One of the definitions of the word "counterfeit," given by Webster, is, "That which is made in imitation of something, with a view to deceive;" another is, "That which represents or is like another thing." For example, a counterfeit bank note is made to imitate a genuine one with the intent to deceive those into whose hands it may fall. Indeed, the counterfeit may be in some instances so much like the original that many persons are led to believe it is genuine. But a bank teller or other person accustomed in his work to handling thousands of genuine notes readily detects the difference.
This illustration of the bank note has been applied in referring to the use made by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, of the word "counterfeit," as, for instance, on page 337 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she says, "The visible universe and material man are the poor counterfeits of the invisible universe and spiritual man." However, the bank note illustration does not exactly apply, as both the genuine bill and the counterfeit bill are material, whereas "the visible universe and material man" are the exact opposites of "the invisible universe and spiritual man."
There is no similarity whatever between the spiritual ideas which express divine Mind and the mortal beliefs which counterfeit those ideas. The ideas are in all respects unlike the things which counterfeit them. The one is spiritual, the other material; the one is immortal, the other mortal; the one infinite, the other finite; the one invisible, the other visible. The things to which Mrs. Eddy refers in a number of places in her writings as counterfeits are merely the externalization of the human, mortal mind's erroneous concepts of right ideas.
