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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 
 
THE 
 
 CHURCH 
 
 OF 
 
 ST. BUNCO 
 
 A DRASTIC TREATMENT OF A COPYRIGHTED 
 RELIGION-UN-CHRISTIAN NON-SCIENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 GORDON CLARK 
 
 THE;, : ...vN s .,vl 
 
 Bbbcy press 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 114 
 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 Xonfcon NEW YORK Montreal 
 
Nwnimnwyi ink . f 
 
 . C S5~ 
 
 THE I !«PARY OF 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 DEC. 10 1901 
 
 JDOPVUIGHT ENTH* 
 
 CLASS O/XXc no. 
 COPY B. 
 
 Copyright, iqoi, 
 
 by 
 
 THE 
 
 
 € I ( C • 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 Preface , 7 
 
 I. A Bird's-eye View of the Thing II 
 
 II. The Origin of the " New Thought" 15 
 
 III. Dr. Quimby's most Distinguished Patient 41 
 
 IV. A Great " Metaphysical " Novel 59 
 
 V. A Soft Set of Critics 74 
 
 VI. " The Precious Volume " 78 
 
 VII. " Key " to the Eddy Scripture, Science and 
 
 Health 95 
 
 VIII. " Christian Science " Organizing Forces 108 
 
 IX. The One True " Mother Church " 120 
 
 X. A Martyr to " Science " 131 
 
 XI. Metaphysics 155 
 
 XII. Further Analysis of the Universe 165 
 
 XIII. A Special Look at Space and Time 180 
 
 XIV. Creative Mind Further Probed 186 
 
 XV. The Genesis of " Transcendental Ideas 193 
 
 XVI. The Grand Result of Dissecting Phenomena. . . 196 
 
 XVII. Some Sequences of Absolute Idealism 206 
 
 XVIII. Various Schools of the "New Thought " 219 
 
 XIX. An Advanced Healer of To-day , 232 
 
 XX. Conclusion 248 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The purpose of this book is not to deny the 
 power of mind over matter, or of the human 
 mind over the human body, but to show that 
 the foolish and pestilent thing termed " Chris- 
 tian Science " is a leech fastened upon these 
 great truths, mostly, if not wholly, to batten on 
 them. 
 
 There is no use of saying this to " Christian 
 Scientists " themselves — an obedient chain- 
 gang in hypnotic servitude. But people who 
 are not already " in Science " (to use the shib- 
 boleth of those who are), ought to be prompted 
 not to get there. The best way in general, I 
 think, is to show that even the historical and 
 biographical claims at the base of the move- 
 ment are false. If the personal veracity of the 
 head of a church cannot be trusted, " divine 
 revelations," " miracles " and " mental medi- 
 cine," proceeding from such a source, will 
 naturally be accepted only by the very soft, or 
 
 7 
 
8 Preface. 
 
 else by the very hard for solid considera- 
 tions. 
 
 Is there no sincerity, then, in " Christian 
 Science " ? Of course there is. Even the " dis- 
 coverer and founder " of it undoubtedly be- 
 lieves certain of its asseverations. Mrs. Mary 
 Baker Eddy must be credited, for instance, 
 with the conviction that she has some knowl- 
 edge of metaphysics " — a conviction that is 
 nothing worse than a pitiable mistake, which is 
 exploded here at some length. When, as a re- 
 sult of this mistake, she teaches that matter is 
 nothing — not even a condition of anything — 
 only sincerity can account for such lunacy. Yet 
 herein " Christian Science " has its whole ra- 
 tional, or rather irrational, breath of life. 
 
 Some " Christian Scientists " sincerely be- 
 lieve in an equivalent for " black magic." As, 
 in their view, " concentration of mind " can 
 cure disease, they think it can also throw 
 disease upon enemies, or upon backsliders from 
 " science." It has been suggested even to the 
 present writer that illness might be cast upon 
 him if he antagonized " the true faith." Ac- 
 cording to certain dissidents from " Chris- 
 tian Science," " black magic," though with 
 
Preface. 9 
 
 much talk of "chastening love" — (every crime 
 of religious hypocrisy is always committed in 
 the name of "love") — has been persistently 
 tried on heretical wanderers. In the natural 
 course of time some of them are dead ; but those 
 whom I have met are not only living, they are 
 comfortably fat. 
 
 As " Christian Science " has to me no gen- 
 uine basis, either in facts, science, theology, 
 metaphysics or therapeutics, but is a menda- 
 cious, contradictory, pretentious humbug, I do 
 not hesitate to use such weapons, whether nar- 
 ration, logic, or satire, as are adapted to punc- 
 ture it. We hear that " Christian Science " has 
 done good. So it has, in some instances, but 
 only through means which it pretends to re- 
 pudiate, and through the trustful ignorance of 
 those who have been duped by it. We hear, 
 also, that " Christian Scientists " are specially 
 " educated and intelligent." I deny it. No one 
 of them seems ever to have heard of the history 
 of philosophy — a cemetery in which have long 
 lain buried the most of " Mother " Eddy's " di- 
 vine revelations," " original discoveries " and 
 " absolute demonstrations." Her followers 
 can doubtless read, or they would not be avail- 
 
io Preface. 
 
 able as purchasers of her Science and Health; 
 but, if they could think, they never would have 
 read the book through. From beginning to 
 end, it is simply a batch of self-contradictions 
 and self-nullities. These are capped with the 
 most impudent claim ever uttered on earth — 
 the claim that the human mind in its natural 
 state cannot comprehend the divine mind in- 
 carnate in the author. If caustic is applied to 
 such nonsense, there is no need of apology. 
 The only doubt is that the malefaction is worth 
 the burning. 
 
 GC. 
 
THE CHURCH OF ST. BUNCO 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 A bird's-eye view of the thing. 
 
 The date of this writing is the year 1901. 
 
 About a quarter of a century ago, Boston, the 
 city of modified Puritans and keen business 
 thrift, evolved a new religion. Modern Bos- 
 ton, however, being nothing if not " scientific," 
 the new religion tipped its wings with the new 
 time, and soared aloft in the name of " Chris- 
 tian Science." 
 
 In a world not quite converted to this " sci- 
 ence," facts sometimes fall behind assertions. 
 But the sect of Christian Science now claims 
 to number in its fold a million sheep. The 
 " mother church," of course, is in Boston; but 
 daughter churches of every age and size are 
 
 budding and blooming throughout the earth. 
 
 11 
 
12 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 At headquarters Christian Science has its of- 
 ficial weekly organ, its official monthly maga- 
 zine, and its official publishing house. The 
 cult has issued innumerable books, but spe- 
 cially the multifarious editions of Science and 
 Health, the chief work of the adored 
 " mother " and " founder " of Christian Sci- 
 ence,Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. As the latest 
 edition of this sacred book is always the best, 
 and as the holy author carefully recommends 
 it as such to all the faithful- — whatever other 
 editions they possess — its very high price, un- 
 der copyright,* as compared with undivine 
 books, has rendered it a magnificent source of 
 income. Then, as the average fee for bless- 
 ing a disciple of Christian Science with a dozen 
 lessons in " metaphysics " and " healing " has 
 been three hundred dollars,t a grateful provi- 
 dence through long years, has not only pro- 
 vided food and raiment for " Mother Eddy," 
 but a rich abundance, too, of such worldly 
 goods as should adorn and stimulate perfect 
 piety, not excepting the whitest of diamonds, 
 
 * From $3.18 to $6. 
 
 f Mrs. Eddy's statement in her book, Retrospection 
 and Introspection, p. 61. 
 
A Bird's-eye View of the Thing. 13 
 
 as symbols of purity, for herself and the elect 
 of her household. Why not ? Her devotees are 
 strict adherents of Scripture — always as she 
 interprets it for them — and she believes, for all 
 the text will yield, that " the laborer is worthy 
 of his hire." 
 
 Now, apart from the name and the church of 
 Christian Science, there are many people in 
 Boston and its universal radiations — very in- 
 telligent and honest people, too — who utterly 
 discard Mrs. Eddy and her teachings, yet hold 
 the general doctrine on which she speculates — 
 the now well-known doctrine that mind gov- 
 erns matter, and that the soul can cure the body 
 of disease. The teaching of these people may 
 simply be termed " mental healing," though 
 they say also " mental science," sometimes 
 "metaphysics" and comprehensively " the new 
 thought." 
 
 Of late much has been said and written 
 against Christian Science ; but adverse criticism 
 has proceeded mostly from physicians in the 
 interest of their schools and theologians in the 
 interest of their creeds. These good souls have 
 taken Christian Science seriously, like the inno- 
 cent followers of Mrs. Eddy herself. But as 
 
14 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 soon as a general investigator touches the fad, 
 especially the history of it, he sees that, what- 
 ever its effects may have been — good, bad or 
 indifferent — it began in false pretenses,* has 
 been pushed for money, and is one of the most 
 shallow humbugs that ever tricked an epoch in 
 the cloak of religion, or reduced " meta- 
 physics " to lunacy. Hence our title. The 
 Church of St. Bunco is the name for the thing. 
 " Christian Science," properly named, is simply 
 t/n-Christian Non-Science. 
 
 * For proof in detail see Chapters III. and IV. 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW THOUGHT.* 
 
 " Christian Science," " Mental Healing/' 
 " Metaphysical Treatment of Disease," — where 
 did these things come from, and how did they 
 get here? The facts are peculiar; they are 
 partly unpleasant ; they are sometimes amusing ; 
 but they are not far to seek. 
 
 In 1836, Charles Poyan, a Frenchman, in- 
 troduced into the United States the practise 
 of Mesmerism. In 1840 it was taken up, with 
 great earnestness, by a Maine Yankee, named 
 Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He was a watch 
 and clock maker, an inventor, and a natural re- 
 
 * Our historical sources of information are referred to as 
 we go along, but a good deal of it has come from access 
 to original documents, and from living persons of the 
 highest character who were long and intimately ac- 
 quainted with the subject of our chapter. The names of 
 some of these friends are given by permission. 
 
16 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 former. In making his mesmeric experiments, 
 he soon found an extraordinary subject of 
 them in the person of a young man, Lucius 
 Burkmar, with whom he traveled several years, 
 giving, it is said, some of the most astonishing 
 exhibitions of mesmerism and clairvoyance 
 that had ever been known. As the substance 
 of mesmerism, though under the newer name of 
 hypnotism, has now been fully substantiated by 
 the French Academy of Medicine, the highest 
 authority in the world on such subjects, there 
 seems to be no longer any reasonable question 
 of its general claims. 
 
 On taking up mesmerism in New England, 
 Mr. Quimby had been very ill and given up 
 by his physicians to die. By inquiring into his 
 own condition through his clairvoyant subject, 
 Lucius, and by the young man's laying-on of 
 hands, Mr. Quimby, as he tells the story, re- 
 covered immediately from a long-standing and 
 dangerous malady. Partly as a result of this 
 cure, but much more because his whole life 
 shows him to have been a natural exemplar of 
 " the good physician," he took to " healing the 
 sick." He held no diploma from any college of 
 medicine; but his work and his thousands of 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 17 
 
 patients inevitably conferred upon him the title 
 of " Doctor." 
 
 At first he merely co-operated with the reg- 
 ular medical faculty, who sometimes called 
 upon him to have his subject, Lucius, examine 
 their patients. Being put into the mesmeric 
 state, young Burkmar would describe the dis- 
 ease, with the pains accompanying it, and 
 would then go on and prescribe remedies, 
 though he knew nothing about them. 
 
 As a participant and student of this process, 
 Dr. Quimby came, in a short time, to the con- 
 clusion that the diagnosis of the clairvoyant 
 was not necessarily the true one, but was taken 
 from the belief of the patient, or his physician, 
 or some other person, and was, therefore, an 
 impression of incidental mind, rather than a 
 statement of fact. Such results would not do 
 for a man like Quimby; so he dismissed mes- 
 merism — such practise of it at least as de- 
 pended on anybody but himself and those on 
 whom he directly operated. Meanwhile, ac- 
 cording to the best of testimony, there was de- 
 veloped in himself a faculty much more pe- 
 culiar and effective than ordinary " mind-read- 
 ing " and " second-sight." Gradually, too, he 
 
18 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 formed an entirely new and original theory of 
 disease. In 1857, in a Maine paper, the Ban- 
 gor Jeffersonian, his faculty and his theory 
 were described thus : 
 
 " It is universally acknowledged that the 
 mind is often the. cause of disease, but it has 
 never been supposed to have an equal power in 
 overcoming it. Quimby's theory is that the 
 mind gives immediate form to the animal 
 spirit, and that the animal spirit gives form to 
 the body. . . . Therefore, his first course in 
 the treatment of a patient is to sit down be- 
 side him, and put himself en rapport with him, 
 which he does without producing the mesmeric 
 sleep. . . . With the spirit form Dr. Quimby 
 converses and endeavors to win it away from 
 its grief; and, when he has succeeded in doing 
 so, it disappears, and reunites with the body. 
 Thus is commenced the first step towards re- 
 covery. . . . This union frequently lasts but a 
 short time, when the spirit again appears, ex- 
 hibiting some new phase of its troubles. With 
 this he again contends until he overcomes it, 
 when it disappears as before. Thus two shades 
 of trouble have disappeared from the mind, and 
 consequently from the animal spirit; and the 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 19 
 
 body has already commenced its efforts to come 
 into a state in accordance with them." 
 
 In an article written by Dr. Quimby him- 
 self (in 1861), he explained his procedure in 
 this way: 
 
 " A patient comes to see Dr. Quimby. He 
 renders himself absent to everything but the 
 impression of the person's feelings. These are 
 quickly daguerreotyped on him. They con- 
 tain no intelligence, but shadow forth a reflec- 
 tion of themselves which he looks at. This 
 contains the disease as it appears to the patient. 
 Being confident that it is the shadow of a false 
 idea, he (Dr. Quimby) is not afraid of it. 
 . . . Then his feelings in regard to the dis- 
 ease, which are health and strength, are da- 
 guerreotyped on the receptive plate of the pa- 
 tient, which also throws forth a shadow. The 
 patient, seeing this shadow of the disease in a 
 new light, gains confidence. This change of 
 feeling is daguerreotyped on the doctor again. 
 This also throws forth a shadow, and he sees 
 the change, and continues to treat it in the same 
 way. So the patient's feelings sympathize 
 with his, the shadow changes and grows dim, 
 and finally disappears. The light takes its 
 
20 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 place, and there is nothing left of the dis- 
 ease." 
 
 Dr. Quimby was not an educated man in the 
 technical meaning of the term; but, through 
 his experiments in mesmerism and his personal 
 experiences, he was led directly to what in the 
 history of philosophy is called " absolute ideal- 
 ism." Until his own conclusions were fully 
 reached, he knew nothing, from literature, 
 even of Berkeley; but when Berkeley's writ- 
 ings were unfolded to him, he at once said, in 
 his plain, straightforward way, that they were 
 true, and that he " agreed " with them. To 
 him, the universe was mind, and all things were 
 " ideas." Disease was an " idea," though he 
 sometimes called it " matter," as being nega- 
 tive mind, or that which " could receive im- 
 pressions " and " be changed by them." Hence 
 he said: 
 
 "The idea (disease) is matter; and it de- 
 composes, and throws off an odor that contains 
 all the ideas of the person affected. This is 
 true of every idea or thought. Now my odor 
 comes in contact with this odor, and I, being 
 well, have found out by twenty years' expe- 
 rience that these odors affect me, and also that 
 they contain the very identity of the patient 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 21 
 
 whom this odor surrounds. This called my 
 attention to it ; and I found that it was as easy 
 to tell the feelings or thoughts of a sick person 
 as to detect the odor of spirits from that of 
 tobacco. I at first thought I inhaled it, but 
 at last found that my senses could he affected 
 by it when my body was at a distance of many 
 miles from the patient. This led to a new dis- 
 covery; and I found that my senses were not 
 in my body, but that my body was in my 
 senses. My knowledge located my senses just 
 according to my wisdom. If a man's knowl- 
 edge is in matter, all there is of him is con- 
 tained in matter. But, if his knowledge is in 
 wisdom, then his senses and all there is of him 
 are out of matter." 
 
 In i860 Dr. Quimby used, in Portland and 
 vicinity, a circular addressed " to the sick," 
 some copies of which have been preserved, and 
 from an original copy of which the following 
 extracts are taken : 
 
 " Dr. P. P. Quimby would respectfully an- 
 nounce that he will attend to those wishing to 
 consult him in regard to their health, and, as 
 his practice is unlike all other medical practice, 
 it is necessary to say that he gives no medi- 
 
22 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 cine and makes no outward applications, but 
 simply sits down by the patients, tells them 
 their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the 
 cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their 
 error, he changes the fluids of the system and 
 establishes the truth, or health. The Truth is 
 the Cure. This mode of treatment applies to 
 all cases. If no explanation is given, no 
 charge is made, for no effect is produced. 
 ... If patients feel pain they know it, and, 
 if he describes their pain, he feels it. . . . 
 A fter this it becomes his duty to prove to them 
 the cause of their trouble. . . . This has been 
 his mode of practice for the last seventeen 
 years. For the past eight years he has given 
 no medicines, nor made any outward applica- 
 tions. . . . There are many who pretend to 
 practice as he does; but when a person, while 
 in a trance, claims any power from the spirits 
 of the departed, and recommends any kind of 
 medicine to be taken internally or applied ex- 
 ternally, beware ! Believe them not, ' for by 
 their fruits ye shall know them.' "* 
 
 * This circular alone — furnished to the writer by Dr. 
 Quimby's son — is complete proof as to origin of " mind- 
 healing " in the United States. 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 23 
 
 In 1887 a short account of Dr. Quimby and 
 his work was published in a pamphlet entitled 
 The True History of Mental Science, by Ju- 
 lius A. Dresser. Mr. Dresser had been a pa- 
 tient and friend of Dr. Quimby, who had 
 looked to him to cultivate and extend the 
 Quimby system. But the immediate accom- 
 plishment of that purpose had been prevented. 
 
 In 1895 Mrs. Annetta Gertrude Dresser, the 
 wife of Julius A. Dresser, and, like him, a 
 patient and personal friend of Dr. Quimby, 
 gave to the public a small but comprehensive 
 volume, The Philosophy of Dr. P. P. Quim- 
 by.* This excellent sketch of the man and his 
 career contains part of an article upon him 
 written by his son, Mr. George A. Quimby, for 
 the New England Magazine of March, 1888, 
 the article being followed, in Mrs. Dresser's 
 book, by various newspaper notices and criti- 
 cisms of Dr. Quimby, running from 1857 *° 
 1863, then by reminiscences of him, an exposi- 
 tion of his theories, and by selections from his 
 manuscripts. 
 
 * The reader is advised to consult the pamphlet and the 
 book here specified, in connection with our chapter. 
 (Geo. H. Ellis, Publisher, Boston)— G. C. 
 
24 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 The newspaper articles were mostly pre- 
 pared by grateful patients whom Dr. Quimby 
 had restored from sickness to health.* Among 
 these patients were two daughters of Judge 
 Ashur Waref of Portland, Maine, one of 
 whom, Mrs. Sarah Ware Mackay, still lives 
 to bless the good Doctor's memory. The Ware 
 sisters became so deeply interested in Dr. 
 Quimby' s thoughts and cures that they per- 
 suaded him to write out his ideas and explain 
 his practise. As he was exceedingly busy, his 
 articles were rewritten by the two young la- 
 dies or by Mr. George A. Quimby, and were 
 then submitted to the Doctor for correction. 
 His terminology was peculiar, and sometimes 
 inadequate to his meaning; but due attention 
 to his writings, with those of his friends, 
 yields a clear conception of him. 
 
 One thing will never be questioned by any 
 honest and sensible person acquainted with the 
 facts : Dr. Quimby's biographers — his son and 
 his trusted friends, the Dressers — have told the 
 
 * These press articles and notices have been examined 
 by the writer, and are unmistakably genuine, as are the 
 selections. 
 
 t U. S. Court of Admiralty. Judge Ware was some- 
 times spoken of as the leading citizen of Maine. 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 25 
 
 truth about him. The information they give 
 fully sustains their general estimate. This 
 estimate established, we know that Dr. Quim- 
 by himself was absolutely sincere, and could be 
 fully trusted just so far as he understood his 
 own nature and what he was doing. But this 
 is not to say that he was always right. It is 
 not even to say that he was without the strong- 
 est of prejudices, which may sometimes have 
 misled him. He was too broad and high a 
 soul to be opinionated in any narrow, selfish 
 sense; but he would stand for a conviction till 
 " the crack of doom." " The old gentleman," 
 says one who knew him familiarly for many 
 years, " would argue a sitting hen off her 
 nest." 
 
 Reference has been made to his ill-health 
 when he began to study mesmerism. Physi- 
 cians had told him that his " kidneys were par- 
 tially consumed," and that he had " ulcers on 
 his lungs." 
 
 "On one occasion [he says], when I had 
 my subject asleep, he told me that one [of my 
 kidneys] was half consumed, and a piece three 
 inches long had separated from it, and was 
 only connected by a slender thread. This was 
 
26 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 what I believed to be true; for it agreed with 
 what the doctors told me, and with what I had 
 suffered — for I had not been free from pain 
 for years. My common sense told me that no 
 medicine would ever cure the trouble, and 
 therefore I must suffer till death relieved me. 
 But I asked [my subject] if there was no 
 remedy. He replied, ' Yes — I can put the 
 piece on so it will grow, and you will get well/ 
 . . . He placed his hands upon me, # and 
 said he united the pieces so they would grow. 
 The next day he said they had grown together ; 
 and from that day I never experienced the 
 least pain from them."* 
 
 Dr. Quimby's personal veracity being ac- 
 cepted by the present writer as unimpeachable, 
 his word must be taken as perfectly good for 
 this remarkable story, as he understood the 
 matter. But the various inferences he drew 
 from his case may be questioned, with no dis- 
 advantage to his character. 
 
 "I concluded" [said he], "that [the sub- 
 ject] read my mind; and his ideas were so ab- 
 surd that the disease vanished by the absurdity 
 of the cure." 
 * The True History of Mental Science, page 15. 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 27 
 
 It appears that this mesmeric subject, though 
 he could be forced, under control, to prescribe 
 anything in the mind of the operator, always 
 did prescribe, if left to himself, some very sim- 
 ple remedy. 
 
 " When I mesmerized my subject/' says Dr. 
 Quimby, " he would prescribe some little sim- 
 ple herb that would do no harm or good of 
 itself. In some cases this would cure the pa- 
 tient. I also found that any medicine would 
 cure certain cases if he ordered it. This led 
 me to investigate the matter, and arrive at the 
 stand that the cure is not in the medicine, but 
 in the confidence of the doctor or medium." 
 
 In his early invalid life, Dr. Quimby had 
 been " filled," he tells us, with " calomel " and 
 other " strong doses of allopathic poison." As 
 we nead his description of Lucius and the 
 " simple herbs," the thought arises that the 
 mesmeric subject might have had some power 
 or aid after all, that his good operator passed 
 over too cavalierly, and that the " herbs " might 
 have appeared more efficacious, if a reminis- 
 cence of vigorous " blue pills," in which Dr. 
 Quimby once had confidence, had not still 
 dwelt on his tongue. It is certain that, since 
 
28 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 his time, some very sensible persons believe 
 they have been cured of so dire an affliction as 
 cancer by so innocent a concoction as clover 
 tea. 
 
 Dr. Quimby, to use the language of his first 
 biographer, Mr. Dresser, " progressed gradu- 
 ally out of mesmerism, into a knowledge of the 
 hidden powers of mind; and he soon found in 
 man a principle, or a power, that was not of 
 man himself, but was higher than man, and of 
 which he could only be a medium. Its char- 
 acter was goodness and intelligence; and its 
 power was great. He also found that disease 
 was nothing but an erroneous belief of mind. 
 . . . On this discovery he founded a sys- 
 tem of treating the sick, and founded a science 
 of life. . . . His discovery was not made 
 from the Bible, but from natural phenomena 
 and searching investigation. . . . After the 
 truth was discovered, he found his new views 
 all portrayed and illustrated in Christ's teach- 
 ings and works." 
 
 Some of these claims were reaffirmed by Dr. 
 Quimby himself, in a letter written in i860.* 
 
 " You inquire [he says] if I have ever cured 
 * Philosophy of P. P. Quimby, page 53~54- 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 29 
 
 any cases of chronic rheumatism. I answer, 
 Yes; but . . . you cannot be saved by pin- 
 ning your faith on another's sleeve. Every 
 one must answer for his own sins or belief. 
 Our beliefs are the cause of our misery, and 
 our happiness or misery is what follows our 
 belief. . . . You ask if my practice belongs 
 to any known science. My answer is, No ; 
 it belongs to a Wisdom that is above man 
 as man. ... It was taught eighteen hundred 
 years ago, and has never had a place in the 
 heart of man since, but is in the world, and the 
 world knows it not." 
 
 In The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby, we are 
 told that 
 
 " It was Dr. Quimby's chief aim to establish 
 a science of life and happiness, which all could 
 learn, and which should relieve humanity of 
 sickness and misery." 
 
 But after our various quotations, we can 
 readily perceive, as his biographer maintains, 
 that " by the word, ' science/ " he always 
 meant " not what is commonly understood by 
 that word, but something spiritual." By 
 " science," in short, or what he sometimes 
 called " Wisdom," Dr. Quimby meant simply 
 
30 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the principle of the universe, the presence, 
 truth and power of God, at the foundation of 
 the human soul. 
 
 Dr. Quimby said, and his disciples have said 
 after him, that he " never went into any 
 trance," and was " a strong disbeliever in 
 Spiritualism, as understood by that name." 
 Pursuing this statement in detail, we find that 
 his criticism of the subject consisted mostly in 
 his denying the accuracy of information de- 
 rived from clairvoyants and spirit-mediums. 
 But, in the words of one of his most intimate 
 friends, he considered our two states of physi- 
 cal and spiritual life as " only a difference in 
 dissolving views," and he believed that his own 
 thought and senses existed, a part of the time, 
 out of matter, or in " the scientific world."* 
 He even affirmed, in connection with his view 
 of disease as an impression of mind, that, 
 transferring himself into the spiritual state of 
 existence, he had cured his own parents, after 
 death, of ailments which had not left them 
 when they departed from their physical condi- 
 tion. To this strange man, Dr. Quimby, the 
 
 * Mrs. Sarah Ware Mackayl 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 31 
 
 world of matter and the world of spirit were so 
 interblended as to be only two phases of the 
 same thing, both of which he constantly expe- 
 rienced. 
 
 " What," he asks, " is this body that we 
 see?" It is "a tenement for man to occupy 
 when he pleases. But, as a man knows not 
 himself, he reasons as though he were one 
 of the fixtures of his house, or body. . . . 
 What is the true defminion of death. " Death 
 is the name of an idea. ... So the destruc- 
 tion of an idea is death." Man " is dying 
 and living all the time to error, till he dies 
 the death of all his opinions and beliefs. 
 Therefore to be free from death is to be alive 
 in truth." In no other way than this, would 
 Dr. Quimby even recognize such a fact as 
 death. When he came to die himself, he said 
 " I am perfectly willing for the change. . . . 
 But I know that I shall be right here with you, 
 just the same as I have always been. I do not 
 dread the change any more than if I were go- 
 ing on a trip to Philadelphia." 
 
 Dr. Quimby, then, in his own way, certainly 
 did believe, accept and avow what is commonly 
 
32 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 understood as Spiritualism, but he repudiated 
 its frequently doubtful accompaniments. 
 
 " I know [said he] just how much reliance 
 can be placed on a medium; for when in the 
 mesmeric state, they are governed by the su- 
 perstition and beliefs of the person they are 
 in communication with. . . . The capacity 
 of thought-reading is the common extent of 
 mesmerism. Clairvoyance is very rare. . . . 
 This state is of very short duration. They 
 then come into that state where they are gov- 
 erned by surrounding minds. All the mediums 
 of this day reason about medicine as much 
 as the regular physician. They believe in dis- 
 ease and recommend medicine!' 
 
 Here we have it, exactly. Dr. Quimby did 
 not believe in disease, except as " an error of 
 mind," and did not recommend medicine. So, 
 while he accepted spirit-condition, to the full- 
 est extent, he refused to accept information 
 from it at second hand. He held that, because 
 a man had " passed over to the other side," as 
 the Spiritualists say, he was not necessarily any 
 wiser than he had been in " mind reduced to a 
 state called matter." 
 
 "The invisible world [said he] opens all 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 33 
 
 the avenues of matter, through which to give 
 the inhabitants communications ; but the natural 
 man has possession of the mediums, so that 
 the scientific man is misrepresented in nine- 
 tenths of all he says. Now to be in the scien- 
 tific world is not necessarily to be wise, but to 
 acknowledge a wisdom above the natural man, 
 which will enter the world where wisdom sees 
 through matter. This is the condition of 
 those persons who are thrown into a clairvoy- 
 ant state. To them, matter is nothing but an 
 idea, that is seen or not just as it is called out. 
 All their senses are in this state, but are under 
 the control of the natural man. . . . The 
 explanation of the scientific world is given 
 by these blind guides. . . . who cannot under- 
 stand science." 
 
 From this last quotation, we can see pre- 
 cisely how Dr. Quimby at once accepted and 
 rejected Spiritualism; and we can see, as well, 
 how he reached the posture of rational ideal- 
 ism. As far as concerned his powers or gifts, 
 the good man was what would now be called 
 a " mesmerist," a " clairvoyant," and a " heal- 
 ing medium " — only he was of so sensitive a 
 spiritual nature that he could exercise these 
 3 
 
34 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 faculties " in his senses," or in what, to him T 
 was " a perfectly normal state." If, to his 
 own direct vision and experience, " matter " 
 was " nothing but an idea," to be seen or not, 
 just as it is called out," his conclusion could 
 only be that " all that is seen by the natural 
 man is mind reduced to a state called matter," 
 and that " there is no matter independent of 
 mind, or life." 
 
 But even if granting this posture as a phil- 
 osophical premise, is it a logical conclusion to 
 insist, with Dr. Quimby, that disease is merely 
 " a belief," and that " health is wisdom? " 
 
 " I deny disease as a truth," said he, but 
 " admit it as a deception. Disease is an evil 
 that follows taking an opinion for a truth. 
 Every disease is an invention of man, and has 
 no identity in wisdom. . . . Disease is the mis- 
 ery of our belief, happiness is the health of 
 our wisdom. . . . False reasoning is sick- 
 ness and death. . . . The devil is the error of 
 mankind. . . .We are made up of truth and 
 error. Disease is an error, or belief; the Truth 
 is the cure." 
 
 It is necessary to explain, however, that Dr. 
 Quimby found the cause of human misery 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 35 
 
 " not alone in the conscious mind " and the 
 " opinions and beliefs about disease," but in the 
 <s mental influences and thoughts by which 
 every person is surrounded," and in the " un- 
 conscious or subconscious mind. ,, He de- 
 clared that he could tell " an idea or cause " 
 of sickness from the sensation produced by it, 
 " just as a person knows an orange by the 
 odor. ,, As he " was able to do this," says Mr. 
 Dresser, " he always told the patient, at the 
 first sitting, what the latter thought was his 
 disease, and never allowed the patient to tell 
 him anything about the case." 
 
 In a later chapter of our book, the hypothe- 
 sis that because, in the last analysis " all things 
 are mind," all disease can be cured by mind 
 while it exists in the body, will be carefully 
 considered. Meanwhile it must be admitted, 
 without reserve, that under this doctrine, 
 which Dr. Quimby himself believed with all 
 his might, he practised " healing," for many 
 years, with marvelous success. 
 
 He labored, too, under great difficulties. 
 Fifty years ago, the average inhabitant of New 
 England was not quite so bigoted and super- 
 stitious, perhaps, as the Jews in the time of 
 
36 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Christ, but quite enough so to suggest a com- 
 parison. Dr. Quimby was not orthodox in 
 his theology, and was still less orthodox in 
 medicine. As Mr. Dresser records the situa- 
 tion, 
 
 " [Those] who were then willing to try a 
 practitioner outside of the medical schools, 
 were persons who had exhausted every means 
 of help within those schools, and, when finally 
 booked for the grave, would send or go to 
 Quimby." 
 
 In the way of a " grim joke," the Doctor 
 himself said that his patients " would send for 
 him and the undertaker at the same time, and 
 the one who got there first would get the case." 
 And the worst of it all was that his power, 
 when acknowledged, was frequently " im- 
 puted to the devil." Still, he had more work 
 than he could do — so much that it wore him 
 completely out, and finally ended his life at the 
 age of sixty- four. In his busiest days, he said : 
 
 " I have sat with more than three hundred 
 individuals every year for ten years, and for 
 the last five years I have averaged five hun- 
 dred yearly — people with all sorts of diseases, 
 and every possible state of mind, brought on 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 37 
 
 by all kinds of ideas in which people believe. 
 Religion in its various forms embraces many of 
 these causes. Some cases have been occa- 
 sioned by the idea that [the patients] had com- 
 mitted the unpardonable sin. When asked 
 what it was, no two persons ever answered 
 alike." 
 
