July
The science of number matching and fatalityWe rely on the fact that time is relative; it can only be appreciated according to the terms of comparison and the points of reference drawn from the revolution of the stars, and these terms vary according to the worlds, because outside the worlds time does not exist: there is no unit to measure infinity. Therefore, it does not appear that there can be a universal law of concordance for the date of events, since the calculation of the duration varies according to the worlds, unless there is, in this respect, a particular law for each world, assigned to its organization, as there is for the duration of the life of its inhabitants.
Undoubtedly, if such a law exists, it will be recognized one day: Spiritism that assimilates all truths, when they are established, will not reject this one; but since until now this law is neither attested by a sufficient number of facts, nor by a categorical demonstration, we should not worry much about it for it only interests us very indirectly. We do not hide from ourselves the seriousness of this law, if it does exist, but as the door of Spiritism will always be open to all progressive ideas, to all acquisitions of intelligence, it handles the necessities of the moment, without fear of being overwhelmed by the conquests of the future.
Having this question been submitted to the Spirits, in a very serious group of the country, and by that reason generally well assisted, it was answered:
“There are, certainly, in all moral phenomena, as in the physical phenomena, relationships based on numbers. The law of the concordance of dates is not a chimera; it is one of those that will be revealed to you later and will give you the key to things that seem anomalies to you; for, believe it, nature has no whims; she always walks accurately and reliably. Besides, this law is not like you suppose; to understand it in its reason for existing, its principle and its usefulness, you must acquire ideas that you do not have yet, and that will come with time. For the moment, this knowledge would be premature, which is why it is not given to you; it would, therefore, be useless to insist. Limit yourself to gathering the facts; observe without concluding anything, for fear of going confused. God knows how to give men the intellectual nourishment as they are able to absorb it. Before anything else, work on your moral advancement, this is the most essential, because it is through that that you will deserve to have new enlightenment."
We are of this opinion; we even think that there would be more disadvantages than advantages to prematurely popularize a belief that, in the hands of ignorance, could degenerate into abuse and superstitious practices, for lack of the counterweight of a rational theory.
The principle of the concordance of dates is therefore entirely hypothetical; but if it is not yet allowed to affirm anything with that respect, experience shows that, in nature, many things are subordinated to numerical laws, susceptible of the most rigorous calculation; this fact, of great importance, may one day shed light on the first question. It is thus, for example, that the likelihoods of chance are subject, as a whole, to a periodicity of astonishing precision; most chemical combinations, for the formation of compounds, take place in definite proportions, that is to say, a definite number of molecules of each of the elementary part is required, and one more or one less molecule completely changes the nature of the compound (see Genesis, chapter X, numbers 7 and following); crystallization takes place at angles of constant aperture; in astronomy, movements and forces follow progressions of mathematical rigor, and celestial mechanics is as exact as terrestrial mechanics; it is the same for the reflection of the rays of light, caloric and sound rays; it is on positive calculations that the chances of life and death are established in the insurances.
Thus, it is certain that numbers are in nature and that numerical laws govern most phenomena of the physical order. Is it the same with moral and metaphysical phenomena? This is what it would be presumptuous to assert without more accurate data than what we have. This question, moreover, raises others that have their significance, and on which we believe to be useful to present some observations from a general point of view.
Considering that a numerical law governs the births and mortality of individuals, couldn’t it be the same, but then on a larger scale, for collective individualities, such as races, peoples, cities, etc.? The phases of their ascending march, of their decadence and of their end, the revolutions that mark the stages of the progress of humanity, wouldn’t they be subjected to a certain periodicity? Regarding the numerical units for the calculation of the periods of the history of humanity, if they are not days, years, or centuries, they could be based on generations, as some facts would tend to suggest.
This is not a system; it is even less a theory, but a simple hypothesis, an idea based on a probability, and that one day may be able to serve as a starting point for more positive ideas.
