Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/82

52 In six years Quimby produced ten volumes of manuscripts. In them he discussed a variety of subjects, all from the stand point of his theory. He wrote copiously on Religion, Disease, Spiritualism, "Scientific Interpretations of Various Parts of the Scriptures," Clairvoyance, "The Process of Sickness," "Relation of God to Man," Music, Science, Error, Truth, Happiness, Wisdom, "The Other World," "Curing the Sick," and dozens of other topics. He gave all his patients access to these manuscripts, and permitted all who wished to make copies, overjoyed whenever he found one interested enough to do this. He also encouraged his followers to write, themselves, frequently correcting their essays and bringing them into harmony with his own ideas. Quimby's writings, as a whole, have never been published; but the present writer has had free and continuous use of them.

From these manuscripts can be deduced a complete and detailed philosophy of life and disease. They refute the assertion sometimes made, that Quimby was a spiritualist, or that he made the slightest claim to divine revelation. Certain admirers sometimes compared him with Christ; but he himself wrote a long dissertation called A Defence Against Making Myself Equal with Christ. He usually calls his discovery the "Science of Health," and "The Science of Health and Happiness"; once or twice he describes it as "Christian Science." Scores of times he refers to it as the "Science of Christ." He also repeatedly calls it "The Principle," "The Truth," and "Wisdom."

Though he never identified his doctrine with religion, and never dreamed of founding an ecclesiastical organisation upon