6. Thus is this faculty seen developed on providential occasions, in imminent dangers, in great calamities, in revolutions; and the greater numbers of sects which have been persecuted have had numbers of prophets. Thus inspired by these visions, great captains are seen resolutely marching towards the enemy with a certitude of victory, that men of genius, like Christopher Columbus, for example, have pursued an object, predicting the moment when they will attain it. The reason for this is, they have seen this object accomplished in prophetic vision.
The gift of prophecy is then no more supernatural than a multitude of other phenomena. It is based upon the properties of the soul, and the law of connection between the spiritual and material worlds, which Spiritism has come to explain.
This theory of foresight does not solve, perhaps, in an absolutely correct manner, all cases which can be presented as revelations of the future; but one cannot deny that it is based on a truly fundamental principle.