 There is no doubt that Dr. Quimby's pa- 
 tients were generally cured, unless he told them 
 at once that they were past his or any other 
 mortal aid. " He saw through them at a 
 glance," as all who knew him agree in testi- 
 fying. To deceive him was impossible. For 
 instance: A lady who scouted his special 
 vision, and was in good health, went to him 
 feigning illness, and for the purpose of a test. 
 " He received her, as he would any one, and, 
 after a few moments, without a word having 
 been spoken, took his chair, and, placing it 
 before her, sat down with his back to her, say- 
 ing : * That is the way you feel toward me. 
 I think you don't need my services, and had 
 better go home.' " A patient and friend — an 
 eye-witness of unquestionable veracity — says : 
 
 " People were coming to Dr. Quimby from 
 all parts, oi New England. Many of these 
 
38 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 came on crutches, or were assisted into the 
 office ; and it was most interesting to note their 
 progress day by day, or the remarkable change 
 produced by a single sitting. ... I remem- 
 ber one lady who had used crutches for twenty 
 years, who walked without them after a few 
 weeks." 
 
 There is now living in Boston a gentleman 
 who happens to be personally known to the 
 present writer. The gentleman is a college 
 graduate of high culture, of large experience, 
 and with the rest, is an author of distinction. 
 When a young- man he had a serious affliction 
 of the eyes, which gradually increased until he 
 was threatened with blindness. He was a 
 man of means, and no expense was spared to 
 secure the best medical treatmnet. It was un- 
 availing. He heard of Dr. Quimby, and, as 
 the usual " last resort," applied to him. " He 
 cured me," says the gentleman, " and I have 
 had no trouble since. But how he did it I 
 don't know. He sat and talked with me, and 
 sometimes touched my head and face with his 
 hands, moistened with cold water, though de- 
 claring even this to be of no vital consequence. 
 He cured other people of all sorts of things, 
 
The Origin of the New Thought. 39 
 
 as easily as he cured me. Here I am with two 
 good eyes, and you have the facts."* 
 
 The ultimate value of " The New Thought/' 
 or " Mental and Moral Healing," is yet a 
 problem ; but that P. P. Quimby was the spring 
 and fountain of the whole stream, with its va- 
 rious branches, is beyond all reputable dispute. 
 It rests on these grounds : 
 
 First. He claimed it himself in the pres- 
 ence of all whom he met, spreading the claim 
 broadcast even in newspaper advertisements 
 and business circulars. 
 
 Second. Many of the most intelligent and 
 trustworthy of his patients became, as we have 
 seen, correspondents of the press to express 
 their gratitude for his cures, and scores of their 
 articles have been preserved. With no excep- 
 tion, these articles substantiate Dr. Quimby' s 
 declaration that he alone, of all persons then 
 living, treated disease through the normal ac- 
 tion of the human mind. 
 
 Third. Dr. Quimby had a son, Mr. George 
 
 * The gentleman is Hon. Edwin Reed, of Boston, Mass. 
 His name is given by his permission, from a feeling of 
 gratitude to Dr. Quimby, and profound respect for his 
 memory. 
 
40 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 A. Quimby, who acted for years as his father's 
 secretary. This gentleman is living, and is a 
 well and widely known citizen of Belfast, 
 Maine. His distinct claim for Dr. Quimby is 
 that " up to his time, no man, since Jesus, had 
 attempted and succeeded in curing the sick, 
 without medicine, applications, mesmermism, 
 hypnotism or spiritualism, simply mentally — 
 through the mind and sense — and who fur- 
 ther claimed that he did it in a scientific man- 
 ner which could be taught to others, . . . and 
 was in a normal state of mind all the time, as 
 also was his patient." 
 
 Fourth. A number of Dr. Quimby 's pa- 
 tients and close friends long survived him, and 
 several of them still live. With a single ex- 
 ception, every one of these people has said, in 
 substance, exactly what Mr. George A. Quim- 
 by states in detail. 
 
 Fifth. The single exception is a lady who 
 once said what all the rest say — and who is 
 completely on record as saying it — but who, for 
 reasons easy to understand and explain, has 
 since taken a lady's high and mighty privilege 
 of " changing her mind." We will inspect 
 this change. 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DR. QUIMBY'S MOST DISTINGUISHED PATIENT. 
 
 Dr. Quimby was at the height of his career 
 during the early days of our Civil War. 
 Among his patients at that time was one who 
 has since become the most celebrated of them, 
 and who now bears the name of Mary Baker 
 Glover Eddy. Then, however, the patient was 
 known as Mary M. Patterson — an incident 
 which occurred through her being a very ener- 
 getic and pious woman, who has attracted to 
 herself a considerable variety of husbands.* It 
 was in 1862, says Dr. Quimby's biographer, 
 Mrs. A. G. Dresser, " that Mrs. Eddy, author 
 of Science and Health, was associated with 
 Dr. Quimby; and I well remember the very 
 day when she was helped up the steps of his 
 office on the occasion of her first visit. She 
 was cured by him, and afterward became very 
 
 * Mrs. Eddy's. complete name, with reference to these 
 gentlemen, would be Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. 
 
42 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 much interested in hisi theory. But she put 
 her own construction on much of his teaching, 
 and developed a system of thought which dif- 
 fered radically from it." 
 
 Mrs. Mary Baker G. Patterson (since 
 Mrs. Eddy), was greatly surprised at her cure, 
 and naturally grateful for it. She at once said 
 so in print. It was in an issue of the Port- 
 land Evening Courier, of November 7th, 1862. 
 Her account was this: 
 
 " Three weeks ago I quitted my nurse and 
 sick-room en route for Portland. The belief 
 of my recovery had died out of the hearts of 
 those who were most anxious for it. With 
 this mental and physical depression, I first vis- 
 ited P. P. Quimby, and in less than one week 
 from that time I ascended by a stairway of one- 
 hundred and eighty-two steps to the dome of 
 the City Hall, and am improving ad infinitum. 
 ... I have employed electro-magnetism and 
 animal magnetism, and for a brief period I 
 have felt relief. . . but in no instance did 
 I get rid of a return of all my ailments, be- 
 cause I had not been helped out of the error in 
 which opinions involve us. My operator be- 
 lieved in disease independent of mind ; hence I 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 43 
 
 could not be wiser than my teacher. But now 
 I can see, dimly at first, and only as trees walk- 
 ing, the great principle which underlies Dr. 
 Quimby's faith and works ; and just in propor- 
 tion to my right perception of truth is my re- 
 covery. This truth, which he opposes to the 
 error of giving intelligence to matter and plac- 
 ing pain where it never placed itself, if received 
 understanding^, changes the currents of the 
 system to their normal action, and the mechan- 
 ism of the body goes on undisturbed. That 
 this is a science capable of demonstration be- 
 comes clear to the minds of those patients who 
 reason upon the process of their cure. The 
 truth which he establishes in the patient cures 
 him (although he may be wholly unconscious 
 thereof), and the body, which is full of light, 
 is no longer in disease." 
 
 The communication of Mrs. Mary Baker G. 
 Eddy — then Mrs. Mary M. Patterson — which 
 she published in the Portland Courier, was 
 criticised, the next day, November 8th, 1862, 
 by the Portland Advertiser. In reply to that 
 paper she said: 
 
 " P. P.- Quimby stands upon the plain of wis- 
 dom with his truth. Christ healed the sick, 
 
44 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 but not by jugglery or with drugs. As the 
 former speaks as never man before spake, and 
 heals as never man healed since Christ, is he 
 not identified with truth, and is not this the 
 Christ which is in him? ... P. P. Quim- 
 by rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of 
 error, and health is the resurrection. . . . But 
 light shineth in darkness, and the darkness 
 comprehendeth it not/'* 
 
 Dr. Quimby having died on the 16th of 
 January, 1866, Mrs. M. B. G. Patterson — 
 not to be Mrs. M. B. G. Patterson Eddy 
 until 1867 — " sent to me," says Mr. Julius 
 Dresser in his True History of Mental Science, 
 " a copy of a poem she had written to his mem- 
 ory." With the poem was sent the following 
 letter : 
 
 Lynn, February 15, 1866. 
 Mr. Dresser: 
 
 " Sir, — I enclose some lines of mine in mem- 
 ory of our much loved friend, which perhaps 
 you will not think overwrought in meaning: 
 others must, of course. 
 
 " I am constantly wishing that you would 
 
 * The writer has had these records authenticated at 
 Portland. G. C 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 45 
 
 step forward into the place he has vacated. I 
 believe you would do a vast amount of good, 
 and are more capable of' occupying his place 
 than any other I know of. 
 
 " Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and 
 struck my back on the ice and was taken up for 
 dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of 
 vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, cam- 
 phor, etc., but to find myself the helpless crip- 
 ple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby. 
 
 " The physician attending said I had taken 
 the last step I ever should, but in two days I 
 got out of my bed alone, and will walk ; but yet 
 I confess I am frightened, and out of that nerv- 
 ous heat my friends are forming, spite Of me, 
 the terrible spinal affection from which I have 
 suffered so long and hopelessly. . . . Now 
 can't you help me? I believe you can. I 
 write this with this feeling: I think that I 
 could help another in my condition if they had 
 not placed their intelligence in matter. This 
 I have not done, and yet I am slowly failing. 
 Won't you write me if you will undertake for 
 me if I can get to you ? . . . 
 " Respectfully, 
 
 " Mary M. Patterson/' 
 
46 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 The poem by the lady destined to become 
 Mrs. Eddy, author of Science and Health, was 
 published by her, with her name attached, 
 under the caption of 
 
 " Lines on the death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, who 
 healed with the Truth that Christ taught, in 
 contradistinction to all Isms." 
 
 " Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night, 
 All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes, 
 When Truth, receding from our mortal sight, 
 Had paid to error her last sacrifice ? 
 
 " Can we forget the power that gave us life? 
 Shall we forget the wisdom of its way ? 
 Then ask me not amid this mortal strife — 
 This keenest pang of animated clay — 
 
 " To mourn him less : to mourn him more were just, 
 If to his memory 'twere a tribute given 
 For every solemn, sacred, earnest trust 
 Delivered to us ere he rose to heaven — 
 
 " Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul, 
 Growing in stature to the throne of God. 
 Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, 
 Seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod. 
 
 Mary M. Patterson. 
 
 The complete identity of Mrs. Mary M. Pat- 
 terson with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy has 
 
Dr. Quimbys Distinguished Patient. 47 
 
 been fully established by the highest Christian- 
 Science authority in the world — Mrs. Eddy 
 herself. In a letter dated March 7th, 1883, 
 addressed to the Boston Post, she said: 
 
 " In 1862 my name was Patterson, my hus- 
 band, Dr. Patterson, a distinguished dentist. 
 After our marriage I was confined to my bed 
 with a severe illness, and seldom left bed or 
 room for seven years, when I was taken to Dr. 
 Quimby and partially restored. I returned 
 home, hoping once more to make that home 
 happy, but only returned to a new agony to 
 find that my husband had eloped with a mar- 
 ried woman from one of the wealthy families 
 of that city, leaving no trace save his last letter 
 to us, wherein he wrote : ' I hope some time 
 to be worthy of so good a wife. I have a bill 
 of divorce from him. . . ." 
 
 In her letter to the Boston Post Mrs. Eddy 
 made some other interesting assertions. She 
 said :* 
 
 " We never were a student of Dr. Quimby. 
 
 * The original print has been in my hands. A copy of 
 the letter is published in full in The True History of 
 Mental Science (Appendix A). — G. C. 
 
48 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowl- 
 edge. He was somewhat of a remarkable 
 healer, and at the time we knew him he was 
 known as a mesmerist. We were one of his 
 patients." 
 
 What an astonishing look these statements 
 by Mrs. Eddy in 1883 have, when compared 
 with the statements of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson 
 from 1862 to 1866. Let us see. — 
 
 Statement of 1883. 
 
 " At the time we knew him [Dr. Quimby], 
 he was known as a mesmerist.' ' 
 
 Statement of 1866. 
 
 " Dr. Quimby healed with the truth that 
 Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms." 
 
 " Rest should reward him who hath made 
 us whole, seeking, tho' tremblers* where his 
 footsteps trod!' 
 
 On March 7th, 1883, Mrs. Mary Baker G. 
 Eddy made, in the Boston Post 
 
 This Statement. 
 
 " We had laid the foundation of mental 
 healing long before we ever saw Dr. Quimby. 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 49 
 
 . . . We made our first experiments in mental 
 healing about 1853, when we were convinced 
 that mind had a science which, if understood, 
 would heal all diseases." 
 
 In October, 1862, the same lady, through the 
 Portland Courier, made 
 
 This Statement. 
 
 " I can see, dimly at first and as trees walk- 
 ing, the great principle which underlies Dr. 
 Quimby's faith and works; and just in propor- 
 tion to my right perception of truth is my re- 
 covery. This truth, which he opposes to the 
 error of giving intelligence to matter, changes 
 the currents of the system. The truth which 
 he establishes in the patient cures him. This 
 is a science capable of demonstration to those 
 who reason upon the process." 
 
 Then, in the Portland Advertiser, came Mrs. 
 Eddy's extraordinary comparison of Dr. Quim- 
 by's words and deeds with those of Christ, and 
 
 This Statement. 
 
 a 
 
 P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from 
 the sepulcher of error, and health is the res- 
 urrection." 
 
 4 
 
So The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 On the publication of Julius A. Dresser's 
 True History of Mental Science — to which 
 reference has been made in our previous chap- 
 ter — Mrs. Eddy was greatly exercised over it. 
 In her Christian Science Journal for June, 
 1887, she devoted the leading article, under 
 her own name, to the Dresser pamphlet 
 
 This little thing was a calm statement of 
 facts, proved as they were given. From the 
 facts, Dr. Quimby's theory was drawn, and 
 Mr. Dresser frankly recounted what the gen- 
 eral reader would consider Dr. Quimby's 
 foibles and prejudices, as well as his doctrines 
 and gifts. The pamphlet contained Mrs. Mary 
 M. Patterson's opinion of Dr. Quimby in 1862, 
 and her poem of 1866. It agreed with what 
 was then the substance of her own assertions, 
 by summarizing Dr. Quimby " as the first per- 
 son of this age who penetrated the depths of 
 truth so far as to discover and bring forth a 
 true science of life, and openly apply it to the 
 healing of the sick." 
 
 But, in criticising Mr. Dresser's quiet mono- 
 graph, the amiable " Mother of Christian 
 Science/' proclaimed that Mr. Dresser had "let 
 loose the dogs of war " ; had unleashed a " pet 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 51 
 
 poodle," alternately " to bark and whine " at 
 her " heels " ; and she identified the " pet poo- 
 dle " with a certain " sticking litterateur, ,, 
 who had renounced allegiance to her.* But 
 when her preliminary high-tide had ebbed a 
 little, her pen dropped this : 
 
 " Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser's 
 pamphlet, purporting to be mine? I might 
 have written them, twenty or thirty years ago, 
 for I was under the mesmeric treatment of Dr. 
 Quimby from 1862 until his death, in 1865. 
 He was illiterate, and knew nothing then of 
 the science of Mind-healing; and I was as ig- 
 norant of mesmerism as Eve before she was 
 tempted by the serpent." 
 
 Those Patterson-Eddy " articles," then — -no 
 possible mendacity being adequate to their ex- 
 tinction — have been grudgingly and angrily 
 admitted by their author to be genuine. But 
 she would ignore them on the ground of " mes- 
 
 * The gentleman here traduced is Dr. L. M. Marston of 
 Boston. He is a practising physician, and a thoughtful, 
 honest man. He is the author of a well-written book entitled, 
 Essentials of Mental Healing, which is much superior to 
 Science and Health, though containing some of the overdone 
 conceptions of mind - cure in general. But Dr. Marston 
 properly employs material as well as mental medicine. — G. C. 
 
52 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 merism." Her " head," she says, " was so 
 turned by Animal Magnetism and will power " 
 under Dr. Quimby's treatment, that she "might 
 have written something as hopelessly incor- 
 rect " as the articles referred to. 
 
 But was Mrs. Mary M. Patterson under 
 " mesmeric treatment," or did Mrs. Mary Pat- 
 terson Eddy ever really believe she was under 
 such treatment, when with Dr. Quimby ? And 
 was she then a truly " ignorant Eve," without 
 a fig-leaf of knowledge pertaining to mesmer- 
 ism? In 1862 she thought not, and we have 
 seen that, in writing her first newspaper letter 
 on Dr. Quimby, she turned her thought into 
 these words : 
 
 " I have employed electro-magnetism and 
 animal magnetism, and for a brief period I 
 have felt relief. . . but in no instance did I get 
 rid of a return of all my ailments, because I 
 had not been helped out of the error in which 
 opinions involve us. My operator believed in 
 disease independent of mind; hence I could not 
 be wiser than my teacher." 
 
 Mrs. Patterson continued her letter by say- 
 ing what has already been quoted in full — that 
 Dr. Quimby cured her by " a great principle 
 
 >>; 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 53 
 
 of " science/' through which he established 
 " the truth " in " the patient " — a truth which 
 he opposed to the error of giving intelligence 
 to matter, and placing pain where it never 
 placed itself.'' 
 
 In Mrs. Eddy's magazine article of June, 
 1887, she went so far as to say of Dr. Quimby, 
 
 " His healing was never considered or called 
 anything but Mesmerism." 
 
 Well, Mrs. Mary M. Patterson, from 1862 
 to 1866, both " considered " and " called " the 
 Doctor's healing something wholly different 
 from mesmerism ; and, saying it was done " by 
 the truth which Christ taught," she considered 
 and called it something " in contradistinction 
 to all Isms." 
 
 Meanwhile, for more than three years of 
 Mrs. Eddy's close acquaintance with Dr. 
 Quimby, all his advertisements, even, told her, 
 what she then fluently repeated, that he cured 
 disease by implanting truth in the human mind, 
 in place of error — " the truth being the cure." 
 In other words, everything around her pro- 
 claimed that Dr. Quimby's cures were per- 
 formed wholly by Mind-healing. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's reversal of herself has been so 
 
54 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 agile and exhaustive since her comparisons of 
 Dr. Quimby with our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 she has latterly preferred to speak of the good 
 old doctor, who taught and healed her, as " un- 
 learned " — a " mesmerist " who cured a patient 
 by " rubbing " her — an " illiterate " man who 
 said that he was only " John " while she was 
 " Jesus," and whose " scribblings '' she, to a 
 considerable extent, wrote herself. From all 
 this it must be adduced that Mrs. Eddy, in her 
 Patterson days, went to Dr. Quimby to be 
 cured of disease, but taught him to do it. 
 
 It is true, as we have noted, that Dr. Quimby 
 was not an educated man, in the sense of the 
 schools. It would have been impossible for 
 him to write like Mrs. Eddy. When, for in- 
 stance, she excogitated that first letter of Mrs. 
 Patterson's to the Portland Courier, she opened 
 it in this way : 
 
 " When our Shakespeare decided that there 
 were more things in this world ' than were 
 dreamed of in your philosophy/ I cannot say 
 of a verity that he had a foreknowledge of P. 
 P. Quimby. And when the school Platonic an- 
 atomized the soul and divided it into halves, 
 to be united by elementary attractions, and 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 55 
 
 heathen philosophers averred that old Chaos in 
 sullen silence brooded o'er the earth until her 
 inimitable form was hatched from the egg of 
 night, I would not at present decide whether 
 the fallacy was found in their premises or con- 
 clusions, never having dated my existence be- 
 fore the flood/' 
 
 No : P. P. Quimby, even if aided by all the 
 freshmen and sophomores that ever lived, could 
 never have risen into the state of gorgeous, 
 ponderous culture evinced in the foregoing 
 power-house and epitome of all learning. Be- 
 sides, when that incomparable paragraph was 
 erected, Mrs. Eddy was young — not yet fifty 
 vears of age. At sixty, her literary style had 
 lost something of its dazzle ; but, in matter, all 
 her work, especially her world-renowned book, 
 Science and Health, compares beautifully with 
 her grand production of 1862. 
 
 P. P. Quimby was a plain man of great na- 
 tural genius. When he wrote — generally in 
 great haste — he paid little attention to capital 
 letters, punctuation, or form of any kind; but 
 his manuscripts were carefully revised, under 
 his own direction, by his two faithful friends, 
 the Ware sisters, or by his son, Mr. George A. 
 
56 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Quimby. Mrs. Mary M. Patterson borrowed 
 and read some occasional jotting — that was all. 
 In the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby are 
 eight hundred pages of his father's writings, 
 prepared before Dr. Quimby had the honor of 
 knowing that Mrs. Patterson (to be Eddy) 
 w r as on the face of the earth. These writings 
 contain the substance of all his thoughts. 
 
 The knowledge that such writings exist has 
 much disturbed Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Pat- 
 terson Eddy. On the 21st of May, 1887, she 
 published, through a Boston newspaper, an 
 offer to print the Quimby manuscripts, at her 
 own expense, provided she should " first be al- 
 lowed to examine said manuscripts," and to see 
 that " they were his own compositions/' not 
 hers, which she " had left with him many years 
 ago." 
 
 Now Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, author of 
 Science and Health, filled with " immortal 
 mind " and the only " divine science " ever 
 '" demonstrated," is of course an honest wo- 
 man. Many delightful innocents of all sizes 
 would take her word for anything she promised. 
 There is not a single member of her Church 
 Scientist who is not sure that her little hatchet 
 
Dr. Quimby's Distinguished Patient. 57 
 
 is infinitely cleaner and brighter than George 
 Washington's. Still, the possessors of the 
 Quimby manuscripts, not yet having teetered 
 themselves above all " earthly wisdom," would 
 rather not trust her with their property. 
 
 A few years ago, the eldest of Dr. Quimby's 
 two devoted friends, the Ware sisters, passed 
 away. With the younger sister she left the 
 following statement, in the form of an affidavit, 
 which is here printed with permission : 
 
 " I, Emma G. Ware, of Portland, Maine, in 
 the United States of America, do hereby de- 
 clare that I knew personally the late Phineas 
 Parkhurst Quimby, and that I and my sister, 
 Mrs. Mackay (formerly Sarah E. Ware), were 
 his patients while he resided in Portland, be- 
 tween the years 1859 and 1865, and that we 
 both owe our restored health to his treatment 
 or mode of teaching. I have learned that at- 
 tempts are being made to deprive him of the 
 credit of being the first to introduce the method 
 of healing through the mind (or, more cor- 
 rectly, of applying moral philosophy to the cure 
 of diseases), and I make this declaration out of 
 regard to him, in order that the credit to which 
 he is entitled may not, without protest, be as- 
 
58 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 sumed by others. I know that while Mr. 
 Quimby resided in Portland he wrote out his 
 ideas on Mental Science : he was not a scholarly 
 man, and on that account copies of his writings 
 were made by my sister, myself, and by Mr. 
 Quimby's son, George A. Quimby. These 
 copies were read over to Mr. Quimby, and such 
 corrections made as he thought fit. They are 
 now in the possession of Mr. George A. 
 Quimby, who resides in Belfast, Maine, and 
 my sister and I have also copies of a number 
 of them. Beyond these, there are no other 
 copies of his writings, if I except a few fugitive 
 pieces which he gave away while he resided in 
 Fortland. The mode of reasoning pursued by 
 Mr. Quimby is not new, but its application to 
 disease as a remedy has not, so far as I am 
 aware, been previously made in modern times. 
 His teaching may be thus summarized : that all 
 diseases, whether mental or physical, are caused 
 by an error in reasoning, and that correcting 
 the error will remove the cause, and restore the 
 sufferer to health." 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 r A GREAT " METAPHYSICAL " NOVEL. 
 
 As shown by our last chapter, Mrs. Mary 
 Baker Glover Eddy, whatever divine attributes 
 may have perched upon her, has been endowed 
 with some very human qualities. But in onegift 
 she has been strangely lacking — a good mem- 
 ory. For, in spite of her association with Dr. 
 P. P. Quimby, his renovation of her broken 
 system, and all the mellifluous prose and poetry 
 she devoted to him in his day, the fruitful 
 " mother," " discoverer," and " founder " of 
 '* Christian Science," when she came to set up 
 her new religion, entirely forgot that her old 
 friend, Quimby, was the real suggestion of her 
 whole Shekinah. She not only failed to men- 
 tion the fact, but she has been so miraculously 
 forgetful, ever since, as to repudiate her own 
 record of it, and to attempt the obliteration of 
 it from sacred and profane history. 
 
 Mother Eddy's lack of memory, however. 
 
60 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 has had its plenary compensation. Her imag- 
 ination has more than made up for it. The 
 surcharge of this illimitable faculty has enabled 
 her to produce one of the greatest works of 
 fiction ever conceived on earth, or possible to 
 any other planet. This arch-angelic romance, 
 dimly and very distantly founded on fact, 
 bears the esoteric title of Retrospection and In- 
 trospection. It is not in the usual form of a 
 novel, but was evaporated by Mrs. Eddy as her 
 corporal and spiritual biography, after she had 
 dropped Dr. Quimby from her powers of re- 
 search, and had built up her grand theological 
 and financial industry, " Christian Science." 
 From an attentive reading of this personally 
 conducted and authorized volume, we know the 
 light in which the hallowed lady wishes to ap- 
 pear, and we know a good deal more if we read 
 between the lines. 
 
 At eight years of age — if we can only credit 
 true piety hitched up with lost memory — a 
 heaven-selected little girl, Mary Baker, u re- 
 peatedly heard a voice," calling her " distinctly 
 by name, three times in an ascending scale." 
 At first she thought it was a human voice ; but 
 in due season — for the call came many times — 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 61 
 
 she, her mother and her cousin, Mehitable 
 Huntoon, learned better. Then her mother 
 read to her the Hebrew story of little Samuel, 
 and advised her to respond to the voice, say- 
 ing, " Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." 
 Finally the chosen virgin took this advice, 
 whereupon the voice " came no more " to her 
 " material senses." Its mission had been ful- 
 filled. 
 
 Such is the opening legend told to the ma- 
 rines of the Church Scientist, in that juicy 
 book, Retrospection and Introspection* 
 
 Still, in these days of " Spiritual manifesta- 
 tions," the numerous believers in messages 
 from " the summer land " would account, in a 
 quite simple way, for the voices calling little 
 Hebrew Samuel and little New-England Mary. 
 But not so Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. " Am 
 I a believer in Spiritualism? " she asks. " I be- 
 lieve in no ism. ... As I understand it Spirit- 
 ualism is the antipode of Christian Science." f 
 
 Ah, it was no voice of common, finite spirit, 
 that came to the high and mighty founder of 
 
 * Retrospection and Instrospection, by Mary Baker G. 
 Eddy, loth thousand, 1896. Pages 7, 8, 9. 
 f Ibid., page 35. 
 
62 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 an " absolutely scientific religion." So there is 
 but one conclusion she gives us to draw: the 
 voice was directly the voice of God. The In- 
 finite and Omniscient, the All-in-All, spake to 
 the girl of nine years, as a miraculous call to 
 her divine work. At that time, she tells us, 
 her father thought her " brain " was " too 
 large for her body." * The old gentleman 
 was doubtless right. It looks, too, as if the 
 brain of his blessed daughter, with the entire 
 head containing it, has been rapidly enlarging 
 ever since. 
 
 From the metaphysical adventures of Saint 
 Mary Baker, as told in her Retrospection and 
 Introspection,^ we find that when twelve years 
 old she was admitted to the " Orthodox 
 Church " of New England, though she de- 
 clined to accept the doctrine of predestination 
 — a doctrine which so troubled her that a doc- 
 tor was called, who pronounced her " stricken 
 with fever." It is told of Martin Luther that 
 when a theological student once came to him 
 half-crazy over the same doctrine, the doughty 
 reformer ordered him to go and get " well 
 
 * Retrospection and Introspection , p. 10. 
 f Ibid., Page 12. 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 63 
 
 drunk." In the case of Robert Ingersoll, his 
 soul could only find relief from the tenet by 
 such hard swearing that it brought him peace. 
 But we are assured by our divine lady of the 
 " Church Scientist " that she took the better as 
 well as the usual course prescribed for such 
 trials. She " wrestled in prayer/' For she 
 felt sure that the Creator of the Universe, who 
 had once descended in person and spoken to 
 her by name, could not fail to possess the fac- 
 ulty of hearing and the usefulness of help. 
 Behold it was so ! Instantly the fever was 
 gone and health was restored. "The physi- 
 cian marveled,' , she says, and John Calvin 
 " lost his power." 
 
 In 1878 Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was 
 called to preach at the Baptist Tabernacle of 
 Boston. The congregation increased beyond 
 the capacity of the pews, and it was no uncom- 
 mon occurrence for the sick to be healed by her 
 sermons. Cancers were cured, and " many 
 pale cripples went into the church, leaning on 
 crutches, who went out carrying them on their 
 shoulders." Mrs. Eddy says so.* 
 
 By the same authority — in her Retrospection 
 * The Great Novel, p. 17. 
 
64 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 and Introspection — it is stated that her " Sci- 
 ence of Divine Metaphysical Healing," other- 
 wise " Christian Science," was " discovered " 
 by her in 1866. The day and date are not 
 given. But it was some time after February 
 15th; for at that time one Mary M. Patterson 
 was occupied in putting on, poetic mourning 
 for Dr. P. P. Quimby, and in begging Mr. 
 Julius A. Dresser to visit Lynn and heal an in- 
 jury to her back from a fall on the ice. 
 
 It is not well to wear mourning too long. 
 In the spring of 1866 it must have occurred 
 to Mrs. Eddy that weeds of poetry would not 
 pay, and she hustled them off. Dr. Quimby 
 having gone " to heaven " and slipped out of a 
 decayed memory, his obituary poetess just then 
 realized that she had spent " twenty years " 
 in tracing " physical effects to a mental cause." 
 Then came the " scientific certainty " that " all 
 causation " is " Mind," and that " every ef- 
 fect is a mental phenomenon."* 
 
 What " Christian Scientists " mean by " sci ■ 
 
 entific certainty " is proof by " healing." Take 
 
 the revered principle of cosmogony that " the 
 
 moon is made of green cheese." If one who 
 
 * Retrospection and Introspection , p. 28 to p. 35. 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 65 
 
 holds the doctrine, " heals " anybody, the prop- 
 osition is " demonstrated. " Mrs. Eddy's " sci- 
 entific works " are all filled with this unanswer- 
 able logic. " Mortal Mind " — a thing which she 
 utterly reprobates — may find difficulty in ac- 
 cepting the conclusion; but it is doubtless quite 
 as well founded as most of the " healing " it- 
 self. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's own case is an illustration in 
 point. A bed-ridden invalid for years, she 
 was snatched from death, she has told us, by 
 Dr. Quimby, and within a week of his first 
 mental treatment she climbed to the top of a 
 city hall. The writer has read a series of Mrs. 
 Eddy's unpublished letters, which show that 
 for some time she had varied nervous and 
 spinal relapses. When not with Dr. Quimby, 
 she wrote to him for " absent treatments," 
 and sometimes saw him appear to her — 
 or said she did — in response. Finally she 
 was cured. Then she fell on an icy side- 
 walk, was nearly frightened to death, and 
 wrote her letter beseeching Mr. Dresser to 
 " undertake " for her. But, having been 
 taught mind-healing by Dr. Quimby, she 
 "demonstrated" over herself, and got up. 
 5 
 
66 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 The Doctor's original cure appears to have been 
 so effective that her fall on the ice was mostly 
 a jar of her imagination and a contusion on 
 her veracity. For, in her Retrospection and 
 Introspection, she solemnly affirms that her ac- 
 cident caused an injury far beyond the reach of 
 '* medicine " or " surgery," which she repaired 
 by application of the Divine Spirit. This ex- 
 perience, says Mrs. Eddy (" scientist"), was a 
 " falling apple of discovery " to her. There- 
 upon she went out into the wilderness of Bos- 
 ton — " withdrew," that is, from society — for 
 three years — that she might search the Scrip- 
 tures and find " Science."* At the end of her 
 retirement, she had learned that " Mind re- 
 constructs the body," and that " nothing else 
 can." How it is done, she adds, " the Spiritual 
 Science of Mind must reveal." Her charge 
 for a course of ten lessons in this " divine sci- 
 ence " was soon fixed at " only three hundred 
 dollars." t 
 
 Of the genuine original " Christian Sci- 
 ence " — the sole and undivided " discovery " 
 of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy — she says: 
 
 * The holy romance, page 28 and rest of chapter. 
 t Retrospection and Introspection, page 61. 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 67 
 
 " I named it Christian because it is compas- 
 sionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called 
 Immortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, 
 and dies, I named mortal mind. The physical 
 senses, or sensuous nature, I called error and 
 shadow. Soul I denominated Substance, be- 
 cause Soul alone is truly substantial. God I 
 characterized as individual entity, but his cor- 
 poreality I denied. The Real I claimed as 
 eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal, I 
 described as unreal. Spirit I called the real- 
 ity; and matter, the unreality."* 
 
 On the hash and rehash of theology, here 
 announced, we need not dwell just now, but 
 will consider, for the moment, how much of 
 Mrs. Eddy's individually discovered and copy- 
 righted creed was first expounded, though not 
 copyrighted, by one P. P. Quimby. 
 
