0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Bk 10 – Miscellaneous Writings – Chpt 2 – One Cause and Effect

1	    Christian Science begins with the First Com-
  	mandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou
 3	shalt have no other gods before me." It goes on in
  	perfect unity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and
  	in that age culminates in the Revelation of St. John,
 6	who, while on earth and in the flesh, like ourselves,
  	beheld "a new heaven and a new earth," — the spiritual
  	universe, whereof Christian Science now bears testimony. 
 9	    Our Master said, "The works that I do shall ye do
  	also;" and, "The kingdom of God is within you." This
  	makes practical all his words and works. As the ages
12	advance in spirituality, Christian Science will be seen
  	to depart from the trend of other Christian denomina-
  	tions in no wise except by increase of spirituality. 
15	    My first plank in the platform of Christian Science
  	is as follows: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor
  	substance in matter.  All is infinite Mind and its infinite
18	manifestation, for God is All-in-all.  Spirit is immortal
  	Truth; matter is mortal error.  Spirit is the real  and
  	eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.  Spirit is
21	God, and man is His image and likeness.  Therefore man
  	is not material; he is spiritual."¹ 

  	      ¹The order of this sentence has been conformed to the text of
24	 the 1908 edition of Science and Health.

  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        22

 1	    I am strictly a theist — believe in one God, one Christ
  	or Messiah. 
 3	    Science is neither a law of matter nor of man. It is
  	the unerring manifesto of Mind, the law of God, its
  	divine Principle. Who dare say that matter or
 6	mortals can evolve Science? Whence, then, is it, if not
  	from the divine source, and what, but the contempo-
  	rary of Christianity, so far in advance of human knowl-
 9	edge that mortals must work for the discovery of even a
  	portion of it? Christian Science translates Mind, God,
  	to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line,
12	plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It abso-
  	lutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorp-
  	tion, or annihilation of individuality. It shows the
15	impossibility of transmitting human ills, or evil, from one
  	individual to another; that all true thoughts revolve
  	in God's orbits:  they come from God and return to
18	Him, — and untruths belong not to His creation, there-
  	fore these are null and void. It hath no peer, no com-
  	petitor, for it dwelleth in Him besides whom "there is
21	none other." 
  	    That Christian Science is Christian, those who have
  	demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine
24	Principle, — together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and
  	the blind, healed by it, — have proven to a waiting world. 
  	He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it;
27	and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it. 
  	    A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the
  	simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed
30	to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal
  	cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay
  	concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True,
 
  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        23

1	Newton named it gravitation, having learned so much;
  	but Science, demanding more, pushes the question:
 3	Whence or what is the power back of gravitation, — the
  	intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true? 
  	Does mind "sleep in the mineral, or dream in the
 6	animal, and wake in man"? Christianity answers this
  	question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demon-
  	strated a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called
 9	material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves,
  	obey this intelligence. Was it Mind or matter that spake
  	in creation, "and it was done"? The answer is self-
12	evident, and the command remains, "Thou shalt have
  	no other gods before me." 
  	    It is plain that the Me spoken of in the First Com-
15	mandment, must be Mind; for matter is not the Chris-
  	tian's God, and is not intelligent. Matter cannot even
  	talk; and the serpent, Satan, the first talker in its behalf,
18	lied. Reason and revelation declare that God is both
  	noumenon and phenomena, — the first and only cause. 
  	The universe, including man, is not a result of atomic
21	action, material force or energy; it is not organized dust. 
  	God, Spirit, Mind, are terms synonymous for the one
  	God, whose reflection is creation, and man is His image
24	and likeness. Few there are who comprehend what Chris-
  	tian Science means by the word reflection. God is seen
  	only in that which reflects good, Life, Truth, Love — 
27	yea, which manifests all His attributes and power, even
  	as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror repeats
  	precisely the looks and actions of the object in front of it. 
30	All must be Mind and Mind's ideas; since, according to
  	natural science, God, Spirit, could not change its species
  	and evolve matter. 
 
  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        24

 1	    These facts enjoin the First Commandment; and
  	knowledge of them makes man spiritually minded. St. 
 3	Paul writes: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to
  	be spiritually minded is life and peace." This knowl-
  	edge came to me in an hour of great need; and I give it
 6	to you as death-bed testimony to the daystar that dawned
  	on the night of material sense. This knowledge is
  	practical, for it wrought my immediate recovery from
 9	an injury caused by an accident, and pronounced fatal
  	by the physicians. On the third day thereafter, I called
  	for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I
12	read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and
  	the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after
  	was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That
15	short experience included a glimpse of the great fact
  	that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely,
  	Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of
18	existence. I learned that mortal thought evolves a sub-
  	jective state which it names matter, thereby shutting
  	out the true sense of Spirit. Per contra, Mind and man
21	are immortal; and knowledge gained from mortal sense
  	is illusion, error, the opposite of Truth; therefore it
  	cannot be true. A knowledge of both good and evil
24	(when good is God, and God is All) is impossible. Speak-
  	ing of the origin of evil, the Master said: "When he
  	speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own:  for he is a liar,
27	and the father of it." God warned man not to believe
  	the talking serpent, or rather the allegory describing
  	it. The Nazarene Prophet declared that his followers
30	should handle serpents; that is, put down all subtle falsi-
  	ties or illusions, and thus destroy any supposed effect
  	arising from false claims exercising their supposed power

