WHOEVER is seeking true ability needs first of all to recognize his own total inability to achieve anything good from a material or personal basis. Not until one recognizes and humbly admits his mortal inability to cope with any problem does he intrust himself and all that concerns him to a higher power. If there were no higher power, there would be no such reaching out, no such trust, and no divine response. The secret of real ability lies in realizing one's entire dependence on the faculties of divine Mind, God. Constant ability in effect is to be seen as the result of constant dependence upon God, the perfect cause, ever available, ever adequate.
From a human standpoint, one must admit that mankind has discovered no infallible means of establishing health, guaranteeing safety, maintaining efficiency, or averting disasters. Mortals are mainly on the defensive, their backs to the wall so to speak, fighting, with feeble weapons of mortal devising, the advance of what they believe to be foes of health, safety, happiness, and prosperity. In mortal experience success is apt to be short-lived, happiness fitful, and health precarious. So at some time humanity looks within its own thinking for the reason of all its failures; and beyond fallacious thinking for the remedy.
Christian Science bids us turn from this picture of mortal disability and hold our gaze steadfastly to the divine ability which is bestowed upon man by the infinitely able God, by omnipotent Life, Truth, Love. This is the only adequate basis for any right achievement. Another phase of the so-called mind of mortals is self-confidence, conceit, and the conviction that one is quite independent of a higher power, that one can succeed through his own personal will, efficiency, and ambition. This counterfeit Christian Science also overthrows, replacing it with true ability, derived from God.