 Dr. Quimby never thought of pushing his 
 thought and work under the special name 
 of " Christian Science," though his writings 
 show that he used the term.f 
 
 * Retrospection and Introspection, p. 29. 
 r 1 1 have seen a brief article of his, entitled " Aristocracy and 
 Democracy," and written under date of February, 1863, in which 
 he said : " The religion of Christ is shown in the progress 
 
68 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 He was not in pursuit of money by truckling 
 to current preconception or prejudice. We 
 recollect, however — for our own memory has 
 not been laid in the tomb of our piety — that 
 after " his truth was discovered " he " found 
 his new views all portrayed and illustrated in 
 Christ's teachings." We recollect that he said 
 of his practise, " It belongs to a Wisdom that 
 is above man as man. It was taught eighteen 
 hundred years ago, and has never had a place in 
 the heart of man since." He said, " There is a 
 bread which, if a man eat, he is filled ; and this 
 bread is Christ or Science." In 1865 the Port- 
 land Advertiser said of Dr. Quimby : 
 
 "By a method entirely novel and at first 
 sight quite unintelligible, he has been slowly 
 developing what he calls the 'Science of 
 Health ' ; that is, as he defines it, a science 
 founded on principles that can be taught and 
 practised like that of mathematics, and not on 
 opinion or experiments of any kind whatso- 
 ever." 
 
 Prior to the issue of Mrs. Eddy's Retrospec- 
 tion and Introspection she had, of course, writ- 
 
 of Christian Science, while the religion of society decays in 
 proportion as liberal principles are developed." — G.C. 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 69 
 
 ten her other great and better-known work of 
 religious fiction, called Science and Health. 
 Now the title of that book — the term " Sci- 
 ence and Health " — is quite different from Dr. 
 Quimby's term, "The Science of Health." Still, 
 the chief distinction between them, consider- 
 ing what Dr. Quimby taught, is that the latter 
 came first and the former afterwards. 
 
 It does not appear that God — who in our 
 day has been personally known by Mrs. Eddy 
 only — and in an interview which He took the 
 trouble to seek — was ever technically defined 
 by Dr. Quimby as " Immortal Mind/' or "char- 
 acterized as individual entity," with " corpo- 
 reality denied." It may have been so; for all 
 the obligations derived by Mrs. Eddy from Dr. 
 Quimby have not yet been published. By all 
 competent theologians and metaphysicians, 
 since the beginning at least of human records, 
 God has been conceived and proclaimed as In- 
 finite Spirit, one with " Immortal Mind," and 
 above " corporeality," which has been ac- 
 counted a temporary phase of finite things. 
 Plato was pretty nearly made of this concep- 
 tion in philosophy, and St. John in religion. 
 P. P. Quimby was neither a Plato nor a Saint 
 
70 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 John ; but he " agreed " with them, in his lit- 
 eral, honest fashion, as he said he did with 
 Bishop Berkeley. 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy had ever read a history of phi- 
 losophy before she instituted a religion, she 
 would have found that Spinoza honored her 
 advent, some two hundred years in advance of 
 it, by postulating " Substance " as the " Soul " 
 of things. Incidentally, too, he postulated 
 " matter " as an " unreality of sense," and 
 thus, in a way, as " error " and " shadow " — 
 the product of " mortal mind." Dr. Quimby 
 said, with the utmost possible distinctness, " I 
 believe matter to be nothing but an idea be- 
 longing to the senses" ; and it will be found, 
 when his writings get published, that he said 
 the same thing in some hundreds of different 
 ways. But all this was known to the thought 
 of India, even before books were written, and 
 the original authorities for it had then been 
 lost. 
 
 But now: in one point of doctrine — and to 
 her the most important one — Mother Mary 
 Baker G. Eddy does stand completely " orig- 
 inal," solitary and alone. She holds of " mat- 
 ter " that it is not only not what it seems, but 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 71 
 
 is nothing at all save " unreality." To recog- 
 nize it as anything whatever, beyond " sha- 
 dow " and " error," is to be buried in disease, 
 sin, and death. Absolutely to deny the most 
 palpable fact of daily existence is to Christian 
 Science the one road to health and salvation. 
 
 To Dr. Quimby, matter was a state of things 
 '* reduced from mind," but the state and the 
 things were here. They were perfectly actual 
 as a condition, though not as an unrelated fix- 
 ture of all time and eternity. Every " ideal- 
 ist," in every age, has taken this view, except- 
 ing only Mrs. Eddy. Of her own view, no hu- 
 man being out of a refuge for imbeciles or the 
 Church Scientist, could possibly begrudge 
 her the sole copyright. In due order Mrs. 
 Eddy's theological speculation will be further 
 considered. 
 
 From the Arabian Nights tales of Retrospec- 
 tion and Introspection, we learn that, before 
 setting up her new church, the revelator " wan- 
 dered through the dim mazes of Materia 
 Medica" She " found," in Jahr's two hun- 
 dred and sixty-two remedies, the one pervad- 
 ing secret that the less matter and the more 
 mind, the better the work. Homeopathy 
 
72 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 taught her that in the higher attenuations of 
 its drugs, " matter is rarefied to its fatal es- 
 sence, mortal mind/' Her conclusion was 
 that " mortal belief," instead of any " drug," 
 governs the action of material medicine. " I 
 claim," says she, " for healing scientifically," 
 that " it does away with all material medicine, 
 and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, 
 as well as sin, in the Immortal Mind ; and mor- 
 tal mind as the source of all ills which befall 
 mortals. . . . The mortal body being but the 
 objective state of the mortal mind, this mind 
 must be renovated to improve the body."* 
 
 Considering the high moral perch on which 
 Mrs. Eddy has set herself, and contemplating 
 the cerulean nest in which she has laid the eggs 
 of " science," it is really painful here to study 
 her case of fatty degeneration of the memory. 
 For, apart from mere phraseology and ac- 
 quaintance with Jahr, Dr. P. P. Quimby had 
 reached the principle and practise of " healing 
 scientifically," more than twenty years before 
 she proclaimed it in Science and Health, and 
 he had applied it to Mrs. Eddy herself, thirteen 
 years prior to that publication, which de- 
 * Retrospection and Introspection^ from p. 40 to p. 43. 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 73 
 
 scended from heaven in 1875. He did not 
 mention " mortal mind " — by name, that is — 
 for he called the fact of it " opinion of the nat- 
 ural man," in " the state of matter," and so far 
 of " error." He did not use the term, " Im- 
 mortal Mind" ; for he designated it as " Wis- 
 dom," " Science," and the " Christ," as distin- 
 guished from " the man, Jesus/' Adopting 
 the Christ principle, Dr. Quimby aimed to fol- 
 low, persistently but humbly, in the footsteps 
 of Jesus. Dr. Quimby, in fact, was covering, 
 both theoretically and practically, the whole 
 true and essential field of " Christian Science," 
 while avoiding its nonsense and its humbugs, 
 at a time when Mrs. Eddy, as " Mary OB. 
 Glover," was a writer of love stories for 
 " Peterson's Magazine."* 
 
 * This was half a century ago ; but the productions — not 
 " scribblings," of course, like Dr. Quimby's writings — are yet 
 in mind among Mrs. Eddy's old acquaintances. One critic 
 of them has said : " They were stories wherein the ' feller ' 
 married the girl in the last chapter, and they lived happily 
 ever after except when the baby was cutting teeth. The 
 stories were not essays, were not metaphysical, and were 
 hardly physical. Had Mrs. Eddy not written them, I never 
 should have remembered them at all," 
 
74 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A SOFT SET OF CRITICS. 
 
 We have now learned a little of Mrs. Mary 
 Baker G. Eddy's celestial and terrestrial biog- 
 raphy, as derived from the supramundane 
 novel, Retrospection and Introspection, and 
 some other sources. Bare allusion has been 
 made to her Science and Health. But this, 
 she says, " is my most important work, con- 
 taining the complete statement of Christian 
 Science.' , 
 
 The book, as we have seen, came among 
 men — or, more strictly speaking, among less 
 busy women — in 1875 5 an d a thousand copies^ 
 we are told, comprised the first edition. " The 
 critics," Mrs. Eddy informs us, pronounced 
 it " wholly original," but a thing that would 
 " never be read." 
 
 The foolish "critics"! How little they 
 knew about " originality " ! But they knew 
 still less of Mrs. Eddy's " Spiritual afflatus" 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 75 
 
 as she designates it, in the fervency of which 
 " erudite systems of philosophy " had " melt- 
 ed " ; nor did they realize her " divinely ap- 
 pointed mission"; for, in 1891, Science and 
 Health had reached sixty-two editions. " Then 
 the critics said " that " Bishop Berkeley, David 
 Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain Ger- 
 man philosophers/' had originated Mrs. Eddy's 
 sole and well-monopolized " Science." * 
 
 Now if any " critics " ever did really shoot 
 such soft intellectual putty as that, they ought 
 certainly to have been condemned to the most 
 heroic sort of mind-healing. 
 
 Think of George Berkeley, the most acute, 
 the most logical mind of his age, standing with 
 both feet on John Locke's " Essay of the Hu- 
 man Understanding," and attempting to pull 
 himself up into the Infinite by mouthing the 
 shibboleth that there is no finite ! 
 
 And David Hume — the bonny skeptic, 
 David — whose keenness brought the philoso- 
 phy of his age to a logical standstill, and for 
 the moment broke up all " metaphysics " ! Poor 
 David Hume ! In the hands of what a " critic " 
 it was, who imagined he had ever furnished a 
 
 * Retrospection and Introspection^ p. 38 to p. 46. 
 
76 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 speck of meat for such a haggis as Science and 
 Health! 
 
 For the moment, let us pass by Mr. Emer- 
 son, the Puritan mystic of New England tran- 
 scendentalism, who beamed serenely down on 
 mere " critics," and told them he hoped he "had 
 never said anything that needed to be proved." 
 But Mrs. Eddy's phrase, " certain German 
 philosophers/' is one that can only refer to 
 Immanuel Kant, with his School of followers, 
 who summed up the pure thinking of the mod- 
 ern world, as Plato and Aristotle summed up 
 the pure thinking of the ancient world. 
 
 History tells us that Kant was a man who 
 discovered the planet Uranus by mathematics 
 before Herschel found it with a telescope, and 
 who " had mastered all sciences " to date when 
 he lived. Ripe with the knowledge of sixty 
 years, he wrote his Critique of Pure Reason. 
 This, the most profound and far-reaching 
 treatise of any age, should have been named 
 " The Analysis of Mind and Matter, Time and 
 Space " ; for such was really Kant's subject and 
 achievement. 
 
 This extraordinary little German professor, 
 Immanuel Kant, was the most regular and tern- 
 
A Great " Metaphysical " Novel. 77 
 
 perate of human beings; but he had a touch 
 of asthma, for which, before all the medicinal 
 properties of mind-cure were known, he took 
 daily about a thimble-full of rum. Kant has 
 been frightfully dealt with by his " critics/' the 
 most of whose heads he completely pulverized 
 in connection with their activity in his behalf. 
 But suppose Herr Professor Kant could have 
 imagined that any " critic " on earth would 
 ever accuse him of instigating the philosophy 
 of Mary Baker G. Eddy ! In that dread event, 
 " the sage of Konigsberg," who once lost the 
 thread of a lecture when a button he used to 
 finger was cut from his coat, might have been 
 so disconcerted, so sunk in amazement and de- 
 spair, as to swallow his whole bottle of liquor, 
 instead of the twentieth of a gill, and to burn 
 his Critique of Pure Reason in a fit of delirium 
 tremens. 
 
 It is well he was tempted into no such catas- 
 trophe; for, on getting on a bit, we shall find 
 that every possible system of " metaphysics/' 
 to have any scientific foundation in modern 
 thought, must refer itself to Kant's dissection 
 of the universe. 
 
78 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " THE PRECIOUS VOLUME/' 
 
 In the world of books, Mrs. Eddy's Science 
 and Health is the specially " precious volume " ; 
 for she herself so designates and describes it 
 at the head of a chapter in her Retrospection 
 and Introspection.* To her, indeed, it is a very 
 precious volume — more precious than even a 
 goodly pile of " the precious metals." Her 
 devotees exchange these for it with sublime 
 certainty that they get more than the worth of 
 their money; and being in great need of sci- 
 ence, to say nothing of health, their profuseness 
 may be forgiven. 
 
 But it should be said at once that " Christian 
 Scientists " are neither a bad nor a specially 
 crude sort of the world's queer inhabitants. 
 They are fanatically honest; and, as a whole, 
 they have just that " little knowledge " which 
 has long been proverbial as "a dangerous 
 thing." Then they are quite incapable of look- 
 
 * Page 45. 
 
"The Precious Volume." 79 
 
 ing through the veil worn by their beatific 
 " Mother." 
 
 In the eyes of the unregenerate, these chil- 
 dren of hers frequently turn to Science and 
 Health, or to a picture of its author celestially 
 touched up, when it would be well to inspect 
 their plumbing and wash their windows. But 
 this is no broad case against them; for almost 
 any sort of camp-meeting, without regard to 
 sect, is apt to bring upon the wicked some small 
 inconveniences. 
 
 As can readily be seen, Mrs. Eddy's lambs 
 are often amusing, and thus brighten life for 
 less spiritual beings. 
 
 There is my babe-eyed friend, Mr. Tott. He 
 never committed a cent's worth of sin in his 
 life. He is a veritable piece of the salt of the 
 earth, a little over-salted. But his youth has 
 departed, and his sight is failing. He used to 
 wear glasses ; but he discarded them for 
 " Christian Science " and a dim, economic 
 light. He sees a little yet, though chiefly with 
 " the eye of the mind." With this eye, how- 
 ever, he beholds marvels of " healing " going 
 on all around him, which he proclaims and 
 verifies at the weekly meetings of his church. 
 
8o The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 He buys all Mrs. Eddy's books and publica- 
 tions, as fast as they come out. By patient ef- 
 fort he deciphers something of their contents. 
 Then, as he contemplates an assertive text 
 from Science and Health, or some tale of Jonah 
 interpreted by Mother Eddy's Key to the 
 Scriptures, a celestial calm descends on his soul, 
 and folds it in a fabric softer than silk. He 
 knows that he is better in health than ever be- 
 fore, that he sees better, and that the entire 
 universe is becoming unspeakably illuminated. 
 Disease never touches his physical frame; he 
 has merely " a belief of a cold," or " a belief of 
 a corn." In the etherialized Mr. Tott only one 
 thing ever suggests a remnant of "wicked mat- 
 ter." Cast a doubt on the sainthood of Mrs. 
 Eddy, then you behold an angel in anger. He 
 may not indulge in personal violence, but he 
 swiftly threatens that, if once you breathe 
 your unholy doubt aloud, " Judge Hanna," or 
 some other Sampson of " Science," will reduce 
 you to a grease-spot.* 
 
 * " Judge Hanna " is Mrs. Eddy's literary factotum. 
 Mr. Tott is an actual personage, but, being ' ' in Sci- 
 ence," he will probably never recognize his picture — 
 especially as there are many like him. 
 
"The Precious Volume." 81 
 
 But, among all Mrs. Eddy's followers, her 
 " precious volume," Science and Health, is par- 
 amountry precious to those who have paid their 
 three hundred dollars for imbibing the inmost 
 knowledge of her " unfathomable " religion, 
 and have gone forth among the gentiles to 
 teach and to heal. To a missionary " in sci- 
 ence," the " precious volume " cannot be too 
 preciously bound. Let the daintiest white of 
 the white-winged dove encase its " inspired 
 words/' printed on translated tissue of ethereal 
 linen. Let the sheen of the gold standard fur- 
 nish splendor for the edges of the leaves, and 
 letters for the cover. Let the book be held be- 
 fore the eyes of a new student or patient, with 
 abysmal solemnity and mystic silence. Hypno- 
 tism, if you name it such, is bitterly disallowed ; 
 but " the precious volume " is so hallowed a 
 thing that no danger can come from using it in 
 the same way as the disk of a mesmerist. Im- 
 pressiveness is the point — that self may depart, 
 and " science " become boundless. Almost 
 every religious sect in all history has had its 
 fetich. " Christian Science " is not behind the 
 procession. Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health 
 is the fetich thereof. In a plain garment, for 
 
82 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the poorer saints, it may be had for three dol- 
 lars and eighteen cents. In the purest, holiest, 
 most golden robe it costs six dollars.* 
 
 Let us look into Science and Health and see 
 what it is; though the author warns us that 
 something more than " mortal mind v is re- 
 quired to understand it. This she asserts and 
 repeats with the voice, as it were, of a fog- 
 horn grown eternal, until a multitude of peo- 
 ple have come to think that the sound really 
 contains significance. In her Retrospection 
 and Introspection Our Lady of " The Precious 
 Volume " says :f 
 
 " Science and Health is the textbook of 
 Christian Science. . . . When the demand 
 for this book increased, and people were healed 
 by simply reading it, the copyright was in- 
 fringed. I entered a suit at law, and my copy- 
 right was protected." 
 
 The case of " protected copyright " to which 
 Mrs. Eddy refers, took place in 1883. A Mr. 
 Arens had practised some sort of " mental 
 healing," without the consent of the papal 
 
 * See advertisements iu all Christian Science publi- 
 cations. 
 
 f Page 47. 
 
"The Precious Volume." 83 
 
 mother of " Christian Science." In connection 
 with such healing he had issued some pam- 
 phlets, in which, according to the court records, 
 he certainly came very near to reproducing 
 certain sentences from Science and .Health, 
 which had a commercial value in his line, 
 though they would not have sold for a cent out 
 of " Science." The man's defense was that 
 Mrs. Eddy's own works were not original with 
 her, but had been copied from writings by Dr. 
 Quimby. 
 
 Now Dr. Quimby, as we have seen, had 
 sown the seed of the whole modern field of 
 " mental healing," and Mrs. Eddy, as Mary M. 
 Patterson, had told the whole truth about it. 
 But Quimby's simple doctrine was that mat- 
 ter is a phase of mind; and hence that the mind 
 of man, as an inlet of God's truth and power, 
 can change the body and cure disease. Appro- 
 priating this thought, Mrs. Eddy had stretched 
 it out and blown it up into the ponderous mis- 
 fit labeled " Christian Science." 
 
 In 1883 none of Dr. Quimby's writings had 
 been published, and there was no convenient 
 evidence to prove that Mrs. Eddy had ascribed' 
 his mind-healing to " the Christ that was in 
 
84 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 him," and to his establishment of " Truth " in 
 wrong-thinking sick patients. As no such 
 facts were presented, and as Mr. Arens had 
 clearly plagiarized Mrs. Eddy, whatever she 
 had done, the court properly decided that her 
 " copyright " be " protected." In other words, 
 the merits of the case were not involved, 
 though the decision has given Mother Eddy a 
 chance to say, with her usual candor and logic, 
 that the failure of Arens " to produce his proof 
 is conclusive evidence that no such proof ex- 
 isted" 
 
 Science and Health is a book of nearly seven 
 hundred pages, containing somewhat less than 
 two hundred thousand words; but this brief 
 of Un-Christian Non-Science includes Mrs. 
 Eddy's Key to the Scriptures. 
 
 The eighty-second edition of " the precious 
 volume " is the particular issue here elucidated. 
 We shall make a few quotations from Science 
 and Health, but only just enough to verify our 
 criticism of it as a pretentious, untrue, and un- 
 healthy book, which, in the interest of the pub- 
 lic, needs to be exploded. For these quotations 
 we shall give Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy full 
 credit. It would be a crime, indeed, to accuse 
 
"The Precious Volume." 85 
 
 any one else of originating such capsules of 
 metaphysical ipecac. 
 
 As laid down in Science and Health, the 
 fundamental propositions of the mumbo-jumbo 
 termed " Christian Science " are four in num- 
 ber. 
 
 First; God is All. 
 
 Second; God is Good. Good is Mind. 
 
 Third: God, Spirit, being All, nothing is 
 matter. 
 
 Fourth; Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny 
 death, evil, sin, disease. Disease, sin, evil, 
 death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy says that, to her, these are " self- 
 evident propositions." They are proved, too, 
 by " the rule of inversion." They are just as 
 harmonious backward as forward. There is a 
 little hitch in Number Four, which declares 
 one way that God denies death, evil, sin, and 
 disease, and the other way that these deny God. 
 But this one exception to " the rule of inver- 
 sion " only confirms it ; for, according to Scrip- 
 ture, God is true, and " every [mortal] man a 
 liar." 
 
 For the corner-stone, then, of Eddyism, we 
 have self-evident propositions — self-evident to 
 
86 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the mind of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy — and 
 with these an appeal to Scripture. Truly 
 enough this must be " Divine Science " ; for no 
 rational creature of modern times can suspect 
 it of being human science, whether true or 
 false. But, says the great teacher of it, " no 
 human pen or tongue taught me the science," 
 and " neither tongue nor pen can overthrow 
 it." Well, never mind the overthrow. But, 
 when Mrs. Eddy tells us that " no human pen 
 or tongue " taught her " the science of mind- 
 healing," we are obliged to infer that Dr. 
 Quimby was more than human. How greatly 
 would the plain but gifted Quimby have been 
 shocked, had he foreknown that Mrs. Eddy 
 would thus apotheosize him. 
 
 Through Science and Health we learn that 
 " Christian Science " reveals, " incontroverti- 
 ble" that "Mind is All-in-all"— the only 
 " realities " being " the divine Mind and idea." 
 We learn, further, that this divine Mind is 
 God, that God's idea is Man, and that by au- 
 thority of Webster an " idea " is an image in 
 mind." 
 
 It would be truly pitiable for any theologian, 
 or indeed for any believer in a spirit-principle 
 
"The Precious Volume." 87 
 
 of the cosmos, to attempt the " overthrow " of 
 these venerable " revelations " now protected 
 by Mrs. Eddy's copyright, but which were 
 hoary with age even in the days of the Greek 
 Academy. Barring Webster's definition of an 
 idea, these " revelations " to Mrs. Eddy appear 
 revealed in the Bible, though not copyrighted. 
 As logical metaphysics, in recent times, Hegel 
 reduced them to their utmost sublimation; 
 and Hegel is excellent authority in many of our 
 colleges, as well as with the good Dr. Harris, 
 our United States Commissioner of Education 
 at Washington. 
 
 Let us say once more that there is no trouble 
 in effecting a spiritual derivation of the uni- 
 verse, except to our friends, " the materialists," 
 who have themselves refined " matter " to 
 things not much like it. The only trouble 
 with an all-containing, all-pervading Spiritual 
 Source of Existence, is in the funny havoc 
 sometimes made of it by half-baked people, like 
 " Christian Scientists." 
 
 To Dr. Quimby, " Mind," or " Spirit " was 
 the principle of all things. To him, Matter 
 was a condition of Spirit — " an idea," he said, 
 " reduced to a solid " — a " solid " meaning a 
 
88 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 definite and real appearance to human sense. 
 But this conception, which the old and regular 
 school of metaphysicians have held for thou- 
 sands of years, would not do for the genuine 
 original " Mother of Christian Science" 
 when she came to prescribe a dogma for the 
 cure of all possible disease from leprosy to 
 bunions. It was necessary, she thought, to 
 have a stronger pill. She compounded it in the 
 form that " matter," including the " mortal 
 body," is not only " the objective state of the 
 mortal mind," but that mortal mind is un- 
 mixed, " error," entailing all sin, disease, and 
 death. Yet " error " is really " nothing " ; or 
 say something only to be denied. The duty of 
 life, " in Science/' is to make this denial ef- 
 fective. Matter, sin, disease, are absolute il- 
 lusions and delusions of " mortal mind," 
 which itself is just " error," to be wiped out. 
 Now say so, and they are all gone. Or if 
 they persist in seeming to be anywhere, be 
 more firm with them. Sing the denial, as 
 well as say it. Keep it up. Let noth- 
 ing else intervene for a second. Let every 
 paragraph you write be made of it. Give it 
 ten thousand different forms, and each form 
 
"The Precious Volume." 89 
 
 ten thousand variations. If you fully concen- 
 trate your whole mind on this " divine " busi- 
 ness, and pay the full price for learning it. you 
 will elevate yourself into " perfect harmony " 
 with " Immortal Mind." When you accom- 
 plish this undertaking, impurity and evil, sin, 
 disease and death, will disappear as the shadow 
 of their original nothingness, which they al- 
 ways are and ever were. 
 
 Here is the whole real substance of " the 
 precious volume," Science and Health, includ- 
 ing Mrs. Eddy's marvelous Key to the Scrip- 
 tures. Still, the holy tome has some interesting 
 particulars. 
 
 On opening it, and journeying only as far as 
 page 2, one finds that, while " Christian Sci- 
 ence " is copyrighted property, " the Divine 
 Spirit " was the real author of it ; for Mrs. 
 Eddy explicitly declares that through " Chris- 
 tian Science " the Divine Spirit testified to her, 
 and that the testimony unfolded her one basic, 
 forever-echoed assumption that " matter " has 
 nothing in it but " falsity." 
 
 Next comes up the Platonic conception — 
 which, unfortunately for Plato, he neglected to 
 copyright — that the Principle of Mind, with 
 
§o The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 its reflection or " idea," constitutes the real 
 universe. Mrs. Eddy pronounces this philo- 
 sophical conception a scientific fact ; but it was 
 not " proved to the senses " — which, by the 
 way, never perceive anything but " error " — 
 until " Christian Science revealed it." Then 
 it was proved " incontrovertibly, absolutely 
 and divinely," by repairing Mrs. Eddy's back 
 after a fall on ice. 
 
 From time immemorial, the history of phil- 
 osophy has been familiar with the thought that 
 the human body is a reflex and product of 
 mind; a practical reality for all, earthly condi- 
 tions and purposes, but resolvable, from the 
 view of spirit, into simply an objective appear- 
 ance. The thought, too, has been frequent in 
 poetry. Three hundred years ago Spenser 
 sang: 
 
 " So every spirit, as it is more pure, 
 
 And hath in it the more of heavenly light, 
 So it the fairer body doth procure 
 To habit in, and it more fairly dight 
 With cheerful grace and amiable sight. 
 For, of the soul, the body form doth lake, 
 For soul is form, and doth the body make. 
 
 Yet Mrs. Eddy claims this doctrine, too, as 
 her " discovery," though, with her, it is not 
 
"The Precious Volume." 91 
 
 merely " mind," but the " mortal " or "mis- 
 named " article, that produces the body. All 
 such " mind " is unalloyed " error," and the 
 body, or apparition of this error, is another 
 error. It was this " discovery," she says, that 
 led to her infallible proposition, the all-inclu- 
 siveness of Immortal Mind and the all-noth- 
 ingness of matter, which she made the bed-rock 
 of her all-healing " Science." 
 
 Matter being Nothing, and our bodies being 
 nothing but error, there is great use, notwith- 
 standing, for the one genuine medicine, " Chris- 
 tian Science." " Physical healing," with " men- 
 tal healing " thrown in, is the large wholesale 
 business of which Mother Eddy is proprietor 
 and director. In the last analysis, according 
 to the preface of Science and Health, this med- 
 icine is " Divine Principle." Such a remedy 
 naturally dispels the unfounded belief of mat- 
 ter, the unfounded imaginings of sickness and 
 sin, which drop out of supposed reality, and so 
 out of existence. 
 
 As the term " Christian Science " is neces- 
 sarily suggestive of Christian history, even 
 Mrs. Eddy has not quite claimed the whole 
 product of Christianity as originating in Sci- 
 
92 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 ence and Health. She does admit, with pious 
 candor, that God imparted the spirit of Chris- 
 tian Science to Jesus and the Apostles. But 
 the letter is another thing. " The absolute let- 
 ter " waited for Mary Baker G. Eddy ; and, 
 were the blessed lady a living kaleidoscope, she 
 could hardly add to the combinations and 
 varieties in which she presents this claim to her 
 readers. 
 
 Eddyism proclaims One God, all-inclusive, 
 whose highest title is " Immortal Mind." But, 
 " in Science," this God, being all-inclusive, as 
 Unity, Identity, and Goodness — so otherwise 
 all-delusive — there is no room anywhere for a 
 Devil, or say, rather, the recognition of one. 
 If God is not only all, but all-good, no opposite 
 to this principle can exist. However, there is 
 " mortal mind," or " sense," with its image 
 and creation, " matter," and in these are sin 
 and disease. Still, mortal mind, matter, sin, 
 disease, have no relation or reference to God." 
 He " fills all Space."* They subsist neither by 
 
 * This crude materialistic conception, of " God " as 
 filling space," shows most beautifully the Kindergarten 
 quality of Mother Eddy's "metaphysics." 
 
 << 
 
" The Precious Volume." 93 
 
 His creation nor permission. Hence they can ■ 
 not be — they are just naught. 
 
 But hold! Christian Science, with Science 
 and Health, being present avatars to dispel sin 
 and cure disease, such a science and such a book 
 necessarily admit sickness and sin, both im- 
 plicitly and explicitly. Now what is to be done 
 in such a dilemma? Why, mortal mind, mat- 
 ter, evil, and all afflictions, while " nothing," 
 are a kind of nothing that may be mentioned as 
 " error " and ultimate " self-nullity." Thus, 
 while Eddy Science, alias " Christian Science," 
 has no real Devil, it has a very practical seem- 
 ing Devil, and whips him from stump to stump 
 with logic worse than himself. Finally, as he 
 is not " substance," but " shadow," you knock 
 him out by calling him names. 
 
 But the doctrine of the Trinity, as " demon- 
 strated in Science," is the best abstract of the 
 Eddy theology. This Trinity consists of 
 one self-identical " Father-and-Mother God " ; 
 Man, " the Idea " or " Reflection" ; then Chris- 
 tian Science, " the Holy Comforter." 
 
 The position of man, as theologized by Mrs. 
 Eddy, is, if anything, more terribly mixed than 
 that of the Devil. Man is "the image of 
 
94 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 God " ; but, as God is All, man has " no real 
 individuality." He cannot have personality of 
 his own, as God has no " separability." Still 
 this " God's idea," named man, somehow takes 
 on an imaginary state, named " mortal mind," 
 and this imaginary state has a dream of error 
 and misery named " Sense." Human individ- 
 uality, mortal mind, and sense, are all, in real- 
 ity, null and void. Man, however, being God's 
 idea and reflection, can never lose his unpos- 
 sessed " true self." The divine contradictions 
 of Science and Health are here insurmountable. 
 Let no man try to rationalize them. Mrs. Eddy 
 well remarks in her Retrospection and In- 
 trospection, that " Divine Science demands 
 mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we 
 sail into the eternal haven over the unfathom- 
 able sea of possibilities." 
 
 O Lord, how long ! 
 Oh, bosh, how strong ! 
 
 The fact is that any long-continued reading 
 of Science and Health, with the innocence to 
 imagine it either true, difficult or profound, is 
 enough to turn a weak mind idiotic. To a 
 trained thinker, the only danger from the book- 
 is an attack of nausea or a hemorrhage from 
 laughing. 
 
I< 
 
 Key" To the Eddy Scripture. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " KEY " TO THE EDDY SCRIPTURE, SCIENCE AND 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's Un-Christian Non-Science may 
 be summarized as a caricature of her early, 
 " New England Orthodoxy," crazily combined 
 with New England Transcendentalism, coated 
 with a kind of free-thought permissible only to 
 her own " divine Science," all overlying Dr. 
 Quimby's " Science of Health," and carefully 
 put under copyright. 
 
 Let us now see a few moonstone gems from 
 her " precious volume " — just enough to illus- 
 trate our criticism of it and not infringe on her 
 monopolized territory. 
 
 It may be explained, by the way, that the 
 United States statute governing copyright pre- 
 cludes the reproduction and sale of books and 
 pamphlets, as wholes, without permission of the 
 authors; and protects even parts of dramas, 
 pictures, and other " works of art "—the intent 
 
96 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 being, of course, to protect, also, one of vhe 
 Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not steal." 
 But, if an i ntrue and injurious book could not 
 be analyzed, and a dozen extracts taken from it 
 in proof of criticism, no literary quack could be 
 exposed, in protection of the truth and the pub- 
 lic. In that case, the Copyright Law would 
 be worse than the old " Fugitive Slave Bill,*' 
 and it would be a sacred duty to get into jail, 
 if necessary, for violating it. Fortunately 
 there is no such need. The law was not drawn 
 in the interest of charlatans and malefactors, 
 and has never been interpreted against the de- 
 cencies of justice. 
 
