"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 contain no intelligence, but shadow forth a reflection 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 disease, which are health and strength, are daguerreotyped on the receptive plate of the patient, 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 place, and there is nothing left of the disease." 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 idealism." Until his own conclusions were fully reached, he knew nothing, from literature, even of Berkeley; but when Berkeley's writings 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 _negative mind_, or that which "_could receive impressions_" and "be changed by them." Hence he said: "The idea (disease) is matter; and it decomposes, 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' experience that these odors affect me, and also that they contain the very identity of the patient 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 be affected by it when my body was at a distance of many miles from the patient. This led to a new discovery; 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 knowledge is in matter, all there is of him is contained in matter. But, if his knowledge is in wisdom, then his senses and all there is of him are out of matter." In 1860 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: