In Genesis it is recorded that God gave man dominion over all the earth. This dominion was given to the spiritual consciousness which reflects God, and it has never been withdrawn. It still belongs to God's man and can be claimed and demonstrated by those who are ready to learn that God is the substance of all real being. That mankind is approaching this state of readiness to learn, is shown by the fact that Christian Science has come to this age and is unfolding to human consciousness the real nature of God as infinite Spirit, and of man as His perfect spiritual image or idea. Christian Scientists are proving daily that an understanding of true selfhood as immortal, unfallen, and perfect is freeing them from the belief in discord and imperfection, and from the illusive consequences of this belief.
The dominion to be gained through an understanding of God does not mean the control of matter as a reality. Therefore to improve, increase, restore, or reclaim matter is not the aim of students of Christian Science. They are not working for a better sense of matter, a more harmonious, more beautiful, more satisfying environment in matter. On the contrary, they know that mankind's homage to matter during the centuries has not lessened or solved human woes or problems, but has multiplied them. Realizing the insubstantial and fleeting nature of what is called material existence, Christian Scientists are endeavoring to see man and the universe as they truly are, spiritual, perfect, indestructible, and divinely mental. God, Spirit, is the one creator, and since He made all that was made, and made it good, there exists no necessity for any change in the divine facts of being. God's perfect spiritual universe and man are now what they always have been and always will be, the complete idea of infinite Mind—and there is no other universe or man.
Since no improvement is needed in real being, the conclusion is inevitably reached that what needs changing is the human sense of existence. Humanity's reasoning needs to be wrested from its false base and led to acknowledge Spirit as the only Mind and substance in the present— in the here and now—as well as in the future. Such an acknowledgment will not be honestly and wholeheartedly given while matter is regarded as substance, possessing distinctive and powerful characteristics in and of itself.
