WHO knows the origin of man, the origin of his own existence, spiritually understood? The individual who can and does answer that question correctly is equipped with dominion over evil, with definite and holy power to establish the consciousness of good as his own, and to demonstrate that that consciousness is accompanied by the evidence which bears witness to its reality. He is so equipped because he knows himself.
In Christian Science the answer to this question of origin is available, with its power, to anyone who desires it sincerely, accepts it with confidence, and realizes its truth. God, this Science teaches, is origin, and God is divine Mind, infinite Soul, the source of all spiritual sense, or true consciousness. God, Soul, is primary in the sense of cause, not time. Soul originates its creation by conceiving ideas coincidentally with its own eternal presence. These ideas are endowed with the nature of their creator, Soul, or Mind. They constitute the spiritual universe, including spiritual man, the only offspring of the only Mind.
But hypnotically another mind, limited in all respects, would assert its awareness of existence and set up its claim to usurp the status of the one true Mind. This claim is sin. In supposition sin, or mortal mind, is the source of material sense and is therefore the opposite of Soul. Mortal mind cannot exist, because divine Mind constitutes all reality. Hence mortal mind is in the category of a dreamer, not an entity. It dreams it imitates true Mind, or Soul, by forming concepts in terms of its own limited, illusory nature, and these false concepts constitute the material so-called universe, including material man. Such concepts are full of discord, because they come not from the true origin but from an illusion of origin, the lawlessness of which appears in the inharmony and conflict of its mythical concepts. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, states the fact with simple directness (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 262): "The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin."