But, one will ask, if the events that decide the fate of humanity, of a nation, of a tribe, have deadlines regulated by a numerical law, this is the blessing of fatality, and then what becomes of human free-will? Is Spiritism, therefore, in error when it says that nothing is fatal, and that man is the absolute master of his actions and his fate?
To answer this objection, we must take the question from higher grounds. Let us say, for starters, that Spiritism has never denied the inevitability of certain things, and on the contrary has always recognized it; but it says that fatality does not hinder free-will; this is easy to demonstrate.
All the laws that govern all the phenomena of nature have necessarily fatal consequences, that is, inevitable, and this fatality is essential to the maintenance of the universal harmony. Man, who suffers these consequences, is therefore, in certain ways, subjected to fatality in everything that does not depend on his initiative; thus, for example, he must fatally die: it is the common law from which he cannot escape, and by virtue of this law, he can die at any age, when his hour has come; but if he voluntarily hastens his death by suicide or by its excesses, he acts by virtue of his free will, because no one can force him to do so. He must eat to live, it is inevitable; but if he eats beyond the need, he is making an act of freedom.
The prisoner, in his cell, is free to move at will in the space that is granted to him; but the walls that he cannot cross are for him the fate that restricts his freedom. Discipline is a fatality for the soldier because it obliges him to acts that are independent of his will, but he is nonetheless free for his personal actions, for which he is responsible. So is with man in nature; nature has its fatal laws that oppose a barrier to him, but within which he can move at will. Why hasn’t God given man complete freedom? Because God is like a sensible father, who limits the freedom of his children to the level of their reason, and of the use they can make of it. If men are already using what is given to them so badly, if they do not know how to govern themselves, what if the laws of nature were at their discretion, and if they did not put a healthy brake on them?
Man can therefore be free in his actions despite the inevitability of the whole; he is free to a certain extent, to the extent necessary to leave him responsible for his actions; if, by virtue of this freedom, he disturbs harmony by the evil he does, if he puts a stop to the providential march of things, he is the first to suffer from it, and like the laws of nature are stronger than him, he ends up being dragged into the current; he then feels the need to return to the good, and everything regains its balance; so that the return to the good is still a free act although provoked, but not imposed, by fate. Man can, therefore, be free in his actions, despite the inevitability of the whole; he is free to a certain extent, to the extent necessary to leave him responsible for his actions; if, by virtue of this freedom, he disturbs harmony by evil deeds, if he puts a stop to the providential march of things, he is the first to suffer from it, and since the laws of nature are stronger than him, he ends up being dragged with the current; he then feels the need to return to good, and everything regains its balance, so that the return to good is still a free act, although provoked, but not imposed, by fate. The impetus given by the laws of nature, as well as the limits that they establish, are always good, because nature is the work of the divine wisdom; resistance to these laws is an act of freedom, and this resistance always involves evil; man being free to observe or break these laws, in what affects his person, is therefore free to do good or bad; if he could be fatally inclined to do evil, and this fatality only coming from a power superior to him, God would be the first to break His laws.
Who hasn’t many times thought this: “If I had not acted as I did in such circumstances, I would not be in the position where I am; if I had to start over, would I act differently?” Doesn't that mean recognizing that he was free to do or not to do? That he would be free to do better another time if the occasion presented itself? Now, God, who is wiser than him, foreseeing the errors into which he might fall, the bad use that he might make of his freedom, gives him indefinitely the possibility of beginning again, by the succession of his bodily existences, and he will begin again until, instructed by experience, he no longer takes the wrong path.
Man can, therefore, according to his will, hasten or delay the end of his trials, and this is what freedom consists of. Let us thank God for not having closed the road to happiness forever, by deciding our final fate after a fleeting existence, notoriously insufficient to reach the top of the ladder of progress, and for having given us, by the fate of reincarnation itself, the means to progress incessantly, by renewing the trials in which we have failed.
