be the result? would he act independently if allowed? If not, is it not an exact illustration of the condition we are in, in order to have matter which is only an idea seem real to us, for we act independently?”
I think I understand your question. God is the great mesmeriser or magnet,[1] He speaks man or the idea into existence, and attaches His senses to the idea and we are to ourselves just what we think we are. So [man] is a mesmerised subject, they are to themselves matter. You may have as many subjects as you will and they are all in the same relation to each other as they would be in the state we call waking. So this is proof that we are affected by one another, sometimes independently and sometimes governed by others, but always retaining our own identity, with all our ideas of matter and subject to all its changes, as real as it is in the natural or waking state.
9. “What do you think of phrenology?”
As a science it is a mere humbug. It is at best a polite way of pointing out the soft spots of a man's vanity.
10. “What is memory, or that process by which we re- call images of the past?”
I have explained memory in that class of reason called knowledge. It is one of the chemical changes to arrive at a fact, matter being only a shadow. When the senses are detached from it we forget the shadow, till it is called up by another. This is memory. If there was no association there could be no memory and those that have the greatest amount of association, and least wisdom have the greatest memories. Those who rely on observation and opinion as the laws of reason have great memories, for their life is in their memory. But the former retain their reason as it is called and are forgetful of events. Memory is the pleasure or pain of some cause or event that affects our happiness or misery, or it is something ludicrous. For instance, a judge hearing one tell another “his coat-tail was short,” and the other replied “it will be long enough before I get another” attempted to repeat the joke, but he forgot the sympathy or music in it, and said, “a man told another his coat-tail was short, and he replied, it would be a long time before he got another one.” The company
- ↑ Quimby says this to try to bring meaning from an obscure question. He uses no such expression in his other writings.
