Deep-reaching interrogations
550:3 If this be so, whence cometh Life, or Mind, to the
human race? Matter surely does not possess Mind.
God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms
550:6 and preserves the individuality and identity
of animals as well as of men. God cannot
become finite, and be limited within material bounds.
550:9 Spirit cannot become matter, nor can Spirit be developed
through its opposite. Of what avail is it to investigate
what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be-
550:12 gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being
and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it
will hereafter.
Stages of existence
550:15 Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The
continual contemplation of existence as material and cor-
poreal - as beginning and ending, and with
550:18 birth, decay, and dissolution as its component
stages - hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes
our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-
550:21 point whatsoever, then the great I AM is a myth. If Life
is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry-
onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for
550:24 Deity.
Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro-
ducing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor
550:27 does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed
monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous
and absurd as the supposition that Spirit - the pure and
550:30 holy, the immutable and immortal - can originate the
impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science
repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses
551:1 must father these absurdities, for both the material senses
and their reports are unnatural, impossible, and unreal.
The real producer
551:3 Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is
first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity,
called matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro-
551:6 duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural
history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual
history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.
The ascent of species
551:9 One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring
from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he
adds that mankind has ascended through all
551:12 the lower grades of existence. Evolution de-
scribes the gradations of human belief, but it does not
acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma-
551:15 terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that
all Science is of God, not of man.
Transmitted peculiarities