Fatality is absolute for the laws that govern matter because matter is blind; it does not exist for the Spirit that itself is called to react upon matter, by virtue of its freedom. If the materialist doctrines were true, they would be the most formal consecration of fatality; for, if man is only matter, he cannot have initiative; now, if you grant him the initiative in anything, it is because he is free, and if he is free, it is because there is in him something other than matter. Materialism, being the negation of the spiritual principle, is by that very fact, the negation of freedom; and, weird contradiction, the materialists, the very ones that proclaim the dogma of fatality, are the first to take advantage of that, to embrace their freedom; to claim it as a right in its most absolute plenitude, together with those that restrict it, and that without suspecting that it is claiming the privilege of the Spirit and not of matter.
Here comes another question. Fatality and freedom are two principles that seem to be mutually exclusive; the freedom of individual action is compatible with the inevitability of the laws that govern the whole, and doesn’t this action disturb its harmony? A few examples taken from the most vulgar phenomena of the material order will make the solution of the problem obvious.
We have said that the likelihoods of chance are balanced with a surprising regularity; in fact, it is a well-known result in the game of red and black that, despite the irregularity of their exit at each stroke, the colors are in equal number after a certain number of strokes; it means that out of a hundred strokes, there will be fifty reds and fifty blacks; on a thousand strokes, five hundred from one and five hundred from the other, within a few units. It is the same with even and odd numbers, and all the so-called double chances. If, instead of two colors, there are three, there will be a third of each; if there are four, a quarter, etc. Often the same color comes out in series of two, three, four, five, six straight hits; in a certain number of moves, there will be as many series of two reds as two black notes, as many three reds as three black notes, and so on; but the hits of two will be 50% less frequent as those of one; those of three, a third of those of one; those of four, a quarter, etc. With dice, since each die has six faces, if it is thrown sixty times, it will give ten times one point, ten times two points, ten times three points and so forth.
In the old lottery of France, there were ninety numbers placed in a wheel; five were drawn each time; records of several years have shown that each number came out in the proportion of one ninetieth and each decade in the proportion of one ninth.
The greater the number of draws, the more accurate the proportion; over ten or twenty draws, for example, it can be very uneven, but the equilibrium is established as the number of draws increases, and that with mathematical regularity. This being a constant fact, it is obvious that a numerical law presides over this distribution, when it is left to itself, and that nothing forces or precludes it. What is called chance is, therefore, subjected to a mathematical law, or to put it better, there is no chance. The capricious irregularity that occurs at each draw, or in a small number of draws, does not prevent the law from taking its course, hence one can say that there is, in this distribution, a real fatality; but this fatality that presides over the whole is null, or at least inappreciable, for each isolated draw.
We elaborated a bit on the example of games because it is one of the most striking and the easiest to verify, by the possibility of multiplying the events at will, in a short stretch of time; and as the law emerges from all the events, it is this multiplicity that made it possible to recognize it, otherwise it is likely that it would still be ignored.
The same law has been observed with precision in the chances of mortality; death, that seems to strike indiscriminately and blindly, nevertheless follows a regular and constant course, according to the age. We know very well that out of a thousand individuals of all ages in a year, so many will die from one to ten years, so many from ten to twenty, so many from twenty to thirty and so on; or else, that after a period of ten years, the number of survivors will be as many from one to ten, as many from ten to twenty, etc. Accidental causes of mortality may momentarily disturb this order, as in a game a long streak of the same color upsets the balance; but if instead of a period of ten years and a thousand individuals, we extend the observation over fifty years and a hundred thousand individuals, we will find the equilibrium restored.
From this one can suppose that all the eventualities that seem to be the effect of chance, in individual life, as in that of peoples and humanity, are governed by numerical laws, and that what is lacking to recognize them is to be able to embrace a rather considerable mass of events and a sufficient length of time, at a glance.
