Increasingly it is recognized that the determining factor in human experience is one's own thinking. Shakespeare said, "There is nothing either good or bad. but thinking makes it so." This is true not less in regard to the human body and its state of health than in other ways.
On page 419 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes: "Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for development enter thought. Think less of material conditions and more of spiritual." Health and harmony, therefore, are maintained as we keep proper ward over our thinking. That these are not more apparent today would indicate that many leave their mental doors unguarded; that they observe the body instead of mind. The reason for this is that for centuries education has been, as it still largely is, based on the belief in matter as being intelligent and substantial, and that it provides for matter a position from which it is supposed to dictate the issues of life and death.
The mistaken effort of science and philosophy to put cause into effect, creator into creation, thus burying logic in material hypotheses, has fettered human reason, frustrated the loftier desires of many a heart, and hindered faith's advancement to spiritual understanding. This has delayed immeasurably the establishment of the Science of Christianity. Yet throughout these centuries men aspiring to higher knowledge could have heard echoing through the ancient halls of religious and secular institutions of learning Jesus' words to his disciples, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."
