Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/108

92 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 matter is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also capable 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 the power of sinning now and forever.

In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled around the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve.

This represents the serpent in the act of commending to our first parents the knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge gained from matter, or evil, instead of from Spirit. The portrayal is still graphically accurate, for the common conception of mortal man — a burlesque of God's man — is an outgrowth of human knowledge or sensuality, a mere offshoot of material sense.

Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you. Until the fact concerning error — namely, its nothingness —

appears, the moral demand will not be met, and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.

Do you say the time has not yet come in which to