RUDIMENTAL

DIVINE SCIENCE

BY

MARY BAKER EDDY

AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO

THE SCRIPTURES

BOSTON, U.S.A.

Published by Allison V. Stewart

for the trustees under the will of Mary Baker G. Eddy

Falmouth and St. Paul Streets

1917

Authorized Literature of

The First Church of Christ, Scientist

in Boston, Massachusetts

Copyright, 1891, 1908

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

All rights reserved

THIS LITTLE BOOK

IS

TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TO ALL

LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING

FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE

SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING

MARY BAKER EDDY

CONTENTS
	Page
Definition of Christian Science. . . . . .	1
Principle of Christian Science. . . . . . .	1
Personality of God . . . . . . . . . . .	1
Healing Sickness and Sin . . . . . . . . .	2
Individuality of God . . . . . . . . . . .	3
Material and Spiritual Science . . . . . .	4
Non-existence of Matter . . . . . . . . .	4
Materiality Intangible . . . . . . . . . .	6
Basis of Mind-healing . . . . . . . . . .	6
Material and Spiritual Man . . . . . . .	7
Demonstration in Healing . . . . . . . .	8
Means and Methods . . . . . . . . . . .	13
Only One School . . . . . . . . . . . .	16

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE

SCIENCE

How would you define Christian Science?

AS the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and

demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of

universal harmony.

What is the Principle of Christian Science?

It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal

Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father

which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth,

and Love, — these are the deific Principle.

Do you mean by this that God is a person?

The word person affords a large margin for misappre-

hension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent

word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is

persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of

the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound).

In law, Blackstone applies the word personal to bodily

presence, in distinction from one's appearance (in court,

for example) by deputy or proxy.

1

2 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

Other definitions of person, as given by Webster, are

"a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent;

especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman,

or child; an individual of the human race." He adds,

that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one

of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead.

In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi-

vidual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best

authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining

person as especially a finite human being; but God is

personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.

We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him

as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and

therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by

using the phrase an individual God, rather than a per-

sonal God; for there is and can be but one infinite indi-

vidual Spirit, whom mortals have named God.

Science defines the individuality of God as supreme

good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense

of Deity, takes away the trammels assigned to God by

finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions.

Is healing the sick the whole of Science?

Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris-

tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and

action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The

emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of

sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 3

cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they

do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acqui-

escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and

their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from

sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which

redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the

flesh, from the flesh, — the material world and evil.

This Life, Truth, and Love — this trinity of good — was

individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the

man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it

lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing.

His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models

of the masters in music and painting are to artists.

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor-

ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon

on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe

drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its

nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of

disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true

volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental

error made manifest physically, and establishes the oppo-

site manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony

and health.

By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has

a finite form?

No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all

being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including

4 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life,

Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni-

verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious

and eternal, of which our material universe and men are

the counterfeits.

Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or

Christian Science?

Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither

is it of human origin.

All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force,

which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit,

that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and

"loose the bands of Orion."

There is no material science, if by that term you mean

material intelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there

is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind.

Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter,

but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only.

Is there no matter?

All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian

Science, all is God, and there is naught beside Him. "God

is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through

His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and ex-

tinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvel-

lous light.

The five material senses testify to the existence of

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 5

matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence,

but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which

testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let God be

true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply,

God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is

Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material

mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being

made in the image of Spirit, or God.

There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate,

and sensationless, — considered apart from Mind. Lives

there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in

matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the

eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material

ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any

such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is

called matter, or matter without Mind.

Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind

in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real conscious-

ness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear,

smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but

destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could

not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical

senses.

Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should

believe man and the universe to be the football of chance

and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as

organized matter, and you must either become non-exist-

ent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is

6 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to

the equal inference that there is no matter.

The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assum-

ing manifold forms and colors, — are they not tangible and

material?

As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty

and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God;

but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness

from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a

false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes

the place of good.

Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response

from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer?

He says that "color is in us," not "in the rose;" and he

adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a

fact "almost universally accepted, within the last few

years, by physicists."

Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evi-

dence of the material senses, and restoration of the true

evidence of spiritual sense?

It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predi-

cate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of

Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstra-

tion. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest

definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer

this question of how much you understand of Christian

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 7

Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science,

by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science,

is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most

difficult case so treated.

The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies

of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and

Health.

Is man material or spiritual?

In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, per-

fect and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and

His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted.

According to the evidence of the so-called physical

senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal.

Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford

the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the

material evidence being wholly false.

Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not

in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as

matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence.

As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the

father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot

originate its opposite, named matter.

According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its

species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural

science, so-called, or material laws, bring about altera-

tion of species by transforming minerals into vegetables

or plants into animals, — thus confusing and confounding

8 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple;

no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk

for babes.

To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand

years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harm-

less likeness.

How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science

in healing the sick?

As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle,

so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the prac-

tice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others;

then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal

good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other

healer.

In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher con-

dition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and

error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field

of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself a Christian

Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering

falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the

Truth and the Principle of Science, but opens a way

whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchris-

tian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes

morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure.

By this I mean that mortal mind should not be falsely

impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seem-

ingly restored, the restoration is not lasting, and the patient

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 9

is liable to a relapse, — "The last state of that man is

worse than the first."

