Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures

by Mary Baker Eddy

The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and
real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im-
300:15 mutable and perfect. The inharmonious and
self-destructive never touch the harmonious
and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares
300:18 and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal
sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Sci-
ence separates the wheat from the tares, through the real-
300:21 ization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting
the divine likeness.

The divine reflection

Spirit is God, Soul; therefore Soul is not in matter. If
300:24 Spirit were in matter, God would have no representative,
and matter would be identical with God.
The theory that soul, spirit, intelligence, in-
300:27 habits matter is taught by the schools. This theory is
unscientific. The universe reflects and expresses the di-
vine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the
300:30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in
the ray of light which goes out from it. God is re-
vealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love, -
301:1 yea, which manifests God's attributes and power, even
as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats
301:3 the color, form, and action of the person in front of the
mirror.

Few persons comprehend what Christian Science
301:6 means by the word /reflection. /To himself, mortal and
material man seems to be substance, but his sense of
substance involves error and therefore is material,
301:9 temporal.

On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really
substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit,
301:12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which
constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection
seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual
301:15 man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is re-
vealed only through divine Science.

Inverted images and ideas

As God is substance and man is the divine image and
301:18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only
the substance of good, the substance of Spirit,
not matter. The belief that man has any other
301:21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks
the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one
Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub-
301:24 stance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, dis-
ease, and death arise from the false testimony of material
sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the
301:27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image
of Mind and substance with everything turned upside
down.

301:30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial
dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead
of spiritual. Immortality is not bounded by mortality.
302:1 Soul is not compassed by finiteness. Principle is not to
be found in fragmentary ideas.

Identity not lost

302:3 The material body and mind are temporal, but the
real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the
real man is not lost, but found through this
302:6 explanation; for the conscious infinitude of
existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and re-
mains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose
302:9 aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his. The
notion that mind is in matter, and that the so-called pleas-
ures and pains, the birth, sin, sickness, and death of
302:12 matter, are real, is a mortal belief; and this belief is all
that will ever be lost.