 Following " Mother " Eddy's example in 
 connection with our quotations from her Sci- 
 ence and Health, we shall interpret them in a 
 strictly " scientific " light, as she, with miracu- 
 lous nerve, in her Key to the Scriptures, has 
 done with other sacred writings. Thus we 
 shall illumine Science and Health in the same 
 way that she has illumined Genesis and The 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 Science and Health, 7.*-—" In the year 1866 
 
 * The figures stand for the pages referred to. 
 
"Key" To the Eddy Scripture. 97 
 
 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Heal- 
 ing, and named it Christian Science. God had 
 been graciously fitting me, during many years, 
 for the reception of a final revelation of the ab- 
 solute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — History re- 
 veals to us, for sure, that " Mother Eddy," has 
 always claimed to have discovered and founded 
 the only genuine and original Christian Sci- 
 ence. Though she was once a patient of Dr. 
 P. P. Quimby, and at that time one Mary M. 
 Patterson said that Quimby cured disease by 
 mental truth — " the truth that Christ taught " 
 — this miserable episode has nothing to do with 
 the case. Mrs. Eddy has told us that the Pat- 
 terson woman was a creature " ignorant " of 
 " Science," whom Dr. Quimby used to " mes- 
 merize." He cured her of a seven-years' com- 
 plaint in the mortal body, but so addled her 
 head that she had no knowledge of what she 
 talked about. Thus, Mrs. Patterson's impres- 
 sion that Dr. Quimby was the modern founder 
 of mind-healing has no weight. The truth was 
 not in her. But Mother Eddy, notwithstand- 
 ing she herself was once that same Mrs. Pat- 
 terson, discovered all truth and all iscience, 
 7 
 
98 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 without regard to any of her previous state- 
 ments. 
 
 Science and Health, 453. — " A Christian 
 Scientist needs my work on Science and Health 
 for his textbook, and so do all his students and 
 patients. . . . It is the voice of Truth to 
 this age, and contains the whole of Christian 
 Science, or the Science of healing through 
 Mind. ... It was the first published book 
 containing a statement of Christian Science. 
 ... It registered this revealed Truth, uncon- 
 taminated with human hypotheses. Other 
 works, which have borrowed from this book 
 without giving it credit, have adulterated the 
 Science." 
 
 Interpretation "in Science." — It is evident 
 that everybody " in Science " should buy its 
 real Bible, Science and Health; for the Old and 
 the New Testament, while it is policy to use 
 them in the Church Scientist, are in dreadful 
 need of exegesis by Mary Baker G. Eddy. 
 She is the one religious person, altogether 
 scientific, that now exists in the world. She is 
 " uncontaminated truth," and anything that 
 interferes with her abets larceny and spreads 
 leprosy. Moreover, it is a financial crime 
 
" Key " To the Eddy Scripture. 99 
 
 against her, conducive to heart-disease. Let it 
 again be stated that " the precious volume," 
 Science and Health, is cheap for cash, ranging 
 from only $3.18 to $6. 
 
 Science and Health, Pref. VIII. — " The 
 question, What is Truth ? is answered by dem- 
 onstration — by healing disease and sin." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — That truth 
 can only be set on its absolute end by curing 
 megrims and other unhealthiness, has been in- 
 controvertibly settled by the religious experi- 
 ence of " Mother Eddy " herself. When she 
 rose into the revelation that matter is noth- 
 ing — not even a phenomenal condition of any- 
 thing — the truth instantly spliced her broken 
 spine. It was this " demonstration by heal- 
 ing " that transformed the ignorant, deluded, 
 mesmerized Mary M. Patterson, into our holy, 
 scientific, infallible Lady of the " Precious 
 Volume." 
 
 Science and Health, 2 and 3, passim. — "The 
 divine Spirit, testifying through Christian 
 Science, unfolded to me the demonstrable fact 
 that matter possesses neither sensation nor life. 
 . . . Human experiences show the falsity of 
 all material things. . . . My discovery that 
 
ioo The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 erring, mortal, misnamed mind, produces all 
 the organism and action of the mortal body, 
 led up to my demonstration that Mind is All, 
 and matter is naught, as the leading factor in 
 Mind-Science. . . . The revelation of Truth 
 in the understanding came to me gradually, 
 and apparently through divine power. When 
 a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the pro- 
 phetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly ful- 
 filled : ' Unto us a child is born. . . . and his 
 name shall be Wonderful.' " 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — That there is 
 absolutely nothing in anything you see, feel, 
 hear, taste or smell, is eternally laid down as 
 " the leading factor in Mind-Science." Though 
 the ideas of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy are all 
 wonderful, this is the most surpassingly won- 
 derful of all. But Mother Eddy herself is 
 much more wonderful than even her ideas. 
 As little Mary Baker she was wonderful in her 
 likeness to little Samuel; as Mary M. Patter- 
 son, she was more wonderful as a mesmerized 
 victim of Dr. Quimby ; and, as Mary Baker G % 
 Eddy, she is most wonderful, as the Ark of the 
 Covenant of the only true Medicinal Religion. 
 
" Key " To the Eddy Scripture, ioi 
 
 All Mother Eddy's writings point, all the time, 
 to this beautiful lesson. 
 
 Science and Health, 5. — " No analogy exists 
 between the vague hypotheses of Agnosticism, 
 or Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths 
 of Christian Science; and I find the will, or 
 sensuous reason of the human mind, to be op- 
 posed to the divine Mind, expressed through 
 Divine Science/' 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — All the an- 
 cient and modern " isms," except Eddyism, we 
 must sit on and blot out. The most of them 
 are unpopular, and don't bring us in anything. 
 But he who opposes Eddyism contradicts the 
 Divine Mind, expressed through Divine Sci- 
 ence, which, logically, must be the production 
 of our Divine Mother. 
 
 Science and Health, 8 — " The phrase mor- 
 tal mind implies something untrue, and, there- 
 fore, unreal." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — This truth is 
 to be taken as infallible on all occasions. Still, 
 the unreality, mortal mind, is a thing to be 
 healed by Christian Science, and there is 
 money in the metaphysical pills. 
 - Science and Health, 21. — " There is no 
 
102 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 physical science, inasmuch, as all true Science 
 proceeds from divine Intelligence. 
 
 Interpretation " in Science!' — Shut up your 
 arithmetic, geometry, physics, and astronomy. 
 They amount to nothing. There is no truly 
 scientific book except Science and Health. 
 
 Science and Health, 25. — " Must Christian 
 Science come through the Christian churches, 
 as some insist ? This Science has come already, 
 and come through the one whom God called/' 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — Christian Sci- 
 ence, my beloved, is copyrighted property, and 
 can only spread through the owner and her 
 deputies. The " one whom God called " is 
 Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. 
 
 Science and Health, 244, 245, 473, 284. — 
 " The act of describing disease makes the 
 disease. Warning people against disease 
 frightens them into it. This obnoxious habit 
 ought to cease. . . . The unscientific practi- 
 tioner says : ' You are ill ; you must rest.' 
 Science objects to all this. . . . Mind con- 
 trols the body and brain. ... A cup of tea 
 is not the equal of Truth. ... A material 
 body is a mortal belief. . . . The medicine of 
 Science is divine Mind." 
 
"Key" To the Eddy Scripture. 103 
 
 Interpretation "in Science." — Your doctor 
 is a fool, whether he be allopathic, homeopathic, 
 magnetic, or even of any unauthorized school 
 of mind-healing. Dismiss him, and send for 
 a Christian Science M. D., authorized to prac- 
 tise by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. If he can't 
 cure you, it will not be his fault; it will be 
 simply because your mind, or the minds around 
 you, or both, are out of tune with Science and 
 Health and its Key to the Scriptures. 
 
 Science and Health, 259, 480, 475. — " Elec- 
 tricity, the offspring of finite mind, is unreal. 
 . . .The physical universe expresses the con- 
 scious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. 
 Physical force and mortal mind are one. . . . 
 Matter is neither self-existent nor a product 
 of Spirit. An image of mortal thought, re- 
 flected on the retina, is all the eye beholds." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — That a force 
 like electricity has no reference to any princi- 
 ple or power but finite mind, will always be 
 hard for an unscientized person to believe. But 
 Mother Eddy knows, and her word must go. 
 Still, the unreality of electricity is not quite so 
 to people " out of science." If one toys with a 
 trolley-wire before he has read and understood 
 
104 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Science and Health, he may experience a slight 
 shock of reality, if he lives long enough. But 
 one who has purchased Mrs. Eddy's great 
 work, and who reads it constantly, need have 
 no fear of electrocution, or anything else. His 
 mortal mind has pretty nearly departed from 
 him. His " physical universe " is hardly a pic- 
 ture of " conscious thoughts," and his " uncon- 
 scious thoughts," whatever such things may be, 
 will never lead him into much danger. 
 
 Science and Health, 487. — " Science reveals 
 material man as a dream at all times, and 
 never as the real Being." 
 
 Interpretation u in Science/' — Mortals 'are 
 nothing. The One and Only Being is the 
 Father-and-Mother God of Christian Science. 
 Our Mother is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. 
 
 Science and Health, 411. — "The Scientist 
 knows there can be no hereditary disease, since 
 matter cannot transmit good or evil intelli- 
 gence to man, and Mind produces no pain in 
 matter." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — On the 
 ground that mind and matter are absolutely un- 
 connected, there can be no doubt of there being 
 no hereditary disease. On the same ground 
 
"Key" To the Eddy Scripture. 105 
 
 there can be no heredity itself, and no world 
 for heredity to exist in. How true it is, " in 
 Science," that all actuality has no actuality inj 
 it! 
 
 Science and Health, 28. — " The true Logos 
 is demonstrably Christian Science." 
 
 Interpretation "in Science. 3 ' — We know, 
 too, from Mrs. Eddy's " precious volume," 
 that Christian Science, in addition to being the 
 Logos, is the Holy Comforter. Thus her 
 copyrighted religion is two-thirds of the 
 Trinity. 
 
 Science and Health, 411. — "The daily ab- 
 lutions of an infant are no more natural or 
 necessary than would be the process of taking a 
 fish out of water every day, and covering it 
 with dirt, in order to make it thrive more vig- 
 orously thereafter in its native element. 
 . . . Water is not the natural habitat of hu- 
 manity." 
 
 Interpretation " in Science." — Don't take the 
 trouble to wash the baby. His body is only an 
 expression of mortal mind, and is thus so 
 mussed up with error and nothingness that 
 water will never get him clean. His proper 
 habitat is " Science." Scrub his " conscious 
 
106 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 and unconscious thoughts " with Christian Sci- 
 ence, and never mind the rest of him. 
 
 We shall make but one more quotation, here, 
 from Mrs. Eddy's " Divine comedy/' Science 
 and Health. There is no use of being too se- 
 rious with it. History will soon take it 
 as mostly a " grim joke " on metaphysics, the- 
 ology, and medicine. But one thing must 
 give us pause. On approaching the Lord's 
 Prayer, one feels himself on solemn ground, 
 if such ground there be anywhere in life, 
 and for once, if never before, puts on the 
 mantle of conservatism. But, to Mrs. Eddy, 
 the words of Jesus in devotion and sup- 
 plication — at once the simplest and grand- 
 est words ever uttered — require her " spiritual 
 interpretation." What, in her index to Science 
 and Health, she terms the " Spiritualized ver- 
 sion " of the Lord's Prayer is this : 
 
 " Our Father and Mother God, all-harmon- 
 ized, Adorable One. Ever present and Om- 
 nipotent. Thy Supremacy appears as matter 
 disappears. Give us grace for to-day; Thou 
 fillest the famished affections; and Love is re- 
 flected in love. And leavest us not in temp- 
 tation, but freest us from sin, disease and 
 
a 
 
 Key" To the Eddy Scripture. 107 
 
 death ; for Thou art all Substance, Life, Truth, 
 and Love, forever. — So be it." 
 
 The author of the English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers tells of a poet who 
 
 " Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, 
 And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch ; 
 And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms, 
 Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the psalms.' ' 
 
 Let any one not " in Science " ask himself 
 if Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has not gone farther 
 and done worse. 
 
io8 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " CHRISTIAN-SCIENCE " ORGANIZING FORCES. 
 
 As Mrs. Eddy has been a manufacturer and 
 vender of " Christian Science" for a compara- 
 tively short time — only a quarter of a century 
 — many good people who knew her at the in- 
 ception of that successful industry are still on 
 earth, in an active condition of " mortal mind." 
 They have volunteered to furnish for this brief 
 book a variety of plain and ornamental infor- 
 mation that is not essential to it. But, in jus- 
 tice to history and biography, one point must 
 not be omitted. They all agree that " Mother 
 Eddy," like Caesar, the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, and the Sugar Trust, has more organiz- 
 ing capacity than " the sons and daughters of 
 God," to use her own phrase, generally possess. 
 With this capacity, it is also agreed that never 
 a Bonaparte, never a Jay Gould, never a Pier- 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. 109 
 
 pont Morgan, could be more handy in sur- 
 mounting all over-nice impediments to practi- 
 cal success. 
 
 Thus by her rare combination of terrestrial 
 and celestial genius, " Mother Eddy " has been 
 able to hold her copyrighted religion, " Chris- 
 tian Science," strictly under her personal reg- 
 nancy, and direct it to the highest financial, 
 doctrinal, and healing ends. She permits no 
 tinge of private judgment, no stain of unau- 
 thorized opinion, and no mere finite criticism, 
 so far as she can silence it. She is the Church, 
 and membership is obedience. Hence she bit- 
 terly antagonizes all independent agencies of 
 scientific salvation, though with eyes rolled up, 
 and with fervent proclamations of unbounded 
 " love." In her Science and Health, she ad- 
 vises her readers not to read other " scientific 
 works," as they are full of " materialism," and 
 are not " Scientifically Christian." Directly or 
 indirectly, too, there is always the point that 
 money can be much better invested in Mrs. 
 Eddy's own " sacred " and " positively demon- 
 strated " writings. It would almost seem that, 
 in her universal motherhood, Mrs. Mary Baker 
 G. Eddy must have borne Mohammed's great 
 
no The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 soldier who burned the Alexandrian library in 
 devotion to the Koran. 
 
 To a great organizer, a wholesale business 
 is always more attractive than retail trade. It 
 is handled quite as easily, with less detail, and 
 thousands of small merchants contribute to the 
 proceeds. The able founder of " Christian 
 Science " early realized this fact — in her case 
 drawn from on high, but sometimes reached 
 through commercial experience. Having re- 
 tired into the wilderness of her mind, far from 
 all monitions of " sense " ; having trained her 
 memory to forget the existence of " matter," 
 " error," and Mary M. Patterson ; having taken 
 a three-years' vacation with her only peers, 
 " the ancient worthies " and " the Scriptures " ; 
 Mrs. Eddy came back at last, among the hu- 
 man species, with the metaphysics and curative 
 formulas of " Christian Science." Then came 
 practical transactions in " revelations " and 
 " mental medicine," which soon rivaled the 
 sales of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup and 
 Lydia Pinkham's celebrated compound. 
 
 Though Mrs. Eddy has gradually taken 
 into her service various literary experts, theo- 
 logico-commercial travelers and metaphysical 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. in 
 
 auctioneers, she has always supervised, in per- 
 son, the wholesale department of " Christian 
 Science." On her return from the skies, she 
 brought down a large collection of documents 
 in which " the whole science " was condensed 
 and canned, and all the medical prescriptions 
 required to fulfil a millennium of holiness and 
 health. With these documents in hand she 
 formed classes of " loyal students," her defini- 
 tion of " loyalty " being " allegiance to God " 
 (as manifested in Mary Baker) ; " subordina- 
 tion of the human " (the student) " to the di- 
 vine " (the teacher) ; " steadfast justice " (no 
 wobbling over the cash) ; and strict adherence 
 to "divine Truth and Love" (the Mother of 
 the Logos and the Holy Comforter forever 
 glorified). 
 
 To be more specific, it was in the year 1867 
 that Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson, 
 freed by divorce from the last-named culprit, 
 and married to Asa Gilbert Eddy, began, as 
 she records it, the teaching of " Christian 
 Science Mind Healing " to " one student." 
 Here was a good seed sown in fructifying 
 ground; for, in 188 1, it had grown to be " The 
 
H2 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College " of Bos- 
 ton.* 
 
 This vast institution was managed by Mrs. 
 Eddy as chief impartress of " science," her as- 
 sistants being her husband, her adopted son, 
 and a General Bates. These four " scientists " 
 constituted the faculty. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's last husband is described, by 
 those who knew him, as one of the most hum- 
 ble and obedient men that ever blest a perfect 
 woman in immaculate matrimony. His value 
 as a college professor may be inferred from 
 one reminiscence of him. His supreme better- 
 half once sued a poor young doctor who had 
 fallen away from " science," and taken to hom- 
 eopathy, that she might collect her fee for hav- 
 ing taught him " Christian Science therapeu- 
 tics." Her husband, Asa, was a witness for 
 her, to prove the pecuniary value of her instruc- 
 tion, and was asked, among other questions, 
 
 " What is Man? " " As near as I can make it 
 out," replied Prof. Eddy, " Man is an image." 
 Mrs. Eddy lost her case, as the court was too 
 unspiritual to reduce her " metaphysics " to 
 
 * Retrospection and Introspection y p. 51. 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. 113 
 
 dollars and cents.* But the good Asa showed 
 that he was an ' image " of Mary ; and, in 
 her Retrospection and Introspection, she has 
 gratefully embalmed his memory in a text from 
 the Psalms. 
 
 " Mark the perfect man, and behold the up- 
 right : for the end of that man is peace." 
 
 The italics are not in the psalm, but are 
 Mary's. 
 
 Some further conception of " the perfect 
 man," Prof. Eddy, and the value of Mother 
 Eddy's estimate of him, may be gathered from 
 an item which appeared in the Boston Evening 
 Herald of December 7, 1878, stating that 
 " Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy were in- 
 dicted to-day by the Grand Jury for soliciting 
 James H. Sargent to kill Daniel H. Spofford." 
 It appears that Spofford, in order to probe the 
 matter, led on the conspiracy, and so became 
 technically involved in it himself. Thus the 
 affair became so mixed up that, according to 
 the official court-record, the District Attorney 
 concluded not to prosecute the indictment, and 
 
 * These facts are well remembered and well recorded. 
 They were of special interest to such of Mrs. Eddy's 
 •' loyal students " as had seceded from her cult. — G. C. 
 8 
 
H4 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Arens and Eddy were " discharged on payment 
 of costs." The divine " Mother Eddy " surely 
 could not have instigated a conspiracy to mur- 
 der Spofford (a troublesome backslider from 
 " Science "), though he and many other back- 
 sliders, who know her well, have long labored 
 under the impression that the whole enterprise 
 was hers. 
 
 The human head is a queer bulb, and often 
 seems to be a direct evolution from the squash. 
 This hypothesis, illustrated by the researches 
 of Darwin and his school, accounts for the 
 rapid growth of Mrs. Eddy's Massachusetts 
 Metaphysical College from 1881 to 1889, when, 
 in the latter year, she closed it. At that time, 
 as she recollects things, her college was not 
 only filled, but " flooded " with students from 
 all parts of America, Europe, and the world. 
 Three hundred applications were on the list, 
 and the number was rapidly increasing.* 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy were not so far above the 
 world and the flesh that her reasons for things 
 seldom comport with a sub-lunar search into 
 them, it might be possible to believe that she 
 discontinued her college because she feared that 
 * Retrospection and Introspection t p. 57. 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. 115 
 
 " material organization," applied to " Chris- 
 tian Science," would obstruct " Love's Spirit- 
 ual compact/ ' Whatever it means, this at 
 least is what she says. The success of her col- 
 lege had shown her the danger of placing peo- 
 ple on " earthly pinnacles " ; and even " mortal 
 mind " can see that such a setting-up might 
 lead students away from the primal Mother 
 and the central contribution-box. Besides, she 
 had always had " conscientious scruples " 
 against " giving diplomas " when she thought 
 of those same " earthly pinnacles. ,, 
 
 It may throw some light on the sudden clos- 
 ing of " The Massachusetts* Metaphysical Col- 
 lege " to note that, notwithstanding " Mother " 
 Eddy's " conscientious scruples " against grant- 
 ing mere " diplomas," she had issued hundreds 
 of metaphysico-medical degrees at high prices. 
 
 According to a statement of hers, she ob- 
 tained her college charter from the State of 
 Massachusetts in 1881, "with the right to 
 grant degrees." But the act on which this 
 grant was based was repealed in 1882. Then, 
 in 1883, the conferring of " any diploma or 
 degree " by any " corporation " or " associa- 
 tion," was made a legal offense, punishable by a 
 
n6 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 fine of not less than $500. Being the " presi- 
 dent/' not of any " corporation " or " associa- 
 tion," but of a regular " college " (with a fac- 
 ulty of three beside herself), Mother Eddy's 
 legal mind has held that this law, if aimed at 
 her, failed; to hit, though it knocked outallother 
 mind-healing colleges.* But, in 1889, when, as 
 persistent rumor has it, the problem was about 
 to be solved by legal process against " Mother 
 Eddy," the subject was practically closed by 
 the closing of her " college," and by her retire- 
 ment to New Hampshire, where " the wicked 
 cease from troubling and the weary are at 
 rest." 
 
 Considering Mrs. Eddy's kind of " college- 
 faculty " and " board," together with her ex- 
 haustive copyrights and the 'hierarchical mon- 
 opolies consequent upon them, it is quite con- 
 ceivable that when time was ripe she had no 
 difficulty in " unanimously " passing resolu- 
 tions to discontinue her " flourishing school." 
 The little joker in this pack of resolutions soon 
 came out in one of them. It deftly touched 
 the matter of " organization," and then pro- 
 
 * See Christian Science History, by Septimus J. Hanna, 
 p. 42. 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. 117 
 
 pounded that " the hour " had " come " when 
 " the great need " was for " more of the 
 Spirit/' not " the letter," and that Science and 
 Health was the spirit's nutriment. 
 
 It is not directly stated by Mother Eddy in 
 this connection, that God Himself fixed the 
 scale of prices 1 for her book ; but she does say it 
 was " God " who " impelled " her to " set a 
 price " for her " instruction in Christian- 
 Science Mind-Healing." The price was three- 
 hundred dollars- a head, for a college course 
 of three weeks. At first she " shrank from 
 asking it." But " a strange providence " led 
 Mary to these terms, and " God," she asserts, 
 " has since shown " her, in " multitudinous 
 ways," the " wisdom " of her " decision."* 
 The " strange providence " and " the multitu- 
 dinous ways " are not explained by her ; but 
 the " wisdom " of gathering together fat bank- 
 deposits is unanimously acknowledged in the 
 Church Scientist. 
 
 When our republic was a hundred years old, 
 it had become worthy of having " The First 
 Christian Science Association." That body 
 
 * For this amazing snivel see Retrospection and In- 
 trospection, p. 61. 
 
n8 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 was accordingly organized, on the fourth day 
 of July, 1876, by Mrs. Eddy and six of her 
 head-light reflectors. Three years later, the 
 Association balloted on forming a Church, and 
 the Eddyites won by a large plurality. Rev. 
 Mary Baker G. Eddy was of course chosen its 
 " first pastor,'' and during her ministration it 
 prospered in numbers and popularity. That 
 is, she says so in her Retrospection and Intro- 
 spection. But owing to tons of work, which 
 increased upon her, she was unable to give the 
 Church sufficient attention, and no son or 
 daughter of " Science " was competent to take 
 her place. Her church was " envied " and 
 " molested " by other churches, and there was 
 danger of " Christian warfare " — which might 
 have led to a diminution of proselytes, and more 
 horrible still, a loss, of shekels. In such an 
 extremity, she " recommended " the dissolu- 
 tion of the First Church Scientist, and again, 
 as ever, her recommendation went through 
 " without a dissenting voice." 
 
 " This measure," she tells us, was followed 
 by " a great revival " in the way of " mutual 
 love," with " spiritual power " and " prosper- 
 ity." Those, we may be sure, were mone^ 
 
" Christian-Science " Forces. 119 
 
 making times. Mrs. Eddy's reasons for dis- 
 solving her church were doubtless infallible. 
 Still, that same church at once resurrected it- 
 self and exalted its horn — the " Mother 
 Church " in Boston, and then children and 
 grandchildren galore, in hundreds of secondary 
 " Hubs " and their suburbs. 
 
120 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ONE TRUE " MOTHER CHURCH." * 
 
 It was in 1889, says Mrs. Eddy, that " I 
 gave a lot of land in Boston," on which to 
 erect " a church edifice " as " a temple for 
 Christian Science worship." f The land, she is 
 particular to say, was worth " twenty thousand 
 dollars," and was " rising in value." As she 
 has been careful to mention this increment of 
 the " rise " — not hiding it under a bushel, but 
 setting it on top of the cover — we must be 
 sure to add it to the sum of the original be- 
 nevolence. 
 
 But how much labor could be saved by a 
 meek historian if only Mrs. Eddy's word could 
 ever be safely accepted without looking be- 
 
 * This chapter is written mostly from personal inspec- 
 tion and knowledge. An elaborate description of the 
 Church is given in The Christian Science Journal for 
 January, 1895. — G. C. 
 
 f Retrospection and Introspection , page 62. 
 
"Mother Church." 121 
 
 hind it ! On consulting the official registry of 
 such matters, one finds that before Mrs. Eddy 
 gave her land to the Church of Christ Scientist, 
 the Church itself owned the land, under a 
 mortgage of nine thousand dollars, four thou- 
 sand of which had been paid off. The balance 
 was five thousand. The provident " Mother " 
 bought this mortgage and foreclosed it. She 
 then conveyed the property to the trustees of 
 the First Church of Christ Scientist, reserving 
 the right to re-enter and repossess the land, 
 with improvements, in case a church erected on 
 it should not be run to suit her. All this was 
 specified in ten conditions, which the angels 
 have not recorded in her biography. 
 
 Adjoining the Eddy castle of " metaphysics " 
 are two lots on which stand two buildings of 
 the Christian Science Publishing Society. This 
 real estate was set down in February, 1 898, by 
 the editor of " The Christian Science Journal,' ' 
 to be worth not less than twenty-two thousand 
 dollars. On January 25th, 1898, "Mother" 
 Eddy generously conveyed it to the First 
 Church of Christ Scientist. But, three days 
 before — on the 21st of January, 1898 — the 
 Christian Science Publishing Society, for the 
 
122 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 sum of one dollar, had conveyed it to her. The 
 string tied to her reconveyance was that she 
 should " have and occupy so much room con- 
 veniently and pleasantly located " in the es- 
 tablishment, as might " be necessary to carry 
 on the publication and sale " of her " books " 
 and " literature " — a reservation of " room " 
 which, under legal stress might easily be inter- 
 preted to mean the whole thing — it being dis- 
 tinctively a " publishing house." 
 
 With Mother Eddy's donation of January 
 25th, 1898, she threw in " The Christian Sci- 
 ence Journal " and " all the literary publica- 
 tions of the Society " — these having been 
 turned over to her with other things, for one 
 dollar, on January 21st, 1898 — she saving to 
 herself " only the right to copyright the * Jour- 
 nal ' in her own name — an excellent way to 
 make it self-supporting, with no liability on her 
 part to incur its debts, while yet she could 
 hold it under her absolute dictation. 
 
 " Let us endeavor," says the editor of " The 
 Christian Science Journal" (February, 1898), 
 to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to God . . . 
 and to his servant, our Mother in Israel, for 
 these evidences of a generosity and self-sacri- 
 
"Mother Church." 123 
 
 fice that appeal to our deepest sense of grati- 
 tude, even while surpassing our compre- 
 hension." 
 
 Now such an evidence of generosity and 
 self-sacrifice may intelligibly " surpass " the 
 " comprehension " of any stipendary of Mrs. 
 Eddy' paid to write such stuff as the fore- 
 going; but Mary Baker Eddy's real bounty, 
 generosity, self-sacrifice and benefaction, con- 
 sisted in cancelling a mortgage of five thou- 
 sand dollars, by which, on land thus obtained, 
 a church costing other people two hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars was soon built to her 
 glory, she keeping a Shylock grip on the land, 
 church and the adjacent property of her func- 
 tionaries, with all its appurtenances that were 
 good for anything. 
 
 When " Mother Eddy " casts a loaf of bread 
 upon the waters, it is always safe to look for a 
 hundred loaves on the way back to her. 
 
 " The First Church Scientist " — the edifice 
 erected on Mrs. Eddy's donation of land — is a 
 handsome structure of rough granite, looking 
 something like a small armory with a big 
 tower. This sacred castle of " metaphysics " 
 is situated a little on the outskirts of residential 
 
124 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 fashion in the Hub-City, the district thereof 
 being the Back Bay. It is accessible to the 
 world, when once in Boston, by " the electrics " 
 and a short walk. As a place of scientifico-re- 
 ligious assemblage, the building seats twelve 
 hundred actual " scientists " in the flesh, and 
 the sympathetic spirits of some twelve thou- 
 sand other " members," absent throughout the 
 country. On this account, some Eddyites who 
 have never seen it regard its size as rivaling 
 that of the earth. 
 
 The Cathedral (scientist) has much stained 
 glass, and on nearly every window is depicted 
 some Mary; for all good Marys, particularly 
 the Marys of the Bible, inferentially point to 
 Mary Baker Eddy. This Mary's Science and 
 Health is exceedingly prominent in the multi- 
 colored glass, and so gives countenance to all 
 the representations taken from the Scriptures. 
 
 An organ is prominent— a large, harmonious 
 present from a gentleman who thinks that 
 somebody was cured of something by Chris- 
 tian Science. 
 
 The church has two pretty pulpits side by 
 side, from one of which the Bible is read, 
 while from the other, that ancient book is kept 
 
"Mother Church." 125 
 
 straight by the reading of its only true meaning 
 from Science and Health. 
 
 Singing the praises of " Immortal Mind," 
 as discovered by Mrs. Eddy, constitutes a part 
 of the services, but there is no preaching — 
 which is just as well, perhaps, but needs a word 
 of explanation. 
 
 Preaching used to be allowed " in Science " ; 
 but some of Mother Eddy's apostles, having 
 just enough knowledge for their creed, yet 
 great gifts of speech, sermonized, it is said, 
 with such honest zeal that their eloquence was 
 in danger of casting an unglorifled shadow on 
 the Mother herself. It must be stated, indeed, 
 that sundry who have listened to St. Mary 
 (scientist) affirm that her divine pen has al- 
 ways been much more potent than her divine 
 tongue. And some go so far as to declare that 
 her sermons, when she preached, were often 
 dull to the non-elect, even if they cured every 
 disease within ten miles of them. However 
 these things may have been, Mrs. Eddy, early 
 in 1895, issued the following ecclesiastical 
 edict :* 
 
 * Published in the Christian Science Journal of April, 
 1895. 
 
126 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 " Humbly, and as I believe divinely di- 
 rected, I hereby ordain that the Bible and 
 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 
 shall hereafter be the only pastor of the Church 
 of Christ, Scientist, throughout our land, and 
 in other lands." 
 
 This edict prevented Mrs. Eddy's theological 
 subordinates from setting themselves up on 
 " earthly pinnacles." Mother Eddy at the 
 same time decreed this : 
 
 " No copies of my books are allowed to be 
 written, and read from manuscript, either in 
 private, or in public assemblies, except by their 
 author." 
 
 She included the commmandent that 
 
 " The reader of Science and Health with 
 Key to the Scriptures, shall commence by an- 
 nouncing the full title of this book, with the 
 name of the author, and afterwards repeat at 
 each reading its abbreviated title." 
 
 Directions followed regarding classes in 
 " Christian Science " — the number of pupils 
 each teacher might instruct, and the annual 
 number of classes — all to be taught " from 
 the Christian Science text-book." 
 
 Thus " Mother " Eddy's edict of 1895, abol- 
 
" Mother Church." 127 
 
 ishing pulpiteers "in Science," while it re- 
 dounded widely to her own glory, piously 
 amplified, also, the proceeds of her " precious 
 volume,' ' Science and Health. But to the in- 
 nocent lambkins of her church, she said : 
 
 " Teaching Christian Science shall be no 
 question of money, but of morals and uplift- 
 ing the race." 
 
 So that lovely bird, the ostrich, still buries 
 her head in the sand, but leaves out much that 
 ornaments the landscape. 
 
 In a rounded corner of the First Church 
 Scientist, but conspicuous from the main pas- 
 sage, is a little apartment celebrated as " The 
 Mother's Room." There is no use of men- 
 tioning the Mother Church " in Science," with- 
 out dwelling on " The Mother's Room." 
 It is never done, especially by any " Scientist." 
 The Church is holy, throughout ; but that room 
 is the demonstrated environment of Immortal 
 Mind. 
 
