Bibliography
God in nature, by Camille Flammarion
After having treated, as we know, the question of the habitability of the worlds, from a scientific point of view, that is intimately linked to Spiritism, Mr. Flammarion today approaches the demonstration of another truth, the most important, without a doubt, because it is the cornerstone of the social edifice, also without which Spiritism would not have its reason of being: the existence of God. The title of his work: God in nature, summarizes everything; he says, first of all, that it is not a liturgical, nor a mystical, but a philosophical book.
From the skepticism of a large number of scientists, it has been wrongly concluded that science, by itself, is atheist, or inevitably leads to atheism; it is an error that Mr. Flammarion endeavors to refute, by demonstrating that if the scientists did not see God in their research, it is because they did not want to see him. All scholars, moreover, are far from being atheists, but skepticism about the particular dogmas of this or that cult is often confused with atheism. Mr. Flammarion especially addresses the class of philosophers who openly profess materialism.
“Man," he said, "carries in his nature such an imperative need to have a conviction, particularly from the point of view of the existence of an organizer of the world, and of the destiny of mankind, that if no faith satisfies him, he needs to demonstrate to himself that God does not exist, resting his soul on atheism and the doctrine of nothingness. So, the current question that fascinates us is no longer to know what is the form of the Creator, the character of mediation, the influence of grace, nor to discuss the value of theological arguments: the real question is to know whether God exists or if he does not exist."
In this work, the author proceeded in the same way as in his Plurality of inhabited worlds, he placed himself on the very ground of his adversaries. If he had drawn his arguments from theology, from Spiritism or from any spiritualist doctrine, he would have laid down premises that would have been rejected. This is why he takes that of the deniers, and demonstrates, by the very facts, that one arrives at an utterly opposed conclusion; he does not invoke new controversial arguments; he is not lost in the clouds of metaphysics, the subjective and the objective, in the quibbles of dialectics; he remains on the grounds of positivism; he fights the atheists with their own weapons; taking their arguments one by one, he destroys them with the help of the very science they invoke. He is not based on the opinions of men; his authority is nature and he shows God in everything and everywhere.
“Nature explained by science,” he says, “has shown it to us in a particular character. He is there, visible, like the intimate force of all things. No human poetry has appeared to us comparable to the natural truth, and the eternal verb has spoken to us more eloquently in the most modest works of nature, than man in his most pompous songs."
We have stated the motives that led Mr. Flammarion to place himself outside Spiritism, and we can only approve it; if some people thought that it was out of antagonism to the doctrine, it would suffice, to disillusion them, to quote the following passage:
“We could add, to close the chapter on human personality, some thoughts on certain subjects of study that are still mysterious, but not insignificant. Natural somnambulism, magnetism, Spiritism, offer the serious experimenters, who know how to examine them scientifically, characteristic facts that would suffice to demonstrate the insufficiency of materialistic theories. It is sad, we admit, for the conscientious observer, to see shameless charlatanism slip its treacherous greed into causes that should be respected; it is sad to note that ninety-nine facts, out of a hundred, can be false or imitated; but a single well-established fact frustrates all denials. Now, which side do certain enlightened characters take before these facts? They simply deny them.
"Science has no doubts," says M. Buchner in particular, "that all cases of so-called clairvoyance are the effects of juggling and collusion. Lucidity is, for natural reasons, an impossibility. It is in the laws of nature that the effects of the senses are limited to certain limits of space that they cannot cross. No one has the ability to guess thoughts or to see what is going on around them with their eyes closed. These truths are based on natural laws that are immutable and without exceptions."
“Hey! Mr. Judge, do you know them well, the natural laws? Happy man! Why don't you succumb to the excess of your science! But what? I turn two pages, and this is what I read:
“Somnambulism is a phenomenon of which unfortunately we have only very inaccurate observations, although it was to be desired that we had precise notions of it because of its importance to science. However, without having certain data (listen!), one can relegate among the fables all the marvelous facts that one tells about somnambulists. A sleepwalker is not given to climb walls, etc.
Ah! sir, how wisely you reason! and that you would have done well, before writing, to know a little what you think!"
An analytical report of the work would require developments that the lack of space precludes us, and would be, moreover, superfluous. It was enough for us to show the point of view where the author placed himself to understand its usefulness. To reconcile science with spiritualist ideas is to smooth out the ways of its alliance with Spiritism. The author speaks in the name of pure science and not of an imaginary or superficial science, and he does so with the authority given to him by his personal knowledge. His book is one of those that have a marked place in the Spiritist libraries, because it is a monograph of one of the constituent parts of the doctrine, in which the believer as well as the skeptical find education. More than once we will have the opportunity to come back to this.
