MRS.EDDY writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.267), "Thought is borrowed from a higher source than matter." The word "borrow" does not appear to carry here its usual meaning of receiving something with the intent to return it at some future time, but rather that of appropriating, or being derived from. Man is the reflection of God; and the duty of each of us is to understand Him whom man reflects.
It is generally acknowledged that there is a governing power in accordance with which all creation is sustained; and in Christian Science we learn that this power is divine Principle, God. Now, what place has individual man in this creation? Because God is infinite, and man is God's likeness, man must borrow spiritual faculties from their one and only source, God. Any attempt on our part, then, to borrow these necessary activities from a supposititious material source must end in disappointment: a vessel cannot be filled with pure water from a polluted stream.
On page 191 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "The human thought must free itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage. It should no longer ask of the head, heart, or lungs: What are man's prospects for life?" It is noteworthy that the marginal note against this paragraph is "Spiritual freedom." Evidently, then, if thought is borrowed from matter, or mortal mind, the result is bondage, while the opposite borrowing, from Spirit, brings freedom. Furthermore, this bondage is self-imposed; for each one is free to borrow from Mind, the true source of harmony, or to be self-deceived into accepting mortal mind's conclusions and resultant discords as his own.
