THE TRUE KNOWING

COUNTESS FANNY VON MOLTKE.

To know is "to have a clear perception of a truth or fact," according to Webster. It is to be conscious of this truth or fact; always to have the consciousness of being. As there is but one God or good, who is infinite, there can be but one real consciousness, and this one consciousness the consciousness of good alone. God can know nothing but good, and hence there is no knowledge of evil, it does not belong to knowledge or science. If science is good, nothing which is not absolutely good can have the name of science, for God, good, is absolute in His allness.

Material knowledge is defined in Science and Health (p. 590) as "that which is not divine." If mortal sense says, "I know," it does so because it does not know what true knowledge means. God's allness expresses oneness and omniscience, hence there can be only one science, the science of God or good. That which is not exact and not based on changeless law, cannot properly be called science. In the course of the centuries it has been found that what was once considered to be true has had to be given up. Many theories which claimed to be science have thus been shown to be mutable, unscientific, since only that can truly be called science, or scientific, which is the manifestation of unchanging law.

Real science cannot be material, since matter is subject to change. It must be spiritual; it cannot be finite, but must be infinite; it cannot be evil, but must be good; it cannot know "in part," it must know altogether. This science is the all-inclusive Science of Spirit, or Christian Science, which is based on the absolute, the one Principle; and this explains why there is no place, no room for suggestion. To suggest something would imply that there is some lack of knowledge, which has to be supplied, or that one belief has to be given up for another belief. To omniscience there can be no lack of knowledge; it is omnipresent intelligence. Treatment, the expression of Truth in Christian Science, is therefore not hypnotic suggestion; it is a knowing of the realities of being, a denial of the wrong, the untrue, the unreal; an affirmation of the good, the right, the eternal. This spiritual knowing clears away falsities and brings to light the ever-present verities of being. It uncovers that which seems to be veiled or hidden, and clarifies human sense so that the true consciousness appears.

What, therefore, is the "I" that knows? Can a mortal mind legitimately say, "I know"? Christian Science teaches that there is but one "I or Ego" (Science and Health, p. 588), the great "I am," or God, and this teaching is in entire accord with the Scriptures. There can be but one infinite knower, God, who is expressed by man, created in His likeness. A likeness is not the thing itself, but the manifestation or reflection of it. As the reflection of the All-knowing, it can be said of man that it is for him to know what his creator knows, even all good, and no evil. Thinking of his true selfhood, God's reflection, one may therefore say, "I know," a predication which does not pertain to mortal mind.

There is no real knowledge or science in mortality, because that which is mortal only exists in belief, in the illusive concept of life and intelligence in matter. Immortal man always knows, is always conscious of knowing; he knows that he knows, that he is conscious of good as the inseparable reflection of the divine intelligence. Mortal mind, as the opposite of immortal Mind, is the negation of intelligence, understanding, science; it can therefore know nothing, and its so-called knowledge is neither true knowledge nor science.

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