Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/294

278 Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter.

Divine metaphysics explains away matter. Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science. The material senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for matter has no mind. In Spirit there is no matter, even as in Truth there is no error, and in good no evil. It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance-matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite.

That matter is substantial or has life and sensation, is one of the false beliefs of mortals, and exists only in a

supposititious mortal consciousness. Hence, as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter. The admission that there can be material substance requires another admission, — namely, that Spirit is not infinite and that matter is self-creative, self-existent, and eternal. From this it would follow that there are two eternal causes, warring forever with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme and all-presence.

The belief of the eternity of matter contradicts the demonstration of life as Spirit, and leads to the conclusion that if man is material, he originated in matter and must return to dust, — logic which would prove his annihilation.

All that we term sin, sickness, and death is a mortal belief. We define matter as error, because it is the opposite

of life, substance, and intelligence. Matter, with its mortality, cannot be substantial if Spirit is substantial and eternal. Which ought to