tician. The "I" referred to by Jesus is this spiritual intelligence, the only individuality of man. To believe on his name, that is, to believe on the human name of Jesus, has no more power to make us Christian than believing on the name of Darwin can make us evolutionists. We frequently deplore the fact that spiritual things must be expressed by symbols. If our present language is insufficient to express spiritual thoughts and ideas, should we not be charitable toward a man who spoke in an age when nature was a sealed book and who cited as an authority writings that have been handed down for generations without vowels or vowel sounds?

By

The one Mind-Substance which we see without the aid of the visual organs is undoubtedly the God referred to in the Scriptures. It explains the insufficiency of philosophy and accounts for the growth of positive science, since man abandoned speculative philosophy and took up determination through experimentation. continually affirming good, we can destroy evil and bring to light the absolute law of life. Here is explained the meaning of these words so often attributed to Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." However, the denying of evil would be impotent were it not for the existence of this unseen Mind of which the brain is not conscious, but which is always ready to help us overcome the error. This explains the meaning of the words of Paul in the eighth chapter of his epistle to the Romans: "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." The brain being cognizant only of vibration, it is never cognizant of the

presence of this perfect activity, which is vibrationless and produces no conscious effect on the brain except one of peace; which effect silences or quiets the vibration which is the source of errors or disease. Paul's reference to "groanings which cannot be uttered" is one of his many heroic and labored efforts to express the activity of the Divine in human words. In fact, after seeing in a measure what Paul saw, and understanding what he was trying to express, his efforts become pathetic. The efforts of the modern intellectuals to explain to the world the discoveries of the principles of political economy in a manner resembles it. Here is met, in a measure, the same insufficiency of language, the same contradiction of terms, and the same labored effort to explain the difference between a demonstrable principle and a human opinion. When Paul wrote, "The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power," he no doubt thought he had explained the mystery; but alas! he only explained it to himself and to those who already understood it. To understand correctly this statement, we must first disabuse our minds of any material concept of a kingdom. We must conceive a kingdom, power or principle that is not man-made, either evolved or constructed; a preexisting demonstrable principle of which the economists seem to have caught glimpses in their efforts to find a remedy for the ills of society collectively; a condition that man does not need to create or outline in human words; on the other hand, it is only necessary for him to understand that its operation is not a matter of human will. This state, being or condition, Paul has named "power," and when we become conscious of this power,

1 Bible-First Corinthians 4:20.

we become powerful to the extent that we are conscious of it. This is the scientific explanation of the kingdom referred to by Jesus. To the extent that this is understood, it will govern men physically and mentally, individually and collectively. It is the power no doubt, that Jesus referred to when He said: "I give you power over all the power of the enemy: and nothing

shall by any means hurt you."

This is as near as we can express in words what the Holy Ghost is. In proportion as we cleanse our minds of the belief of the reality of matter, which is the human concept of existence, this peculiar condition descends. on us. It will be well to note, especially in the Acts of the Apostles, that when anything was done in the name of Jesus, it was done after the Holy Ghost had descended upon them. Therefore, the philosophy of Bible Science consists of becoming conscious of this influence until it becomes operative in our own consciousness. This is the answer to the prayer: "Thy Kingdom come.”

2

THE ULTIMATE SPIRITUALIZATION

OF ALL THINGS

Bible Science, in the last analysis, necessarily presupposes the ultimate spiritualization of all things. We are confronted by the well-established belief-the indestructibility of matter. However, in our efforts to destroy matter, we have always used material means, and when we have gone farther, or thought we had gone farther by resorting to metaphysics, we were still endeavoring to conceive the annihilation of some material by a material concept of annihilation.

1 Bible-Luke 10:19.

2 Bible-Acts 1:8.

We read in the Bible: "He uttered His voice, the earth melted." When we understand that the voice here referred to is not an audible sound but a silent and positive activity reaching man through his life-substance sense, called spiritual, we have at last a tangible idea of the process and a scientific concept of God.2

Teleologically, this law of life is the activity of the bodies of the lower organisms called mind. When the human mind, which we have said before was matter but of a more elusive form, manifests inharmony, which inharmony has been named insanity, it is because it is not sufficiently actuated by this law of life, just as the more obviously material organism named matter under the same conditions manifests disease.

It might be observed that right here is the beginning of all decay or disease. This consuming which is referred to elsewhere in this work, in proportion to its degree, manifests different degrees of this phenomenon, which degrees of phenomenon have been given different names. The deduction to be made from this is

2

1 Bible-Psalms 46:6.

(There are records and evidences of a power that overcomes or destroys the physical laws of matter. There are many records of this power in the Bible and there are many at the present time who teach and demonstrate such a power. The teaching consists of the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter. However, years of teaching the nothingness of matter has not made matter less, in an intelligent thought-out sense, to these teachers or the world. Furthermore, the demonstrations of its exponents have been limited to matter in a state of high psychical development. The nothingness of matter in its strict sense consists of nullifying such physical laws as weight and density. To make the nothingness of matter intelligent we must understand the process of its first formation as well as its growth and development in the form that we have named matter. In this way only can we take this subject out of the domain of mysticism, legerdemain and psychic phenomena.)

that this law is the only substance or something, and that matter is non-vital. By the non-vitality of matter we do not mean to contend that matter is not vital to its own evanescent consciousness, but that in the last analysis it is neither power nor intelligence. Relatively matter is vital, absolutely it is not. As Aristotle expressed it in his metaphysics, "The moving element can only be the actual or the form; the moved element is the potential or material."

1

The non-intelligence of matter is deducible from the comparison of man in ancient and modern times. Man in the time of Zoroaster and Moses possessed the same capacity to perceive and arrange ideas along with the best men of today. This cannot, however, be admitted unless we destroy in our own minds the unjust and invidious comparison of their time and our own; which comparison is largely one of belief and custom, which belief and custom were as sufficient to them as our own customs are to us. It is known that some of the Apache chiefs possessed brains that from every anatomical and physiological point compared favorably with the greatest men of their time. It might be interesting here to note that Geronimo and a few braves, through their military tactics and strategy, coped successfully with men educated along the same line. Their defeat was not so much a matter of degrees of intelligence but of relativity. It was not a matter of insufficient understanding so much as the want of development along different lines, namely, conservation of energy and mechanics.

In fact, an unbiased analysis of this subject compels us to conclude that intelligence is not a matter of evolu1 Greek Philosophy-Zellar (Page 191).