Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/262

242 When Being is understood, Life will be recognized as neither material nor finite, but as infinite, — as God,

universal Good; and the belief that life, or mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that Spirit never entered matter, and was therefore never raised from it. When advanced to Spiritual Being and the understanding of God, man can no longer commune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will he be corporeal; but he will be an individual consciousness, characterized by Mind and not by matter.

Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs — which last as long as the beliefs of soul in body, or intelligence in matter, remain — prove material existence to be without divine authority.

The sinless joy, the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, — possessing unlimited divine beauty and

goodness, without a single bodily pleasure or pain, — constitute the only veritable man. This state of existence is Scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Divine Science. Death can never hasten it, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears.

The recognition of Spirit and Infinity comes not suddenly, here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp

said: “I cannot turn at once from Good to evil.” Neither do other mortals accomplish the change at a single bound.

Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense, until the Science of Being is reached. Error brings its