"Infinite Mind is the creator." writes Mrs. Eddy, beginning on page 256 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "and creation is the infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind. If Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind: and this definition is scientific." Creation is not a multitudinous array of ideas materially expressed as things, as is generally supposed, but is the infinite idea of Mind infinitely expressed in an infinitude of variety. Mind or God is the original of that image. In other words, God is all that there is. And because God is omnipresent, the natural conclusion is that the manifestation of the one presence— or God expressed as idea—is the only presence, whether it be called bird, blossom, loaves, or glacier.
Now if mankind understood and accepted this truth, love would be universal and the kingdom of heaven would be recognized as an ever persent fact; there would be nothing to fear, nothing to dread, nothing to hate. One hates and fears only that which he fails to understand. Ignorance is the basic element of fear; vice versa, one loves that which he understands; so the necessity of understanding creation is obvious. The seeming universal ignorance of what man is rests in one tray of the Adamic balance, while in the other is a proportionate measure of seeming effect, in the form of "last farthings" paid in tribute for this ignorance. But why the ignorance, since we are told definitely in the first chapter of Genesis that man was made in the image and likeness of God? Then since "Creation is the infinite image,"' does it not follow that man (His image) is creation?
God is indivisible, and the inseparable allness of God is His oneness, the unity of good. So the allness of God must be expressed at every point, else He is not the infinite One. The completeness of idea in Science does away with all possibility of division and separation, but mortal mind, in its perversity, insists upon division and separation, with "minds many" as its symbol. This phase of mortal mind is handled masterfully by Mrs. Eddy on page 510 of Science and Health, under the marginal heading, "Spiritual subdivision." Here she says: "Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony. This Mind forms ideas, its own images, subdivides and radiates their borrowed light, intelligence, and so explains the Scripture phrase, 'whose seed is in itself.' Thus God's ideas 'multiply and replenish the earth.' The divine Mind supports the sublimity magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation." The metaphysical fact is that "the universe, including man," is governed in "perfect harmony," because universe includes nothing but God manifested in infinite variety, and God is not at variance with Himself.
