32. The preliminary study of the theory has a further advantage in that it immediately shows the grandeur of this science's purpose and scope. People who begin by seeing a table turn or strike are more inclined to mockery because they hardly imagine that from a table can arise a doctrine meant to regenerate humanity. We have always noticed that those who believe before they have seen, but because they have read and comprehended, far from being superficial, are on the contrary the most thoughtful; being more attached to the substance than to the form, they see the philosophical part as the fundamental, and the phenomena per se are the accessory. They have said that even if there were no phenomena, there would still be a philosophy that alone solves the problems that until now have been unsolvable; the only one that gives the most rational theory of man's past and future, and they prefer a doctrine that explains matters to those that do not explain or that explain badly. Whoever thinks about it understands very well that the manifestations could be disregarded, and the doctrine would still subsist. The manifestations corroborate and confirm the doctrine but are not its essential foundation. The serious observer does not reject them; on the contrary, he waits for favorable circumstances that will allow him to witness them. The proof of what we are saying is that before hearing about the manifestations, many people had the intuition of this doctrine which only embodied their ideas in a coherent whole.
