Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/237

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THE WORLD OF THE SENSES
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been nothing as yet that has come in collision with it. Therefore life and death are said to be the natural destiny of man. It is true that the medical faculty try to stave off death but the harder they work the surer they are to destroy the thing they are trying to save. Man's belief is the thing either to be saved or lost and to this end all their skill is directed. This was the state of the world when Jesus appeared.

MIND

In order to introduce my theory of curing disease it will be necessary to explain the use I make of a few words to which custom has given a meaning I am unable to use. For instance the word mind. All use the word applied to man's intelligence. As the word mind has never been applied to any spiritual substance or any substance at all, it strikes the reader strangely to hear it as I have to use it, still I think I can show that the author must have a different meaning in his wisdom than is commonly attributed to it. It could not be that he had an idea of any world or existence beyond this life, for mind was considered man's life and all his reasoning powers at death must end. Consequently the brain was considered the seat of the mind. Various beliefs show that this false reasoning still holds sway over mankind. The word mind as it is used and believed comprises all of man and beast that has life and instinct, which at death disappears or dies. As science progressed the weakness of the reasoning was seen, and the religious community invested the word with a new significance which the ancients never dreamed of; for, with their limitations, it could not explain the life of man; it could not contain the word wisdom, so a new word was needed and “soul” was introduced. But if you call the soul “science” you will have a higher development than is included in mind. Let “mind,” then embrace all matter of the human and brute creations, as the word “matter” embraces all inanimate substances. Then the “soul” will represent wisdom that creates from inanimate matter every manufactured article. . . .

Ancient philosophers divided man into two elements, mind and matter, the body being matter and the soul mind, and one was the offspring of the other. The life of the soul was one thing and the life of the body another, but they both died together. So the word mind covered all of man's life. The intellect of the brute was termed instinct, which was