  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        25

 1	on the mind and body of man, against his holiness and
  	health. 
 3	    That there is but one God or Life, one cause and
  	one effect, is the multum in parvo of Christian Science;
  	and to my understanding it is the heart of Christianity,
 6	the religion that Jesus taught and demonstrated. In
  	divine Science it is found that matter is a phase of
  	error, and that neither one really exists, since God is
 9	Truth, and All-in-all. Christ's Sermon on the Mount,
  	in its direct application to human needs, confirms this
  	conclusion. 
12	    Science, understood, translates matter into Mind,
  	rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spir-
  	itual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and ex-
15	plains the teachings and life of our Lord. It is religion's
  	"new tongue," with "signs following," spoken of by
  	St. Mark. It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind,
18	healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spirit-
  	ually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it re-
  	iterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the
21	spirit of Christ. 
  	    Jesus' only medicine was omnipotent and omniscient
  	Mind. As omni is from the Latin word meaning all,
24	this medicine is all-power; and omniscience means as
  	well, all-science. The sick are more deplorably situated
  	than the sinful, if the sick cannot trust God for help and
27	the sinful can. If God created drugs good, they cannot be
  	harmful; if He could create them otherwise, then they
  	are bad and unfit for man; and if He created drugs for
30	healing the sick, why did not Jesus employ them and
  	recommend them for that purpose? 
  	    No human hypotheses, whether in philosophy, medi-

  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        26

1	cine, or religion, can survive the wreck of time; but
  	whatever is of God, hath life abiding in it, and ulti-
 3	mately will be known as self-evident truth, as demonstra-
  	ble as mathematics. Each successive period of progress
  	is a period more humane and spiritual. The only logical
 6	conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from
  	the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-
  	patch. 
 9	    The agriculturist ponders the history of a seed, and
  	believes that his crops come from the seedling and the
  	loam; even while the Scripture declares He made "every
12	plant of the field before it was in the earth." The Scien-
  	tist asks, Whence came the first seed, and what made
  	the soil? Was it molecules, or material atoms? Whence
15	came the infinitesimals, — from infinite Mind, or from
  	matter? If from matter, how did matter originate? Was
  	it self-existent? Matter is not intelligent, and thus able
18	to evolve or create itself:  it is the very opposite of Spirit,
  	intelligent, self-creative, and infinite Mind. The belief
  	of mind in matter is pantheism. Natural history shows
21	that neither a genus nor a species produces its opposite. 
  	God is All, in all. What can be more than All? Noth-
  	ing:  and this is just what I call matter, nothing. Spirit,
24	God, has no antecedent; and God's consequent is the
  	spiritual cosmos. The phrase, "express image," in the
  	common version of Hebrews i. 3, is, in the Greek Tes-
27	tament, character. 
  	    The Scriptures name God as good, and the Saxon
  	term for God is also good. From this premise comes
30	the logical conclusion that God is naturally and divinely
  	infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change,
  	or be changed, to mean that good is evil, or the creator
 
  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        27

 1	of evil? What can there be besides infinity? Nothing! 
  	Therefore the Science of good calls evil nothing. In
 3	divine Science the terms God and good, as Spirit, are
  	synonymous. That God, good, creates evil, or aught
  	that can result in evil, — or that Spirit creates its oppo-
 6	site, named matter, — are conclusions that destroy their
  	premise and prove themselves invalid. Here is where
  	Christian Science sticks to its text, and other systems
 9	of religion abandon their own logic. Here also is found
  	the pith of the basal statement, the cardinal point in
  	Christian Science, that matter and evil (including all
12	inharmony, sin, disease, death) are unreal. Mortals
  	accept natural science, wherein no species ever pro-
  	duces its opposite. Then why not accept divine Sci-
15	ence on this ground? since the Scriptures maintain
  	this fact by parable and proof, asking, "Do men
  	gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" "Doth a
18	fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and
  	bitter?" 
  	    According to reason and revelation, evil and matter
21	are negation:  for evil signifies the absence of good, God,
  	though God is ever present; and matter claims some-
  	thing besides God, when God is really All. Creation,
24	evolution, or manifestation, — being in and of Spirit,
  	Mind, and all that really is, — must be spiritual and
  	mental. This is Science, and is susceptible of proof. 
27	    But, say you, is a stone spiritual? 
  	    To erring material sense, No! but to unerring spiritual
  	sense, it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spirit-
30	ual substance, "the substance of things hoped for." 
  	Mortals can know a stone as substance, only by first ad-
  	mitting that it is substantial. Take away the mortal sense
 
