Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/100

80 work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil, under whatever name or pretence they are employed; for Spirit and matter, Good and evil, Light and darkness, cannot mingle.

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of Good. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is an error, because it presupposes the

absence of Truth, when really Truth is omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is no power in evil.

Error is self-assertive. It says: “I am a real entity, overmastering Good.” This falsehood should strip error of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of good. Every attempt of evil to do that is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily punishing the evil doer. If we concede the same reality to discord as to harmony, it has as lasting a claim upon us. If evil is as real as Good, it is as immortal. If death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth. If pain is as real as the absence of pain, both must be immortal; and if so, harmony cannot be the law of Being.

Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be self-deceived. If it knew how to be better, it would be

better. Since it must believe in something besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity. The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning, having other gods, and believing in more than the One Mind.

As mortals do not comprehend even mortal existence, how ignorant must they be of the all-knowing Mind and His creations.