He did not reply. But she went on unperturbed. "Now, the human, or carnal, mind is the negative truth of the real mind, G.o.d. It is infinite mind"s suppositional opposite. And it imitates the infinite mind, but in a very stupid, blundering way. And so the whole physical universe manifests evolution, too--an unfolding, or revealing, of material types, or mental concepts. And all these manifest the human mind"s sense of life, and its equally strong sense of death. The universe, animals, men, are all human types, evolved, or unfolded, or revealed, in the human mind. And all are the human mind"s interpretations of infinite mind"s real and eternal and perfect ideas. You see that, don"t you?
"You know," she laughed, "speaking of "negative truth", the first chapter of Genesis sets forth positive truth, and the second chapter sets forth its opposite, negative truth. It is very odd, isn"t it? But there it is for everybody to read. And the human mind, of course, true to its beliefs, clings to the second chapter as the reality. Isn"t it strange?"
Meantime, Carmen"s attention had been attracted to a large microscope that stood on the table near her. Going to it, she peeped curiously down into the tube. "Well, what have you here?" she inquired.
"Germs," he said mechanically.
"Germs! What funny, twisted things! Well," she suddenly asked, "have you got the fear germ here?"
He broke into a laugh. But when the girl looked up, her face was quite serious.
"You do not know it, Doctor, for you are a practical man, but you haven"t anything but fear germs under this gla.s.s," she said in a low voice.
"Why, those are germs of typhoid and tuberculosis!" he exclaimed.
"And manifestations, externalizations, of the fear germ itself, which is mental," she added. "These things don"t cause disease," she went on, pointing to the slide. "But the thoughts which they manifest do.
Do you scientists know why people die, Doctor?"
"No," he admitted seriously. "We really do not know why people die."
"Then I"ll tell you," she said. "_It"s because they don"t know enough to live._ This poor Doctor Bolton died because he didn"t know that G.o.d was life. He committed sickness, and then paid the penalty, death. He sinned by believing that there were other powers than G.o.d, by believing that life and thought were in matter. And so he paid the wages of sin, death. He simply missed the mark, that"s all."
She turned and perched herself upon the table. "You haven"t asked me to sit down," she commented brightly. "But, if you don"t mind, I will."
"I--I beg your pardon!" the doctor exclaimed, coloring, and hastily setting out a chair. "I really was so interested in what you were saying that I forgot my manners."
"No," she said, shaking her head as she declined the proffered chair, "I"ll sit here, so"s I can look straight into your eyes. You go ahead and cut up poor Yorick, and I"ll talk."
The doctor laughed again. "You are much more interesting," he returned, "than poor Bolton, dead or alive. In fact, he really was quite a bore. But you are like a sparkling mountain rill, even if you do give me a severe cla.s.sification."
"Well," she replied, "then you are honestly more interested in life than in death, are you?"
"Why, most a.s.suredly!" he said.
"So am I, much! Death is _such_ a mistake; and I haven"t a bit of use for it," she continued. "It"s like making mistakes in music, or mathematics. Now when we make mistakes in those, we never stop to discuss them. We correct them. But, dear me! The world has nearly talked its poor old head off about the mistakes of sickness and death.
It never seems to occur to the world that Jesus always a.s.sociated sickness with sin. You know, the Rabbis of his day seem to have hit upon a great truth, although they didn"t make it really practical.
They maintained that a sick man could not be healed of his diseases until all his sins had been forgiven. And so they attempted to forgive sins and make men clean by their elaborate ceremonies. But they missed the mark, too. And n.o.body got to the root of the difficulty until Jesus came. He forgave sin by destroying it completely. And that cured the disease that was the manifestation of sin. Now I ask, why do you, nearly two thousand years after his time, still do as the old Rabbis did, and continue to treat the body--the effect--instead of the mental cause? But," looking down in meditation, "I suppose if you did that the people would cry, "He hath a devil!" They thought I was a witch in Simiti."
"H"m!" returned the doctor. "Then you do not believe that disease is caused by microbes, I take it?"
"Disease caused by microbes? Yes, so it is. And the microbe? It is a manifestation of the human mind again. And, as with typhoid fever, diphtheria, and other diseases, the human mind applies its own cherished, ignorant beliefs in certain methods, and then renders innocuous its own manifestations, microbes. The human mind makes its own diseases, and then in some cases removes the disease, but still by human, material methods. Its reliefs are only temporary. At last it yields itself to its false beliefs, and then goes out in what it calls death. It is all a mental process--all human thought and its various manifestations. Now why not get beyond microbes and reach the cause, even of them, the human mind itself? Jesus did. Paul did. Others have done so. Why do not you men of science do likewise?"
Doctor Morton himself took the chair which he had set out for the girl. "What you say," he replied slowly, "is not new to me. But I can only answer that the world is not ready yet for the great change which you suggest."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What cant! What mesmerism you are laboring under! Was the world ready for Jesus?"
"No. He came too soon. Events show that."
"Well, then, would he be accepted to-day, if he had not come before?"
"I can not say. But--I think he would not."
"And I quite agree with you," she said firmly. "Now the world has doctored for more than four thousand years, despite the fact that health is not sold in bottle or pill form. Doctor, what does the history of all these centuries of drugging show you?"
