|
|
| Science is to labor for what
we receive - and the reward is happiness.... Science is to reduce every act of our lives to a science so that man can get the most happiness out of the least labor. ~ Dr. Phineas P. Quimby |
| |
§ |
|
THE SCIENTIFIC MAN
|
|
§ | |
| |
"DR. QUIMBY'S DISCOURSE"ON SCIENCEtecnhThe word "Science" represents the name of the process by which man arrives at a truth - while the process itself is Science. The word "Science" is the name of the Wisdom that sees through the opinions of man. Science is a wisdom superior to opinions. It is not seen or known by opinions. It is harmony. The study of the philosophy of Science is entertaining and instructive - but the utility of Science is, after all, the great point to be attained in its advances. Science must be put into practice - else it is not Science! Science only leads the world in true philosophy, never making man sick or diseased. A belief in any Science that can be proved never makes a man sick. Science knows that disease is the effect of opinions and ignorance. Science never made man or child unhappy to know it. It sometimes makes them unhappy in getting it. This is where all the trouble is.... Men who are lazy would rather give an opinion on a scientific subject than to investigate it. Science is to labor for what we receive - and the reward is happiness. Science has no dealing with the opinions of man but tests all things by a standard - not of man - but of Science, which does not say, "Believe this or that" but shows its opinions by its works. It does not ask you to believe what your fathers believed - if it is false - but proves all things so that the natural man will believe. Science dictates to no man but proves all things. Science requires not even a belief to establish itself. Science has no beliefs - but tries all beliefs. Science admits nothing but facts. Science cannot admit what cannot be proved. Science - being the body of Wisdom - every man's Science shows the capacity of his intelligence. Science was never known to have any connection with ignorance. To know Science is to know Wisdom. Science has its identity in Wisdom and is eternal. How can a man work a mathematical problem intelligently, and at the same time say he is not aware of the fact? It cannot be done - and so it is with every act of our lives. Science is in every thought. If we know the true meaning of every word or thought, we should know what follows - so that a person cannot scientifically act wrong. Science never acts except like a balance which judges correctly - it contains no thought or reason, but judges everyone according to his worth. Science is Truth. Truth is not Science, for a man may tell the truth without knowing it - but if the truth comes from Wisdom, the process of getting it is a Science. The wisdom of this world tells what others know. It takes memory of events and the history of the learned for Science. But Science talks what it knows and stands ready to prove it by works. The standard of Science never goes back to precedents for its proof - but shows its Science by its works. If it goes back, it is to show that the world has progressed - not to "rake up" some wisdom - but to show that the world has progressed every day in Science. Science embraces something that is "spiritual," or a revelation from a higher state of mind than that of the brutes - so to me Science is the name of that Wisdom that accounts for all phenomena that the natural man or beast cannot understand. To illustrate: You throw a ball into the air - every child will soon learn that the ball will return. To acknowledge it simply as a fact is not Science - but Science is in the act, not known. But to know understandingly that it will return with just as much force as it received is Science. When it can be reduced to practice and conveyed to the mind of man - it then becomes a Science. Science is to reduce every act of our lives to a Science so that man can get the most happiness out of the least labor. Man's body is only a machine, and its senses are its medium to Wisdom - the same as Science is the medium to Wisdom. The real man is never seen by the natural senses, but the real man makes himself known through Science to his natural senses, as a person who knows a fact can teach it to another. Wisdom or knowledge he teaches through Science, and he uses his senses to explain this Science - for his senses are all the medium the natural man knows. Take away all Science from a man, and you have a complete animal - (though not as complete as some.) Science is the developing of matter according to the principles of Wisdom. Matter must go through changes before it becomes a medium for the light of Wisdom to form or create scientific truths and develop them by a Science. You know that Science is progression - and that its truths always have existed and always must. Even if all the people were swept from the earth - still the truth of Science would exist. So as Science progresses, religious creeds give way to a higher intellectual belief - and so superstition in regard to religion will die out as men grow wise, for Wisdom is all the religion that can stand, and this is to know ourselves - not as a man - but as part of Wisdom. To know ourselves is to know Science which proves all things. The introduction of religion based on Science is the commencement of the New World. The Science which shall devour our errors is the teaching of this Great Truth. Then a New World begins and a new religion springs up based on Science. Under this religion no man will say to another, "Do what is right," for all will do right because he will feel right in so doing. When Science shall come, wisdom will take the place of the drugs of the physicians and the tormenting hell-fire of the priests. Men will be guided by the Star of Science which points the way to Wisdom. But medicine will be administered to the sick until the time when Science shall step in and make a sacrifice of all these errors - and then will come the end. When Science comes, it makes an end to all these