  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        28

 1	of substance, and the stone itself would disappear, only
  	to reappear in the spiritual sense thereof. Matter can
 3	neither see, hear, feel, taste, nor smell; having no sen-
  	sation of its own. Perception by the five personal senses
  	is mental, and dependent on the beliefs that mortals
 6	entertain. Destroy the belief that you can walk, and
  	volition ceases; for muscles cannot move without mind. 
  	Matter takes no cognizance of matter. In dreams, things
 9	are only what mortal mind makes them; and the phe-
  	nomena of mortal life are as dreams; and this so-called
  	life is a dream soon told. In proportion as mortals turn
12	from this mortal and material dream, to the true sense
  	of reality, everlasting Life will be found to be the only
  	Life. That death does not destroy the beliefs of the flesh,
15	our Master proved to his doubting disciple, Thomas. Also,
  	he demonstrated that divine Science alone can overbear
  	materiality and mortality; and this great truth was shown
18	by his ascension after death, whereby he arose above
  	the illusion of matter. 
  	    The First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other
21	gods before me," suggests the inquiry, What meaneth
  	this Me, — Spirit, or matter? It certainly does not
  	signify a graven idol, and must mean Spirit. Then
24	the commandment means, Thou shalt recognize no
  	intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure
  	nor pain therein. The Master's practical knowledge
27	of this grand verity, together with his divine Love,
  	healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally
  	annulled the claims of physique and of physical law,
30	by the superiority of the higher law; hence his decla-
  	ration, "These signs shall follow them that believe; . . .
  	if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;

  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        29

 1	they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall re-
  	cover." 
 3	    Do you believe his words? I do, and that his prom-
  	ise is perpetual. Had it been applicable only to his
  	immediate disciples, the pronoun would be you, not them. 
 6	The purpose of his life-work touches universal human-
  	ity. At another time he prayed, not for the twelve
  	only, but "for them also which shall believe on me through
 9	their word." 
  	    The Christ-healing was practised even before the Chris-
  	tian era; "the Word was with God, and the Word was
12	God." There is, however, no analogy between Christian
  	Science and spiritualism, or between it and any specu-
  	lative theory. 
15	    In 1867, I taught the first student in Christian Science. 
  	Since that date I have known of but fourteen deaths
  	in the ranks of my about five thousand students. The
18	census since 1875 (the date of the first publication of
  	my work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scrip-
  	tures") shows that longevity has increased. Daily letters
21	inform me that a perusal of my volume is healing the
  	writers of chronic and acute diseases that had defied medi-
  	cal skill. 
24	    Surely the people of the Occident know that esoteric
  	magic and Oriental barbarisms will neither flavor Chris-
  	tianity nor advance health and length of days. 
27	    Miracles are no infraction of God's laws; on the
  	contrary, they fulfil His laws; for they are the signs fol-
  	lowing Christianity, whereby matter is proven power-
30	less and subordinate to Mind. Christians, like students
  	in mathematics, should be working up to those higher
  	rules of Life which Jesus taught and proved. Do we
 
  Miscellaneous Writings --- One Cause and Effect                        30

 1	really understand the divine Principle of Christianity
  	before we prove it, in at least some feeble demonstra-
 3	tion thereof, according to Jesus' example in healing the
  	sick? Should we adopt the "simple addition" in Chris-
  	tian Science and doubt its higher rules, or despair of
 6	ultimately reaching them, even though failing at first to
  	demonstrate all the possibilities of Christianity? 
  	    St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum
 9	total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and
  	heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they
  	were without pain, sin, or death. Death was not the
12	door to this heaven. The gates thereof he declared were
  	inlaid with pearl, — likening them to the priceless under-
  	standing of man's real existence, to be recognized here
15	and now. 
  	    The great Way-shower illustrated Life unconfined, un-
  	contaminated, untrammelled, by matter. He proved the
18	superiority of Mind over the flesh, opened the door to
  	the captive, and enabled man to demonstrate the law of
  	Life, which St. Paul declares "hath made me free from
21	the law of sin and death." 
  	    The stale saying that Christian Science "is neither
  	Christian nor science!" is to-day the fossil of wisdom-
24	less wit, weakness, and superstition. "The fool hath
  	said in his heart, There is no God." 
  	    Take courage, dear reader, for any seeming mysti-
27	cism surrounding realism is explained in the Scripture,
  	"There went up a mist from the earth [matter];" and
  	the mist of materialism will vanish as we approach spirit-
30	uality, the realm of reality; cleanse our lives in Christ's
  	righteousness; bathe in the baptism of Spirit, and awake
  	in His likeness.SHOW ALL