Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/268

256 Nothing is more antagonistic to Science than belief without understanding. It hides Truth and builds on error. Spirit, or Science, has nothing to do with mediumship. It is preposterous to suppose that Life is material, that it is a nervo-vital fluid. It is equally absurd to suppose that mortal mind, in another sphere of being, can intermeddle profitably with this. There is a great gulf fixed between Science and mediumship, like that between Dives and Lazarus.

The more closely error simulates Truth, and so-called matter resembles its essence (mortal mind), the more potent error becomes as an evil belief. The lightning is fierce and the electric despatch swift, yet how invisible is the flight of one and the blow of the other. The more ethereal matter becomes, the more destructive is it in belief, until it reaches its mortal ultimatum in mortal mind, the source of all evil. The nearer a belief approaches Truth, without passing the boundary where it ceases to be an illusion (having been corrected by the understanding), the more plausible and dangerous it becomes. The more material the belief, the more obnoxious it is, until Divine Science, supreme in its domain, destroys it, and man is found in the likeness of Spirit.

The Chinese Empire owes its peculiarities and renown to the ancient conceptions of Deity there prevalent. Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed arise from the belief that the Infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal passions and impulses.

The belief that man and the universe are governed in general by material law, but that occasionally Spirit sets aside this law, belittles the capacity of Omnipotent Wisdom, giving to matter the general precedence; yet