitter waters. Being omnipresent, God can never be absent.

Error is human illusion, without personal identity or principle, and has no existence save to mistaken human belief. It is a mistake to suppose that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are in matter, or of it; for matter is neither thing, nor person, but merely human belief. The five physical senses imagine Truth and error as mingling in a mind both good and evil. This false evidence must yield to the appreciation of Spirit and His creation.

Erroneous belief is mortal self-mesmerism. Change the belief, and that disappears which before seemed real to it; and whatever is accepted in place of the forsaken belief now seems real. The only fact concerning any belief is, that it is neither true nor eternal, but subject to change and death. Faith is higher than belief. It is a chrysalis state of thought, wherein spiritual evidence, unseen to the material senses, begins to appear; and Truth, that is ever present, is becoming understood.

Belief has its degrees of comparison. Some beliefs are better than others, but none are founded on the rock. They can be shaken; and until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes understanding, belief has no relation to the actual.

The Divine Principle that Jesus taught and demonstrated — Life, Truth, and Love — was designed for human acceptance and confirmation, so that those who arrive not at the understanding and proof of almighty