Man's heritage of dominion comes from divine Principle, the one cause and creator—and man has that dominion by reflection. He has it not within himself as a separate power from God. Therefore that dominion is the dominion of absolute good, which knows no evil. In the record of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, where it is declared that God gave man dominion over all the earth, we are told that God saw everything that He had made, "and, behold, it was very good." There was no evil over which to have dominion, so man's dominion is basically in the realm of good, the creation of Mind, over its divine qualities and ideas. These are at his command by reason of his unity with God. This dominion was made manifest by the man Jesus in his demonstration of the Christ, Truth, proving his at-one-ment with divine Principle.
This dominion was not bestowed upon the mythical man called Adam or on his suppositional progeny, so it never belongs to a person to be used for personal advantage or to further personal desires or to give one person dominion over another person. God gives man dominion through spiritual understanding and reflection of His attributes, all creation being subject to divine law.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has given us a scientific knowledge of this true heritage of dominion and made known its availability to all. On page 165 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," referring to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, spoken of in the second chapter of Genesis, she says: "Evil declared that eating this fruit would open man's eyes and make him as a god. Instead of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man's God-given dominion over the earth." Then in order to have true dominion one should not regard himself as a mortal trying to overcome evil with his, perhaps, too feeble sense of good. Rather must he know himself as man, whose eyes have never been closed to his God-given dominion in the realm of Spirit; the man of whom the Psalmist spoke when he said, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."
