Perhaps the last though by no means the latest outpost on the field of strife and divisions among men is so-called racial antipathy. A study of the Old Testament on this point reveals that, early in the Adamdream chronicled in Genesis after the first chapter, mankind divided into hostile camps. Cain slew Abel; jealous of its own prestige, materiality aims to destroy the thought advancing toward spirituality.
Commenting on this in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 541), "The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelligence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood of man at the very outset." Thought is then ripe for the separation of men into nations, as narrated in the history of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, of whom "was the whole earth overspread." Here enters the sociological discussion of theories of population and of so-called inferior and superior races whose claim to favor or disfavor, according to the Bible narrative, has its seat in the attitudes of Noah's three sons toward his drunken debauch. Still further on in the book of Genesis enter property interests and limitation of natural resources to complicate the belief of matter as substance, as a factor in division among mankind. Lot parted from Abram, for the reason that "the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together."
Each of these Bible incidents shows that division followed as a result of the acceptance by the individual of matter as power. Abel, Abram, Japheth, and, in a less spiritual sense, Shem, stand firmly for the one right solution of the problem as it presented itself. Separation is not due to such thought; it is Cain, Lot, and Ham, types of materiality, that would disprove the brotherhood of man. And so down the ages the supposititious opposite of the one infinite spiritual creation makes human history the story of a divided mankind, struggling toward progress while accustoming itself to modes of thought differing with each division, these differences manifest in what are called racial characteristics, which in turn determine so-called races. That the seeming loss of the spiritual oneness of creation is accountable for all manifest evil, Mrs. Eddy makes clear in discussing the practical value of understanding the commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." On page 340 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes as follows: "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science. It inculcates the triunity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal. One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself;' annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,—whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."
