The Spiritist Society of Paris has just lost one of its members Mr. Bruneau, deceased on November 13th, 1864 at the age of seventy years old; a death that was announced in the terms below by the Opinion Nationale:
“Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Saint-simonianism mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, former colonel of the infantry that founded the school of cavalry in Egypt while Mr. Lambert Rey, his son-in-law, organized a Polytechnic School. Mr. Bruneau died as a free man, full of hope in the material, intellectual and moral progress, and full of faith in the religious and social doctrines of his youth.”
Mr. Bruneau was a former student at the Polytechnic School and for several years member of the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies. We ignore the faith that he had in the religious and social doctrines of his youth but we know that he had an absolute confidence in the future of Spiritism of which he was a keen and enlightened follower. He had acquired an unbreakable faith in the future life and in the humanitarian reforms that will be its consequence. We add that his colleagues were able to appreciate his excellent qualities, his extreme modesty, his kindness, benevolence and charity. He communicated at the Society a few days after his death and gave testimony of the elevation of his Spirit by the correction and profoundness of his appreciations. The invisible word had no surprise to him for he understood it beforehand. He then came to confirm everything that the Doctrine teaches us about it. He gladly found his relatives, friends and colleagues that had preceded him and waited for his arrival among them.
The Spiritist Society of Paris was represented in the funerals of Mr. Bruneau by a delegation of twenty members. We considered our duty to express the feelings of the Society but knowing that his family was not sympathetic to our ideas we were forced to abstain from any manifestation. Spiritism does not impose itself. It wants to be freely accepted and for that reason respects every belief and, out of a principle of tolerance and charity, avoids anything that may shock contrary ideas.
As a matter of fact the fair tribute of praises and sorrows that could not have been ostensibly paid before a hostile or indifferent public was done with much more reverence at the heart of the Society. At the session the followed the funerals a speech was given and all of his colleagues united in prayers that were said on his behalf.
At the session dedicated to the memory of Mr. Bruneau, Mr. Allan Kardec offered the following speech:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Spiritist brothers and sisters,
One of our colleagues has just left Earth to enter the world of the Spirits. By dedicating this session to him we accomplish a duty of fraternity to him in which each one of us, I have no doubt, will associate their heart in a sacred communion of thoughts.
Mr. Bruneau joined the Society on April 1st, 1862. As a member of the committee, as you know, he was very much present at our sessions. All of us were able to appreciate the kindness of his character, his extreme benevolence, his simplicity and charity. There isn’t a single relief run in our Society to which he had not brought his offering. His death revealed an eminent quality in him: modesty. He had never exhibited his titles that recommended him as an enlightened man. By chance I was informed that he had attended the Polytechnic School but we all ignored the fact that he had been a colonel of the artillery and that he had accomplish a superior mission in Egypt, founding a school of cavalry at the same time that his son-in-law, Lambert Bey, founded there a Polytechnic School. We knew him as a sincere Spiritist, devoted and instructed, but if he was quiet about his times he was not about his opinions. These circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, make his memory even more dear to us and we do not doubt that he found a deservedly position in the world of the Spirits. Mr Bruneau was an active member of the Saint-simonianism School, and that was mentioned by the papers that announced his death, but they avoided mentioning that he died as a Spiritist.
This is not the forum to discuss the Saint-simonianism School. However, the beginning of the article of the Opinion Nationale lead us to involuntarily make a comparison. It says: “Death renovates its attacks to the surving members of the Sansimonist mission in Egypt. After Mr. Enfantin and Lambert Rey we have today to mourn the loss of Mr. Bruneau, etc.” Saint-simonianism shined intensely for a few years be it by the originality of the books or by the eminent persons associated to that. It is a fact, however, that the shine was transient. Why then such a short impact if it had the philosophical truth?
