Books by Mary Baker Eddy

THE GREAT DISCOVERY
page 317

THE GREAT DISCOVERY

   It was in Massachusetts, in February, 1866, and after
the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby,
whom spiritualists would associate therewith, but who
was in no wise connected with this event, that I discovered
the Science of divine metaphysical healing which I
afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came
to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my
discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to
a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained
the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and
every effect a mental phenomenon.
   My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury
caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor
surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to
the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make
others so.
   Even to the homoeopathic physician who attended me,
and rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then explain the
modus of my relief. I could only assure him that the divine
Spirit had wrought the miracle - a miracle which later
I found to be in perfect scientific accord with divine law.
   I then withdrew from society about three years, - to
ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the
Science of Mind that should take the things of God and

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show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative
Principle, - Deity.
   The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions
as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a
new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification
appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in
their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration,
and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and
metaphysical healing, - in a word, Christian Science.
   I named it Christian, because it is compassionate,
helpful, and spiritual. God I called immortal Mind. That
which sins, suffers, and dies, I named mortal mind. The
physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called error and
shadow. Soul I denominated substance, because Soul
alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual
entity, but His corporeality I denied. The real I
claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal,
I described as unreal. Spirit I called the reality; and
matter, the unreality.
   I knew the human conception of God to be that He was
a physically personal being, like unto man; and that the
five physical senses are so many witnesses to the physical
personality of mind and the real existence of matter; but
I learned that these material senses testify falsely, that
matter neither sees, hears, nor feels Spirit, and is therefore
inadequate to form any proper conception of the infinite
Mind. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not
true." (John v. 31.)
   I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's purpose
in not questioning those he healed as to their disease or

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its symptoms, and his marvellous skill in demanding
neither obedience to hygienic laws, nor prescribing drugs
to support the divine power which heals. Adoringly I
discerned the Principle of his holy heroism and Christian
example on the cross, when he refused to drink the "vinegar
and gall," a preparation of poppy, or aconite, to allay
the tortures of crucifixion.
Our great Way-shower, steadfast to the end in his obedience

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