Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/504

488 enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result of our teachings is their sufficient confirmation. When,

on the strength of these instructions, you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that you understand this teaching, and therefore you receive the blessing of Truth.

The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the

English verb believe; they have more the significance of faith, understanding, trust, constancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.

Question. — Do the five corporeal senses constitute man?

Answer. — Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines

these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the testimony of which cannot be true either of man or of his Maker. The corporeal senses can take no cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension. Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of organization and decomposition, — otherwise the very worms could unfashion man. If it were possible for the real senses of man to be injured, Soul could reproduce them in all their perfection; but they cannot be disturbed nor destroyed, since they exist in immortal Mind, not in matter.