deceptions and introduces a new mode of reasoning to all who will receive it. The new heaven is this new mode of reasoning - and to enter into it is to be "baptized in the blood" (or belief) of Jesus which is Christ - or Science - and which will wash away all opinions. Science will destroy every false theory - every superstitious breeze. So to "teach the Gospel of Science" you became fishers (or teachers) of Science - instead of opinions. This Science casts out all their fears and teaches that man is the author of his own troubles. Science is sympathy or charity - or a knowledge of both. Science protects man from error, but it does not protect him by upholding his error. Science is the Wisdom that directs error. Science is to labor for what we receive - and the reward is happiness. To cure the sick scientifically is laborious - but to cure by books or opinions is nothing. The process of finding a cause is a science and a labor. The great obstacle in establishing a new science in the understanding of the people arises from their ignorance. Science always has had to contend with this difficulty - and no one has as yet been able to direct the mind of man towards the true mode of reasoning so that superstition should dissolve before the advancing light of science - for man has always been ignorant of himself, and his errors he has fastened upon others. These are two modes of reasoning - both true to the one that believes them - and neither anything to the person that knows the truth. To the scientific mind a superstition about anything that Science has explained is nothing. But to the unscientific mind - it may be a truth. Science is to correct the errors which heathen superstition have handed down to us. Science is to correct every false direction and point out the true one. SCIENCE IS WISDOM Wisdom is not Science, but truth - which reduced to practice is called "Science." Science is Wisdom put into practice. Now the Science to be established is to give a theory based on a truth which can be applied to a false mode of reasoning - which not only can destroy it but can bring about a more perfect and better state of society and sweep away the lies that, like the locusts of Egypt, are devouring our lives and happiness. This cannot be done by any philosophy known to the world, for the present mode of reasoning is based on the very errors the coming Science is to destroy. Science does not make peace with the world - it makes war. It seeks not to save the life of error - but to destroy it. It sets ideas at variance with each other, the father against the son. It sets the world of matter in motion, that it may - like the earth - be prepared to receive a higher cultivation. Then there will arise a new science, followed by a new mode of reasoning, which shall teach man that to be wise is to unlearn his errors. The time must come when this false mode of reasoning must give way to a higher Wisdom where all things are proved by Science. Science is the kingdom that will break in pieces all others. Therefore every act must be weighed by Science - for Science is the axe that will hew down every error. Out of ignorance comes error, and Science is the Wisdom that will destroy both and put matter in a state of cultivation to become the medium of Science. Science is the friend of ignorance, but being spiritual cannot be seen - so it has to act through error on ignorance. Science is the still small voice that says to error, "Thus far shall thou go and no further." Science and religion are not the same - they are considered separate and apart in character. Religion is cultivated by men of aristocratic principles and hypocritical motives and modified as men become religious. The former govern the world, but in the end the Scientific Man will reign. Let people become so enlightened that they will worship Science as their God instead of man's opinion about God - then religion would prove by its works whether it be of Science or opinion. Science has an identity outside of matter, working in man (or matter), preparing him for a higher capacity than the intellect of the brute. This agent of Wisdom whose name is "Science" is not seen by the natural man, though he often hears him say, "Beware how you act for you are held accountable for your every act." Science and opinions run along together like gold and dross. Science's kingdom is in the Wisdom of the people. Science checks the progress of error and error checks that of Science. Both act against each other - but when error is destroyed - Science is saved as by fire. Science never imparts opinion, but truth. Science is a Wisdom superior to opinions. Science shall test all opinions, and when a man gives an opinion, it will be taken as such - and truth as truth. Science is the truest friend to man and he who follows its path will find it leads to health and happiness. Truly her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. All science is inspiration and from a spirit world far above the natural man. Every development of Science proves the world's wisdom to be a lie, for as it advances it opposes, face to face, some popular error that the world believes true and which leads man astray. § To discover a Science which will teach man to be master of his own health and happiness is to find a truth by which man's thoughts can be tested and their character analyzed. § Every phenomenon comes without learning or Wisdom and the accounting for it brings out genius. This genius looks for causes and traces back the phenomenon to the cause - and then reduces the investigation to physical demonstration. § Science is to cultivate his Wisdom so that he may become familiar with every condition of the phenomenon - from the first impression to the bearing of fruit - for then it may not be too late to correct its growth. § This process is called "Science" - therefore - Science is wisdom reduced to practice. The healing art must be a Science or an error - and when its advocates claim it as a Science - the people have a right to call for proof. Science says, "Try and prove all