Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

Difference Between Quimby’s Belief & That of Others

The difference between my belief and that of others who have written upon the philosophy of the mind is this. Every philosopher aims at happiness as the greatest object to be obtained and they believe that goodness is one of the means by which to secure the prize. All these thoughts are meant to arrive at this one object, happiness; thinking it is somewhere in the future and that they may, by hard labor, obtain it. That was the study of the great philosophers. Now I profess to study the philosophy of the mind and have done so for the last twenty-five years, and I have arrived at the following conclusion; that happiness is the light and that misery is darkness; and man, being in darkness, chooses darkness rather than light, because of his ignorance. All philosophies teach man how to find this light by prescribing certain rules and regulations as to what he shall eat, drink, and wherewith he shall be clothed; imposing all kinds of restrictions on him which, if he observes, he may at last find the light. Now all such rules and restrictions lead him into darkness, death, disease or misery. I differ from all such philosophy and call light “happiness” and darkness “misery,” and instead of trying to find the light, I labor to destroy the darkness.

I will give you an illustration of what I mean. Disease is the effect of darkness (or a belief), for a belief has no light (or wisdom); for wisdom is light, and opinion is darkness. When man is in opinion, he is in darkness, and to get out of his opinion is to get into the light. Therefore, I commence to correct the error which troubles him; for his trouble is his darkness. If I convince him of the truth, the light springs up, and his light is his happiness. For the Bible says that the people which sat in the darkness saw a great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. (Matt. 4: 16)