There has been steady advance in the analysis of the material beliefs of what determines heredity and character development. And there have been conjectures on finding the ultimate nature and source of life, even to the point of arbitrarily and chemically producing life and determining heredity. But a very central and vital question remains unanswered. What is life? With all the detailed analysis of matter structure, the researchers have not been able to define life. Plato's analysis of material life, likened to the dwellers in a cave who face away from the source of light, studying the shadows on the wall, is still graphically accurate.

Christian Science discloses that Life is Spirit, divine Principle, or God. Real Life is not in matter or determined by it. The human phenomena observed as the material evidences of life are but the shadows on the wall. By the manipulation of belief human research may produce different shadows; but men will never arrive at the source of life through the analysis of matter. Mrs. Eddy discusses this basic question in the textbook, Science and Health. She writes: "Naturalists ask: "What can there be, of a material nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs,—themselves composed of the simplest material elements,—by which all peculiarities of ancestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from generation to generation?' The question of the naturalist amounts to this: How can matter originate or transmit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality." ^{Science and Health, p. 551;}

It is true that human existence is the expression of human consciousness; and as the beliefs of mortals change, there will be changes in human experience. But one can never arrive at a scientific analysis of life until he finds out that Life is God, Spirit. The belief of life in matter is a supposition, a counterfeit of Life. Christ Jesus understood these scientific facts. He knew that God is the only creator and that man is the perfect child of God. He knew that man is spiritual and that he derives all his characteristics from God, the one source of intelligence and life.

Jesus understood the scientific basis of being so well that he could correct the beliefs of heredity that caused sickness and sin. He knew that God is divine Truth and Love and that man as the child of God can have no dangerous inheritances. When he healed a blind man, he denied the beliefs of heredity. He said, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." ^{John 9:3;} His correction of the false beliefs changed the experience of those he healed, and they were released from their suffering. And Christian Scientists are involved in doing similar healing works in this modern day.

In Christian Science the belief of life and intelligence in matter is called animal magnetism, and this term would also be applied to all the derivations of this basic error. Mrs. Eddy states, "In proportion to our understanding of Christian Science, we are freed from the belief of heredity, of mind in matter or animal magnetism; and we disarm sin of its imaginary power in proportion to our spiritual understanding of the status of immortal being." ^{Science and Health, p. 178;}

The hereditary information contained in the acid DNA may record the beliefs of mortals, even as the computer tape records the information fed into the machine; but individuality is no more in matter than intelligence is in the machine. When the human mind quits the body through the belief of death, the body disintegrates into dust. And in the resurrection, when Jesus refused to be separated from Life and would not let go of his true identity, he raised his body from the grave. In either case the determination is on the level of mind and not of matter.

Christian Scientists are not misled to believe that matter is intelligent and that it can determine their harmony or well-being. Such findings as have been recently discovered will point out the need to refute thoroughly the beliefs of material heredity, to establish more firmly the spiritual basis of character, and to be forewarned about the attempts to control men and to predetermine the nature of individuals through manipulation of DNA.

To progress in demonstrating the freedom of man as the child of God, we do not probe deeper into the theories of material causation but rather seek an ever deeper understanding of man's spiritual nature in the likeness of God. Here is a field for unlimited research and unlimited blessing for mankind. Instead of studying counterfeit effects, we can get at the cause; instead of facing the shadows, we can face the light. Mrs. Eddy states: "The continual contemplation of existence as material and corporeal—as beginning and ending, and with birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages—hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-point whatsoever, then the great I am is a myth. If Life is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embryonic, it is infinite." ^{p. 550.}

William Milford Correll