The world has always accepted the testimony of the five material senses as the pattern of man's existence, has accepted the supposition that man is a mortal being, the victim of conditions apparent to these senses—sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has a great deal to say concerning the material senses. She writes in the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self-cognizant,—cannot feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind, which constitutes matter's supposed selfhood, and matter can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical senses?"Science and Health, p. 479; Elsewhere in the textbook she states, "According to Christian Science, the only real senses of man are spiritual, emanating from divine Mind."p. 284;
The unequivocal fact of man as a spiritual idea is based upon Scriptural authority, which declares that God, divine Mind, divine Spirit, created man in His own image and likeness and gave him dominion over all the earth. This is quite contrary to what the material senses tell us about man. But these senses deceive us in many ways. They tell us that the sun rises and sets! And for thousands of years countless people believed this to be so. No one had ever seen the earth rotating or felt it rotating, so early scientific pioneers were discredited; and for the time being, belief in the testimony of the material senses prevailed. Yet that testimony was completely fallacious.
What about today? Are we slaves to the testimony of these senses? Are we daily seeing their focus on confusion, disease, poverty, strained human relationships, war? Are we hearing from all sides, and through most of the media of communication, of dreadful and devastating individual and world conditions? Are we feeling their impact and their bitterness? Christ Jesus had many similar conditions to meet as he journeyed up and down over the highways and byways of old Judea. How did he meet them? He healed human ills. And so, too, can we.
