The Church of St. Bunco. Gordon Clark

that my senses were not in my body, but that my body was in my senses. My knowledge located my senses just according to my wisdom. If a man's knowledge is in matter, all there is of him is contained in matter. But, if his knowledge is in wisdom, then his senses and all there is of him are out of matter."

      In 1860 Dr. Quimby used, in Portland and vicinity, a circular addressed "to the sick," some copies of which have been preserved, and from an original copy of which the following extracts are taken:

      "Dr. P. P. Quimby would respectfully announce that he will attend to those wishing to consult him in regard to their health, and, as his practice is unlike all other medical practice, it is necessary to say that he gives no medicine and makes no outward applications, but simply sits down by the patients, tells them their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and establishes the truth, or health. The Truth is the Cure. This mode of treatment applies to all cases. If no explanation is given, no charge is made, for no effect is produced.... If patients feel pain they know it, and, if he describes their pain, he feels it.... After this it becomes his duty to prove to them the cause of their trouble.... This has been his mode of practice for the last seventeen years. For the past eight years he has given no medicines, nor made any outward applications.... There are many who pretend to practice as he does; but when a person, while in a trance, claims any power from the spirits of the departed, and recommends any kind of medicine to be taken internally or applied externally, beware! Believe them not, 'for by their fruits ye shall know them.'"[5]

      In 1887 a short account of Dr. Quimby and his work was published in a pamphlet entitled The True History of Mental Science, by Julius A. Dresser. Mr. Dresser had been a patient and friend of Dr. Quimby, who had looked to him to cultivate and extend the Quimby system. But the immediate accomplishment of that purpose had been prevented.

      In 1895 Mrs. Annetta Gertrude Dresser, the wife of Julius A. Dresser, and, like him, a patient and personal friend of Dr. Quimby, gave to the public a small but comprehensive volume, The Philosophy of Dr. P. P. Quimby.[6] This excellent sketch of the man and his career contains part of an article upon him written by his son, Mr. George A. Quimby, for the New England Magazine of March, 1888, the article being followed, in Mrs. Dresser's book, by various newspaper notices and criticisms of Dr. Quimby, running from 1857 to 1863, then by reminiscences of him, an exposition of his theories, and by selections from his manuscripts.

      The newspaper articles were mostly prepared by grateful patients whom Dr. Quimby had restored from sickness to health.[7] Among these patients were two daughters of Judge Ashur Ware[8] of Portland, Maine, one of whom, Mrs. Sarah Ware Mackay, still lives to bless the good Doctor's memory. The Ware sisters became so deeply interested in Dr. Quimby's thoughts and cures that they persuaded him to write out his ideas and explain his practise. As he was exceedingly busy, his articles were rewritten by the two young ladies or by Mr. George A. Quimby, and were then submitted to the Doctor for correction. His terminology was peculiar, and sometimes inadequate to his meaning; but due attention to his writings, with those of his friends, yields a clear conception of him.

      One thing will never be questioned by any honest and sensible person acquainted with the facts: Dr. Quimby's biographers—his son and his trusted friends, the Dressers—have told the truth about him. The information they give fully sustains their general estimate. This estimate established, we know that Dr. Quimby himself was absolutely sincere, and could be fully trusted just so far as he understood his own nature and what he was doing. But this is not to say that he was always right. It is not even to say that he was without the strongest of prejudices, which may sometimes have misled him. He was too broad and high a soul to be opinionated in any narrow, selfish sense; but he would stand for a conviction till "the crack of doom." "The old gentleman," says one who knew him familiarly for many years, "would argue a sitting hen off her nest."

      Reference has been made to his ill-health when he began to study mesmerism. Physicians had told him that his "kidneys were partially consumed," and that he had "ulcers on his lungs."

      "On one occasion [he says], when I had my subject asleep, he told me that one [of my kidneys] was half consumed, and a piece three inches long had separated from it, and was only connected by a slender thread. This was what I believed to be true; for it agreed with what the doctors told me, and with what I had suffered—for I had not been free from pain for years. My common sense told me that no medicine would ever cure the trouble, and therefore I must suffer till death relieved me. But I asked [my subject] if there was no remedy. He replied, 'Yes—I can put the piece on so it will grow, and you will get well.'... He placed his hands upon me, and said he united the pieces so they would grow. The next day he said they had grown together; and from that day I never experienced the least pain from them."[9]

      Dr. Quimby's personal veracity being accepted by the present writer as unimpeachable, his word must be taken as perfectly good for this remarkable story, as he understood the matter. But the various inferences he drew from his case may be questioned, with no disadvantage to his character.

      "I concluded" [said he], "that [the subject] read my mind; and his ideas were so absurd that the disease vanished by the absurdity of the cure."

      It appears that this mesmeric subject, though he could be forced, under control, to prescribe anything in the mind of the operator, always did prescribe, if left to himself, some very simple remedy.

      "When I mesmerized my subject," says Dr. Quimby, "he would prescribe some little simple herb that would do no harm or good of itself. In some cases this would cure the patient. I also found that any medicine would cure certain cases if he ordered it. This led me to investigate the matter, and arrive at the stand that the cure is not in the medicine, but in the confidence of the doctor or medium."

      In his early invalid life, Dr. Quimby had been "filled," he tells us, with "calomel" and other "strong doses of allopathic poison." As we read his description of Lucius and the "simple herbs," the thought arises that the mesmeric subject might have had some power or aid after all, that his good operator passed over too cavalierly, and that the "herbs" might have appeared more efficacious, if a reminiscence of vigorous "blue pills," in which Dr. Quimby once had confidence, had not still dwelt on his tongue. It is certain that, since his time, some very sensible persons believe they have been cured of so dire an affliction as cancer by so innocent a concoction as clover tea.

      Dr. Quimby, to use the language of his first biographer, Mr. Dresser, "progressed gradually out of mesmerism, into a knowledge of the hidden powers of mind; and he soon found in man a principle, or a power, that was not of man himself, but was higher than man, and of which he could only be a medium. Its character was goodness and intelligence; and its power was great. He also found that disease was nothing but an erroneous belief of mind.... On this discovery he founded a system of treating the sick, and founded a science of life.... His discovery was not made from the Bible, but from natural phenomena and searching investigation.... After the truth was discovered, he found his new views all portrayed and illustrated in Christ's teachings and works."

      Some of these claims were reaffirmed by Dr. Quimby himself, in a letter written in 1860.[10]

      "You inquire [he says] if I have ever cured any cases of chronic rheumatism. I answer, Yes; but ... you cannot be saved by pinning your faith on another's sleeve. Every one must answer for his own sins or belief. Our beliefs are the cause of our misery, and our happiness or misery is what follows our belief.... You ask if my practice belongs to any known science. My answer is, No; it belongs to a Wisdom that is above man as man.... It was taught eighteen hundred years ago, and has never had a place in the heart of man since, but is in the world, and the world knows it not."

      In The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby, we are told that

      "It was Dr. Quimby's chief aim to establish a science of life and happiness, which all could learn, and which should relieve humanity of sickness and misery."

      But after our various quotations, we can readily perceive, as his biographer maintains, that "by the word, 'science,'" he always meant "not what is commonly understood by that word, but something spiritual." By "science," in short, or what he sometimes called "Wisdom,"