"We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification." So we read on page 124 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Mankind must admit that certain forces govern the universe. These forces are not due to any of the inventions of men, but are wholly due to spiritual law, which operates perpetually. It is this real, spiritual law, understood, which annihilates all the fraudulent laws of material sense, and so unfolds the perfection of the real universe and real man; and it is this real law which makes plain the supreme influences which surround men, working out the harmony of existence in proportion as the life of mankind is governed by this selfsame spiritual law.
Material laws, so called, are without any actual basis in truth. Mortal man, either through ignorance, blindness, or education, has allowed himself to be misled into believing in the actuality of material laws, and he suffers because of this ignorance until Truth exposes its falsity. Mortals have built up a great structure of what they call material laws, but like the tower of Babel, it will fall because it is not founded on spiritual truth. In Science and Health (p. 229) Mrs. Eddy writes: "By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death. This customary belief is misnamed material law, and the individual who upholds it is mistaken in theory and in practice."
A question of great importance, then, is how to live within the radius of spiritual law and exclude the action of so-called material laws. Jesus stated plainly the answer to this momentous question when he said, in the eighth chapter of John's gospel, "The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." When one lives in such a manner that every thought and act is in harmony with the divine Mind, then he will be completely governed and controlled by spiritual law. The Master demanded nothing less than this, for he said. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Governed by spiritual law, one will be able to annul every false belief which involves disaster, for matter involves defeat, inasmuch as matter is false, and no real or lasting good can be built upon a false foundation. When one allows himself to be governed by material thinking and living, he is inviting defeat. He is allowing himself to be submissive to false laws which, although unreal, will nevertheless curtail his advancement in every right direction until he rises out of them. On the other hand, he who strives daily and hourly to do those things which please God, is striving continually to enter into "the secret place of the most High." He is allowing himself to be governed by reality, by the real, spiritual laws of being, and will manifest success and harmony in his human experience.
