Some individuals show an excessive interest in their human ancestry. Genealogists are sometimes employed to trace the family tree. One may wish to know if his ancestors came with the Conqueror or on the Mayflower. If it is discovered that his forebears made both of these excursions, his humility might come under such an intolerable burden that he would become difficult to live with!

Often such human records are found on the flyleaves and inside covers of family Bibles, but there is ample evidence in the adjacent pages of the Book of books that one's human lineage or descent is of no real importance when Christianly and scientifically considered.

The book of Malachi asks, "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?" ^{Mal. 2:10;} Christ Jesus, complying with a request by his disciples to teach them to pray, began the prayer with the words, "Our Father which art in heaven." ^{Matt. 6:9;} Later he counseled a gathered multitude, including his disciples, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." ^23:9;

This scientific fact of the universal fatherhood of God stems from the spiritual account of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, in which man is created in God's own image and likeness, the image of Spirit, of infinite good. The person of material descent is the suppositional opposite of God's man. He is "such stuff as dreams are made on," and has a wholly unreal existence.

Christian Science adds a new dimension to our sense of God as the source of man. It reasons that God, Spirit, Principle, the All-in-all of being, must include motherly as well as fatherly qualities. It concludes that to the masculine qualities of strength and intelligence must be added those of life and love, and that man, the reflection of the Father-Mother Mind, being created both male and female, must express all the qualities of the universal Parent. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God." ^{Science and Health, p. 516;}

So man, the loved and loving child of God, is spiritual, perfect, pure, and holy. He lives, moves, and has his being in shadowless harmony and joy. He has inherited all good from his tender Father-Mother. He exists in the timeless eternal now. He never had a human parent or a material history.

These facts are neither academic nor abstract. Christian Science shows how they may be understood and applied in the human situation.

Heredity is a peg on which many false beliefs are hung. One of the most common is that of inherited disease, something that "runs in the family." These beliefs are not ineradicable. They rest on the false basis of human parentage, on the notion that unintelligent matter can transmit its characteristics, that the sins of the fathers can be visited on the children.

We can persistently and joyfully claim that man is not the product of a mortal but of God, Spirit, and that he has never had a human parent or prior history of human descent. When we know that man is the child of infinite, diseaseless, sinless Mind, the actual embodiment of Mind's ideas, the perfect reflection of his Father-Mother, and act accordingly, we can express excellent health, and our spiritually inherited well-being will be a constant factor in our experience. Mind, not genetics, explains man.

It is a profitless exercise to delve into the record of our progenitors to find a prior cause for a present ailment. Jesus, the immaculate Teacher and Metaphysician, rebuked his disciples on this point when, referring to a man born blind, they asked if the affliction was due to his own sin or that of his parents. The Master refused to discuss the case at this material level. He repudiated matter as a cause in the present or in retrospect. He recognized one universal God, good, one universal Father. 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;} Jesus' words, evidencing his incomparable spiritual understanding, healed the man, who received his sight.

Perhaps we have accepted the suggestion that the inherited malady is so deeply rooted in the past that it cannot now be extracted. We can know that time cannot clothe error in the garment of Truth. A mistake is always a mistake, and when uncovered, denied, and replaced by the truth, the error is reduced to nothingness. We do not suffer now for the dream we ourselves had last night, and certainly we should not suffer for the long-ago dream experience of someone else.

Some individuals may be disinclined to relinquish a belief in material descent. They may believe that they have inherited from their forebears excellent bodily health, more than average intelligence, and an equable disposition. If we base possession of these qualities on mere belief, their stay with us is unsure. Because Mind, God, is the only creator, there has never been a mortal to transmit false beliefs or one to receive them. All that man possesses are the essential properties of God, and he has them by virtue of his sonship with Him. The knowledge of this places health, intelligence, and disposition on the only secure and constant basis, the parent Mind.

Speaking of the spiritual meaning of the commands to have only one God and to love our neighbor as ourself, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Thou shalt love Spirit only, not its opposite, in every God-quality, even in substance; thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious 'male and female,' as of spiritual origin, God's reflection,—thus as children of one common Parent,—wherein and whereby Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine 'Us'—one in good, and good in One." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18.}

Man has not descended. He remains at the very acme of perfection as the offspring of his perfect Father-Mother God.