IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A "CRAZE"? 219 



classes embraces the impressions derived from or received through 

 the five personal senses, and constitutes what is called material or 

 physical life. These are all summarized in the word matter. In 

 the technology of Christian Science they are termed " beliefs " of 

 matter, and are treated as inhering in a supposed subject termed 

 " mortal man " or " mortal mind," and are said to be cognized 

 through material sense. This is the consciousness of life in 

 matter, or life in the material body, and in Christian Science is 

 termed the " false consciousness." 



Besides this consciousness or sense of material life, or life in 

 the body, there is another sense or consciousness of Truth, Love, 

 beauty, expressed in the word God, or Spirit. The impressions of 

 Spirit not only do not come to us through the personal senses, can 

 not be cognized by material sense, but they are contrary to this 

 sense, are the opposites of the phenomena of material sense. They 

 are distinct or obscure, just as the individual is immersed in or 

 withdrawn from the objects of material sense, and the impressions 

 derived from them. 



Because these two states of consciousness are opposites, they 

 are destructive of one another : as one is increased, the other is 

 diminished ; they are precisely represented in the action of light 

 and darkness — as one advances, the other recedes. Every human 

 individuality is the battle-ground of these opposing forces ; the 

 scale is at every instant inclined more strongly to the one or the 

 other, and the true history of the individual and of the race — the 

 only history — is the record of this struggle. 



In the uninstructed consciousness, and on this mortal plane 

 of existence, the beliefs and fears that are the inseparable con- 

 comitants of material sense, or the belief of life in matter, pre- 

 dominate ; beliefs of good or ill are connected with all the ele- 

 mental and other conditions that make up the material environ- 

 ment ; with every act of the material man ; with every article of 

 food, drink, or apparel ; with the function and operation of every 

 organ of the body ; with sleep and wakefulness, and every condi- 

 tion that can be named. In their train is the countless array of 

 disease, envy, jealousy, malice, hatred, covetousness ; every con- 

 dition of thought that lust, appetite, and the nameless brood that 

 develop and are propagated as earthly life advances — these are 

 the shadowy attendants that haunt the consciousness of material 

 man — the penalty attached to the false sense of life in matter. 



Does progress in wisdom, gained from personal sense, emanci- 

 pate man from this terrible thralldom ? To the contrary, the 

 more knowledge he gains, relative to these conditions and influ- 

 ences, the more laws he finds himself subject to — a subjection that 

 the savage, untutored man is free from. In the words of " Science 

 and Health," " Man hath sought out many inventions, but he 