 The entrance to " The Mother's Room " is 
 through a white-marble arch, lustrous to be- 
 hold. Over the door, cut into the marble, is 
 the inscription, " Love." It is not " love of 
 money," or "love of flattery," but jtfst 
 
128 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 " Love/' On the floor of the entrance we read 
 in mosaic : " Mother's Room. The children's 
 offering " — which signifies that Mother Eddy- 
 knows how to attract the pennies of little 
 Scientists as well as the dollars of her larger 
 infants. 
 
 As you enter the room, you tread on white- 
 marble mosaic, sprayed with figs and fig- 
 leaves, and you feel an emanation of pale green 
 and old rose. If you know your business, you 
 are struck with awe on being in this holy-of- 
 holies. 
 
 On your right is a mantel of white Italian 
 marble and gold, with an open fireplace, where- 
 in to throw all your mortal thoughts, that they 
 may be consumed. Opposite the mantel on 
 your left, is a rather large painting, set back in 
 the wall, but well lighted by electricity and 
 divine science. It shows the sacred chair in 
 which Mrs. Eddy sat when she wrote Science 
 and Health. The chair is empty — as typical, 
 perhaps, of her departure from Boston when 
 she closed her " Metaphysical College." As 
 Mrs. Eddy has no need of a table when she 
 writes, but can perform miracles of literature 
 on a pad, the picture shows this phenomenon. 
 
" Mother Church/' 129 
 
 Sheets of her manuscript are scattered on the 
 floor, illustrating the logical chaos which fills 
 them. 
 
 A part of " The Mother's Room " is fenced 
 off by a ribbon, to protect a rug made from the 
 downy breasts of five hundred eider-ducks. 
 The legend, as told by the guide, is that " no 
 man's hand ever touched this rug." It is sa- 
 cred to the Mother's immaculate foot. But 
 it was not manufactured by the Audubon 
 Society. 
 
 A beautiful showcase, of white and gold, 
 ornaments the room, and in it are the white 
 and gold editions of Mrs. Eddy's works. They 
 are samples of what you can buy at the regular 
 price, and are very tempting to wealthy 
 '* scientists." 
 
 The Mother's room has a gorgeous bay-win- 
 dow, or three windows in one, of stained glass. 
 The Mother herself is there, searching the 
 Scriptures, encircled by a halo from the star 
 of Bethlehem. The Christian Science seal is 
 emblazoned on the window, and a little girl is 
 there, reading Science and Health to an old 
 man. The little girl must be Mary Baker and 
 the old man, probably, is Moses or Abraham. 
 9 
 
130 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 An alabaster bee-hive must not be forgotten, 
 which contains the names of the little busy 
 bees " in Science " — those children who 
 squeezed out the cash to construct the room. 
 
 As you turn and go out, you observe, on the 
 right, an alcove, which contains a folding bed, 
 to be pulled out into the main room in case of 
 use; for the alcove itself is almost as small as 
 a mind that disagrees with Mrs. Eddy. 
 
 At your left — still going out — there is a 
 toilet-room, corresponding to the alcove, but 
 on the other side- of the arch and doorway. In 
 practical construction, this toilet-room is very 
 much like other small inclosures adapted to the 
 same ends. The chief difference, here, is that 
 all the water-pipes, faucets, and such fixtures, 
 are plated with gold. Thus Mother Eddy's 
 lavatory proudly reminds her of Solomon's 
 temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 It is said that " Mother Eddy " has never 
 slept in " The Mother's Room " but once. This 
 one occasion, however, was quite enough to 
 sanctify it forever. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 131 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A MARTYR TO "SCIENCE." 
 
 " Christian Science," though its span be 
 brief, has produced one of the most exceptional 
 martyrs that ever lived and prospered. It is 
 a woman, of course; for men, as a rule, have 
 now become too " mortal-minded " for sac- 
 rificial victims. 
 
 The lady referred to is a Mrs. Josephine C. 
 Woodbury. Boston is her habitat. She was 
 long a follower of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, 
 and was a preacher of the gospel, Science and 
 Health. She talked and prayed, she wrote and 
 traveled, all " in Science," until she became 
 a public personage, celebrated throughout the 
 dominions of the Eddyites. Then at last there 
 was " War in Heaven " — which is the title 
 of one of Mrs. Woodbury's books,* and she 
 
 * War in Heaven : Sixteen Years' 1 Experience in 
 Christian Science, Mind-Healing . By Josephine Curtis 
 Woodbury. Third Edition. Boston, Mass. Press of 
 Samuel Usher, 1897. 
 
132 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 was excommunicated from the Mother Church 
 Scientist of the Boston Back Bay. 
 
 Now Mrs. Woodbury is not a lady who can 
 be excommunicated from a church without 
 giving that church fair returns for the outlay. 
 Mrs. Woodbury has a pen, and there is black 
 ink on it. She has attorneys quick to exchange 
 legal process for bank notes redeemable in gold. 
 The lady has turned her pen against " Mother 
 Eddy," and cast ink-spots on the " Mother's " 
 religion, not to say her personal character. The 
 Woodbury lawyers have been let loose upon 
 " the Mother " to sue for ethical redress and 
 monetary damages.* 
 
 Mrs. Woodbury entered " Science " very 
 young — a fact on account of which let us ex- 
 cuse her, as well as we can, for ever entering 
 it at all. She thought she was one of the 
 " healed " in the Eddy faith, and, later, she 
 imagined that her reading a passage or two 
 
 * Several suits are pending as this book goes to press. 
 One suit has been " thrown out of court." It should be said, 
 perhaps, that one of Mrs. Woodbury's attorneys, F. W. Pea- 
 body, Esq., has such an abhorrence of " Christian Science n 
 in general, that he has been willing to take the part of any- 
 body who could enable him to expose Mrs. Eddy. In this 
 good work may he not be discouraged. 
 
A Martyr to " Science/' 133 
 
 from Science and Health snatched one of her 
 children from the jaws of death. Her War in 
 Heaven tells us this story, and it may do no 
 harm to trust it is true. 
 
 Mrs. Woodbury has the reputation of never 
 doing things by halves, but of attending to 
 business religiously, and of attending to reli- 
 gion in a business way. Having once entered 
 " Christian Science," she pursued that voca- 
 tion with great metaphysical and financial suc- 
 cess, until suddenly, on the 4th of April, 1896, 
 came the bolt of excommunication. 
 
 It can readily be understood that conven- 
 tional respectability is a necessary anci profita- 
 ble department of " The Eddy Church Scien- 
 tist," and that so shifty an ecclesiastic as 
 " Mother Eddy " can scent opprobrium from 
 afar. Whereto applies certain " Christian- 
 Science " history. 
 
 Soon after the excommunication of the 
 apostle Josephine — the latter part of the same 
 year — she was attacked at law by a Mr. Fred 
 D. Chamberlain, in the sum of twenty-five 
 thousand dollars, on the charge that she had 
 alienated the affection and companionship of 
 his wife. The case got into print, and being 
 
134 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 displayed under large heads in the Boston 
 Traveler of December 12th, 1896 and there- 
 after, a suit was instituted against Mr. Cham- 
 berlain and that paper for Lbel.* 
 
 It appears from the files of the Traveler that 
 its industrious editor collected a large variety 
 of statements, letters, and interviews, for the 
 purpose of showing his readers, that, among 
 Mrs. Woodbury's religious accomplishments — 
 whether it were due to suggestion, elective 
 affinity, hypnotism, or Christian ^Science — she 
 possessed a mighty gift of drawing simple 
 souls — the rich invariably preferred — into the 
 select congregation of her fleecy followers. 
 Then, at two hundred dollars a follower, she 
 was depicted as converting the sinners of other 
 sects to " Christian Science." 
 
 It will be observed that Mrs. Woodbury 
 seemingly dealt in " metaphysics " at cut 
 prices, the " Mother's" regular rate for instruc- 
 
 * The extraordinary matters of this chapter, however 
 well or ill suppressed, were all published, with great de- 
 tail, in the issues of the Traveler from Dec. 12th to 22d, 
 1896, and from January nth to 25th, 1897. Here they 
 have simply been put into brief form, and relieved of all 
 unnecessary harshness. The papers have been preserved 
 for evidence and are in my hands. — G. C. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 135 
 
 tion being three hundred dollars, not two 
 hundred. But, for value received from Mrs. 
 Woodbury's " loyal students " — she, like " the 
 Mother," so naming her disciples — from seven 
 to ten lessons only, according to the Traveler, 
 were imparted to them. Then the course was 
 indefinitely repeated, in accordance with the 
 demand that could be created for the healing 
 staples. 
 
 Here, to be sure, was something that might 
 have greatly offended " Mother Eddy." Yet 
 daughter Woodbury's cut prices were only 
 colorable, not actual ; for, in the frequent repe- 
 tition of the same wisdom and religiosity to 
 the same " loyal students," she must have done 
 less work for more money than was ever done 
 even in the Mother's college itself. 
 
 Again, if we follow newspaper files and 
 court records in the case of the Boston Trav- 
 eler * we are told that Mrs. Woodbury had a 
 family interest in putting on the market cer- 
 tain stock in a hot-air engine — a kind of 
 " Christian Science " stock in which, if her 
 " loyal students " took a religious flyer, their 
 
 * The story, with many details, in issue of Dec. 14, 
 1896. 
 
136 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 secular dealings would be sure to turn up with 
 the right end in the air. This, perhaps, was 
 a prime investment; but, on investigation, one 
 " loyal student " — plaintiff Chamberlain of the 
 suit we have touched — somehow received the 
 impression, though doubtless through " mortal 
 mind," that the holy engine stock had a slight 
 smell of the Keeley motor. Unetherealized man 
 that he was, this affliction of his base common 
 sense was the immediate cause, he declared, of 
 all his trouble. His pious wife was unable to 
 bear such an affront to divinity in the person 
 of her " teacher," St. Josephine Woodbury. 
 So the " teacher " stuck to the wife, and the 
 husband was left out in the cold.* 
 
 That Boston newspaper, the Traveler, in 
 spreading the Chamberlain unpleasantness, was 
 assiduously biographical. Particulars can be 
 curtailed. It is only necessary to say that the 
 distinguished Mrs. Woodbury was depicted as 
 a self-made woman who had once been known 
 to plain environments, but who, with preach- 
 
 * A long story underlies the unfortunate marriage and 
 separation of the lady and gentleman involved in this 
 case. But the facts are not essential to the one and only 
 subject of these pages, " Christian Science." 
 
A Martyr to "Science." 137 
 
 ing, healing, scientific religion and engine- 
 stock, had become financially as well as spirit- 
 ulaly beatified. Finally she had reached a 
 shining abode on Commonwealth Avenue — 
 that kind of mansion, in Boston, being the very 
 next thing to " a mansion in the skies." 
 
 Her " loyal students," it is true, were not 
 represented by the Traveler as having been en- 
 riched in the same way. Still, if already 
 wealthy, as most of them were said to be, what 
 was the use of it ? Might they not better come 
 unto St. Josephine Woodbury, and cast upon 
 her the dross and sorrow of their material ac- 
 cumulations ? 
 
 As described in the Traveler print, these 
 " loyal students " were, for the most part, rather 
 young people, rich in their own right, or so en- 
 deared to their parents that neither gold nor 
 silver, if it could be given, was denied to them. 
 Once in the woods and groves of Teacher 
 Woodbury's " Christian Science " paradise, 
 these charmed innocents were turned into mis- 
 sionaries to their families, where souls might 
 be saved and further possessions might accrue 
 to a blessed instructor. If the heads of these 
 families would not turn from the wicked ways 
 
138 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 of the world and their own churches, and bring 
 gifts to the shrine of Christian Science, then 
 the " loyal students " were taught to shake the 
 dust from their feet, and depart from among 
 the unholy. 
 
 Thus were the Scriptures fulfilled " in 
 Science." But the Traveler made it to appear 
 that such doctrine set daughter against father, 
 son against mother, and wife against husband. 
 
 So, indeed, the doctrine was made to appear 
 in a letter written by Saint Woodbury herself 
 and published in the Traveler over her full 
 name.* Therein was this preachment: 
 
 " The Bible says that the teachings of Jesus 
 rightly practised, will, must, set at variance the 
 members of any household, some of whom do, 
 and some of whom do not, imbibe the faith. 
 . . . God's will be done. The command is 
 still on the elect to come out from the world, 
 and to separate and to shake the dust from 
 their feet, of any house which will not receive 
 the peace bestowed. ,, 
 
 Mrs. Woodbury, having thus justified her 
 religion and her economics by Scripture, pro- 
 
 * Issue of Dec. 12, 1896. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 139 
 
 ceeded to justify Scripture itself by the Abso- 
 lute — the example of Mrs. Eddy. St. Jose- 
 phine went on, in her letter, thus : 
 
 " When the Discerner of this Science first 
 apprehended the demands of this Religion and 
 system of ethics, she was forced to withdraw 
 from the Congregational Church. ... I have 
 been informed, also, that not one of her family 
 ever held her faith in anything but active con- 
 tempt." 
 
 This latter revelation to St. Woodbury, re- 
 garding Saint Mary Baker Eddy and her rela- 
 tives, is probably true. Others have received 
 the same information. But when the chosen 
 one was rejected of the Baker family, particu- 
 larly of its affluent members, it is affirmed that 
 the spirit of " Science " arose within Mary, 
 like a mighty tantrum, and, recalling her early 
 likeness to Samuel and the Hebrews, she ex- 
 claimed with "immortal mind," "I will yet 
 roll in wealth ! " These words of the prophe- 
 tess-Mother are sweet to the ear of Christian 
 Science, which admonishes its adherents to go 
 and do likewise — assuring them that if stead- 
 fast " in Science," they will be sure to stand 
 solid in Dunn and Bradstreet. 
 
140 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 It is well that our condition of existence, 
 whatever may be its metaphysical bases, is not 
 all tragedy, but is relieved by a border of com- 
 edy. According to a tale of Christian Science, 
 as told by the Boston Traveler, Mrs. Wood- 
 bury, when in the prime of her healing illumi- 
 nation, with its full returns, felt on one occa- 
 sion that piety would be advanced if a " loyal 
 student " of hers — a lady of means — should 
 add a promising husband to the true Church. 
 It was done. Then, the ever-watchful 
 " teacher " sent forth on the wedding tour a 
 third " loyal student " — a virgin with her lamp 
 trimmed and burning — to see that neither of 
 the other twain should lapse from grace and 
 the certainty of further contributions. 
 
 The complaint against the Traveler news- 
 paper got into court on the nth of January, 
 1897. Short work was made of it. Not- 
 withstanding all the divine science incarnate 
 in St. Josephine C. Woodbury, His Honor the 
 Judge, Dewey by name, excluded her from 
 the court-room, that she might not contribute 
 to the examination of her witnesses any eye- 
 beams of hypnotism. 
 
 As this book is not designed to be improp- 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 141 
 
 erly personal, but simply an exposition of the 
 claims, doctrines, and effects, of Christian 
 Science, all unnecessary use of individual 
 names must be avoided. But a few are indis- 
 pensable; and people who are mentioned here 
 have already got themselves corruscatingly 
 into print. 
 
 The first witness for Mrs. Woodbury — who 
 turned out also to be the last — was a Mr. Al- 
 fred M. Potter. He testified that he was a 
 brother of Mrs. Fred D. Chamberlain — the 
 lady said to be alienated from her husband — 
 and that he and his sister boarded with the 
 Woodburys. He was estranged from his fam- 
 ily, he said, except that one sister, but Mrs. 
 Woodbury was not the cause of it. 
 
 As the Traveler summed up one point of 
 the court-records, Mr. Potter, in the past year, 
 had paid the husband of Mrs. Woodbury thir- 
 teen thousand dollars outside of board and 
 room. He had paid Mrs. Woodbury " between 
 a thousand and eleven hundred dollars for in- 
 structions for himself." But, in the summer 
 of 1896, there was a European trip for Mr. 
 Potter and the Woodburys. How could a 
 " loyal student," young and wealthy, venture 
 
142 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 abroad without his "teacher?" And why 
 was not his money well expended for spiritual 
 pleasures, on the way, if St. Josephine and Mr, 
 Woodbury took good care of Mr. Potter, and 
 brought him safe home? 
 
 But the most extraordinary matter in con- 
 nection with Mr. Potter's depositions was a 
 certain quasi-confirmation of a story that came 
 to the Traveler and had been published, alleg- 
 ing that, on the authority of Mrs. Woodbury, 
 the ancient and most infinitely closed of all mir- 
 acles, " the immaculate conception," had been 
 repeated under the advanced dispensation of 
 Mother Eddy's religion. Such was declared 
 by various " loyal students " of Mrs. Wood- 
 bury to have been the claim of their exalted 
 " teacher," to whom a son was born, named 
 ' Prince," an abbreviation of his full title, 
 " the Prince of Peace." Mr. Potter came 
 short of corroborating the whole of this mir- 
 acle, but gave substantially the version of it 
 which Mrs. Woodbury presented to the public, 
 after the trial, in the pages of her " War in 
 Heaven." There she says : 
 
 " On the morning of June nth, 1890, there 
 was born to me a baby boy; though, till his 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 143 
 
 sharp birth-cry saluted my ears, I had not real- 
 ized that prospective maternity was the inter- 
 pretation of preceding months of physical dis- 
 comfort. . . . An hour after the birth I rose. 
 In the afternoon I was up and dressed, and at 
 night dined with my family. . . . We named 
 our boy Prince Woodbury, partly because he 
 came into our family as a veritable harbinger 
 of peace." 
 
 Witness Potter testified that he understood, 
 through Mrs. Woodbury, that " she had no 
 knowledge of the birth of Prince " until she 
 found him with her. This circumstance, he 
 understood, " was through Christian Science." 
 
 When Mr. Potter, with a straight, truthful, 
 honest face, gave this testimony, it naturally af- 
 fected the gravity of the bench, the bar, and 
 all others present, except Christian Scientists. 
 There was reflected from one to another the 
 sardonic smile of " mortal mind." But the 
 case went on until presently a paper was put 
 before Mr. Potter, by counsel for the defense, 
 that it might be identified. 
 
 The paper never got before the court. But 
 the contents of it were very peculiar. The 
 paper, in fact, was a brutally blunt form of re- 
 
144 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 traction on the part of Mr. Fred D. Chamber- 
 lain, of every derogatory criticism of Mrs. 
 Woodbury he had ever made, and a meek sub- 
 mission to her brand of " Christian Science."* 
 In the event of his not signing the paper, he 
 was given to understand that he must depart 
 from the abode of his wife. 
 
 The document, it appears, was in the hand- 
 writing of the " loyal student," Mrs. Cham- 
 berlain, and was dictated by Mrs. Woodbury. 
 But when it was presented to Mr. Chamberlain 
 for his signature, he had not only declined to 
 attach his name to it, but had retained the 
 document. 
 
 The Woodbury counsel quickly protested 
 against the admission of such evidence, and the 
 protest was judicious; for was not the whole 
 case of " alienation " substantially set down on 
 that paper? Hence, too, what would become 
 of the libel-suit? But the court decided that 
 the evidence was admissible. Then, in such a 
 shocking plight, what could an able Woodbury 
 lawyer do but decline, with virtuous indigna- 
 tion, to go on further with the case? The 
 short of it was that Judge Dewey discharged 
 the defendants, reprimanded the prosecution, 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 145 
 
 and the noisy Traveler had everything its own 
 way.* 
 
 As for the Chamberlain suit for damages 
 " in Science," it was not pursued to the mone- 
 tary end. It was soon ascertained that the 
 wife really had more affection for her delec- 
 table " teacher " than any " loyal student " 
 could be expected to have for a mere husband. 
 As a business necessity, a divorce was then 
 procured by Mr. Chamberlain, on the ground 
 of desertion, and the twain went separate ways. 
 
 It was not proved in Mrs. Woodbury's libel 
 suit against the Traveler that St. Josephine 
 had claimed the full import of the Traveler's 
 story about her " Prince." The proceedings, 
 we have seen, were prematurely stopped. But, 
 after the newspaper's legal victory, it published 
 sworn statements from a number of people who 
 would have been its witnesses had the trial 
 gone on. The most important was one made 
 by Hon. George E. Macomber, an ex-mayor 
 
 * There were really two papers handed to Mr. Chamberlain, 
 and he was to take his choice between them. The case, too, 
 was withdrawn, not wholly on account of one thing, but many 
 things which Mrs. Woodbury's lawyer found it impossible to 
 contend against. But the most direct cause of the with- 
 drawal is the one given. 
 10 
 
146 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 of Augusta, Maine.* In the regular form 
 of a legal deposition he declared that he had 
 known Mrs. Woodbury for several years, 
 his acquaintance with her having come through 
 his wife, who had taken lessons of her. He 
 said : 
 
 " My wife came one day and said Mrs. 
 Woodbury had had a child down at Ocean 
 Point which was a ' Second Christ/ was im- 
 maculately conceived, and that it was the duty 
 of her students to make presents to this ' Sec- 
 ond Christ.' " 
 
 Mr. Macomber declined to make presents, 
 and, according to his statement, his wife's 
 " eyes were opened," after a while, and she 
 " pulled out " of " Science." 
 
 The Traveler's other witnesses may pass. It 
 is only essential to say that they were numer- 
 ous, and that they all agreed with Mr. Macom- 
 ber. One of them testified, in an interview, 
 that he had once gone so far in neglect of his 
 own family as to make a will in favor of " the 
 Prince of Peace." But our direct point here is 
 only this. — There would seem to be no doubt 
 that St. Josephine Woodbury's " loyal stu- 
 * Boston Traveler^ January 21, 1897. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 147 
 
 dents/' far and wide, were called upon to bear 
 gifts to her celestial son. Hence, his origin 
 had palpable use as a financial mystery, what- 
 ever may have been its precise theological bear- 
 ings. 
 
 In " Christian Science/' the doctrine here 
 recorded has been logically coupled with an- 
 other doctrine — that of inconnubiality in wed- 
 lock. This tenet, we can see, like the former, 
 might result in money, goods and bequests, for 
 some attractive " teacher," which might other- 
 wise be squandered by a " student " in raising 
 a family. 
 
 But the principle here imbedded " in Sci- 
 ence " has not been special to Mrs. Woodbury. 
 Mother Eddy herself is the crystal background 
 of all good things, and this one, with the rest, 
 must be credited to the fountain of universal 
 originality, Science and Health* The pure 
 simplicity of any being who can seriously read 
 that book to the end, inevitably fits him to 
 maintain with Christian Scientists, that, if chil- 
 dren be not given to parents under physical 
 
 * Until it is learned that generation rests on no sexual 
 basis, let marriage continue. Spirit will ultimately 
 claim its own, and the voices of physical sense be for- 
 ever hushed. — Science and Healthy page 274. 
 
148 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 laws, the science of perfect purity will ulti- 
 mately evolve " Children of the Soul." " My 
 husband and I," recently exclaimed a vestal 
 matron of Mrs. Eddy's following, " have long 
 lived together as brother and sister: isn't it 
 beautiful?' 1 " Perhaps it is," replied another 
 matron, thus addressed, "but I am told it is 
 generally impracticable, except in Boston." 
 
 When last heard from, our contemporary 
 " Prince of Peace " was a pretty school-boy of 
 wit beyond his years. May the world smile 
 kindly on " Prince Woodbury," who is in no- 
 wise to blame for any new-fangled religion* 
 but may heaven preserve him from any further 
 involution with the sacraments of " Christian 
 Science." 
 
 Before bidding adieu to the heroine-martyr 
 of our present chapter, one more instance must 
 be given of her work in a careless world — a 
 very sad instance, not to be treated lightly. 
 
 Among Mrs. Josephine Woodbury's " loyal- 
 students " for some time preceding the year 
 1897, was a hand-maiden of " Christian Sci- 
 ence," one Mary Nash. The story of poor lit- 
 tle Mary was told in the Boston Traveler* 
 * January 15, 1897. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 149 
 
 chiefly in the words of her father, when that 
 paper was sued for libel " in Science." 
 
 Mary Nash, as we summarize that story, 
 lived at Augusta, Maine, and her father, like 
 our witness Macomber, had been a. mayor of 
 that city. He was a busy man, but one who 
 loved his daughter, and kept her in funds for 
 what he regarded as harmless fads and amuse- 
 ments. 
 
 Mary joined the " loyal students." Then, 
 little by little, she absented herself from Au- 
 gusta, making frequent pilgrimages to Boston. 
 The pilgrimages grew in duration until her 
 home was seldom her habitation. " Teacher " 
 Woodbury had not only changed her heart, but 
 her whole tenor of mortal life, and Mary was 
 completely born again into the most progressed 
 fears and phases of " Christian Science." 
 
 Letters followed to her father, asking for 
 money, and demanding that he and all his 
 house should join " the loyal students." He 
 forwarded the money as occasion required, but 
 his unregenerate neck stiffly declined " Sci- 
 ence." So Mary went no more to her father 
 for weeks and months together. He sent her 
 mother and brother to her, with prayers that 
 
150 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 she return to the family hearth-stone, if not to 
 the family church. But she was always se- 
 questered from the influence of her relatives, 
 by some ''' loyal student " or other in the 
 Woodbury collection of dutiful freaks. 
 
 Mary's soul was much disturbed at times, 
 notwithstanding the religio-scientific consola- 
 tions of her surrounding guardians. She be- 
 gan to demonstrate, in her own scattered little 
 person, the one everlasting assumption of 
 " Christian Science," that the human body is 
 an illusion to be dispelled. In other words, 
 Mary Nash was fast sinking into what ordi- 
 nary doctors of medicine and divinity term ill- 
 ness, and it became extreme. 
 
 Then, not for the first time, her father, went 
 to Boston himself, to take, if possible, his 
 daughter back to his care and her mother's 
 heart, at the Augusta home. But still, still — 
 unless by some accident of a moment — she was 
 always under the eye and the power of a " met- 
 aphysical " keeper. Then Mary said " no " — 
 she " could not leave the fount of Christian 
 Science." So she stayed in Boston; for she was 
 of age, and could select her castle and com- 
 panionship while she had the ways and means 
 to maintain them. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 151 
 
 Now what could a poor law-abiding citizen 
 of New England, who had once been a mayor, 
 do in such a case ? Had Mary's father been a 
 wild citizen of the West or the South, he might 
 have taken his handy " gun " along with him, 
 and removed his child or " cleaned out the 
 ranch." But Maine and Massachusetts are too 
 subdued for such stringent remedies. So 
 Mayor Nash mourned of " hypnotism," and of- 
 fered — the distracted father that he was — five 
 hundred dollars, to release his daughter from 
 the blessings of her religion. This mercenary 
 offer was spurned, as suspect perchance in legal 
 and ecclesiastic form; but the way was pointed 
 out in which the money might be received for 
 lessons in Christian Science, at the Woodbury 
 cut-rates. 
 
 Meanwhile, it being ascertained that Mary 
 Nash had a modest bank-account in her name, 
 the money was sent for, by herself nominally, 
 but visibly through a person in the number 
 seven shoes of a " loyal student." The bank 
 men — who were not " in Science " — declined 
 to pay Mary's demand, and referred the matter 
 to her father. He agreed with the bank in 
 holding the proceeds of his daughter's account, 
 
152 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 and his very stomach, not to say his soul, re- 
 jected the thought of exchanging cash for re- 
 ligious instruction from Mrs. Josephine C. 
 Woodbury. 
 
 So little Mary Nash became of no further 
 promise to " Christian Science." And there 
 was no time to lose. Mary was plainly depart- 
 ing from the state of deception — certainly such 
 to her — called " earthly life." Hastily, at last, 
 she was permitted to journey home with her 
 father, and presently the sad man laid his 
 daughter away in what to him was death.* 
 
 From the history of " Christian Science" — 
 set down in these pages as the thing really is — 
 
 * I have seen what I suppose to be true copies of a 
 series of letters written by Mary Nash and different 
 members of her family, with one or two from some of 
 Mrs. Woodbury's " loyal students." The letters might 
 possibly be taken to show that inharmony existed in the 
 Nash family, and that the daughter stayed away from 
 father, mother and brothers on that account, instead of 
 being, if such was the case, just where a sensible and af- 
 fectionate daughter was most needed. The letters, at any 
 rate, show the most united affection for her, and more 
 than willingness to do anything she asked, if she would 
 only return to her home. When finally she did so, two 
 physicians, according to Mr. Nash, declared her to be 
 under hypnotic control. Letters, under hypnotism, are 
 suspect. — G. C. 
 
A Martyr to " Science." 153 
 
 it must be clear to anybody not quite emptied 
 of all " mortal sense "' that Mrs. Josephine C. 
 Woodbury has been the most logical sequence, 
 the most practical outcome, of the whole firm- 
 amental illumination. 
 
 But, that the Church of St. Bunco should 
 grow and prosper — or should even hold its 
 own among its honest innocents — it has been 
 necessary for Mrs. Eddy not only to preach 
 " love " and " purity " in general, but to draw 
 the line of practical conduct somewhere short 
 of blackmail, larceny and homicide. St. Jo- 
 sephine Woodbury never committed a sin in 
 her life. Sin has no reality '* in Science." 
 Her " loyal students " would all have testified 
 that she was equal to any of the angels, if not 
 better than the highest. Yet a hard world 
 around her, not understanding " true relig- 
 ion," began to fancy, say in 1896, that she was 
 not, every second, fulfilling all the ten com- 
 mandments. Then, besides her War in 
 Heaven, the lady has written another book, 
 called Christian Voices, in which, the thought 
 having been long imputed to her, she asked the 
 question, " Who shall succeed Mrs. Eddy?" As 
 Science and Health declares there is no death, 
 
154 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 and as " Mother Eddy " is specially immortal, 
 St. Josephine's carnal talk of the " Christian 
 Science succession" was naturally regarded 
 " in Science " as worse than blasphemy. Thus 
 many things worked together against St. Jo- 
 sephine Woodbury, until at last she sat on 
 " Mother " Eddy's burning fagots and wore 
 the crown of martyrdom. 
 
 Thereat the world did not come to an end, 
 but went right on with the production of 
 quacks, dupes, and " loyal students." 
 
Metaphysics. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 METAPHYSICS.* 
 
 " Mother Eddy " and her flock " in Sci- 
 ence " derive a considerable part of their in- 
 come from a glib use of the word " Meta- 
 physics." But what the " Church Scientist " 
 has omitted to learn about the real import of 
 that word would make a volume even larger 
 than Science and Health. 
 
 As unreservedly admitted in our present es- 
 say, there is no trouble about a spiritual deriva- 
 tion of the universe. In the declaratory, 
 religious form, the New Testament is a suffi- 
 cient example of this doctrine. In the philo- 
 
 * The chapters of our book from XI. to XVI. inclusive, 
 were, in substance, written at the request of Dr. William 
 T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, and 
 published in his Journal of 'Speculative Philosophy for De- 
 cember, 1893, under the caption of "The Secret of 
 Kant." These chapters, while too abstruse for light 
 readers, really explain what " Christian Science " igno- 
 rantly chatters about as "Metaphysics." — O. C. 
 
156 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 sophical form the names of Plato and Aristotle, 
 both of whom resolved all things into the prin- 
 ciple of " Mind," summarized the subject for 
 the ancient world. T.he modern world has 
 now given three hundred years to the same 
 theme, and, however well or ill aware of the 
 fact, has reached the same end, but wholly 
 without the assistance of any pushing, dodging 
 adventuress, with a little set of abstract ideas 
 and much screaming of " Science." 
 
 Leaving lighter themes for the moment, let 
 us venture on a brief survey of this ground. 
 
 There are just two possible ways of analyz- 
 ing things. One way is to set the world with 
 its particulars before the eye, look at it, and ac- 
 cept what we see. Then we may go to work 
 on phenomena, dissecting and generalizing. 
 This is the way of physics — a road that never 
 leads to m^a-physics. It is the common turn- 
 pike of material sicence — of " positivism." 
 In it travel all such men, say, as Dr. Ernst 
 Hseckel : also all such men as the late Parson 
 John Jasper, the colored preacher of Virginia, 
 who, seeing the sun move round the earth, set- 
 tled the fact in that way. 
 
 The one other way of dissecting the uni- 
 
Metaphysics. 157 
 
 verse is to examine the means through which 
 things are presented to us, and thus to ascertain 
 what effect the means may have in the produc- 
 tion and nature of the things. This method 
 of investigation has ultimated in what has been 
 summed up as " Scientific Idealism." 
 