things - and hold fast that which is good." Beware of "false Sciences," for there are many. Try and see if they are of God or man. If from God - they can be shown or proved, but if from man - they rest on some opinion. Science is the sun that burns up the clouds - or changes the beliefs of man - and a little ray of intelligence springs up, and the cloud of superstition vanishes as the true God appears. Science never separates - it is from everlasting to everlasting, it has no beginning nor end. This Science teaches that there never was - nor can be - "another world." You leave the body of belief and take that of Science and rise into health. This is the "resurrection of the dead." Wisdom is not Science - but truth, which reduced to practice is called "Science." For when it is understood it ceases to be a Science and becomes Wisdom to all who know it. Science detects the direction that is given to imagination and corrects it - if false. Wisdom destroys these false ideas, purifies the soil, and brings the mind under a higher state of cultivation. Science destroys error and sets the truth free. This is the work of Science. Science is in unlearning what ignorance and superstition have bequeathed to man. "Science," as it is called, is something that the natural man worships. He looks upon it as coming from some superior power independent of himself, when his own wisdom is all the "science" he knows of. (For to the fool who knows nothing, there is no Science.) We talk about the very Wisdom that the natural man calls a "gift." He calls it a Science when he is the very Science himself - and knows it not. I will make one illustration: Everyone will admit that a musician can play by note and compose music and teach it to another - this is a Science. Now is it Wisdom above the man who cannot play or compose? All will say, "Yes." His Wisdom is a mystery to the natural man, but he knows that he can teach that Wisdom to another, so he calls it a Science to distinguish it from that wisdom that arises from an opinion. Science is Wisdom reduced to self-evident propositions which have an identity. So that Science is a child that progresses and receives wisdom according to its capacity to take it up. Or it is like water that takes up salt - it is capable of taking up just so much and no more. Man and beast... fish and foul... and every creeping thing that has life - except the Scientific Man - have their bounds that they cannot pass, and when they arrive at Perfection, they either recede or assume a Wisdom superior to their race. Man is the only one who has ever been capable of teaching a Science or of proving it by self-evident Wisdom. Science is the axe in the hands of Wisdom to hew down this wilderness and destroy its inhabitants and introduce a better state of society. It is the natural result of Science to destroy error and prejudice. Science will reign until all error is put out of existence; and when this great Science is established in this world as it is in Wisdom - then to be great is to be wise in Science. The Light of Science is health and happiness and its light is its truth and the length of its days. The Science I teach is the Wisdom of God to the senses in the spirit world. This Science is inexhaustible and the more you have the more you want and you will find this continually exciting you. For this Science opens such a field to the traveler that he cares not to eat or sleep but his happiness is in investigating the regions that lie open before him. Seek how to enlighten man in Science, and as Science is developed, man becomes wise and happy. His life is in his knowledge, and his knowledge is a Science. So to put his Science into practice for his own happiness is to correct some error that man has embraced, and to prove the Science is to take something that man is troubled about in the form of disease and correct his opinion so that it changes his health. Science is to correct all error or phenomena that the natural man cannot correct intelligently. If I can show that man's happiness is in his belief and his misery is the effect of his belief, then I shall have done what never has been done before. Establish this and man rises to a higher state of Wisdom - not of this world - but of that world of Science that sees that all human misery can be corrected by this principle as well as the evil effects of errors in any science. Then the Science of Life takes its place with other sciences. Then is brought to pass, "Oh death! (or error) Where is thy sting! Oh grave! Where is thy victory!" The sting of ignorance is death but the Wisdom of Science is eternal to all who believe it. The natural man is made of flesh and blood. Science is not. Man is of matter. Science is not. Man has life. Science is life. Man has sight. Science is sight. Man has feeling. Science is feeling. Man has all of the five senses. Science is all of the five senses. Man of himself cannot do anything. Science can do all things. Science's God is Wisdom. Science is to know Wisdom. Science is God's religion. Science is the Voice of God. Science is the Child of Wisdom. Science is the embodiment of God's Wisdom. Science is Knowledge. Science is Light. Science is Freedom. Science is Strong. Science is curing the disease. Science is Eternal Life. Science is Harmony. "God" is one of the names of Science. Science is one character of God. Science is Spiritual and belongs to the Spiritual Man. Science is Love. Science is the Saviour. Christ is Science. Science is Christ. Science is the True Shepard. Science is the religion of Jesus. Science is the Son of God. Science is Spiritual. Science is the Real Man. Science is the True Man. Science is the Scientific Man. Science is Progression. Science is connected with Eternal Life or the First Principles. The gift of Science is of God which is Eternal Life. Science is God. Science is the one living and true God to worship. |
| |
New! *News Special* ~ Beliefs Can Be Altered! "Dr. Quimby's Discourse" on Science The Collected
Works of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
|
||
|
|