Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/418

406 Question. — What is the scientific statement of being?

Answer. — There is no Life, Substance, or Intelligence in matter. All is Mind. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness; hence, man is spiritual and not material.

Question. — What is Substance?

Answer. — That only which is eternal, and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are Substance, as the Scriptures use this word, in such a text as “The Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Spirit — the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God — is Substance; i. e. the only real Substance. The spiritual universe and man are compound and individual ideas which reflect the divine Substance of Spirit.

Question. — What is Life?

Answer. — Life is Divine Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity. One ceases when the other is recognized. One is finite, the other is infinite.

Life is no part of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which involves in itself all Substance, Life eternal, and is everlasting. Matter is a finite illusion. Life is Mind, or Infinite Understanding. It is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life. If Life ever had a beginning it would also have an ending.

Question. — What is Intelligence?

Answer. — Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. It is the Infinite Mind, the Triune Principle, — or Life, Truth, and Love, — called God.