 Scientific idealism is the knowledge which 
 every one may get even from his first lessons 
 in optics, that things of matter — the objects of 
 our five senses — are constituted such through 
 the structure and action of these senses them- 
 selves. That is to say, material things — what- 
 ever we see or feel, hear, taste or smell — while 
 existent and real — while practically what every 
 one takes them to be — are made so through 
 relativity. Or, as Kant put it, every " phe- 
 nomenon " — meaning every object or fact of 
 sensation — is a " representation " ; that is, 
 some lot of effects on our sensuous nature, 
 bound together into a unity of them, the unity 
 thus formed becoming an object of awareness, 
 a " percept." 
 
 Scientific idealism does not question the 
 given duality of the cosmos, which appears to 
 us as what we call " mind and matter." Here 
 are we; out there, indubitably apart from us, 
 
158 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 are other things, involving another source. 
 But scientific idealism has found that this 
 source is itself quite other than the things we 
 connect with it, and can properly be described 
 in this connection only as source of impact. 
 It has nothing to do with matter, in the com- 
 mon acceptation. It enters into matter, being 
 the ultimate non-ego, the objective background, 
 of every phenomenon. But, in all material 
 things, this background is transformed by con- 
 tact with subjective sense (in. us or other or- 
 ganisms), and "matter" is really the fusion, 
 the compound, the third term, of these two ele- 
 mental principles. 
 
 This momentous truth, though mystically 
 reached in the old tenet of India that " matter 
 is illusion," and though touched understand- 
 ingly by Carneades in Greece, Was first clearly 
 seen, in the manner of modern science, by 
 the remarkably solid Englishman, Thomas 
 Hobbes. 
 
 " Qualities called sensible " [said Hobbes] 
 " are, in the object that causefh them, but so 
 many several motions of the matter by which it 
 presseth our organs, diversely. . . . Because 
 the image in vision, consisting of color and 
 
Metaphysics. 159 
 
 shape, is the knowledge we have of the quali- 
 ties of the object of that sense, it is no hard 
 matter for a man to fall into this opinion, that 
 the same color and shape are the very qualities 
 themselves." 
 
 But, concluded Hobbes: 
 
 " The subject wherein color and image are 
 inherent is not the object or thing seen. . . . 
 There is nothing without us (really) which we 
 call an image or color. . . . The said image or 
 color is but an apparition unto us of the mo- 
 tion, agitation, or alteration, which the object 
 worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some inter- 
 nal substance of the head. . . . As in vision, 
 so also in conceptions that arise from the other 
 senses, the subject of their inference is not the 
 object, but the sentient." 
 
 When John Locke began his great "Essay " 
 on The Human Understanding, and posited 
 mind in its first estate as a passive nonentity — 
 a " blank tablet " — he had no vital conception 
 of scientific idealism. But, in the patient 
 thinking of twenty years, such a man could not 
 fail to come upon the law, though he saw it 
 only in part, and did not work it out. This 
 work was carried a great way beyond him, by 
 
160 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the acute and learned Bishop Berkeley, who 
 showed from practical science, especially 
 through his investigation of " vision," that 
 nothing in the universe has any actual being, 
 apart from a universal element, that, wherever 
 it may be posited, can alone be called Mind. 
 
 Since Berkeley, no philosophical thinker, 
 perhaps, of any significance, anywhere in trie- 
 world, has questioned the " ideality " of " ma- 
 terial things." Even Reid, as the philosopher 
 of " common sense," declared that 
 
 " No man can conceive any sensation to re- 
 semble any known quality of bodies. Nor can 
 any man show, by any good argument, that all 
 our sensations might not have been as they are, 
 though no body, nor quality of body, had ever 
 existed." 
 
 Hume's comprehension of Scientific idealism 
 was complete to his day, and was completely 
 stated. He said : 
 
 " 'Tis not our body we perceive when we re- 
 gard our limbs and members, but certain im- 
 pressions which enter by the senses; so that 
 the ascribing a real and corporeal existence to 
 these impressions, or to their objects, is an act 
 of the mind difficult to explain." 
 
Metaphysics. 161 
 
 The idealism of recent " materialistic " phil- 
 osophers, such as Herbert Spencer and the 
 school of " Positivists," has been most care- 
 fully expressed by John Stuart Mill, in his 
 statement that " Matter is a Permanent Pos- 
 sibility of Sensation." 
 
 " If " [said Mr. Mill] " I am asked whether 
 I believe in matter, I ask whether the ques- 
 tioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, 
 I believe in matter; and so do all Berkeleians. 
 In any other sense than this I do not." 
 
 For an easy, popular view of the principle of 
 scientific idealism, perhaps nothing has been 
 better said than by Thomas Carlyle, in his re- 
 view of Novalis. 
 
 " To a transcendentalist [says Carlyle] 
 matter has an existence, but only as a phe~ 
 nomenon. Were we not there, neither would 
 it be there : it is a mere relation, or rather the 
 result of a relation between our living souls 
 and the great First Cause; and depends for its 
 apparent qualities on our bodily and mental or- 
 gans ; having itself no intrinsic qualities ; being; 
 in the common sense of the word, nothing. 
 The tree is green and hard, not of its own nat- 
 ural virtue, but simply because my eye and my 
 II 
 
1 62 The Church of Si Bunco. 
 
 hand are fashioned so as to discern such and 
 such appearances under such and such condi- 
 tions. Nay, as an idealist might say, even on 
 the most popular grounds, must it not be so? 
 Bring a sentient being with eyes a little dif- 
 ferent, ringers ten times harder than mine, and 
 to him that thing which I call tree shall be yel- 
 low and soft, as truly as to me it is green and 
 hard. Form the nervous structure in all 
 points the reverse of mine, and this same tree 
 shall not be combustible and heat-producing-, 
 but dissoluble and cold-producing; not high 
 and convex, but deep and concave ; shall simply 
 have all properties exactly the reverse of those 
 attributed to it. There is no tree there; but 
 only a manifestation of power from something 
 which is not /. The same is true of material 
 nature at large, of the whole visible universe, 
 with all its movements, figures, accidents and 
 qualities." 
 
 Scientific idealism, as far as we have gone 
 with it, has now become one of the " exact " 
 sciences — as much so as physics. It has been 
 simply the result of continuous and innumer- 
 able experiments in natural philosophy, for 
 three centuries. There is no need of going 
 
Metaphysics. 163 
 
 into these physical particulars, after they have 
 been put into the school-books of children and 
 explained in popular lectures. One more quo- 
 tation must suffice. Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his 
 Biographical History of Philosophy, tells us 
 that 
 
 " The radical error of those who believe that 
 we perceive things as they are, consists in mis- 
 taking a metaphor for a fact, and believing that 
 the mind is a mirror in which external objects 
 are reflected. But, as Bacon finely says, ' The 
 human understanding is like an unequal mirror 
 to the rays of things, which, mixing its own na- 
 ture with the nature of things, distorts and per- 
 verts them! We attribute heat to fire, and 
 color to the flower, heat and color being states 
 of our consciousness, occasioned by the fire and 
 the flower under certain conditions. Percep- 
 tion is nothing more than a state of the percip- 
 ient, a state of consciousness. ... Of every 
 change in our sensation we are conscious, and 
 in time we learn to give definite names and 
 forms to the causes of these changes. But in 
 the fact of consciousness there is nothing be- 
 yond consciousness. In our perceptions we are 
 conscious only of the changes which have taken 
 
164 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 place within us. . . . All we can do is to iden- 
 tify certain external appearances with certain 
 internal changes. . . . We conclude, therefore, 
 that the world per se in nowise resembles 
 the world as it appears to us. Perception is an 
 Effect; and its truth is not the truth of re- 
 semblance, but of relation. . . . Light, color, 
 sound, taste, are all states of Consciousness; 
 what they are beyond consciousness . . . we 
 cannot know, we cannot imagine, because we 
 can only conceive them as we know them. 
 Light, with its myriad forms and colors — • 
 Sound, with its thousand-fold life — make Na- 
 ture what Nature appears to us. But they do 
 not exist, as such, apart from our conscious- 
 ness ; they are investitures with which we clothe 
 the world. Nature, in her insentient solitude is 
 an eternal Darkness — an eternal Silence." 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 In a previous chapter, some special refer- 
 ence has been made to a little German professor 
 named Immanuel Kant. He was born at 
 Konigsberg, in 1724. In 1781 he wrote a book 
 which he called " The Critique of Pure Rea- 
 son." This provokingly modest title, as al- 
 ready said, covered, in reality, the analysis of 
 mind and matter, time and space. It was the 
 most far-reaching piece of purely intellectual 
 work that had ever been given to the world. 
 It has split the heads of hundreds of " philoso- 
 phers." Certain thinkers have fancied they 
 have thought beyond it, and have supposed it 
 to be laid on the shelf of " deceased philoso- 
 phy." Meanwhile, we are told, the universities 
 " are returning to the study of Kant." Better 
 still, some of them are even beginning to un- 
 derstand him. Here we shall take him straight, 
 
166 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 paying no attention to any of the side issues in 
 which he was apt to cover himself up.* 
 
 Kant, so learned that he was said to " know 
 everything," was completely acquainted with 
 the whole trend of British philosophy, from 
 John Locke to David Hume. He was satu- 
 rated, too, with the physical sciences. So his 
 first real step in his Critique of Pure Reason 
 was to found himself on the all-inclusive law of 
 scientific idealism. Immanuel Kant did not fool 
 with this law. He did not test it, prove it, and 
 then let it slip out of a loose, greasy mind, as 
 an airy nothing of no practical consequence. 
 He grasped it, and held it, as the bed-rock of 
 all thought and all things. It is a pity he 
 omitted to say so at the very first touch of his 
 work. But he said it clearly enough when he 
 happened to get ready. Thus, for instance : \ 
 
 " In order to prevent any misunderstanding, 
 
 * As this book, including the present chapter, is for 
 readers who may or may not understand German, our 
 quotations from Kant are taken from his Critique as in 
 the old familiar, accessible translation by J. M. D. 
 Meiklejohn (Bohn's Philosophical Library — edition of 
 i860. 
 
 f Critique of Pure Reason ; General Remarks on 
 Transcendental Esthetic, p. 35. 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 167 
 
 it will be requisite, in the first place, to reca- 
 pitulate, as clearly as possible, what our 
 opinion is with respect to the fundamental na- 
 ture of our sensuous cognition in general. We 
 have intended, then, to say that all our intui- 
 tion is nothing but the re-presentation of phe- 
 nomena; that the things which we intuite are 
 not in themselves the same as our re-presenta- 
 tions of them in intuition, nor are their rela- 
 tions so constituted as they appear to us; and 
 that if we take away the subject, or even only 
 the subjective constitution of our senses in gen- 
 eral, then not only the nature and relations 
 of objects in space and time, but even space and 
 time themselves disappear. . . . What may be 
 the nature of objects considered as things in 
 themselves, and without reference to the re- 
 ceptivity of our sensibility, is quite unknown to 
 us. 
 
 Again, in closing his dissection of space, 
 Kant said: 
 
 " Objects are quite unknown to us in them- 
 selves, and what we call outward objects are 
 nothing else but mere re-presentations of our 
 sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real 
 correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by 
 
1 68 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 means of these representations, nor ever can 
 be, but respecting which, in experience, no in- 
 quiry is ever made." 
 
 Once more : 
 
 " The faculty of sensibility not only does not 
 present us with any indistinct and confused 
 cognition of objects as things in themselves, 
 but, in fact, gives us no knowledge of these at 
 all. On the contrary, as soon as we abstract in 
 thought our own subjective nature, the object 
 re-presented, with the properties ascribed to it 
 by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears, be- 
 cause it was only this subjective nature that de- 
 termined the form of the object as a phenome- 
 non." 
 
 After awhile, under the maddening caption 
 of " The Possibility of a Conjunction of the 
 Manifold Representations given by Sense," * 
 our German professor virtually crowded his 
 whole work into this one paragraph: 
 
 " The manifold content in our re-presenta- 
 tions can be given in an intuition which is 
 merely sensuous — in other words, is nothing 
 but susceptibility; and the form of this intui- 
 tion can exist a priori in our faculty of repre- 
 * Critique ; Transcendental Logic, p. 80. 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 169 
 
 sentation, without being anything else but the 
 mode in which the subject is affected. But the 
 conjunction (conjunctio) of a manifold in in- 
 tuition never can be given by the senses ; it can- 
 not therefore be contained in the pure form of 
 sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act 
 of the faculty of re-presentation. And as we 
 must, to distinguish it from sensibility, entitle 
 this faculty understanding, so all conjunction, 
 whether conscious or unconscious, be it of the 
 manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensu- 
 ous, or of several conceptions, is an act of the 
 understanding. To this act we shall give the 
 general appellation of synthesis, thereby to in- 
 dicate, at the same time, that we cannot repre- 
 sent anything as conjoined in the object with- 
 out having previously conjoined it ourselves." 
 
 As to comprehend this paragraph is to ana- 
 lyze the universe, let us grapple with it. 
 
 Impatient Dr. Sam. Johnson once kicked a 
 stone to refute Berkeley. Let us take that 
 stone, as a clump of matter, and treat it with 
 the head instead of the foot. 
 
 " The manifold content in our re-presenta- 
 tions/' says Kant, " can be given in an intui- 
 tion which is merely sensuous." This means 
 
1 70 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 simply that the various properties of the " re- 
 presentation " or " intuition " called a stone are 
 " effects on the senses/' The color, the tex- 
 ture, the weight, the size — every one of all such 
 " material " attributes — exist, as they are, sole- 
 ly by relation to me, or to some other being in 
 whom is organized the element of " sense.'' 
 Matter is made of impact — impact between its 
 objective background ("the noumenon " or 
 " noumena ") and some sort or degree of sub- 
 jectivity. Without these two terms, their 
 product of interaction, their third term, matter, 
 is not. So " the manifold content " of a " re- 
 presentation " — or, what is the same thing, the 
 properties of a material object — are " nothing 
 but susceptibility." 
 
 By " the form of intuition," Kant meant, as 
 he has repeatedly explained, the plural quality 
 of space and time. Space is made of spaces; 
 time of times; and the plural contents (always 
 such) of matter can only exist under the plural 
 contents of space and time — that is, in sections 
 of space and sequences of time, these sections 
 and sequences being the intrinsic character, the 
 divisible quality, the essential " form " of space 
 and time as total units or completed things. 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 171 
 
 And the nature of space and time need not be 
 anything? more objective than the nature of 
 matter in general, but can be derived, too, from 
 " the mode in which the subject is affected." 
 '* But," says Kant, " all conjunction " is " an 
 act of the understanding," and " can not be 
 contained in the pure form of sensuous intui- 
 tion " ; by which he means that time could never 
 be a conjunct of times, space a conjunct of 
 spaces, nor a stone the conjunct of its proper- 
 ties — each a " synthesis " of a " manifold con- 
 tent " — unless made so by the synthetical unity 
 of a priori mind. 
 
 Kant attributes " unconscious " action to the 
 " understanding " — ther unconscious action of 
 " conjunction " or " synthesis." His phrase 
 has been a perpetual stumbling-block to his 
 readers, but he meant exactly what he said. 
 Unconscious mental synthesis is what he after- 
 ward designated as " the synthesis of apprehen- 
 
 sion!' 
 
 " By the term synthesis of apprehension 
 [said he], I understand the combination of the 
 manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby 
 perception, that is, empirical consciousness of 
 the intuition (as phenomenon), is possible." 
 
172 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Kant talks of " making the empirical intui- 
 tion of a house into a perception, by apprehen- 
 sion of the manifold contained therein," and 
 says that " the necessary unity of space and of 
 my external sensuous intuition lies at the foun- 
 dation of this act." The " manifold " con- 
 tained in an " empirical intuition " — take the 
 stone we have used for an example — is simply 
 the diversity of " properties," constituting the 
 object — the color, texture, size, weight, and the 
 rest of them; and these properties are " effects 
 of sense." Every one of them is a relation to 
 subjectivity, a result of impact on subjectivity, 
 and is in the object only as reflecting or re- 
 presenting there the sensuous nature of a sub- 
 ject. But these various " effects on various 
 senses," these merely subjective separates — 
 how do they get united into one thing? What 
 constitutes the unity of sensuous manifolds? 
 Every phenomenon being an essential plurality 
 — a lot of "sense-effects " — what closes to- 
 gether the various effects on various human 
 senses, called the properties of a stone, into the 
 one phenomenal object, the stone itself. To 
 this end there must be some common subjective 
 ground of those subjective things, " effects on 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 173 
 
 sense." There must be some subjective unity 
 in which those subjective pluralities all 
 merge, for only as merged do they get to 
 be an object. Now, a common subjective 
 ground of various effects on various senses 
 can only be a common awareness of them — a 
 synthetical unity of apprehension, or just in- 
 stinctive, automatic consciousness in the germ. 
 This must be common to all the senses together, 
 and to each sense separately. What, for ex- 
 ample, is seeing, but the simple awareness of 
 sight? What is touch, but the simple aware- 
 ness of feeling? What is any " intuition," 
 which means any taking-in of any phenomenon, 
 but a common awareness, however rudimental 
 or developed, of some conjoined diversity of 
 effects on sense? 
 
 It must be added here, as vital to the full 
 comprehension of the genesis of matter, that 
 not only every material object, like our ex- 
 ample, the stone, is made of essential plurality 
 of sense-effects, but that every separate 
 property of an object is also made of like 
 plurality. No object, and no property of an ob- 
 ject, is, or can be, single, unal, or, in other 
 words, anything, until constructed so, in sense, 
 
174 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 by the " unconscious understanding " thereof — 
 the synthetical unity of instinctive, automatic 
 " apprehension." To realize this fact, it is only 
 necessary to remember that every property of 
 anything, say the hardness of a stone, is a com- 
 pound relation between the impact of some ul- 
 timate non-ego on the sense of touch, and the 
 peculiar nature of the sense itself : so the prop- 
 erty of hardness must contain essential diver- 
 sity, something from each of two fundamental 
 sources. As Aristotle, from his ontological in- 
 vestigations, found that matter, if regarded as 
 an absolute independence — an unrelated thing 
 in itself — is no thing, but only chaotic inde- 
 terminateness — formless " potentiality " — so 
 Kant, from his psychological inquiry — his dis- 
 section of phenomena as -existent through per- 
 ception — found the same truth in deeper sig- 
 nificance. The entire principle of unity, 
 whether in a feeling, a thought, a material ob- 
 ject, or the universe as a whole, can only exist 
 through the principle of mind. 
 
 Here is the very bottom of the discoveries of 
 Kant, and the basis, also, of all things. 
 
 Mind, then, in its lowest state, is what Kant, 
 " to distinguish it from sensibility," entitled 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 175 
 
 " unconscious understanding." There used to 
 be an old saw in philosophy — still, indeed, at 
 work — to the effect that " there is nothing in 
 the mind that was not first in sense." Leibnitz, 
 adding a piece to the saw, said : " Except mind 
 itself." Leibnitz affirmed, that is, that sense 
 always contains mind — that mind is in sense as 
 a component of it, and that without mind there 
 is no sense at all. What Leibnitz perceived 
 and asserted, Kant proved by " observation 
 and induction " — by analyzing phenomena un- 
 der the law of scientific idealism. Mind in 
 sense — the mind of sense — is just automatic 
 animal awareness, just " simple apprehension," 
 undeveloped, and in the lowest animal life not 
 to be developed, into " apperception," the con- 
 scious stage of understanding, capable of form- 
 ing a concept. 
 
 Well, in the genesis of a stone, or any other 
 material object, certain effects on sense are 
 merged in the unit they compose, by reception 
 into the " synthetical unity of apprehension." 
 The stone is created in this way. Its own ob- 
 jective unity — its wholeness, or i( form " as a 
 stone — is thus the derivation, the manufac- 
 tured product, of subjectivity as a cosmic ele- 
 
176 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 ment, an element " a priori " to the existence 
 of any possible phenomenon. 
 
 The stone, however, is unmistakably ob- 
 jective — is just the palpable thing that every- 
 body takes it to be, out there in space. This is 
 a given fact of perception — something, as Kant 
 said, " never questioned in experience." As 
 such fact, how can it be accounted for, when we 
 know, at the same time, that the stone is noth- 
 ing but a plexus of subjective states? How 
 does the bunch of internal impressions get ex- 
 ternalized? What is the cause of this reflex, 
 this " representation " ? It must be something 
 inherent in the principle of apprehension itself, 
 or the plexus of impressions would necessarily 
 stay within us. Being wrought internally, it 
 would remain internal. Hence, this " appre- 
 hension " — this element of instinctive synthet- 
 ical awareness — must be in its nature a double 
 — an entity which reproduces, or throws out 
 before itself, whatever lot of sense-effects it re- 
 ceptively synthesizes, or binds together in a 
 sheaf, known as some object. But all this, 
 summed up, means only that mind, even in its 
 lowest form of " unconscious understanding " 
 — the simple automatic apprehension which 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 177 
 
 shuts together certain effects on sense into a 
 totality of them— must, as being apprehension, 
 necessarily, though instinctively, apprehended 
 its own product. Here is the full explanation 
 of the amusing, iron-clad conception of 
 Hobbes, that an " image," or a " color," is but 
 an apparition unto us of " motion, agitation, 
 or alteration " in some " internal substance of 
 the head." 
 
 The self-reflexiveness of " apprehension " is 
 precisely the same thing, in germ, that the self- 
 reflexiveness of " apperception " is, in full 
 self -consciousness. 
 
 The self-reflexiveness of apprehension, in the 
 manufacture of -phenomena, was named by 
 Kant " the transcendental synthesis of imag- 
 ination " — the word " imagination " standing 
 on its roots, and meaning the image-making 
 faculty. Phenomena, as reflex-conjuncts of 
 sense-effects, are " produced " — put out — by 
 this second function of apprehension; so Kant 
 said he sometimes called it " productive imag- 
 ination." It is that function of pure elemental, 
 or a priori awareness, which ">£-presents " it- 
 self in the constitution of every object, as its 
 unity, but a unity shaped according to some ob- 
 12 
 
178 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 ject's filling of senses-effects. Hence Kant 
 says: 
 
 ■ This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous 
 intuition, which is possible and necessary a 
 priori, may be called figurative synthesis {syn- 
 thesis speciosa)." 
 
 Thus Kant found mind in, sense, " uncon- 
 scious understanding," the instinctive aware- 
 ness of animal susceptibility, as it existed in 
 himself, to be the literal objective basis of all 
 phenomena — the first " material " unity of 
 every " material thing." And he found this 
 elemental source of all unity to be an innate 
 self-activity — a self-seeing mirror, as it were 
 — a double of receptiveness and reflectiveness. 
 Here, at last, was the actual, living thing, of 
 which Locke's " blank-tablet " had long been 
 the still-born, stone figure. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his remarkable in- 
 vestigation of " The Principles of Psychology," 
 posits " mind " as always implied in sentiency, 
 and as necessary to the genesis of any phenom- 
 enon, even the " first nervous shock " of a sen- 
 sitive being. Recognizing the law of scientific 
 idealism, he has seen, too, that our objective 
 world is made up, at the perceptional outset, 
 
Further Analysis of the Universe. 179 
 
 of such shocks. Again, he has proved, with 
 great detail, that the action of mind is always 
 of one general nature, whether in the lowest 
 animal instinct or the highest conscious reason. 
 But back at the first nervous shock, Mr. Spen- 
 cer stops with mind, and says that at the next 
 regress it becomes " unknowable. " Yet nearly 
 a hundred years before this investigation Kant 
 showed precisely what this so-called " unknow- 
 able " is: He showed that mind, in all stages 
 and states — mind in itself — is a synthetical 
 unity of awareness. In germ, as " unconscious 
 understanding " — as the mind of sense — its 
 function is to be simply apprehensive of, and 
 thus to conjoin in its instinctive cognizance, 
 some " manifold " contained in a " nervous 
 shock/' or in various sense-effects, into some 
 unity; which then, as itself apprehended, or 
 made a reflex, becomes an impression, an 
 image, an object. 
 
180 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A SPECIAL LOOK AT SPACE AND TIME. 
 
 Through scientific idealism, fully exam- 
 ined, Kant proved that matter is a manufact- 
 ure of sense. We have not followed the order 
 of his work, but have gone straight to the 
 heart of it. His own beginning was the dis- 
 section of space and time. Still, he implied 
 therein, if only in one remark, all that has here 
 been stated. 
 
 " If I take [says Kant] from our repre- 
 sentation of a body, all that the understanding 
 thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, 
 divisibility, and also whatever belongs to sen- 
 sation, asimpenetrability, hardness, color, there 
 is still something left us from this empirical in- 
 tuition, namely extension and shape. These be- 
 long to pure intuition, which exists a priori in 
 the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and 
 without any real object of the senses or any 
 sensation." 
 
A Special Look at Space and Time. 181 
 
 Students of Kant have known, in a gen- 
 eral way, that he attributed " extension " to 
 "bodies/' as derived by them from a priori 
 mind. Space is so derived ; hence all things in 
 space, which is the " form," the " condition " 
 of their existence, must partake of its nature, 
 which is pure extension, pure " given quanti- 
 ty," as he designates it. But why does the 
 shape of a material body belong to " pure in- 
 tuition," and come from mind? Simply be- 
 cause the shape (let it be of a stone) is merely 
 the objected " synthesis of apprehension/' in 
 which the properties of the stone, as impres- 
 sions of sense, are unified, but in accordance 
 with their special variety. The shape is their 
 " figurative synthesis," their " synthesis spe- 
 ciosa!' Now, in the meaning of Kant, and in 
 the nature of the case, space is made in pre- 
 cisely the same manner as a stone; only the 
 stone is full of diverse properties — special ef- 
 fects on sense, got from some impinging back- 
 ground of matter — some " noumenon " — while 
 space has no properties at all, except additions 
 and divisions of itself — spaces. In other 
 words, the stone is a special relation between 
 mental synthesis and sensuous susceptibility, 
 
182 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the latter being in particular impact with some 
 noumenal non-ego, and being definitely -filled 
 from it. Space, on the other hand, is a gen- 
 eral relation between the same mental synthesis 
 and the same sensuous susceptibility, the latter 
 holding no contents from any noumenon, yet 
 being recipient to all possibility of noumenal 
 impact. Hence, space is just " the synthesis of 
 apprehension " itself, set in self-reflex, ob- 
 jected, phenomenated. The stone, in its unity, 
 its form, its " shape," is this objected synthesis 
 of apprehension, ailed with certain sensuous 
 effects. The synthesis of apprehension, again, 
 as the condition of any special " shape " into 
 which it may be stuffed, is of course a priori to 
 the stuffed shape; so space is a priori to the 
 stone in space. Once again, space is the out- 
 ward representation, the very double to the 
 eye, of the synthesis of apprehension ; for space 
 is just the visible synthesis of the apprehended 
 — the transparent base of co-existence for all 
 external things. 
 
 It must be remembered that the synthesis of 
 apprehension, as the " mind " of " sense," is it- 
 self a double, containing the pure conjunctive 
 unity of " unconscious understanding " as an 
 
A Special Look at Space and Time. 183 
 
 active factor, and susceptibility to impact as a 
 passive factor. In the. conjoined relation of 
 these two factors every material phenome- 
 non gets to exist; so there must be some rela- 
 tion of space to every external object, and to 
 all external objects — which is to say at once 
 that space is infinite, both in extent and divisi- 
 bility, so far as it can apply to objects at all. 
 
 And here, too, is* the reason that the con- 
 tained character, the constituent quality, of 
 space — meaning what Kant termed the " form 
 of the intuition " — is essentially plural. This 
 constituent quality of space is a representation 
 of mind, as at once active and passive, receptive 
 and reflexive — as fundamental a priori self- 
 separateness. But space itself, as a whole, is 
 the synthesis of this self-separateness. It is 
 self-unity of self-separateness, materialized. 
 Space, made of spaces, is a thing identical in 
 form and contents. Kant said : 
 
 " Space represented as an object (as geom- 
 etry really requires it to be) contains more than 
 the mere form of the intuition; namely, a com- 
 bination of the manifold given according to 
 the form of sensibility into a representation 
 that can be intuited ; so the form of the intui- 
 
184 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 tion gives us merely the manifold, but the for- 
 mal intuition gives unity of re-presentation. 
 In the ' ^Esthetic,' [the first division of The 
 Critique of Pure Reason], I regarded this 
 unity as belonging entirely to sensibility, for 
 the purpose of indicating that it antecedes all 
 conceptions, although it presupposes a synthe- 
 sis which does not belong to sense, through 
 which, however, all our conceptions of space 
 and time are possible. . . . By means of this 
 unity alone (the understanding determining 
 the sensibility) space and time are given as in- 
 tuitions." 
 
 It is easy enough to follow out the genesis 
 of time, in the same way as the genesis of 
 space. The constituent quality of space and 
 time is the same in both, and is subject in both 
 to the same act of synthesis, in order that the 
 essential plurality of " the form of intuition " 
 may be created into the unity of " the formal 
 intuition " itself — the single thing, space or 
 time. But time is the " form " of " w-ternal 
 sense," as Kant put it, while space is the 
 " form " of "ex-ternsi sense " — sense being to 
 Kant not its physical organs (which are mat- 
 ter), but mental susceptibility as distinguished 
 
A Special Look at Space and Time. 185 
 
 from mental synthesis. Every phenomenon in 
 space is made of active subjective-synthesis, 
 passive subjective-susceptibility, and noumenal 
 impact. Space and time themselves are made 
 of the synthesis and the susceptibility alone. 
 But pure synthesis, which means just pure 
 identity of awareness, can have no " suscepti- 
 bility," cannot be occupied, without change of 
 state; and any change of state in a pure general 
 awareness forms succession of states, or, as 
 Kant said, " generates time." But conjunction, 
 again, of synthesis and susceptibility must be 
 the relating of separates, with reference to the 
 objective as well as the subjective factor. As 
 objective effect this relation is pure co-exist- 
 ence of separates in time, through outness from 
 each other — space. All objects, impressions, 
 " effects of sense," must take the order of 
 time; but "objects of internal sense" (feel- 
 ings, or emotions), having no direct filling 
 from noumena, are not objects in space. Thus, 
 while space is pure synthesis of apprehension 
 £;r-ternally objected, time is the same pure syn- 
 thesis of apprehension w-ternally objected. 
 
186 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CREATIVE MIND FURTHER PROBED. 
 
 The inmost secret of the universe lies in 
 Kant's four words, " the synthesis of appre- 
 hension/' or what he more elaborately termed 
 " the transcendental synthesis of the image- 
 making faculty." 
 
 " It is an operation [he says] of the un- 
 derstanding on sensibility, and the -first appli- 
 cation of the understanding to objects of pos- 
 sible intuition, and at the same time the basis 
 for the exercise of the other functions of that 
 faculty. 3 ' 
 
 It has been intently presented to view In 
 these pages, because it focalises and explains 
 the whole law of scientific idealism, and is the 
 one most important as well as abstruse fact in 
 the genesis of things. 
 
 But having duly dealt with this point, it 
 must now be said that " the synthesis of appre- 
 
Creative Mind Further Probed. 187 
 
 hension," alone and un grown, is altogether in- 
 adequate to give form to an object, in the full 
 import of that word. For an object is some- 
 thing held distinct by itself, in connection with 
 another object, or with various objects. " Un- 
 conscious understanding " cannot form such 
 connection and distinction, but can only blindly 
 maufacture single intuitions, affording at most 
 what Kant termed " a rhapsody of percep- 
 tions," in which no one would be first or last, or 
 anything at all when past. A fish-worm, per- 
 haps, has such a " rhapsody of perceptions " 
 for its objective world. In the world of man 
 the a priori element of intelligence which 
 shapes it must be objected in the phase of con- 
 sciousness proper, or " apperception," as well 
 as " simple apprehension." 
 
 In noting the difference between the syn- 
 thesis of apprehension and the synthesis of ap- 
 perception, Kant said: 
 
 " It is one and the same spontaneity which, 
 at one time under the name of imagination, at 
 another under that of understanding, produces 
 conjunction in the manifold of intuition." 
 
 " Apperception " is simply apprehension 
 apprehended, or mind adequate to self-concep- 
 
1 88 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 tion and so to conceptions in general. That 
 there can be a stone, as known to a human be- 
 ing, there must be a synthesis of sense-effects 
 (its properties), in which they are distin- 
 guished among themselves, and of which ob- 
 jects as wholes are distinguished from each 
 other. A synthesis of this kind presupposes not 
 merely " unconscious understanding," but un- 
 derstanding that recognizes itself in connect- 
 ing all things else. 
 
 " I am conscious [said Kant] of my 
 identical self in relation to all the variety of 
 representations given to me in intuition, be- 
 cause I call all of them my representations. 
 . . . The thought, ' These representations, 
 given in intuition, belong all of them to me/ 
 is just the same as ' I unite them in one self- 
 conscious.' . . . Synthetical unity of the 
 manifold in intuition, as given a priori, is 
 therefore the foundation of the identity of ap- 
 perception itself, which antecedes a priori all 
 determinate thought. But the conjunction of 
 representations into a conception is not to be 
 found in objects themselves. . . . but is 
 on the contrary, an operation of the under- 
 standing itself, which is nothing more than the 
 
Creative Mind Further Probed. 189 
 
 faculty of conjoining a priori, and of bringing 
 the variety of given representations under the 
 unity of apperception. This principle is the 
 highest in all human cognition." 
 