The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian,

in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of

discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more

or less blended with error; and this error will spring up

in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowl-

edge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a

poor practitioner, if not a malpractioner.

The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and

this will is an outcome of what I call mortal mind, — a

false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To

heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on

immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and

this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer

of the lips from the Lord.

The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If

one is untruthful, his mental state weighs against his

healing power; and similar effects come from pride,

envy, lust, and all fleshly vices.

The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, with-

out a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument,

has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases.

The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with

a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence

of God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside

Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good;

and hence, that whatever militates against health, har-

10 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

mony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of

the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you have

power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows,

and its salutary influence on yourself and others.

You must feel and know that God alone governs man;

that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure

to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing

evil or material; that material laws are only human be-

liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise

from the subjective states of thought, producing the be-

liefs of a mortal material universe, — so-called, and of

material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors

of thought, — diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter;

for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease.

Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body;

and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes

sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true

sense that God is Love, — and that Love punishes nothing

but sin, — and the patient can then look up to the loving

God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children

of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His

spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes

every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief

that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an

error which Truth will destroy.

You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways.

It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God,

which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or

RUDIMENT AL DIVINE SCIENCE 11

that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the

law of Spirit.

Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ;

first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo-

tent; and finally to the understanding of God and man

in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good,

and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of

goodness. Therefore good is one and All.

This brings forward the next proposition in Christian

Science, — namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and

death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice,

and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These

illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the conscious-

ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the

absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else.

In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just

so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the

demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means

rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstra-

tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine

Science, which takes away every human belief, and,

through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re-

veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence

emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal.

The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian

Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy;

never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous opera-

tions of the human frame. He never talks about the

12 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

structure of the material body. He never lays his hands

on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body sup-

posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten

Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the

Mount.

Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of

disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the

sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of

error until they hold stronger than before the belief that

they are first made sick by matter, and then restored

through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental

quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If

the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments

will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is

unchristian and unscientific.

Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids

their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter,

or that a so-called material organism controls the health

or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine

Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well-

being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should

mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food?

Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat."

The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds

of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their

bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material

law, maintains human health and life.

A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 13

is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God,

good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter

nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy

are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief,

this basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to

demonstrate the Principle of this Science, even in the

smallest degree.

A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality

of man made in the divine and spiritual image of God.

The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it

is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error — the

human belief which saith there is more than one God, —

there is more than one Life and one Mind.

In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is

God; there is none else beside Him." In John (iv. 24)

we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, un-

derstood in their Science, elucidate my meaning.

When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every

organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and

discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to

what according to their own belief is diseased, is scientific;

and if the healer realizes the truth, it will free his patient.

What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian

Scientists?

These people should not be expected, more than others,

to give all their time to Christian Science work, receiving

no wages in return, but left to be fed, clothed, and sheltered

14 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

by charity. Neither can they serve two masters, giving

only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian

Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and

"owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a

suitable price for their services, and then conscientiously

earn their wages, strictly practising Divine Science, and

healing the sick.

The author never sought charitable support, but gave

fully seven-eighths of her time without remuneration, ex-

cept the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for her

labors was from classes, and often those were put off for

months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never

taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes

seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take

the full price of tuition only from those who were able to

pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better

than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require

others to pay him. No discount on tuition was made on

higher classes, because their first classes furnished students

with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher

instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the

Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own

fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared

to enter higher classes.

People are being healed by means of my instructions,

both in and out of class. Many students, who have

passed through a regular course of instruction from me,

have been invalids and were healed in the class; but ex-

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 15

perience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though

it heals the sick.

It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left

it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to im-

mediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the

glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to

the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with

exuberant joy.

This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tract-

able; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until

this impulse subsides.

This was the principal reason for advising diseased

people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides inva-

lids for students, until there were enough practitioners to

fill in the best possible manner the department of healing.

Teaching and healing should have separate departments,

and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and

thorough guardianship and grace.

Only a very limited number of students can advanta-

geously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well

assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible

to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and

large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed

individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected

more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for

anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such

lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and

to fill anew the individual mind.

16 RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE

If publicity and material control are the motives for

teaching, then public lectures can take the place of private

lessons; but the former can never give a thorough knowledge

of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will never

undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lec-

tures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate

to thorough class instruction in any branch of education.

None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual significa-

tion of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind-

healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation of

the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that

some novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors

are committing this error.

Is there more than one school of scientific healing?

In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the

Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is

an irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and

written correctly on this Science originates from the Princi-

ple and practice laid down in Science and Health, a work

which I published in 1875. This was the first book, re-

corded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science

purely mental.

Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have origi-

nated with certain opposing factions, springing up among

unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of aspirants

which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their first-

fruits, or else post mortem evidence.

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE 17

A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain

Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere

motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these

so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress by

blinding the people to the true character of Christian

Science, — its moral power, and its divine efficacy to

heal.

The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-

healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification

of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of

timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and

victories under which she needed miraculous vision to

sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this

Science.

The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meek-

ness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony

and the footsteps of His flock.

The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

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