A popular theory about the survival and dominance of mankind as material species was enunciated by Charles Darwin in the middle of the nineteenth century. Evidence has come to light since, in the form of early skeletons and fossils, that points to the gradual evolution of animals and men over millions of years. Each round of discovery seems to push the starting point farther back. However much this may explain the human (or fossil) record, every Christian Science healing—such as those reported in this magazine—points to something else.
It was during the period when Darwin's theory of evolution was being publicized that Mrs. Eddy received the revelation of divine Science. This Science demonstrates that man is not material because God is Spirit, and therefore His universe and His man are spiritual. This standpoint provides a different view of basic reality. What seems to have evolved over the ages is not really, then, the development of a material man— because man is spiritual—but a gradual approach to the shedding of the belief that man is material and the dawn of the truth that he is wholly spiritual.
Real existence cannot be illustrated by fossilized skeletons, because real existence is beyond time and its starting points; it is the spiritual preexistence of every individual—each one forever reflecting God, his Father-Mother. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,—Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science,—contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good." Science and Health, pp. 109-110;