 So, to the existence of any distinguishable 
 object, there must pre-exist the element of 
 mind in the phase of ^//-consciousness as well 
 as jwfr-consciousness. Both must^enter the ob- 
 ject. Hence, when Kant talked of " the ob- 
 jective unity of self -consciousness " — another 
 of his profoundest deductions — he meant lit- 
 erally that " the synthetical unity of apper- 
 ception," as well as " the synthetical unity of 
 apprehension," is materialized in all conceiv- 
 able things. To form the sense-effects of a 
 stone into a single " intuition," they must be 
 merged in a synthesis of apprehension; but to 
 set the intuition as thus created — to make it re- 
 main itself in the midst of others, it must be 
 merged with them in a higher synthesis — a 
 common connective consciousness, which, dis- 
 tinguishing them in itself, re-presents them as 
 distinguished. 
 
 It was here that Kant reached his famous 
 " Categories," which are merely reflexes of 
 the pure synthetical unity of mind, as forming 
 
190 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the unity of all things and of all connection 
 among them. 
 
 The principle of mind, beginning, as we have 
 seen, even with the instinctive mind of sense, 
 is a spontaneous self-activity, receptive, re- 
 flexive, and resumptive of its doubles. By be- 
 ing the first, it unifies any and every manifold 
 of sense-effects ; by being the second, it re-pre- 
 sents the product — throws it out; by being the 
 third, it apprehends the externalisation, and a 
 percept is born. Apperception, or full con- 
 sciousness, is the same self-activity, self-reflex, 
 self-sight, transformed into " understanding." 
 Thus, mind is essentially a triad as well as a 
 unit. But, if so, it must reflect itself to concep- 
 tion as a " Quantity " — a sum of its own 
 phases ; and in these phases, it is a " Unity," 
 a " Plurality," and a " Totality." 
 
 Mind, again, as just a-priori principle and 
 basis of all things, is manifestly their universal 
 " Quality." But, as self-reflexive, self-re- 
 sumptive, it is at once a "Reality" a " Nega- 
 tion" and a "Limitation" which means it is 
 that which, in its double, contraposes one state 
 to another, while, as a whole, it is the limit of 
 both states. 
 
Creative Mind Further Probed. 191 
 
 It goes without saying that a principle of 
 self-reflex is the " Relation " of its reflexes, 
 and in this relation is a " Substance with De- 
 pendence/' a " Cause with Effect," and a " Re- 
 ciprocity " of its separates. 
 
 This is a very short cut to the Kantian Cate- 
 gories, but sufficient, perhaps, if we bear in 
 mind that, while implicit in the mind of sense, 
 they are reflexes of conscious, not " uncon- 
 scious " understanding. The synthesis of 
 mind through conceptions proceeds, not by the 
 formation of sense-effects into units of intui- 
 tion, but by the formation of these already- 
 made units (objects or their properties) into 
 species, genera, and ultimate universals — the 
 pure unity of these groupings, without regard 
 to the things grouped, being just the pure a 
 priori unity of self-conscious awareness. Thus, 
 those ultimate universals, the categories, are 
 objective reproductions of pure conceptive syn- 
 thesis, without which there could be no con- 
 nection of things in thought — which would 
 amount precisely to no realized objects and no 
 objective experience. 
 
 One of Kant's industrious reviewers, Sir 
 [William Hamilton, fancied that Aristotle's 
 
192 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 categories were " genera of real things/' while 
 Kant's categories were " determinations of 
 thought," and, as mere " entia rationis," must 
 " be excluded from the Aristotelic list." But 
 there are no " genera of real things " except 
 as " determinations of thought " ; and, in mak- 
 ing an experimental classification of objects, 
 Aristotle found some of the Kantian categories, 
 because the synthetical unity of mind had put 
 those categories into the objects at the creation 
 of them. To Kant an object meant something 
 of which Sir William Hamilton had no boding. 
 
Genesis of " Transcendental Ideas." 193 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE GENESIS OF " TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS."" 
 
 It must now be easy to see that mind, in its 
 general form, is three-in-one — a triad. It is a 
 self-reflexive, self-related unit, of three phases. 
 The first phase is automatic " apprehension." 
 The second is conscious " understanding." 
 The third, which we touch here, is " reason." 
 In reason, mind is stillthe general cosmic prin- 
 ciple of awareness, with the function of syn- 
 thesis, or conjunction. As intuition, it has 
 perceived things. As conception, it has classi- 
 fied them. As a last synthetical unity of 
 awareness, it must include, or " comprehend " 
 them — must relate them to its conjunctive unity 
 in their full scope, which means simply in the 
 ultimate reflexes, or forms, of its own nature 
 and action. As process, this can only be'done 
 by referring all things to pure synthesis, or 
 connective identity, as final cause. 
 
 Seeing things, and then thinking them, we 
 always end by asking, " Why?, " They are, 
 13 
 
194 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 each and all so and so ; but what is the " rea- 
 son " for it ? The pure form of answer, apart 
 from all contents, is " because " — on account of 
 cause. Thus reason forms its synthesis of 
 comprehension by referring the particular to 
 the general for a cause — a process that can 
 never stop short of including all things in ul- 
 timate unities of cause. It is evident that ulti- 
 mate unities of cause must contain all sub- 
 ordinate causes or conditions under them. 
 There can be just three such •ultimate unities; 
 for there are just three possible kinds of being 
 and conditions that relate to their universals : 
 subjective being and conditions to subjective 
 unity of them; objective being and conditions 
 to objective unity of them; and all being and 
 conditions, both subjective and objective, to 
 the universal unity of being and conditions. 
 These final unities, again, as final — as totalities 
 of conditions with none beyond — are them- 
 selves " unconditioned." 
 
 Reason, then, as an a-priori synthetical unity, 
 necessarily refers all conditions of things to 
 their final or absolute unities, which are in 
 reality nothing but conceptional reflexes of 
 Reason's own constructive synthetical identity. 
 
Genesis of " Transcendental Ideas." 195 
 
 To be an identity of mind, for instance, to tfie 
 conditions of subjectivity, reason must receive 
 them into its unity, which thus becomes their 
 totality . Now what is the objective re-presen- 
 tation, the rational conception of the totality 
 of subjective conditions? It is simply the 
 " transcendental idea " of pure subjectiveness, 
 or Soul. In the same way the totality of ob- 
 jective phenomenal conditions, is the idea of 
 the Universe; while the totality of all condi- 
 tions, both subjective and objective, is the idea 
 of that in which all mind and all matter are re- 
 lated as their final cause or reason — God, 
 
196 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE GRAND RESULT OF DISSECTING PHE- 
 NOMENA. 
 
 Since the days of Immanuel Kant, no 
 philosophy, no rational theology, no ultimate 
 science, not referring to the results of his work, 
 has had any real basis in thought — the reason 
 being that he saw through, and explained, the 
 principle of universal relativity, the law of 
 scientific idealism, and relaid the whole struc- 
 ture, from the corner-stone up. 
 
 Before Kant it was known well enough that 
 " matter," however we must all accept it with 
 our hands and eyes, has no standing, under 
 the analysis of thought, except as a system of 
 effects on ourselves. Hume, we remember, 
 saw all this so clearly that he pronounced the 
 very organs of sense, " our limbs and mem- 
 bers," to be " not our body," but " certain im- 
 pressions " to which the mind ascribes " a cor- 
 poreal existence." Our limbs and members 
 certainly are our body — the only body we have 
 — but Hume was right in his meaning that our 
 
Dissecting Phenomena. 197 
 
 body is a phenomenon which has no existence 
 but as a plexus of impressions on a principle of 
 intelligence, possessing various modes of re- 
 ception, named senses. But this principle of 
 intelligence itself was, to Hume, not a fact to 
 be grasped by " reason," not a principle to be 
 known and described, but was to be taken as a 
 " force and vivacity " unknowable beyond an 
 instinct of it. Hume's unknowable " force and 
 vivacity " — an improved form of Locke's 
 " blank-tablet " — Kant analyzed in the light 
 of its products; namely, those conjuncts of 
 sense-effects called objects; those conjuncts of 
 objects called species, genera, and categories; 
 and finally those conjuncts of all things and all 
 conditions of things, called transcendental 
 ideas. Now, such conjuncts of various " mani- 
 folds " actually exist. They are man's per- 
 cepts and concepts ; they are his facts, his en- 
 vironment. But as percepts and concepts, and 
 always conjuncts of " the manifold," they are 
 formed, organized, totalized, through a prin- 
 ciple — the principle of perception and concep- 
 tion itself. This is Kant's a-priori synthetical 
 unit, common and necessary to all " things " 
 and to all " experience." 
 
198 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 The last word of any weight, against this 
 reduction of matter to mind, was said a few 
 years ago by that exceptionally acute thinker, 
 Professor Huxley, in his summary of Hume. 
 Too able and learned, both as philosopher and 
 scientist, to question idealism, Huxley admitted 
 it unqualifiedly. But, not having gone beyond 
 the British proofs of it, he defended what is 
 commonly called " materialism " in this way : 
 
 " If we analyze the proposition that all men- 
 tal phenomena are the effects or products of 
 material phenomena, all that it means amounts 
 to this : that whenever those states of conscions- 
 ness which we call sensation, 1 " emotion, or 
 thought, come into existence, complete investi- 
 gation will show good reason for the belief that 
 they are preceded by those other phenomena of 
 consciousness to which we give the names of 
 matter and motion. All material changes ap- 
 pear, in the long run, to be modes of motion; 
 but our knowledge of motion is nothing but 
 that of a change in the place and order of our 
 sensations ; just as our knowledge of matter is 
 restricted to those feelings of which we as- 
 sume it to be the cause." 
 
 To this last posture of materialism, a compe- 
 
Dissecting Phenomena. 199 
 
 tent understanding of Kant is the only reply 
 that has ever been needed. It is simply of no 
 consequence to the case what states of con- 
 sciousness precede or follow other states 
 of consciousness. Let it be granted (whether 
 true or not) that " phenomena of consciousness 
 to which we give the names of matter and mo- 
 tion " precede all others. What of it? Kant 
 has proved to us that no phenomenon of con- 
 sciousness — no matter, no motion, no sensation 
 — and, beyond all these, no time and no space, 
 in which all the rest appear — has, or can have, 
 any existence, except as put into unity, form, 
 and order, by the unity, form, and order of 
 mind. If both " the synthesis of apprehen- 
 sion " and' " the synthesis of apperception " 
 enter into any state of consciousness named 
 matter, to give it birth, there is no possibility 
 that the element of intelligence can be an 
 after-birth of the process. 
 
 All our objects, then, from a germ cell to the 
 horizon, are constructed such through a men- 
 tal principle innate in our own structure. But 
 here it must be re-iterated and re-emphasized 
 that whatever we, as units of mind, may em- 
 body in objects as form, the filling of them 
 
200 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 is not ours. It has a source apart. The rilling 
 of our objects comes from " the ultimate non- 
 ego," the " background of matter." This ulti- 
 mate non-ego was a heritage to Kant from 
 British idealism. He took it for granted at 
 his first step and held by it unchanged when 
 he was old and exhausted. He called it the 
 " noumenon," the " real correlate of matter," 
 and pluralized it as " things in themselves." 
 But he insisted, as firmly as Herbert Spencer 
 has since done, that the " noumenon " is " un- 
 known and unknowable." 
 
 In a certain way — vital enough, too — 
 " things in themselves " are " unknown and un- 
 knowable." Man is a small, dependent, limited 
 being. Let us admit at once every old proverb 
 in the world, to the effect that " the finite can- 
 not comprehend the infinite." Sir William 
 Hamilton issued a tedious list of such proverbs. 
 Let us adopt the whole of it. " The finite can- 
 not comprehend the infinite." The very mean- 
 ing of " things in themselves " is that they are 
 withheld from us in their specific contents. 
 But in their general nature they are related and 
 revealed to us ; and the revelation is always as- 
 serted when we name them " source of im- 
 
Dissecting Phenomena. 201 
 
 pact," the " real correlate of matter," " things 
 in themselves," or even " the unknown and 
 unknowable." Is there an " unknown and un- 
 knowable ? " Yes, there is. But whatever is 
 has being — must have being, or not be that 
 which " is." So much then we know of " the 
 unknown and unknowable"; it has being; it is 
 a fact. But we know it negatively, as well as 
 positively. We know what it is not, on pre- 
 cisely the same ground that we know what it 
 is. Being a " noumenon," it is not a phenome- 
 non ; being a " thing in itself," it is not what 
 things are to us. Being " the real correlate of 
 matter," it is not matter, but is the objective 
 background of matter. 
 
 But now: Kant had analyzed matter and 
 found it to be a relation — a relation between 
 finite subjective awareness and this very nou- 
 menal background now in evidence. He had 
 found, too, that all matter — every spicule of 
 it — is exhausted in the relation. He had found 
 that, out of the relation, matter has no exist- 
 ence. By these presents, then, we know that 
 the objective background of matter, the ulti- 
 mate non-ego, is not material. 
 
 And, at this point, where are we, if we 
 
202 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 pause and think? When reduced to elements, 
 to principles, what is there of the universe — 
 the all of things? Just the subjective and the 
 objective, mind and matter. Hence, that 
 which is not matter is mind. Nothing else is 
 left for it. 
 
 We may wriggle at this terminus as much as 
 we like, but there is no dodging it. It may be 
 said, for instance, that, while we know and ex- 
 perience nothing but mind and matter (includ- 
 ing with matter its phenomenal vistas, space 
 and time), we can imagine something else than 
 either; and, during the past fifty years, this 
 nonsense has found lodgment in some heads. 
 Now I can imagine anything, in the meaning 
 that I can arbitrarily produce some foolish 
 fancy. I can imagine a white blackbird, with 
 his tail-feathers on his head. But I cannot im- 
 agine even this self-evident contradiction as a 
 thing of neither mind nor matter. What is an 
 object of " imagination,/' in the meaning of 
 fancy? It may be empty of matter, and so un- 
 like the white blackbird. But no object of im- 
 agination can be empty of mind. Imagination 
 is itself an act of mind; hence every possible 
 product of imagination must partake of mind. 
 
Dissecting Phenomena. 203 
 
 If, therefore, I imagine something apart from 
 mind and matter, it must still spring from 
 mind, contain mind, and so not be apart from 
 mind. The " reductio ad absurdum " can be 
 had cheap and sure, just where it is most 
 needed. 
 
 After Immanuel Kant had once and for 
 good dissected the universe, it seems a pity- 
 that he declined to put his finding's together, 
 and take the last logical step of his magnificent 
 demonstrations. As a requisite, perhaps, to 
 his microscopic analysis of human subjectivity, 
 he declined to generalize his own discoveries. 
 In short, Kant's synthesis was Hegel. But 
 Hegel we need not follow, as our short cut to 
 him, through the solution of" noumena, is 
 worth more, as yet, than the whole German 
 tour of " post-Kantean philosophy." 
 
 Very early in his work Kant said: 
 
 " There are two sources of human knowl- 
 edge (which probably spring from a common, 
 but to us unknown root), namely, sense and 
 understanding. By the former, objects are 
 given to us ; by the latter, thought." 
 
 Dissecting, with Kant, the nature of " under- 
 standing/' we have discovered in it the unal 
 
204 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 form of all our re-presentations — of every 
 perceptible and conceivable objected fact. Dis- 
 secting " sense," with the same instructor, we 
 have found it to be certain modes of mental 
 susceptibility, its physical organs being noth- 
 ing but relations between susceptible awareness 
 and the nbumenal unknown, like all the rest of 
 " matter." Led, once more, by our Professor 
 straight up to this noumenal unknown, where 
 he willed to stop and turn his back on it, we 
 have only had to look, in order to see it collapse 
 into the self-retention of Spirit — spirit out o£ 
 us, but -still in itself, and thus going to make 
 up the totality of Spiritual Being. We have 
 thus found the " one common root " of all 
 knowledge and all things. But we have 
 touched, also, the apex of thought, and can ntow 
 see what is meant — really and fully meant — 
 by " absolute idealism." 
 
 Absolute Idealism is not merely a phrase; it 
 is a grand and glorious fact. Immersed in 
 matter, stuck in our senses, we may insist on 
 looking at sensuous phenomena as our friend 
 John Jasper looked at the sun, with honest con- 
 tempt for Copernicus and Newton. " De earf 
 do not move roun' de sun/' exclaimed the 
 
Dissecting Phenomena. 205 
 
 sturdy preacher, " but de bressed sun move 
 roun' de earf. Dere she go now: don't I see 
 her wi' dese very eyes ? ' ! Parson Jasper did 
 see the sun moving round the earth, and in the 
 same way we all see the objects of our senses 
 existing in perfect independence of ourselves. 
 Still, as surely as astronomy has proved the 
 delusion of taking the sun's movement from 
 the eye, philosophy, with the aid of " practical 
 science," has proved the delusion of taking ob- 
 jective re-presentations as not constructed 
 through subjective being. The inevitable end 
 of this proof is the dissolution of noumena as 
 anything " material/' and the inclusion of all 
 things in Universal Spirit. Of such spirit, 
 finite subjectivity is a function — a necessary 
 participative reflex, through which the Uni- 
 versal Spirit is life, manifestation, self-evolu- 
 tion. 
 
2o6 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SOME SEQUENCES OF ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 
 
 Since Kant, we have said, "no philosophy, 
 no rational theology, no ultimate science, not 
 referring to the results of his work, has had 
 any real basis in thought." It must be added 
 that since the fulfilment of Kant's Critique, es- 
 pecially by Hegel, there has not been one stone 
 left as a foundation for "materialism." It 
 goes right on, however, in multifarious forms, 
 its defunct exponents still imagining they live. 
 Surgical psychology, in special, is still as ac- 
 tive with scalpel and miscroscope as if ours 
 were the day of Coudillac and Erasmus Dar- 
 win. The knife goes into the brain, and the 
 eye peers after it, with the funny expectation 
 of seeing, with Dr. Cabanis, some spicule or 
 plexus of matter, there, " which secretes 
 thought as the liver secretes bile." The work 
 is excellent as anatomy, and may have a plenty 
 of important uses. But we, here, if we have 
 
Absolute Idealism. 207 
 
 had the capacity and patience to grasp the find- 
 ings of Immanuel Kant, know that mind can 
 never be derived from any physical corre- 
 spondence of its nature and action. We know 
 that every possible attempt at such derivation 
 is merely a side-show of Parson Jasper's great 
 astronomical comedy, which Copernicus ex- 
 ploded four hundred years ago. We know 
 that every fiber, every solid or liquid, of the 
 brain, with every movement of every atom it 
 contains, is a ready-made physical object in a 
 ready-made space and a ready-made time. But 
 if we know Kant, we know, without a misgiv- 
 ing, that space and time, with all things in 
 them, are not only dependencies but are literal 
 creations and manufactures of a universal prin- 
 ciple named mind. We know it is this prin- 
 ciple which furnishes the form, the unity, and 
 so the very existence of every phenomenon. 
 Hence we know, finally, that the first step in the 
 understanding of matter is the analysis of 
 mind, through which all matter is and is con- 
 structed. Without this first step, all other 
 steps are simply a stumble in the dark— the 
 blind-man's buff of children. Or we may say, 
 with a little more dignity, perhaps, that every 
 
208 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 material law of the cosmos is subject to " The 
 Law of Scientific Idealism." 
 
 Now scientific idealism, pursued to the end, 
 merges in absolute idealism. The source and 
 substance of the universe is Intelligent Spirit; 
 or, as the Bible and its Theologians say, this is 
 the All-In-All. 
 
 For fifty years — from the publication of 
 Kant's Critique in 1781, along through Fichte, 
 and Schelling, to the death of Hegel in 1831 — 
 the vast illumination of thought that has been 
 summed up as " German Transcendentalism " 
 strove to unify natural theology and practical 
 science in " Absolute Idealism." It will yet be 
 seen that the work was done, however ill-com- 
 prehended. The good old Kant still had his 
 whole head with him when he said, in 1787, 
 " the danger, in this case, is not that of being 
 refuted, but of being misunderstood." The 
 Comtes, the Hamiltons, the Mills and Spencers 
 — with no end, too, of their German brothers — 
 are illustrious examples in proof of Kant's re- 
 mark, however greatly they may be respected 
 within the limits of their own work. 
 
 Once and for good, the history of philoso- 
 phy, when understood, and the history of sci- 
 
Absolute Idealism. 209 
 
 ence, when understood, have joined in the 
 proof that the principle of all life — we may 
 say God if we like — is Spirit Principle. 
 
 Transcendentalism — a bulky word, but cov- 
 ering much more than the letter of it — was 
 naturally too high and too deep a result to get 
 all at once into the average human head. For 
 thirty-odd years after the close of its epoch in 
 Germany — or until, in 1864, D r - James Hutch- 
 ison Stirling produced his Secret of Hegel — 
 not a man stood on the earth adequate to re- 
 produce transcendentalism in basis and sys- 
 tem. But the practical gist of it, without the 
 full center or circumference, gradually became 
 a part of the world's literature. In Britain, 
 most notably through Thomas Carlyle, the new 
 light penetrated biography, history, criticism, 
 and even political disquisition. In America, 
 focused in Ralph Waldo Emerson, the same 
 light, whiter and purer if less flaming and 
 burning, both vivified and purified all things on 
 which it was shed. There the Infinite Over- 
 soul and the finite undersoul seemed once again 
 to meet in communion and evolution. Mean- 
 while, Theodore Parker, with his vast scholar- 
 ship and overpowering courage, preached Jesus 
 14 
 
210 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 of Nazareth, the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 the Golden Rule, with little regard for any or- 
 ganized theology of his day, whether its Uni- 
 tarianism or its Calvinistic Orthodoxy. Back 
 of all this, as now appears, there was a plain, 
 uncultured, but inquiring and thoughtful man, 
 in the byways of New England, who from 
 the mechanism of clocks turned to the work- 
 ings of the human mind, and in his own way 
 reached the depth of knowledge and the 
 mysteries of life. From a few practical ex- 
 periments, he, too, analyzed the things of mat- 
 ter, and found them to be re-presentations, 
 externalizations, of elemental spirit. And 
 then he drew the inference that spirit molds, 
 directs, governs matter, and so that health of 
 mind materializes health of body. 
 
 But now, at once, the whole question at is- 
 sue confronts us — what is the true and full 
 position and power of mind in therapeutics? 
 This question must be answered, here, not 
 from the Quimby standpoint, and much less 
 from that of the shallow muddle termed Chris- 
 tian Science, but from the standpoint of actual, 
 accredited, established metaphysics, now sub- 
 stantially bearing th concensus of religion, 
 
Absolute Idealism. 211 
 
 philosophy, and the practical investigation of 
 material phenomena. 
 
 By aid of Kant, with our short-cut to the 
 logical and necessary end of his achievement, 
 we have grasped the elemental source and 
 solvent of man and his universe. It is Spirit 
 in its evolution. But, in this evolution, man — 
 or say rather and always the principle of sen- 
 sation and consciousness in which man inheres 
 — is merely the general form, diversely indi- 
 vidualized, of the One All-inclusive Spirit in 
 the activity of self-manifestation. The earth, 
 the sun, moon, and stars, the human body, its 
 house and the landscape, with every particle 
 of all of them, are outwoven of universal Spirit 
 through the loom of subjective being and unity. 
 The forms of matter, with no exception, are 
 fabricated in this way. Thus, not figuratively, 
 but literally ard with exact knowledge, we may 
 repeat after St. John : 
 
 " In the beginning was the Word, and the 
 Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
 All things were made by him ; and 'without 
 him was not anything made that was made." 
 
 But the principle of animal apprehension 
 and human apperception — or say just the con- 
 
212 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 scious and the sub-conscious — is not the Ulti- 
 mately Creative One, but is, in us, only a sub- 
 creative power and agency. We simply indi- 
 vidualize it in endless degrees and variations, 
 all of us framing the same general world of 
 objects, conceptions and feelings, but no one 
 of us being, seeing, or feeling, in all respects, 
 exactly like any other incarnation of our 
 common identity. 
 
 But while the form — the unity, and thus the 
 individuality — of all things, is materialized 
 from Spirit through sensation and conscious- 
 ness in subjectivity — while this is the secret 
 and genesis of all creation — we must ever hold 
 fast to the equally basic and universal fact that 
 the filling of the form — the infinite variety of 
 impact on subjectivity which furnishes the di- 
 versity of objects — all this comes from that 
 ultimate spirit-background crudely called " the 
 unknown and unknowable." 
 
 Now this background of Absolute Spirit, 
 the very withholding of which from finite 
 creatures constitutes them such, institutes their 
 law of progress, and gives movement of ex- 
 pression to the Infinite Itself, can only be ab- 
 sorbed and mastered by human beings through 
 
Absolute Idealism. 213 
 
 study, work, and experience. While genuine 
 metaphysics, then, assures us of our spirit- 
 origin and relative oneness with God — of being 
 God's children far more directly and intimately 
 than most of us have ever imagined — it teaches 
 us that for practical purposes, in our condi- 
 tion of existence called " matter," it makes no 
 difference what we call this condition. 'Tis 
 something actual, something definite, some- 
 thing fixed, just as long as we are in our 
 earthly relation to it. From this point of view, 
 Dr. Johnson's kicking of the stone to refute 
 Berkeley was a deserved kick, and even By- 
 ron's fun was justified in his tipsy lines, 
 
 ' ' When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, 
 And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said." 
 
 All things are spirit surely enough; but the 
 phenomena of matter, as transformed spirit, 
 are related to each other under the laws of 
 what we necessarily designate as material na- 
 ture. Little by little, through long and hard 
 exertion, we find out what these relations are, 
 and how they are fitted to the human center 
 of them. Some things are good to eat and to 
 nourish us; others to poison and kill us. A 
 
214 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 cold or fever may be a manifestation of spirit 
 and an herb or drug may be another ; but if the 
 herb or drug counteracts and destroys the cold 
 or the fever, and experience proves it ten 
 thousand times, who cares to analyze a dose of 
 aconite or a cup of saffron-tea into a draft of 
 " mortal " or " immortal " mind ? The process 
 is a mere fooling with ideals — hysterics jump- 
 ing at the moon. On metaphysical grounds 
 — as far as anybody knows what metaphysics 
 really means — there is no need that our physi- 
 cians, if they are " good physicians," should 
 trouble themselves much about a Mrs. Mary 
 Baker G. Eddy. Esculapius came into the 
 world long before her, and his followers will 
 stay in it long after her materialized divinity 
 has risen into a more spiritual and a more in- 
 telligent state. 
 
 The same may be said of our theologians. 
 Their creeds have not come out of nothing, 
 however much the spirit of them may have 
 grown thick and muddy through crude under- 
 standings. The Christian Church, surely, can 
 yet offer to mankind something better than the 
 Eddy " Church Scientist " ; and if it can, it is 
 in no ultimate jeopardy from a few, or a few; 
 
Absolute Idealism. 215 
 
 hundred, congregations of half-educated fad- 
 dists. 
 
 For a student of history — not in its mo- 
 ments, but in its decades and centuries — it is 
 easy to see that " Christian Science " has the 
 reason of the fact and the spread of it, in its 
 being a protest against the depressing mate- 
 rialism around it — a materialism which, though 
 rationally decapitated by Kant, has shown mar- 
 velous activity, for a corpse, ever since the 
 execution. 
 
 The medical profession, too, has partly, if 
 indirectly, been responsible for Mrs. Eddy's 
 crazy horse of " metaphysics," running away in 
 the dark, and butting its own brains out. From 
 Dr. Mesmer to Dr. Charcot, it took about a 
 hundred and twenty years for " animal mag- 
 netism," under the softer names of " hypno- 
 tism " and " suggestion," to achieve full and 
 final standing in the French Academy of Med- 
 icine; and the mental phenomena attending 
 " mesmerism " have still but little " respecta- 
 bility " among " regular physicians." But, 
 that curative agencies are not confined to 
 drugs has long been settled in the public mind 
 — such part of the public mind, at least, as 
 
216 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 permits itself any considerable reading and 
 thinking. 
 
 Has the pulpit itself — orthodox and not so 
 orthodox — contributed to the success of Eddy 
 " Science " ? We must say it has. The prac- 
 tise, among the sects, of twisting the Bible out 
 of its straight, historical, natural significance, 
 and fitting its texts to every sort of whim, 
 folly, and malefaction — this general practise 
 has at last culminated in Mrs. Eddy's Key to 
 the Scriptures, with pretty nearly the dissolu- 
 tion of them in the abomination of interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 But " Christian Science " — the Eddy misfit 
 for a specious name — has had its rise, and it 
 has probably risen about as high as it can 
 reach, notwithstanding its rapid extension for 
 the moment. Only its protrusion from insig" 
 nificance and non-attention was needed to un- 
 cover its foundation on the sands of ignorance, 
 its strength in the perennial weakness and cre- 
 dulity of mankind, and its business success in 
 ordinary, or more than ordinary, business cu- 
 pidity. Has it done no good in the world, 
 then? Ah, that is another question. What- 
 ever may have been the chief motive of its 
 
Absolute Idealism. 217 
 
 founder, and whatever may have been its 
 " comedy of errors," it has forced the incep- 
 tion of a movement that, as a whole, may have 
 vast results for the human mind and the human 
 body. Whatever material medicines may be 
 necessary to mankind while they themselves 
 are in a material condition, psychic forces in 
 the cure of disease can no longer be ignored. 
 What is the extent, and what the limit, of 
 these forces, is a problem that must be exam- 
 ined. As conditionally — here and now — man 
 is both spiritual and corporeal — it would seem 
 to be a self-evident conclusion that he must 
 have both material and spiritual aids to health. 
 That we can " jump " our condition, before we 
 get out of it, is the most tremendous paradox 
 ever presented 1 to the human mind; but the 
 sequences — even physical — of systematically 
 opening the finite soul to the Infinite Spirit 
 may be incalculable. The revival, or definite 
 rediscovery, in modern times, of healing the 
 sick by the soul and the laying-on of hands, 
 came to pass some fifty years ago, in the Uni- 
 ted States, through the honest, single-minded, 
 Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. If the spirit of 
 evil — of hypocrisy, selfishness and avarice — 
 
218 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 has entered into the movement of mental heal- 
 ing through another source, the frequent ne- 
 cessity of very human means to divine ends is 
 once more illustrated. 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. } 
 
 VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF THE NEW THOUGHT. 
 
 Just now, the general cause of metaphysi- 
 cal therapeutics is separating rapidly into va- 
 rious " schools," few of them having much 
 consideration for the pretentious health-trust, 
 " Christian Science." 
 
 In the South, for instance — at Sea Breeze, 
 Florida — a Mrs. Helen Wilmans has founded 
 a settlement of houses and lands, souls and 
 bodies, with books, pamphlets, and a weeklv 
 press, all devoted, mentally, morally and phys- 
 ically, to psychic dominion over all things. 
 Freedom is the name of the organ that spe- 
 cially spreads Mrs. Wilmans' light and cura- 
 tives. She has capacity in a comparative de- 
 gree, and energy, with self-confidence, in the 
 superlative. She proclaims this : 
 
 " Intellectual power in the individual comes 
 from concentration of the mind upon an idea 
 until the truth or falsity of the idea becomes 
 apparent. Likewise the power of the race in 
 
220 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 the unfoldment of a race problem must come 
 from a concentrated effort to discover a hith- 
 erto unfolded racial capacity; and this is the 
 meaning of the movement I am inaugurating 
 here." 
 
 The Wilmans' conception of mind-healing 
 has been illustrated as follows by a correspond- 
 ent of Freedom, who discusses and admits the 
 curing of disease among devout Catholics, ex- 
 alted and prayerful, at the shrine of St. Anne 
 in Illinois. It is all natural, he says : 
 
 " If with equally strong belief they should 
 pray to God, Buddha, St. Peter or Paul, Mrs. 
 Eddy or Mrs. Wilmans, or a stump or stone — 
 or should they stand on their heads, or drink 
 water from a certain river, or anoint the sick 
 parts with clay and spittle — the result would 
 be the same. Their mind would cure their 
 bodies. Mind is king." 
 
 In some respects, the paper, Freedom, is 
 almost as free from " material sense " as the 
 book, Science and Health. Mrs. Wilmans has 
 a correspondent who asserts, and probably be- 
 lieves, that, by the concentrated power of her 
 finite female mind, she has " never failed once 
 in five years to avert the fury of severe summer 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 221 
 
 storms." She has " demonstrated/' she says, 
 the dominion of mind over material nature, 
 " as clearly as any Mental Scientist has demon- 
 strated it over disease." 
 
