Mortals often believe that seeing and hearing are their personal possessions, indwelling in material organs called eyes and ears. They believe too that these important personal possessions are subject to impairment, or even destruction, by forces over which they have little or no control. Seeing and hearing they regard as separable from being. A mortal's being, so they think, may continue normally while his seeing or hearing may be impaired or stopped.
Christian Science exposes the truthlessness of such beliefs. It teaches that the material, physical sense of being, seeing, and hearing is not the real, the scientific and actual. It shows that true being, seeing, and hearing are not divided up among a multitude of perishable mortals, but are found in the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hearing Mind, called God, naturally evidencing Himself and His faculties in a universe of individualities, of which individual man is the highest. Man's being is the product of Mind, is of the substance of Mind, not matter, and so are his seeing and hearing, which coexist with him in God.
Mind sees and hears, because Mind only can truly discern and perceive; and to see and to hear is to discern and to perceive. What materially thinking mortals appear to see are the transient, unsubstantial images of negative material thought, nothing more. Mortal mind, the one liar, claims all that belongs to divine Mind, including being, seeing, hearing. But claiming is not having. Mortal mind claims. Immortal Mind has. God possesses all. Mortal mind never has sight, hearing, or being, for all these are faculties of God, inseparable from Him. Says Mrs. Eddy, "Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension" (Science and Health, p. 488). Mortals do not.
