Christ Jesus said, "Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." This scientific statement by the exponent of divine Mind is reversed by mortal mind in that sentiment expressed in many ways by many men, "Self-preservation is nature's first law." The instinct of self-preservation inherent in all mortal creatures is, of course, based on fear, the belief of life in matter. The belief that life can be separated from Spirit, the source of life, and so be subject to destruction is the basis of all fear, and results in the instinctive effort of self-preservation. "The passions," Burke says, "which belong to self-preservation turn on pain and danger." Because of this, efforts in the direction of self-preservation seem to be expressed in cruelty and ferocity by men and nations as well as in the lower forms of so-called material life. For, in the last analysis, this attempt at self-preservation is a part of the effort to regulate the dream of life in matter within the dream itself, and is as futile as would be the attempt to preserve and harmonize a mistake in mathematical calculation, whose principle admits of no mistake.
The infinite Life which is Spirit admits of no life in matter to be preserved. There can be no mistake in what Mary Baker Eddy calls "the infinite calculus of Spirit." Indeed, she says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 209): "Material substances or mundane formations, astronomical calculations, and all the paraphernalia of speculative theories, based on the hypothesis of material law or life and intelligence resident in matter, will ultimately vanish, swallowed up in the infinite calculus of Spirit."
What is it that this "law of nature" seeks to preserve? Life in matter, where there is no life. Love in personal sense, where no true love is. Happiness and joy in the material senses, whose pleasures do not satisfy. Supply in materiality, which is itself limitation and restriction. Peace in something less than omnipotence, where no peace is secure.
