Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/255

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE WORLD OF THE SENSES
251

“where are thy accusers?” or thy fears that this is not the true light that lighteth every one that receiveth it! She replied “No belief has any effect on me.” And He said, “Go thy way and believe in man's opinion no more.”

This article was written from the impressions that came upon me while sitting by a young lady who was afraid of dying, and also was afraid of being blind. It may seem strange to those in health how our belief affects us. The fact is there is nothing of us [the natural man] but belief. It is the whole capital stock in trade of man. It is all that can be changed, and embraces everything man has made or ever will make. Wisdom is the scientific man, who can destroy the works of the natural man. Disease is made by the natural man's belief in some false idea. The error comes to the virgin mind and makes an impression. The soil is disturbed and the mind listens or waits to be taught. If it is misled, briars and thorns and troubles spring up in its path through life. These all go to make the man of belief. Wisdom destroys these false ideas, purifies the soil, and brings the mind under a higher state of cultivation. This is the work of Science. When a person has made himself a body of sin and death, truth destroys his death, and attaches his senses to a body of life.

THE SENSES AND LANGUAGE

Why is it that mankind have settled down on the fact that man has five senses, no more, no less? The wise say the spiritual man has two more, making seven. Now, what is a sense? We often say “such a thing comes within my senses.” If “senses” mean what the wise say it does why is man set down above the brute? Let us see how they compare. Man sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels, and so does the brute; neither shows any prominence of wisdom over the other. When you ask where is man's superiority you are told that man reasons and the brute does not. Ask for proof and people can show no difference only as they make their own minds. If you place them together the brute is a little the shrewder.

Now all will admit that there is a vast difference between a wise man and a brute, but the brutal man is as much below the brute as the latter is below the wise man. This wisdom that makes man above the brute is not of this