Law, the only true law, is the expression of the government of Principle. The Principle of the universe is God, of whom Jesus said that He is Spirit. This Spirit, or Principle, being one and all-powerful, all-wise, and ever present, there is evidently nothing beyond its eternal, infinite activity, or spiritual law. Spiritual law is the rule of action for all reality, all presence, all potency. Therefore any other claim of law must be false. Material laws, so called, are not then laws at all, because they advance the proposition of law which is not spiritual—and there can be none such. They are but so many suppositions, or reversals of spiritual law. To attempt to project a law of matter is to misstate or misunderstand the law of Spirit, God. Mortal mind's effort to govern through its belief in law is merely an attempt to materialize that which is wholly spiritual.
Matter and its modes will never help us to arrive at Principle and its law. But we may take up, one by one, material laws, and by a process of reversal arrive at spiritual law. Thus every material hypothesis will be found to represent falsely a law of God, while the divine expression will be found to render the spurious presentment null and void, without power, without content. Our work as Christian Scientists consists, in large measure, in both detecting and reversing spurious laws and in so living the truth as to exclude from consciousness all that is not entitled to classification as spiritual law.
How well I remember that day in my college course when I attended my first lecture on physics. The professor, whose eccentricities were traditional, after carefully surveying the new class suddenly asked of me the question, "What is the natural state of matter?" Having been forewarned, I prudently replied, "Rest;" whereupon triumphantly he shot back, "No such thing; it's motion!" Having thus accomplished my discomfiture to the great delight of the class and himself, he proceeded to elaborate, showing how matter is made up of atoms, which in their activity, their play one upon the other, produced the varied manifestations we see. At no time, he explained, does a single atom ever come to rest, but from the ceaseless friction of countless particles in violent agitation arise the phenomena of light, heat, color, form, consistency, and so forth. He then laid down for us what he termed the basic law of physics: For every action there is a reaction, equal in force and opposite in direction.
