The teaching of Christian Science, that matter is unreal, often puzzles and sometimes antagonizes those who are but slightly acquainted with the correct teaching of this Science. This difficulty arises from the common habit of mortals to regard everything tangible in their environment as composed of matter, so that, with many people, the word "matter" has come to mean the substance of all the objects included in their daily experience. Further, regarding matter as substance, many people find themselves so unaccustomed to thinking of the nature of Spirit that they put Spirit aside as something shadowy, unsubstantial, remote from ordinary experience.
Christian Science does not, however, command its students to call unreal, or to disregard, anything that really exists or that has real substance. If it were true that matter is the substance of the earth, the universe, and all things contained therein, including our bodies, it would be impossible, and absurd to try, to regard matter as unreal. What Christian Science really teaches about matter, is that it is not a substance, but merely a false theory as to the nature of substance. It points out to the scientific inquirer, desirous of understanding the real nature of things, that the universe is in fact of the substance of Mind, Spirit, and is neither distant nor unsubstantial, but is present here and now, and is permanent, real, tangible, and substantial to the enlightened consciousness. There are not two universes, a material and a spiritual universe; nor is there material and spiritual substance. The universe and its substance are and always have been spiritual, and the theory that it consists of something different, called matter, is simply not true.
The materialistic view of the nature of things, though unsound, has at the present time so strong a hold upon human consciousness, and constitutes itself such a body of thought, and consequent experience, that it appears to have great influence in the lives and experience of mortals. Christian Science has come to reeducate human beings so that they cease to accept a materialistic view, awakening to the true spiritual understanding of the nature of substance, thus pointing out the only scientific and safe means of destroying the many evils which are associated with a material sense of existence. In this way, a way of intelligent enlightenment, not a command to blind belief or uninstructed faith, Christian Science indicates the way of salvation both from ignorance and from evil.
