The Spirits' Book

Allan Kardec

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28. Since the spirit itself is something, would it be more accurate and less confusing to call these two general elements inert matter and intelligent matter? “Words are of little importance to us. You must formulate your expressions so that you may understand one another. Your disputes almost always arise from the lack of a common agreement over the use of words, because your language is incapable of describing that which transcends your senses.”


One obvious fact governs all our hypotheses. Matter in and of itself is not intelligent. Therefore, we see an intelligent principle independent of matter. The origin and connection of these two elements are unknown to us. As to whether they have a common source, or the necessary points of contact, whether intelligence has an independent existence, or is only a property or an effect, or even whether it is an emanation of the Divinity, we have no answers for these questions. They appear to be distinct to us, and we therefore consider them to be two crucial elements of the universe. We see a supreme intelligence above all this that governs all things and is distinguished from them by essential attributes. This supreme intelligence is what we call God.

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