The commonly accepted theory, that man has a dual nature; i.e., is both spiritual and material, has been practically unquestioned for centuries by the world of human thought until the advent of Christian Science. The teaching of this Science is a positive recognition of the true man as wholly spiritual; and this is based upon the Biblical declaration that "God created man in His own image." Therefore the conclusion of the scientific statement of being necessarily becomes, "Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness; hence, man is spiritual and not material" (Science and Health, p. 468).
Many ask, How can such a statement be accepted or proved when the evidence to the contrary is so palpable? As Jesus resorted to parables in explaining and teaching spiritual truths, so we turn to some familiar object or fact to aid us in our attempted explanation of the radical statements of Christian Science. Thus in pondering over the belief of a dual nature in man, the following illustration presented itself.
Suppose a man who had no understanding of music and musical instruments should pick up a rare old violin, and attempt to play upon it; the result would, be a series of discords. Then let a true musician take this same instrument and play upon it, and the result would be delightful harmonies. Now suppose the two trials of the violin could be heard by a man so entirely ignorant of musical instruments and the basic law governing them, that he could not discern any relation between cause and effect, could not attribute the discord to the ignorance which produced it, or the harmony to the intelligence of the musician; he would probably conclude that this was a very strange instrument indeed, that it had two distinct natures, and that it sometimes expressed one, sometimes the other, and he would draw his conclusions from the very palpable evidence of the senses. But if the truth about these seemingly opposite natures were explained to him, and he was told that a violin should always be judged by the harmony it can be made to produce, since that is what it is intended to express, and will express if the law governing it is thoroughly understood by the player, and that discords are always the result of ignorance, this explanation would be accepted, and the man would have a truer conception of the basis on which to estimate the value of a musical instrument.
