Editor's Preface to the Second Edition

The Quimby Manuscripts, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, ed. by Horatio W. Dresser [1921], at sacred-texts.com

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Editor's Preface to the Second Edition

FOR many years a mass of documents of interest to Christian Scientists and to their critics as well, has been withheld from publication, although earnestly sought. These documents were written by Dr. P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Maine, and contain his views regarding mental and spiritual healing. They became familiar to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy when she visited Dr. Quimby as a patient, and it has been charged by her critics that many of the ideas later promulgated in her teachings were born of the Quimby theories.

In order to set this controversy at rest, many attempts have been made to gain access to the Quimby manuscripts, but heretofore without success except in piecemeal or disjointed form. The present editor, however, has been fortunate in securing from Mrs. George A. Quimby, owner of the manuscripts, permission to print the documents in full. Many of them now see the light of the printed page for the first time. Others give a full and authentic version of material from which only short extracts have previously appeared.

The editor's point of view is that of the expositor, never critical save as the author of the manuscripts might have criticized his own work. All subject-matter in brackets is by the editor, also all footnotes. Italics and quotation-marks have been introduced to a slight extent. Scriptural quotations have not been corrected, because Dr. Quimby was in the habit of paraphrasing in order to show how he interpreted the Bible. Some of the articles have been condensed to avoid repetition, but no material changes have been made. The terms Science, Truth, Wisdom, have been capitalized throughout in conformity with the usage in some of the articles in which these words are synonyms for Christ, or God. The same is true of the general terms for Quimby's theory, the Science of Health, the Science of Life and Happiness. The term Christian Science is used with reference to the growth of the original teaching of Jesus.

In this edition several errors have been corrected and Chapter twelve has been re-written.

H. W. DRESSER