 And here is an official announcement from 
 Mrs. Wilmans' organ : 
 
 " Freedom is the only paper published whose 
 leading and constantly avowed object is to 
 overcome death right here in this world and 
 right now. If you want to learn something of 
 the newly-discovered power vested in man 
 which fits him for this stupendous conquest, 
 read this paper, and keep on reading it." 
 
 " The new thought " has traveled West as 
 far as South. It recently had among its organs 
 The Temple, of Denver, Colorado, " a monthly 
 magazine devoted to the fuller unfoldment of 
 the divinity of humanity," the editor of which 
 was Mr. Paul Tyner, who afterwards con- 
 ducted the Arena of Boston, consolidated with 
 The Journal of Practical Metaphysics. The 
 purpose of the latter periodical was " the uni- 
 fication of scientific and spiritual thought and 
 the new philosophy of health." The editor 
 was Horatio W. Dresser, a Harvard graduate, 
 an excellent philosopher of the ontological 
 
222 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 trend, and a polished writer, reminding one 
 partly of Spinoza and partly of Emerson. Mr. 
 Dresser's books, The Power of Silence, The 
 Perfect Whole, and others, have given him a 
 wide reputation in his particular field of work, 
 and have constituted him a center of the most 
 logical and scholarly literature connected with 
 " metaphysical healing/' This literature, too 
 extensive for specialized designation, is under 
 the propagandism of the Boston " Metaphysi- 
 cal Club," an active and growing organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The Boston " Metaphysical Club " comprises 
 too much exact information and solid learning 
 to accept or countenance the extreme vagaries 
 of " Christian Science," and appears to be act- 
 ing as a balance-wheel to the whole movement 
 of " the new thought." In a recent leaflet 
 the Club has taken special occasion to dissect 
 and repudiate that most preposterous doctrine 
 of Mrs. Eddy's " science," the absolute noth- 
 ingness of matter. 
 
 The title of the leaflet referred to is Chris- 
 tian Science and the New Metaphysical Move- 
 ment, with the added phrase, An Intelligent 
 Discrimination Desirable. One excerpt is this : 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 223 
 
 " Christian Science proclaims the unreality 
 of matter, and of the body. The rational and 
 broader thought, not only admits the validity 
 of the body, as veritable expression, but claims 
 that it is as good, in its own place and plane, 
 as is the soul and spirit. While susceptible to 
 mental molding, it is neither an error nor 
 an illusion. Moreover, it is friendly to its 
 welfare to affirm both its validity and 
 goodness. It is to be ruled, beautified, and 
 utilized in its own order, and not denied an 
 existence. Even admitting that the- whole cos- 
 mos is, in the last analysis, but one Universal 
 Mind and its manifestation; even admitting 
 that all matter is but a lower vibration of 
 spirit, and that the human body is essentially 
 a mental rather than a physical organism ; still, 
 matter has its own relative reality and validity, 
 and is not to be ignored as illusion." 
 
 Of its kind, nothing better than this could 
 be said even by a Hegel. It is exactly the cor- 
 rect statement of the great metaphysical truth. 
 
 The leaflet agrees with the criticism of this 
 volume, that " the spirit of Christian Science 
 is autocratic rather than democratic," and says : 
 
 " Its polity and ritual, in every detail, are 
 
224 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 shaped and directed arbitrarily by a single will. 
 There is no room for investigation, liberty of 
 thought, progress, or further revelation. There 
 is no recognition of related physical science or 
 evolutionary progress." 
 
 The monograph continues thus : 
 
 " The liberal movement stands for freedom 
 of soul, and is in no way opposed to subordi- 
 nate orders of truth. ... It does not ignore 
 the good in existing systems, disparage reason- 
 able hygiene, or deny the place of certain de- 
 partments of surgery. It is not insensible to the 
 present and provisional uses of simple external 
 therapeutic agencies, at least until individual 
 unfoldment and the recognition of higher law 
 become more general. . . . While understand- 
 ing, both from experience and observation, 
 that a systematic employment of mental po- 
 tency in a rational, scientific, and idealistic 
 manner has a wonderful and unappreciated 
 healing energy, its exponents do not think it 
 necessary to form a new and exclusive religious 
 sect." 
 
 The main premise, of course, of all the 
 schools of " mind-healing " is that " the mind 
 can and should control the body." Let us go 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 225 
 
 straight from this premise to the manner of 
 applying it, as explained, for instance, in a lit- 
 tle book entitled The New Philosophy of 
 Health, excellently well written, by a Miss 
 Harriet B. Bradbury. 
 
 " The healer [says this author] simply 
 holds in mind with great tenacity, for perhaps 
 ten or fifteen minutes, an image of the patient 
 as he should be. This image, by the process 
 known as ' thought transference ' is impressed 
 upon the sick man's mind as a possibility, when 
 his own strong desire, seizing it, is able to re- 
 produce it as an actuality. He may be quite 
 unconscious that he has done anything for 
 himself, and when he finds himself well, gives 
 all the credit to the man who, as he thinks, has 
 ' healed ' him.- Yet the change is wrought 
 by no man, but by the great life-giving force 
 which two wills working in harmony have 
 called into perfect action." 
 
 In confirmation of " the law of mental caus- 
 ation," Miss Bradbury says : 
 
 " The most significant of recent biological 
 experiments are those which have been con- 
 ducted at the Smithsonian Institute with a 
 view to discovering the physical effects of 
 15 
 
226 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 different mental states. They have proved 
 that the different emotions produce immediate 
 chemical changes within the physical organism, 
 and it only remains to continue the investiga- 
 tion to learn just how each habitual emotion 
 is finally reflected upon the outward frame." 
 
 So that " old mesmerist," Dr. Quimby — for 
 this was exactly his view — has got along as 
 far as the Smithsonian Institute at Washing- 
 ton. And here let us introduce the names and 
 cogitations of a few authorities so " eminently 
 respectable " that the " very best and most 
 conservative people " need not shrink from 
 becoming acquainted with them. 
 
 In a work on Practical Idealism, William 
 DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College, 
 tells us : 
 
 " There are certain classes of disease for 
 which hypnotic treatment is highly beneficial. 
 Mental healing in all its various forms, in so 
 far as it is valuable, rests on the principle that 
 body and mind are very closely inter-related 
 through the partly conscious but chiefly un- 
 conscious control of the vital functions through 
 the nervous system ; and that the state of the 
 mind at any given time, and consequently the 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 227 
 
 state of the body, in so far as we know it at 
 that time, is made up of a relatively small pre- 
 sentation of sensation, and a very large contri- 
 bution of associations. Hence a very slight 
 suggestion through the senses, by speech, or 
 physical contact, or eradication of fixed images, 
 anxieties, and fears, may introduce a new nu- 
 cleus around which an entirely new set of as- 
 sociations will cluster; so that through the re- 
 newing of the mind the body may come to be 
 transformed." 
 
 Charles Van Norden, D.D., LL.D., at one. 
 time President of Elmira College, tells us in 
 his outline of psychology, The Psychic Factor, 
 that 
 
 " So tremendous is this power of mind over 
 body, that disease may often be cured and ail- 
 ments caused by a new idea." 
 
 " A woman [says Rev. Dr. Van Orden] 
 once came to Surgeon-General Hammond with 
 what he considered an incurable disorder. She 
 sighed as she turned to go away disconsolate, 
 saying, ' Ah, if I but had some of the water of 
 Lourdes ! ' — for she was a devout Catholic. 
 Now it so happened that a friend had brought 
 the doctor a bottle of the genuine water of 
 
228 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Lourdes to experiment with. He informed 
 the patient of this, and promised her some 
 provided she would first try a more potent 
 remedy, Aqua Crotonis (New York City aque- 
 duct water). The woman consented, but pro- 
 testing that this latter could not reach the 
 case. He then gave her a little vial of the real 
 article, but labeled ' Aqua Crotonis/ When 
 this had failed he gave her Croton water, but 
 labeled ' Water of Lourdes.' The result was a 
 complete cure." 
 
 Prof. William James, of Harvard, in the 
 chapter of his Principles of Psychology treat- 
 ing " the production of movement/' quotes 
 many authorities and gives various diagrams 
 illustrating the effects of sensations and emo- 
 tions upon the pulse, the respiration, the 
 glands, muscles, and other organs and func- 
 tions of men and animals. The celebrated 
 Prof. Bain is quoted as saying that " accord- 
 ing as an impression is accompanied with 
 feeling, the aroused currents diffuse themselves 
 over the brain, leading to a general agitation 
 of the moving organs, as well as affecting the 
 viscera." The conclusion of Prof. James is 
 that 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 229 
 
 " Using sweeping terms and ignoring ex- 
 ceptions, we might say that every possible feel- 
 ing produces a movement, and that every 
 movement is a movement of the entire organ- 
 ism, and of each and all its parts." 
 
 " The effect," says Prof. James, " of fear, 
 shame and anger, upon the blood-supply of the 
 skin, especially the skin of the face, are too 
 well known to need remark. Sensations of 
 the higher senses produce, according to Couty 
 and Charpentier, the most varied effects upon 
 the pulse-rate and blood-pressure of dogs." 
 
 Now if the higher emotions of dogs pro- 
 duce marked effects upon their physical struc- 
 ture, we must naturally infer that hope, faith, 
 joy — all, indeed, of the loftier emotions of 
 human beings — may set up high and healthful 
 movements in the human body, while base emo- 
 tions set up low, harmful, and diseased condi- 
 tions. In this claim, anyhow, we have, ac- 
 cording to " metaphysical healing," the cause 
 and cure of disease, capped, too, with the ethics 
 of " the new thought." 
 
 Thomas Jay Hudson, in his book, The Law 
 of Psychic Phenomena, gives this compend of 
 the facts: 
 
230 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 " The science of psycho-therapeutics is yet 
 in its infancy. Thus far just enough has been 
 learned to stimulate research. It has been 
 demonstrated that there is a psychic power in- 
 herent in man which can be employed for the 
 amelioration of his own physical condition, as 
 well as that of his fellows. When this is said, 
 nearly all the ground covered by present 
 knowledge has been embraced. It is true that 
 many wonderful cures have been effected, many 
 marvelous phenomena developed. Neverthe- 
 less, all are groping in the dark, with only an 
 occasional glimmering of distant light shed 
 upon the subject; and this light serves princi- 
 pally to show how little is now known, com- 
 pared with what there is yet to learn." 
 
 In discussing the conditions necessary to 
 psychic healing, Mr. Hudson affirms that the 
 exemplar and healer of Nazareth, the founder 
 of our Christian religion, always recognized 
 these conditions in the " miracles " imputed to 
 him. We shall end our quotations, at this 
 point, with one from Mr. Hudson's chapter on 
 " The Physical Manifestations and Philosophy 
 
 Of Christ." 
 
 " I do not mean to say that Jesus could not 
 
Schools of the New Thought. 231 
 
 heal in such cases where the mental environ- 
 ment was unfavorable; but the fact that he 
 took infinite pains, wherever practicable, to se- 
 cure the best conditions, shows that he under- 
 stood the law and worked within its limita- 
 tions. Certain it is that he never performed 
 any of his wonderful works outside the laws 
 which he proclaimed, nor did he ever intimate 
 that he could do so. It is true that his biog- 
 raphers do not always relate the details of the 
 transactions recorded; but it must be remem- 
 bered that they wrote at a later day, and may 
 not have been in possession of all the details. 
 It is, however, a marvelous fact, and is one 
 which constitutes indubitable evidence of the 
 truth of his history, that in no instance do they 
 relate a single act performed or word spoken 
 by him, relating to the healing of the sick, 
 which does not reveal his perfect knowledge 
 of and compliance with the laws which pertain 
 to mental therapeutics as they are revealed 
 in modern times through experiment and the 
 processes of inductive reasoning." 
 
232 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AN ADVANCED HEALER OF TO-DAY. 
 
 Recapitulating what we have been over, 
 it appears that " metaphysical healing " is sim- 
 ply the suggestion and determination of health 
 — the ideal photograph, as it were, of health — 
 transferred from the well to the ill, in the con- 
 viction that Universal Spirit is the principle of 
 all health, which we may receive from its 
 Source by opening ourselves to it. That is to 
 say, the health of the Infinite Spirit, so far as 
 absorbed by a finite spirit, corrects finite errors 
 of mind, and the mind, thus corrected, corrects, 
 or cures, the body. Such, certainly, was the 
 " truth-cure " of Phineas P. Quimby. With 
 him, starting as a mesmerist, it was, really, a 
 kind of normal and sacred hypnotism, by which 
 he endeavored to put his patients under the 
 close, immediate influence and operation of Su- 
 preme Life, and Sympathy, and Vigor. 
 
 Such treatment should do much for the ail- 
 ing — how much we must wait to know. 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 233 
 
 But the effects of it must have limits, and 
 these limits must be the general, the fixed con- 
 ditions, of what we designate as mind and 
 matter. It may be well to re-state these con- 
 ditions, but with focal reference to this 
 point — the one vital point of our whole 
 theme. 
 
 Metaphysically speaking, we are spirit, and 
 all else is spirit. But what is spirit? What 
 are the constituents of it, to the extent that 
 man may grasp them ? 
 
 First, is the universal principle of intelligent 
 conjunctive unity, instinctive and conscious, 
 which, individualized in men and animals, 
 manufactures, or sub-creates, all the unities of 
 their environment, which they take to be " the 
 forms of matter." 
 
 Second, is the equally universal principle 
 of subjective (negative) sensibility — the re- 
 ceptiveness of spirit in its forms called " the 
 senses." Transmuted through these senses, 
 ultimate objective spirit — to us " the unknown 
 and unknowable " — furnishes the filling, or 
 contents, of what consciousness and sub-con- 
 sciousness make up, or unify, into objects. 
 
 Third, is the vast fact of Spirit-background 
 
234 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 — Infinite Spirit " in itself " — which is re- 
 vealed, and can only be revealed, to the Unite, 
 as transformed through fixed modes of finite 
 receptivity. 
 
 A man, therefore, is simply an individuali- 
 zation of the process by which the Absolute — 
 That Which Is — expresses itself and lives. 
 Whatever may be our environment under some 
 changed state of our receptivity — sa)' " the fu- 
 ture life " — our evironment of spirit objected 
 through sense, in space and time, is the envi- 
 ronment of matter; and the human body is a 
 part of it. We are not only " in matter," 
 therefore, but we sub-create the matter, through 
 our God-given modes of sensuous receptivity, 
 and can only escape from it through an entire 
 change of those modes, called " senses." The 
 door of escape is the door of death, and no 
 human being has ever avoided it. Can any 
 human being avoid it? We say no: because 
 to be out of matter is to be out of the kind of 
 receptiveness — our five senses — through which 
 matter itself exists. If there be exceptional 
 persons of clairvoyant susceptibility, who can 
 pass sufficiently out of our average material 
 condition to realize aught beyond them, the 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 235 
 
 bodily state of these persons, too, must end, 
 as we all end. 
 
 Let us not mix conditions, like the meta- 
 physical tyros of Christian Science; but while 
 we are in the state of spirit known and expe- 
 rienced as mind and matter, let us acknowl- 
 edge the plain fact. As a corollary of this 
 fact, if we are out of health, let us look to 
 remedies good for both mind and matter — 
 the body and the soul. Such will probably 
 be the ultimate equipoise between " mental 
 medicine " and material curatives. 
 
 This, at any rate, is the best conclusion for 
 '* the new thought " that the scribe at hand can 
 reach. He may be wrong; for he is totally 
 " uninspired," and has nothing to follow but 
 his nose and his " mortal mind." But, the 
 conclusion once reached, he stood on it as an 
 a-priori breathing-spot. And then it occurred 
 to him that, peradventure, some radical, in- 
 dependent son of Galen might be conducting 
 the business of therapeutics on a psycho-cor- 
 poreal, double platform. If so, Boston would 
 be the place to look for him, and the search 
 was begun. In due time it was successful. 
 The result may at least prove suggestive and 
 entertaining. 
 
236 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 Let our new friend be called Prof. P. ; for 
 he has been an instructor in his kind of work, 
 and he bears the title of " doctor " only by the 
 courtesy of his patients, as Dr. Quimby did. 
 
 Now it is certain that if Prof. P. does not 
 cure all sorts of diseases, his patients think he 
 does, vouch for it when questioned, and give 
 most sincere testimonials to that effect. Even 
 the cure of cancer is vigorously affirmed, and 
 in connection with cases that have been given 
 up by eminent physicians. But, as this book 
 is doing no medical advertising, one ordinary 
 instance of Prof. P.'s work must suffice. 
 
 A large, strong woman, as the consequence 
 of a fall, incurred violent sciatic rheumatism, 
 and was treated at a hospital for three months, 
 being worse at the end of that time than at 
 first. On personally interviewing her — and she 
 is a woman of more than average intelligence 
 — she informed the writer that, in one treat- 
 ment of twenty minutes, Prof. P. had " entirely 
 cured " her, and that after five months — which 
 had elapsed at the time of the conversation — 
 there had been no recurrence of her trouble. 
 
 Our search for light has led to a somewhat 
 close acquaintance with Prof. P. and has in- 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 237 
 
 duced him to explain his theory and practise 
 of healing, for our use as a writer, excepting 
 a few of his personal discoveries not immedi- 
 ately important to the public, which he must 
 withhold, he says, for something like the same 
 reason that his learned brothers, the physicians, 
 write their prescriptions in Latin. 
 
 Prof. P. requires it to be said explicitly that 
 he is a Spiritualist. He is so pronounced in 
 the faith that he impatiently scoffs at all de- 
 nial, evasion or concealment, of what he deems 
 his " positive knowledge " that we exist after 
 " our mere change of condition called death," 
 and that " the spirits of our departed friends 
 are interested in our earthly welfare/' He de- 
 clares, however, that Dr. Quimby was sensible 
 in not trusting spirit communications at the 
 expense of his own judgment — " as, taking 
 the long generations of mankind, there are 
 necessarily more fools disembodied than in the 
 flesh." 
 
 According to our friend P., there are now 
 four great remedial agencies possible to heal- 
 ing the sick, apart from medicines in the usual 
 sense. The intelligent and careful use of such 
 medicines he believes in, and he seeks to co- 
 
238 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 operate with all broad-minded physicians, 
 rather than to antagonize them. The more 
 occult, but often more effective agencies, than 
 drugs or herbs, he says, are these: 
 
 First: Animal Magnetism. 
 
 Second: Natural Healing-Power — this 
 power being inherent to some extent in all 
 human beings, but greatly concentrated and 
 developed in certain individuals. 
 
 Third: Mental or Psychic Force — a force 
 existing in both embodied and disembodied 
 spirits, and as a universal principle. 
 
 Fourth: "Sensitized" devices containing 
 these powers and elements, with the function 
 of imparting them to the ailing and the weary. 
 
 " Magnetism," says our Professor, " as a 
 material phenomenon, is a force so potent that 
 it rearranges the unsystematized molecules of 
 certain metals, and gives them harmonious 
 direction and integral traction. The applica- 
 tion of it — termed polarization — has been 
 known even to produce ' clicks ' within me- 
 tallic bodies, loud enough to be distinctly 
 heard. Animal magnetism, pertaining to or- 
 ganized beings, acts upon their corresponding 
 but higher molecules in the same general way. 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 239 
 
 The sick are disordered, locally clogged, ' out 
 of tune/ They have lost, as it were, their 
 polarity. Animal magnetism restores it to 
 them. It then goes further and vitalizes them ; 
 for, if imparted to the feeble by a person 
 strong, well, and stored full of it, an equilib- 
 rium takes place between an operator and his 
 patient. Animal magnetism, however uncon- 
 sciously utilized, doubtless takes part in all so- 
 called * mind-cures ' that are physical afflic- 
 tions, not the results of bugaboos and whim- 
 sies. The absurd fulminations of Mrs. Eddy, 
 at this late day, against animal magnetism, are 
 only equaled by the comprehensive ignorance, 
 in general, which Bishop Brooks is said to have 
 considered the only possible excuse for the pro- 
 duction of a book like Science and Health. 
 
 " Inherent Healing Power is more occult 
 than animal magnetism, but has become almost 
 as well established. According to the accepted 
 evidence of centuries, this power was fully ex- 
 emplified in ancient times by the most faithful 
 and unselfish of all the sons of God and man, 
 Jesus, our Christ. According to recent and 
 contemporary evidence, both widespread and 
 exact, the Protestant world of late centuries 
 
240 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 has had no example of the same quality so 
 marked as that of Dr. P. P. Quimby. Inher- 
 ent healing power goes with close and tender 
 sympathy for the afflicted, and grows with use, 
 like the brawn of a stevedore, or the intel- 
 lectual dexterity of a practised writer. It may 
 eventuate in a Quimby as naturally as the 
 poetic faculty eventuates in a Kipling. 
 
 " By mental or psychic force," says the 
 Professor, " I mean the principle of apprehend- 
 ing, understanding, and reasoning, with the 
 moral elements pertaining to conscience and 
 will. This combination of our essential being, 
 in whatever phase of it we may exist, affects 
 and modifies, if it does not altogether domi- 
 nate, all the rest of our make-up. Its import- 
 ance is very great, but may be exaggerated by 
 forgetting that man is a microcosm, and that 
 while he is in the externalized condition of 
 spirit known as matter he is not at the same 
 time out of it. For the finite to put itself in 
 harmony with the Infinite, by right thinking, 
 right feeling, right conduct, is indispensable 
 to the highest health ; but an imaginary union 
 with God through fictitious conceptions of our 
 own ego is unnatural and unwholesome exal- 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 241 
 
 tation, inducing disease of the mind, whatever 
 it may do to the body. 
 
 " Psychic power is an absolutely universal 
 principle, common, in degree, to men, spirits, 
 and God. It is sometimes employed by hypno- 
 tists to such an extent that the physical sensa- 
 tion of a subject is rendered void, even under 
 amputation of a bodily member. It can de- 
 stroy the taste for iritoxicants in a drunkard. 
 It can supplant melancholia with hope and 
 cheerfulness. What it can not do is yet a 
 problem. 
 
 " Of course such a power is a part, and 
 great part, of sane therapeutics. In the appli- 
 cation of it," said the Professor, With much 
 warmth, " I affirm — let those who have not 
 my knowledge and experience think what their 
 ignorance or prejudice saddles upon them — 
 that ' departed spirits,' as we call them, com- 
 bine their efforts with those of men and 
 women, to heal the sick. The power is thus 
 redoubled. 
 
 " We have taken but a few steps in this 
 
 sort of knowledge, and it is accompanied by a 
 
 plenty of deception and twaddle. But the 
 
 truth underlying it has now procured a hear- 
 
 IJ9 
 
242 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 ing even before eminently timid ' societies of 
 psychical research/ and will Boon conquer 
 them, as mesmerism has done. Certain spirit- 
 conditions are coming to be rationalized. In 
 this country, for instance, the spirits of In- 
 dians everywhere manifest themselves, espe- 
 cially in connection with the cures of disease. 
 The reason is simple. Indians were close to 
 the earth, near to nature, in their lives, and 
 they enjoy the scene of their old ' hunting 
 grounds ' more than such etherealized spirits 
 as were slightly attached to it. But spirit-aid 
 in therapeutics is mostly co-operative. Essen- 
 tial physicians, whether in our state of being 
 or the higher state, feel an interest in their 
 pursuit, and practise it. The most intelligent 
 guide their assistants; but robust spirits of 
 earthly qualities and attractions sometimes fur- 
 nish a basic healing force that is almost physi- 
 cal/' 
 
 Prof. P.'s system of healing is remarkable 
 enough in all ways; but his claims for his 
 '* sensitized devices " would be too astounding 
 for credence were it not that the things appear 
 " to work," just as he says they will. Seem- 
 ingly, they are nothing but small metallic 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 243 
 
 plates; but they are charged, he affirms, with 
 earth-magnetism as a " power-house," and 
 then with animal magnetism, with natural hu- 
 man healing quality, with attractiveness to 
 spirit-co-operation in that quality, and finally 
 with psychic power and control — that is, di- 
 rection of mind and will. In other words, 
 Prof. P. says that, after twenty years of study 
 and experiment he can transmit to his " sensi- 
 tized devices," and store in them, all the four 
 great healing agencies which can be employed 
 in therapeutics apart from ordinary medicines. 
 
 By such means, he affirms, " not only heal- 
 ing, but instantaneous healing," to the extent 
 at least of immediate relief from pain, can 
 always be effected in all cases adapted to his 
 treatment. 
 
 " Christian Science," he says — " mind-cure 
 — faith-cure — oh yes, they l demonstrate ' over 
 things, as the phrase goes. I admit it, at least 
 in some instances. But, at their very best, they 
 all take time. The patient must wait to exalt 
 himself into some vision or condition he is 
 told about, or to accept some theological doc- 
 trine or other, whether true or false. Suppose 
 a man is knotted up with rheumatism, has a 
 
244 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 fit, or is insane. I don't wait for him to build 
 up a belief, or to get into harmony with the 
 Highest. I take him just as he is, clap my 
 sensitizers on him, go to work myself, and, 
 if he is not too far gone for aid on earth, I 
 restore an equilibrium of body and brain. If 
 I do this — if I instantly drive away the worst 
 kind of pain — if I retrieve lost consciousness 
 or a disordered mind — I can put faith enough 
 into my patient for a beginning. Later, I will 
 attend to his theology to the extent of my 
 knowledge, if he desires my services as a 
 priest." 
 
 The operation of Prof. P.'s sensitized appli- 
 ances, according to his claim for them, is cor- 
 rection and vitalization of both mind and body, 
 when disarranged or " ill," and then concen- 
 tration of power in accordance with location of 
 disease or pain. " As strange as it may seem," 
 he says, " these little pieces of metal take upon 
 themselves the physical and mental conditions 
 of sickness, which can even be conveyed by 
 them from one person to another, as I have 
 proved by various experiments. But these 
 conditions can be discharged from the plates, 
 or 'grounded/ like electricity, and this, too, 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 245 
 
 without destroying the higher, firmer, normal 
 charge of health and strength. 
 
 " Do you look incredulous ; do you smile 
 with a tinge of pity?" asked Prof. P., as he 
 talked. " Wait a minute. You have heard of 
 Dr. Luys, one of the most distinguished phy- 
 sicians in the world, Charcot's favorite assist- 
 ant, and now the head of the- great Charity 
 Hospital of Paris. Not long ago he had a 
 patient—a young woman who had suffered 
 nervous prostration, and was losing her mind 
 from melancholia. She was affectionate, and 
 greatly attached to her family. But she became 
 aware that her love was strangely turning to 
 aversion, which she could not control. Fright- 
 ened and ashamed, she went to Dr. Luys. He 
 tried everything he could think of to cure her, 
 but unavailingly. At his wits' end — not know- 
 ing what to do — he took up, one day, a large 
 electro-magnet, and, as a pure experiment of 
 impulse, fastened it to her head. He was sud- 
 denly called away for three-quarters of an 
 hour. Returning, he found his patient weak, 
 but her head better and clearer than usual. 
 Dismissing her, he put the magnet on his own 
 head, took the chair she had sat in, and re- 
 
246 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 mained there as long as she had done. He 
 then went to dine with his wife and children, 
 of whom he is very fond. But, greatly to his 
 surprise, he found that, with no fault of their 
 own, they were not agreeable to him. He had 
 taken the conditions of his patient, 
 
 " He was keen enough to recognize the fact, 
 and announce it to his profession and the 
 world. He drew the conclusion that the elec- 
 tro-magnet can absorb morbid brain-influences. 
 Also that it can transfer such influences from 
 the sick to the well, though two healthy per- 
 sons are not affected by it. He added that the 
 transference of conditions from the healthy to 
 the diseased almost ^always benefits them. 
 
 " I am not hanging on ' high authorities/ " 
 continued the Professor, "but they are some- 
 times useful to me. There is Dr. Julius Alt- 
 haus, of Berlin, a member, too, of the English 
 Royal College of Physicians. As explained in 
 a recent issue* of the Lancet, the chief English 
 organ of the medical fraternity, Dr. Althaus 
 is now rejuvenating old age, and prolonging 
 our present term of life, by certain galvano- 
 electric appliances — which, by the way, he does 
 not tell quite all about. Henry Irving is un- 
 
An Advanced Healer of To-day. 247 
 
 derstood to have been held back from the in- 
 firmities of advancing years, and restored to 
 the stage, by Dr. Althaus." 
 
 Prof. P. claims to have been at work half a 
 life-time in the general direction indicated by 
 the experiments and achievements of Luys and 
 Althaus, but to have been so busy that he has 
 had no time to think about a degree of M.D. 
 " The world," he says, " should be very grate- 
 ful to these eminent gentlemen, and / certainly 
 am grateful ; for though I anticipated the hap- 
 penings of Dr. Luys by several years, and 
 though almost any ' magnetic healer ' would 
 assert the hypothesis, at least, of Dr. Althaus, 
 my own theories and results are so far beyond 
 my epoch that without the steps, however 
 short, taken by such men as Luys and Althaus, 
 I could get no sort of hearing. I am often 
 laughed at, of course, as a ' crank ' ; but I gen- 
 erally laugh last — for, as the phrase goes 
 nowadays, I ' get there/ " 
 
248 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The moral of our story is an old one, always 
 new. " There are more things in heaven and 
 earth than " — anybody short of Mary Baker 
 G. Eddy can put into a " science." From this 
 text it would be logical to educe a cyclopedia 
 every month or so. But one little point will 
 do here. 
 
 The practise of medicine, notwithstanding 
 its grand achievements, is still in its infancy. 
 When I am ill, I call a doctor — the best in 
 the vicinity. It is the custom; and, as Mon- 
 taigne said, Que sais-jef I am not sure of 
 much, and when I have "grippe" I am quite 
 certain of less than ever. But the materials 
 I have lately been at work on make me wish 
 that " my doctor," instead of scorning all new 
 things, would look into some of them, and add 
 them to his acquirements. He will have no 
 need to accept " Christian Science," which has 
 
Conclusion. 249 
 
 been accurately described as " a way of getting 
 cured of things by believing something that 
 isn't true." I must excuse " my doctor " from 
 accepted that inverted " science." But the 
 general subject of occult and psychic healing 
 is worthy of his attention. " My doctor " 
 knows much: but, if he should enlarge his 
 knowledge just a little, my faith in him would 
 stand the increment. 
 
 One thing I shall insist on. " My doctor " 
 must not endeavor to supersede Torquemada, 
 Henry the Eighth, and the learned ecclesiasti- 
 cal doctors of the Inquisition. Hemustnotin- 
 terfere with the right of private judgment in 
 saving the body, as they did in saving the 
 soul. In such a case I should count them his 
 superiors, inasmuch as the soul is really worth 
 more than its external machinery, which, in 
 a few years, more or less, must wear out and 
 go to the cemetery. 
 
 The Inquisition honestly held a theory that 
 the soul could only be saved by accepting a 
 certain creed, and ought to be saved even at 
 the cost of breaking the body on a wheel. The 
 Inquisition would have been right, if its creed 
 had really been the thing supposed. But four 
 
250 The Church of St. Bunco. 
 
 centuries of Protestantism have established a 
 different theory : it is that, whatever any creed 
 may be or do, every man has the prerogative 
 of deciding for himself the manner of thinking 
 which shall raise him to heaven or lower him 
 to sheol. Still, I repeat, the soul is worth more 
 than the body, and if Protestantism applies to 
 the greater, it should apply to the less. 
 
 Some things have been settled, I suppose, 
 by long experience, and have become matters 
 of law for the protection of nations. Civiliza- 
 tion requires that a man who knows nothing 
 of physiology shall not practise surgery; that 
 scarlet fever shall be quarantined; that school- 
 children shall be saved from small-pox by vac- 
 cination. Medical degrees certify that the 
 holders have studied medicine long enough at 
 least to know something about it in a way that 
 the common judgment recognises. Nothing 
 is to be said against such requirements impar- 
 tially applied to a whole people. They simply 
 must be enforced. Christian Science opposes 
 them, dodges them when it can; for it hold's 
 that human beings have no bodies except re- 
 flections of a wretched lie called " mortal 
 mind." In spite of its source, this dangerous 
 
Conclusion. 251 
 
 form of insanity should be dealt with as gently 
 as possible, but certainly should not go unre- 
 strained.* Let it conform to laws, not special 
 to any religion or to any humbug masquerad- 
 ing as a religion, but general to the citizens 
 who compose a free and sane community. 
 
 * These words were written long before Dr. Alan Mc- 
 Lane Hamilton testified, in the Surrogate's Court, New 
 York City, Feb. 18th, 1901), that sincere Christian Scien- 
 tists are afflicted with a form of insane delusion. 
 
Dec!$I90 : 
 
DEC 18 1901 
 
 dec. 19 iyoi 
 
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