He hesitated. Carmen waited a moment; then continued:
"Don"t they demonstrate the absolute inability of medicines to cure disease?" she asked. "Any more than putting men in prison cures crime?" she added as an afterthought.
"They at least prove that medication has not _permanently_ removed disease," he ventured, not wishing to go too far.
"Doctor," she said earnestly, "that man Jesus, who, according to you, came too soon, said: "Without me ye can do nothing." Well, didn"t he come very, very close to the truth when he made that statement? He did not say that without drugs or material remedies we could do nothing, but that without the Christ-principle mankind would continue, as before, to miss the mark. He showed that disease and discord result from sin. Sin is lack of righteousness, lack of right-thinking about things. It is wrong belief, false thought. Sin is mental. Its effect, disease, is mental--a state of discordant consciousness. Can you with drugs change a state of mind?"
"Certainly," he replied quickly. "Whiskey and opium cause changes in one"s state of mind."
"No," she answered. "But the human belief of power inherent in whiskey and opium, or of the human body"s reaction to them, causes a change in the human thought-activity that is called consciousness. The state of human consciousness changes with the belief, but not the real state of mind. Can you not see that? And Doctor Bolton--"
"Bolton was not sick. He died of natural causes, old age, and general breakdown," was the doctor"s refuge.
Carmen laughed and sprang down from the table. "What an obstinately obdurate lot you scientific men are!" she exclaimed. "Don"t you know that you doctors are only a development of the old "medicine-man"? Now in the first place, Mr. Bolton isn"t dead; and, in the second, there are no _natural_ causes of death. Old age? Why, that"s gone out of fashion, long since."
"You deny senile changes--?"
"I deny every human error!" she interrupted.
"Then," with a note of banter in his voice, "I take it that you do not expect to die."
"I do not!" she replied emphatically. "I expect good, nothing but good, ever! Don"t you know that physiologists themselves admit that the human body is composed of eighty-five per cent water and fifteen per cent ordinary salts? Can such a combination have intelligence and sensation? Do you still believe that life is dependent upon lungs, stomach, or liver? Why, the so-called "unit cell" breathes, digests, and manifests life-functions, and yet it has no lungs, no mouth, no stomach, no organs. It is the human mind, a.s.suming knowledge and power which it does _not_ possess, that says the sense of life shall depend upon such organs in the one case and not in the other. And the human mind could be utterly refuted if men would only learn to use the Christ-principle. Jesus and Paul used it, and proved material laws to be only false beliefs."
"Well," he replied meditatively, "if you are correct, then the preachers are way off the track. And I have long since come to the conclusion that--Well," changing abruptly back to the previous topic, "so you refute the microbe theory, eh?"
"I said I did and did not," she laughed. "Listen: fear, worry, hatred, malice, murder, all of which are mental things in themselves, manifest to the human mind as microbes. These are the hurtful microbes, and they produce toxins, which poison the system. What is the cure?
Ant.i.toxins? No, indeed! Jesus gave the real and permanent cure. It is the Christ-principle. Now you can learn that principle, and how to apply it. But if you don"t care to, why, then you must go on with your material microbes and poisons, and with your diseases and death, until you are ready to leave them and turn to that which is real. For all human-mind activity and manifestation, whether in microbes, death, or life, is mental, and is but the counterfeit of the real activity of divine mind, G.o.d.
"Do you know," she pursued earnestly, "I heard a lecture the other day in which it was said that life is a sort of fermentation in the body.
Well, as regards human life, I guess that is so. For the human body is only a manifestation of the human mind; and the human mind surely is in a continuous state of ferment!"
She paused and laughed. "The lecturer," she continued, "said that the range of life was from ultra-microbe to man, and that Shakespeare began as a single cell. Think of it! The mundane concept of Shakespeare"s body may have unfolded from a cell-concept; but Shakespeare was a manifestation of mind! And that mind was an interpretation, though very imperfect, of the mind that is G.o.d. Why can"t you materialists raise your eyes above the dust? Why, you would choke the very avenues of the spirit with mud!"
"H"m! Well, your education seems to be--"
"Yes," she interrupted, "my education is beyond the vagaries that are so generally taught in the name of knowledge. Intellectual education is a farce. It does nothing for mankind, except to give them a false culture. Were the so-called great men of the past really educated?
Here is an extract which I copied this afternoon from Hawthorne." She opened her note book and read:
""Ah, but there is a half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers, and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them one by one away."
"Now," she asked, "was that man really educated? In current theology, yes. But that theology _could not solve his least earthly problem, nor meet his slightest need_! Oh, what inexpressibly sad lives so many of your greatest men have lived! Your Hawthorne, your Longfellow, they yearned for the rest which they were taught was to follow death. They were the victims of false theology. They were mesmerized. If they believed in the Christ--and they thought they did--why, then, did they not rise up and do as he bade them do, put death out? He taught no such resignation to human beliefs as they practiced! He showed men how to overcome the world. Why do we not try to overcome it? Has the time not come? Is the world not sufficiently weary of dying?"
He looked at her intently for some moments. She seemed, as she stood there before him, like a thing of gossamer and sunshine that had drifted into his laboratory, despite the closed door.