The original language was not then the invention of man but was God, sympathy, going forth into expression in the human heart and the world. Man invented language to some extent, but because he had lost the original and was not content to live by Divine guidance: he invented language to “explain his own wisdom.” But language might be used to undeceive. Even now the language of sympathy is the language of the sick. What we need is intuition to read that language, according to Divine guidance. Quimby is a great believer in the guidance of the moment, the inward light which shows where a patient stands, what the needs are, what wisdom is needed to clear away the errors. He emphasizes guidance as wisdom, rather than “power.” He claims no special “power” and maintains that any one can learn to read the original language.
This language discloses man's true identity or inner consciousness. Man, to be sure, has as many identities as he has directions of mind. But these are transitory. We “attach our senses” to that which we take to be real for the time being, we are imprisoned in certain directions of mind through our “false constructions” or errors. The great point is to observe the central contrast within the self, between (1) the mind of opinions, man's natural mind, subject to suggestion, changeable like plastic substance, amenable to falsities, “the mind of the flesh;” and, (2) the mind of the scientific man, accessible to Divine truth, possessing an intelligence which does not change, “the Christ within.” There is need of the most clear-cut distinction between the two. Divine truth can accomplish great results in us, far more than the mere “power of thought.” A fundamental change can be wrought by making this incisive distinction, through intuition or “clairvoyance,” by direct openness to Divine wisdom. Then error or darkness will be dispelled.
Again, there is a great contrast between the natural and spiritual worlds. For the moment, in some of Quimby's critiques on religion, the “other world” seems to have disappeared, and there is apparently nothing left but a collection of beliefs. But this is because Quimby is chiefly concerned with man's religious belief in a supposed other world as a place of punishment or mere beatitude; because he is convinced that Jesus did not refer to the same sort of “world” which the Jews believed in. Man must first see that his
