We may at times have had impulses or thoughts that did not express our true feelings. Perhaps we wondered where these thoughts came from or attributed them to some mysterious subconscious level of thought over which we have no control.

If we accept the premise that we are material personalities directed by nerve tissue enclosed in a skull, we are being taken in. We are believing the testimony of the material senses instead of relying on the spiritual facts of God and man. Christian Science explains that man is entirely spiritual, the reflection of God, the reflex image of divine Mind. The only thoughts that man can truly have are God's, because no other real thoughts exist.

Any suggestion that we can be controlled by wrong thoughts or ungovernable impulses comes from a false mentality, from mortal mind. One product of this false mentality is a belief in the libido—the emotional or psychic energy associated with supposed biological urges. Yet mankind can respond to something other than mere biological urges. Where do moral values come from? Where does nobility fit into this picture of materially motivated humankind?

Man is truly governed by Mind. His motivation is not material impulsion. He is governed by the right ideas and spiritual thoughts emanating from his Maker.

As we advance in spiritual understanding, we willingly abandon bogus beliefs about man and the thoughts that govern him and gratefully acknowledge our real being as the ideal expression of Mind. This understanding of man's true being shows us the unreality of any so-called unconscious thoughts. Man is controlled by God and is blessed by His thoughts.

"But," you may say, "I hear and read about people who seem to be governed by evil instincts and urges, people who commit violent crimes." Sometimes the material picture is frightening and discouraging. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes, "The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals." But she also writes earlier in the same paragraph, "In divine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind." ¹ The law of Mind is the basis from which we determine what is really governing man. And what is real can be proved true.

I knew a young Christian Scientist who was impulsively drawn to a married person. She knew it was immoral to allow such feelings to dominate her. For a while she wondered where the feelings came from; they were so foreign to her ethical standard and usual way of thinking. Then she realized she had accepted mortal mind's suggestion that she could be governed by immoral desires. She refused to accept the suggestion as her own feeling.

She claimed her true being as the spotless image of God and knew that only right thoughts originating in Mind could govern her. She saw clearly that so-called unconscious thoughts cannot really occur, for there is but one Mind, one God, who is always conscious. She held firmly to this spiritual fact until she was free from the false desire.

Mind alone is the source of man's intelligence. There is no power in counterfeit, unconscious thoughts, since Mind is the only governing force. Mrs. Eddy writes: "The unconscious thought in the corporeal substratum of brain produces no effect, and that condition of the body which we call sensation in matter is unreal. Mortal mind is ignorant of itself,—ignorant of the errors it includes and of their effects. Intelligent matter is an impossibility." ²

Paul advised his followers, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." ³ Jesus understood more clearly than anyone else ever has that God is Mind. As we follow his example, we will obey the law of Mind and prove that real thoughts have their source in God alone.