Editorial September 20, 1975 Issue

Man and the Universe

Carl J. Welz

In Scientific American, May, 1975, Cornell University's astronomy professors Carl Sagan and Frank Drake write of "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." They say, "From our knowledge of the processes by which life arose here on the earth we know that similar processes must be fairly common throughout the universe."

Suppose that in a certain galaxy there lives a creature formed something like an amoeba, with no visible arms, legs, hands, toes. Yet when there is need to grasp something, protuberances appear, perform their task, and recede again into the amorphous body. Might we call such a concept man? Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."^{Science and Health, p.475;}

The author of Revelation saw "a new heaven and a new earth" with "no temple therein."^Rev.21:1,22; And Mrs. Eddy interprets, "What further indication need we of the real man's incorporeality than this, that John saw heaven and earth with 'no temple [body] therein'?"^{Science and Health, p.576;} This revelation of the divine Mind applies to the challenge of possible communication with other civilizations. It also applies to the healing of sin and disease in any civilization.