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 innocent followers of Mrs. Eddy herself. But as soon as a general investigator touches the fad, especially the history of it, he sees that, whatever its effects may have been--good, bad or indifferent--it began in false pretenses,[3] 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 "metaphysics" to lunacy. Hence our title. The Church of St. Bunco is the name for the thing. "Christian Science," properly named, is simply _Un_-Christian _Non_-Science. CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW THOUGHT.[4] "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, introduced 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 reformer. 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, recovered 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 patients inevitably conferred upon him the title of "Doctor." At first he merely co-operated with the regular 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 disease, with the pains accompanying it, and would then go on and prescribe remedies, though he knew nothing about them.