For the same reason, there would be nothing impossible if all the facts of a moral and metaphysical order were also subordinated to a numerical law, whose elements and bases are, until now, totally unknown to us. In any case, we see from the preceding that this law, or if you want, this fatality of the whole, would in no way eliminate free will; this is what we set out to demonstrate. Free will, being exercised only on isolated points of detail, it would not hinder the fulfillment of the general law any more than the irregularity of the output of each number would hinder the proportional distribution of these same numbers, on a given sequence of draws. Man exercises his free will in the small sphere of his individual action; this little sphere can be misaligned, without preventing it from gravitating with the whole, according to the common law, as the small swirls caused in the waters of a river, by the agitating fish, do not prevent the mass of water from following the forced course imprinted on them by the law of gravitation.
Since man has his free-will, fatality has nothing to do with his individual actions; as for the events of his private life that sometimes seem to inevitably affect him, they have two very distinct sources: some are the direct consequence of his conduct, in present life; many people are unhappy, sick, disabled by their own fault; many accidents are the result of carelessness; he can therefore only blame himself and not fate, or as they say, his bad star. The others are completely independent of the present life, and seem, by that very fact, imprinted with a certain fatality; but here again Spiritism shows us that this fatality is only apparent, and that certain painful positions in life have their reason for happening in the plurality of existences. The Spirit voluntarily chose them in erraticity, before his incarnation, as trials for his advancement; they are, therefore, the product of free-will and not of fatality. If sometimes they are imposed as atonement, by a superior will, it is still the result of bad actions, voluntarily committed by man in a previous existence, and not because of a fatal law, since he could have avoided them by acting otherwise.
Fatality is the brake imposed on man, by a will superior to him, and wiser than him, in everything that is not left to his initiative; but it is never a hindrance in the exercise of his free-will, regarding his personal actions. Fatality can neither impose evil nor good on him; to excuse any bad action by fate, or as it is often said, by destiny, would be to abdicate the judgment that God has given him to weigh the pros and cons, the expediency or the inconvenience, the advantages, or the disadvantages of everything. If an event is in the destiny of a man, it will take place despite his will, and it will always be for his own good; but the circumstances of the accomplishment depend on the use that he makes of his free-will, and he can often reverse into detriment what should be a good, if he acts with improvidence, and if he allows himself to be driven by his passions. He is even more mistaken if he takes his desire or the deviations of his imagination for his destiny. (See the Gospel according to Spiritism, chapter V, numbers 1 to 11).
Spontaneous generation and Genesis
From the fact that Spiritism assimilates all progressive ideas, it does not follow that it blindly champions all new conceptions, however attractive they may be, at first sight, at the risk of later receiving a denial of experience, and to face the ridicule of having sponsored an unsustainable work. If he does not take a clear position on certain controversial questions, it is not, as one might think, to spare the two parties, but out of prudence, and not to advance lightheartedly on a terrain that has not been sufficiently explored; that is why it only accept new ideas, even those that seem correct, first of all with reservation, for future assessment, and only in a definitive manner when they have reached the state of recognized truths.
The issue of spontaneous generation is one of those. Personally, it is a conviction for us, and if we had dealt with it in an ordinary work, we would have resolved it in the affirmative way; but in a work constituting the Spiritist doctrine, individual opinions must not prevail; since the doctrine is not based on probabilities, we could not have decided such a serious issue as soon as it came up, and that is still in dispute among the experts. To affirm the thing without restriction, it would have been to compromise the doctrine prematurely, which we never do, even to make our sympathies prevail.
What has given Spiritism strength, until now, what has made it a positive science with a future, is that it has never come forward frivolously; that it was not formed on any preconceived system; that it has not established any absolute principle upon personal opinion, neither of a man, nor of a Spirit, but only after this principle has received the blessings of experience, and of a rigorous demonstration, resolving all the difficulties of the matter.
When we formulate a principle, it is because we are assured in advance of the agreement of the majority of men and Spirits; that is why we have had no disappointments; such is also the reason why none of the bases that constitute the doctrine has received an official denial, for twelve years now; the principles of The Spirits' Book have been successively developed and completed, but none has fallen into disuse, and our later writings are not in any way in contradiction with the first, despite the time that has elapsed and the new observations that have been made.
