Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/277

Rh genuine Being will be understood. The destruction of error is by no means the destruction of Truth or Life, but is their acknowledgment.

Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man's spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter, or through what are termed the material senses.

Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered,

in order that the spiritual facts may be better apprehended. The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are something apart from God.

The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both mental and material.

The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil and good; when the real Mind cannot be evil, or the medium of evil, for Mind is God. The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is intelligent, and that man has a material body, which is part of himself.

The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, — that it is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also of imparting these sensations. From the illusion implied In this last postulate arises the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death.

Mind is not an entity within the cranium, with power of sinning now and forever.

In old Scriptural pictures we see the Tree of Knowledge, with a serpent coiled around it, speaking to Adam