Truth sometimes is hard to propagate but when it begins to show up it grows and does not disappear because truth is eternal and it is eternal because it comes from God. Only falsehoods perish because they come from people. Progress is the law of humanity. Humanity will only progress when it discovers the truth. Once the discovery is done it is acquired and unbreakable. Which theory could prevail today against the law of the movement of the globes, of the formation of Earth and so many others? Philosophy is only mutable because it results from systems created by men; it will only have stability when it acquire the accuracy of mathematical truth. If then a system, a theory, any doctrine, philosophical, religious or social, marches towards decline it is a positive proof that it is not with the absolute truth. In all religions, and not excluding Christianity, it is only the divine element that is imperishable; the human element falls if not in agreement with the law of progress. But since progress is endless it results that in the religions the human element must modify or disappear. It is only the divine element that is invariable. You see that in Moses’ law: the two tables of Mount Sinai still stand becoming the code of humanity whereas the rest is already lost in time.
Since absolute truth can only be established onto the ruins of the error it forcibly finds antagonists among those that by living out of the error have interest in fighting truth and for that very reason give rise to a bloodthirsty battle.
But truth soon conquers the sympathy of the selfishness masses. Was it what happened to the Saint-simonianism doctrine? No. It lived like a practice; it only survived as a sympathetic theory and individual belief in the heads of some of its former followers. But like it is attested by the Opinion Nationale, by daily taking away some of its representatives the day in which they will be almost all gone is not far and it will then only live in history, from what we must conclude that it did not had the absolute truth and did not correspond to every aspiration.
Does it mean that every sect and school that disappear are in the absolute false? No. On the contrary. The majority of them have foreseen part of the truth but the summation of the truths that they had was not enough to sustain the fight against progress so that they were not up to the needs of humanity. In fact the sects are very exclusive and for that reason stationaries. It follows that the ones that were able to mark a stage of progress in a given time ended up being left behind and extinguished by the force of things. However, irrespective of the mistakes by which they succumbed their passage was not useless because they agitated the ideas, moved mankind away from numbness, raised new issues that were better elaborated and detached from the spirit of system and exaggeration, and later on received their solution. Among the ideas that they sowed only the good ones bear fruits and are reborn in a different format. Time, experience and reason do justice to the others. The mistake of every social doctrine, presented as panacea of the evils of humanity, is that of be founded exclusively on material interests. It follows that the solidarity that they try to establish among individuals is fragile like the corporeal life; the links of fraternity, without roots in a faith in the future, break to the minimal shock of egotism.
Spiritism presents itself in completely different conditions. Is it with the truth? We believe so but are we better prepared than the others. The reasons that lead us to believe in Spiritism are very simple. They stem simultaneously out of cause and effects. As cause it has in its favor the fact that it is not a human conception, the product of a personal system, and that is of paramount importance. There isn’t a single one of its principles – and here there is no exception – that is not based on the observation of facts. If only one principle of Spiritism were the result of a personal opinion this would be its vulnerable side. But since Spiritism affirms nothing that is not sanctioned by the experience of facts and since facts are the law of nature, it must be immutable like those laws because it will find the sanction and confirmation everywhere and at all times and sooner or later it is necessary that all beliefs bow before the facts.
In fact it responds to every aspiration of the soul; it satisfies at the same time the Spirit, reason and the heart; it fulfills the emptiness left by the doubt; it gives a foundation and a meaning to solidarity, by the connection that it establishes between present and future; finally, it rests on solid foundations the pivot that will receive every serious social reform. Spiritism itself is based on facts and laws of nature, without mixture with human theories, and does not risk to move away from the divine element. Spiritism therefore offers the only spectacle in history of a doctrine that in a few years was implanted in all corners of the globe and grows continuously; that unites every religious beliefs while others are exclusivists and remain circumscribed to limited circle of followers. In a few words these are the reasons why our faith is based on the truth and in the stability of Spiritism. We hope that our former colleague and always brother Bruneau may kindly tell us how he feels about the issue, now that he can see it from a more elevated point of view.
Note: Mr. Bruneau’s communication totally corresponded to our expectation. Like the others that were read at this session it is related to a number of questions that will be dealt with later and that is why we postponed its publication.