It would certainly not be that way if we had yielded to the suggestions of those who ceaselessly shouted at us to go faster, if we had embraced all the theories that hatched from right and left. On the other hand, if we had listened to those who told us to go slower, we would still be watching the turning tables. We go forward, when we feel the time is right, and we see that the minds are ripe to accept a new idea; we stop when we see that the ground is not strong enough to set foot on it. With our apparent slowness, and our over-meticulous circumspection for some people, we have advanced more than if we had started running, because we avoided plunging along the way. Since we have no reason to regret the course we have followed so far, we will not deviate from it.
That said, we will complete with a few remarks what we said in Genesis, concerning spontaneous generation. The Spiritist Review being a field of study and elaboration of principles, we are not afraid to engage the responsibility of the doctrine, by clearly giving it our opinion, because the doctrine will adopt it if it is just and will reject it if it is wrong.
It is a fact now scientifically demonstrated that organic life has not always existed on Earth, and that there was a beginning; geology makes it possible to follow its gradual development. The first beings of the vegetable and animal kingdoms that appeared must, therefore, have been formed without procreation, and belonged to the lower classes, as can be seen from geological observations.
As the dispersed elements came together, the first combinations formed exclusively inorganic bodies, that is, stones, waters, and minerals of all kinds. When these same elements were modified by the action of the vital fluid - that is not the intelligent principle - they formed bodies endowed with vitality, with a constant and regular organization, each in its species. Now, just as the crystallization of crude matter only takes place when no accidental cause opposes the symmetrical arrangement of molecules, organized bodies are formed as soon as the favorable circumstances of temperature and humidity, of rest or movement, and a kind of fermentation, allow the molecules of matter, vivified by the vital fluid, to unite. This is what we see in all seeds in which vitality can remain latent for years and centuries, manifesting at some point, when the circumstances are right.
Non-procreated beings therefore form the first rank of organic beings and will probably count in the scientific classification one day. As for the species that propagate by procreation, an opinion that is not new, but that is spreading today under the aegis of science, is that the first types of each species are the product of a modification of the species immediately below. Thus, an unbroken chain was established from moss and lichen to oak, and from zoophyte, earthworm, and mite to man. Without doubt, between the earthworm and man, if we consider only the two extreme points, there is a difference that seems an abyss; but when we bring together all the intermediate rings, we find a filiation without a solution of continuity.
The partisans of this theory that, we repeat, tends to prevail, and to which we rally without reservation, are far from being all spiritualists, and even less Spiritists. Considering only matter, they disregard the spiritual or intelligent principle. This question therefore does not prejudge anything on the filiation of this principle of animality in humanity; it is a thesis that we do not have to deal with today, but that is already debated in certain non-materialist philosophical schools. It is therefore only the issue of the carnal envelope, distinct from the Spirit, as the house is from its inhabitant. Then, the body of man can perfectly be a modification of that of the monkey, without it following that his Spirit is the same as that of the monkey. (Genesis, Chapter XI, no.15).
The question that is connected with the formation of this envelope is nonetheless very important, firstly because it solves a serious scientific problem, for it destroys long rooted prejudices of ignorance, and secondly because that those who study it exclusively will run up against insurmountable difficulties when they want to realize all the effects, absolutely as if they wanted to explain the effects of telegraphy without electricity; they will find the solution of these difficulties only in the action of the spiritual principle that they will have to admit in the end, to get out of the impasse in which they will have entered themselves, or pay the price of leaving their theory incomplete.
