In an address before the London congress of natural scientists, Mr. Balfour said, "The natural sciences are now explaining matter by explaining it away." Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the supreme fact that the universe which we seem to recognize by aid of the five physical senses, is not the real universe as known to divine Truth, but a mortal belief based upon misleading material phenomena.
Our physical senses can no more discern or cognize the true universe than they can discern or cognize the infinite divine Principle, the source of all being. If they could truly discern or cognize either God or His universe, they could truly discern and cognize both. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 330), "Neither God nor the perfect man can be discerned by the material senses."The real universe, then, is spiritual. This must be so, because God, divine Principle, is Spirit, as Jesus declared, and as man's highest reason must always affirm.
Suppose the human sense of sight had greater power than Roentgen rays, then the rock-shouldered mountain would no longer appear to be opaque; rather would it seem transparent as the air above it. If beings with senses wholly different from ours dealt with material appearances, these appearances would seem to such beings wholly different from what they seem to us. What are called the five senses may try to interpret appearances, but they cannot create except in seeming. To interpret correctly would demand perfect intelligence, therefore we are driven to admit that the true universe cannot be revealed to mankind through the testimony of material sense. But this happily is not equivalent to the statement that there is no true universe, nor does it even afford any sound argument in that direction.
