Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/268

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
264
THE WORLD OF THE SENSES

puts wisdom into it, for the cause is never seen. To the natural man this is a mystery.

I will illustrate it. Take the small-pox. The first sensation upon the patient contains neither opinion, happiness nor misery. The cause was one of the natural results of motion which might be traced back through many changes containing no more harm than any breeze that reaches man at any hour, but it gives a start to the mind like the fall of a weight. This shock although containing no intelligence, disturbed the spiritual senses (the real man). I will drop this illustration here and undertake to describe the real man and separate him from what seems to be the man.

The spiritual senses are all that there is of a man. Therefore when he changes his senses,[1] it is necessary to know what he gains or loses by the change and also what he embraces. To suppose a man has but five or seven senses is as absurd as to suppose he has but a certain number of ideas. His senses are himself, what he knows and what he thinks he knows. Paul divides man into two identities: Wisdom or what could be proved by a science, and knowledge or what man believes to be true. So when a man says he thinks he knows or believes he knows it is sure that he does not know as he should. But if he can prove his knowledge by science then Science is known to him. Man's senses embrace these two characters, which are natural opponents, to both of which life has been attached. The scientific man sees and knows himself, and he also sees and knows his opponent, but the man of opinion can only see the scientific man in a mystery. As Wisdom advances in man the effect is to destroy the senses [belief] which are attached to knowledge. When knowledge overbalances a man's wisdom, his error reigns, but if wisdom is in the ascendency his knowledge becomes subject to his wisdom. In mathematics, chemistry and all the arts and sciences that can be demonstrated knowledge submits to wisdom, but that part of man's senses attached to knowledge that is not subject to science is in the ascendency in religion, disease, and politics. These are false sciences based on opinions. They are the same that Jesus denounced as false prophets, evil and blind guides who deceived the people. These errors embrace that part of man that believes in sickness, death, another world, and all kinds of superstition.

  1. That is, his consciousness or belief, the direction of his mind.