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facts of his biography, and turn to his inner life with its outreachings.
Quimby early manifested ability as an inventor, but his mechanical interests do not explain him. So, too, in his occupation as watch and clock maker there is no hint of his peculiar ability in discerning the human heart. His power as inventor was limited by his interest in mechanics. Before the period of his experiments in mental phenomena there is only one incident of any significance recorded, the recovery of his health in part without the aid of medicine; but even in this case his meagre account fails to tell us whether the change was in any sense permanent. It was not until his investigations were well begun that he wholly regained his health and began to see that health is a spiritual possession. But in reviewing this introductory period of his life everything once more depends on what we call education. Inventive or creative ability, combined with love for facts, the facts and laws of the special sciences, is a splendid beginning if one is to devote maturer years to establishing a spiritual science. Perhaps it was Quimby's love for natural facts which kept him from ignoring the existence and reality of the natural world, when he became absorbed in the study of the mind.
Quimby's mind was scientific in the good sense of the term. He did not stop many years in the domain of mechanics. He was not content with letters patent as signs of his ability. Nor was he satisfied with studies in mesmerism, spiritism and kindred phenomena. The impressive fact is that he continued his researches until he laid the basis for a new structure in the world of thought. During the period of his preliminary investigations he read books on the sciences to some extent. But with the beginning of his life-work he branched out in a new direction, working entirely alone, amidst opposition and with no books to help him. His more productive years should therefore be judged by his high ideal of a spiritual science.
His great love for truth, his desire to prove all things for himself, is then the most prominent characteristic of his early manhood. Apparently, those who knew him well in the early years of his life in Belfast saw nothing peculiar or exceptional in him. Hence there is nothing recorded that gives us any clue until, putting aside conventional standards of thought, we seek the man's inner type, the sources of his insight in
