Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/407

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SCIENCE, LIFE, DEATH
403

again to the end of time unless his wisdom destroys death by the Science of Life. The last enemy is death, so the scientific man or idea shall reign till all error is destroyed. All identities called man are not the same. There is the well identity of man, the lame, the sick, the deaf, the dumb, and so on. All men are liable to have a combination of all these identities. For instance, a well man or child is an identity. Now it changes to a sick identity, so the well identity is destroyed, and the child's senses are attached to the identity of a disease. The Science of Life is to know how to keep man from getting into death or error. This is my theory; to put man in possession of a Science that will destroy the ideas of the sick and teach man one living progression [development] of his own identity, with life free from error and disease. Now as man passes through these combinations, they differ one from another. So it will be in the resurrection (of the dead), to life, freed from false ideas and in truth. Suppose a man could be so wise as to know every sensation that affects his senses. He could never change, so he would be always the same. Now take another who believes in all the opinions of man, and he is dying and living all the time, dying to error and living to truth, till he dies the death of all his opinions or beliefs. Therefore to be free from death is to be alive in Truth, for sin or error is death and Science is eternal life, and this life is in Christ.


I said that every opinion had a center, and this center was an idea. I will try to make this more plain, for it is the center or foundation on which all error rests. Destroy this and disease is out of the mind, for this central idea is the fortress error erects to keep the subject in submission. As wisdom is its enemy, it keeps up a constant cannonading to frighten wisdom into subjection. This idea is built by public opinion, got up by demagogues or doctors and priests, its father or founder was a liar, its foundation is ignorance and superstition; its reign is tyranny and slavery to wisdom, its victims are ignorance. This kingdom of darkness is the error of man, every man's mind is subject to this prince of darkness, its power is in its popularity; its laws are arbitrary and binding on all; it knows no mercy; its chief end is the destruction of man's happiness. For that purpose it holds out large rewards, as it did to Jesus, to those who