Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/176

164 The chief corner-stone of Science is the following postulate, that the immortal basis of Life is Soul, not body, — Life, not death; and this Science reveals the glorious possibilities of man, unlimited by mortal short-sightedness. Life is not learned from death. Spiritual being has no consciousness of death or life in matter, and in Truth we lose what we have learned from error. “The last shall be first, and the first last.” What we now esteem as matter will dissolve into its native elements of oblivion.

Divine Science puts not new wine into old bottles, Soul into matter, nor the Infinite into the finite. Our false views of matter must perish before we can grasp the facts of Spirit. The old belief must disappear, or the new idea will be spilled, and the inspiration that changes our standpoints will be gone. Now, as of old, Truth casts out error and heals the sick.

Continuing our definition of Man, let us remember that beyond and above the mortal illusion of Life, Substance, and Intelligence existent in matter, there has existed forever the harmonious and immortal man; and this is fact, not fable. The Science of Being reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect; because the Soul of man is God, and the real man is governed by Soul, instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, instead of the supposed law of Intelligence in matter.

God is Love. He is therefore Divine Principle, not person. Man is His image and likeness, and consciousness is in Soul, not body. The minutiæ and infinity of individualities reflect God's individuality, and are comprehended and formed by Soul, not by material sense, by Spirit, not by matter. In the divine sequence the