Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/360

348 Such a power, without the divine permission, is inconceivable; and, if divinely directed, such a power manifests less wisdom than we usually find displayed in human governments.

Unless muscles are self-acting at all times, they are never so, — never capable of acting contrary to mental 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-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?

Is man a material fungus, without Mind to help him? Is a stiff joint or contracted muscle as natural a result of law as the supple and elastic condition of the healthy limb?

If disease can attack and control the body without the consent of mortal mind, sin can do the same; for both are error, and were announced as partners from the beginning. The Christian Scientist finds only effects where the ordinary physician looks for causes. The real jurisdiction is in Mind, controlling every effect, and recognizing all causation as vested in itself.

The prophylactic and therapeutic (i. e. the preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science; as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Soul, were understood. Medicine is finding its proper level. Limited to matter, by its own law, it has none of the advantages of Mind.

Ontology is defined as “the science of the necessary constituents and relations of all beings.” This is the element in my medical system which first engaged my