Editorial September 19, 1953 Issue

MATTER IS A MYTH

Robert Ellis Key

Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, an American authoress, once wrote: "To wrench from the ores of the earth, the treasures of the sea, the elements of the air, the secret of their functions and their affinities, the laws of their being, the springs of their action—this is very noble and very good. But it ends where it begins—in matter; and matter is matter and not man, despite the Darwins, and Tyndalls, and Huxleys; and one may know all that is to be known about matter and nothing that need be known about man."

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, drew attention to this statement in an early issue of The Christian Science Journal. It would naturally have appealed to the author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" because she had previously defined man in this textbook in terms of Spirit, not matter. There she writes (p. 475), "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements." And she continues, "Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science." By thus defining man, Mrs. Eddy followed the footsteps of the Way-shower, Christ Jesus, who said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

The distinction between the material and the spiritual is clearly marked in Christian Science. What, then, it may be asked, is the material, or matter sense of man, which seems so insistent in human experience? For further elucidation of this we shall find it helpful to turn to the definition of "matter," as given on page 591 of Science and Health, which in part reads: "Mythology; mortality; another name for mortal mind; illusion; intelligence, substance, and life in non-intelligence and mortality."

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