So let materialism study the properties of matter; this study is essential, and it will be effectively done; spiritualism will not have to complete the work with that respect. Let us accept its discoveries, and do not worry about its absolute conclusions, because their insufficiency, to solve everything, being demonstrated, the necessities of a rigorous logic will inevitably lead to spirituality; and the general spirituality being itself powerless to solve the innumerable problems of the present life and of the future life, one will find the only possible key to it in the more positive principles of Spiritism. We are already seeing a crowd of men arriving at the consequences of Spiritism on their own, without knowing it, some starting with reincarnation, others with the perispirit. They do like Pascal, who discovered the elements of geometry without prior study, and without suspecting that what he thought he had discovered was an accomplished work. A day will come when serious thinkers, studying this doctrine with the attention it entails, will be quite surprised to find in it what they were looking for, and they will openly proclaim a work whose existence they did not suspect.
This is how everything is linked in the world; from brute matter came organic beings, more and more perfected; from materialism will emerge, by force of circumstances, and by logical deduction, general spiritualism, then Spiritism that is nothing else, but spiritualism established with accuracy, based on facts.
Does what happened at the origin of the world for the formation of the first organic beings take place today, by way of what is called spontaneous generation? That is the question. From our side, we do not hesitate to state affirmatively.
The partisans and the adversaries reciprocally oppose experiments that have given opposite results; but the latter forget that the phenomenon can only occur under desired conditions of temperature and aeration; in seeking to obtain it outside of such conditions, they must necessarily fail.
We know, for example, that for the artificial hatching of eggs, a certain regular temperature is necessary, and certain special minute precautions. The one who would deny this hatching because he would not obtain it with a few degrees above or below, and without the necessary precautions, would be in the same case as the one who does not obtain the spontaneous generation in an unsuitable environment. It therefore seems to us that if this generation necessarily occurred in the first ages of the globe, there is no reason for it not to occur in our time, if the conditions are the same, as there would be none for the formation of limestones, oxides, acids, and salts, as in the first period.
It is now recognized that the barbs of the mold constitute a vegetation that is born on the organic matter that reached a certain stage of fermentation. Mold seems to us to be the first, or one of the first types of spontaneous vegetation, and this primitive vegetation that continues, taking various forms according to the environment and the circumstances, gives us lichens, mosses, etc. Do you want a more direct example? What is the hair, beard, and the bodily hair of animals, if not spontaneous vegetation?
Animalized organic matter, that is, containing a certain proportion of nitrogen, gives rise to worms that have all the characteristics of spontaneous generation. When man or any animal is alive, the activity of the circulation of the blood and the incessant work of the organs maintains a temperature and a molecular movement that prevents the constituent elements of this generation from forming and gathering. When the animal is dead, the cessation of circulation and movement, the lowering of the temperature to a certain limit, brings about putrid fermentation, and consequently, the formation of new chemical compounds. It is then that we see all the tissues suddenly invaded by myriads of worms that feed on them, to undoubtedly hasten their destruction. How would they be procreated since there were no traces of them before?
One will certainly object that these are the eggs deposited by the flies on the dead flesh; but this would not prove anything, since the eggs of flies are deposited on the surface, and not in the interior of the tissues, and that the flesh, sheltered from the flies, after sometime is nonetheless rotten and filled with worms; they are often even seen invading the body before death, when there is a partial onset of putrid decomposition, especially in gangrenous wounds.
Certain species of worms are formed during life, even in an apparent state of health, especially in lymphatic individuals whose blood is poor and who do not have the superabundance of life that is observed in others; they are roundworms or intestinal worms; flatworms or tapeworms that sometimes reach sixty meters in length, and reproduce in fragments such as polyps and certain plants; the dragonflies, peculiar to the black race and to certain climates, thirty to thirty-five centimeters long, thin as a thread, and that emerge through the skin by pustules; ascarids, whipworms, etc. They often form masses so considerable that they obstruct the digestive canal, ascend into the stomach and even into the mouth; they pass through the tissues, lodge in the cavities or around the viscera, curl up like caterpillar nests, and cause serious disorders in the organism. Their formation could well be due to a spontaneous generation, having its source in a special pathological state, in the deterioration of the tissues, the weakening of the vital principles, and in morbid secretions. It could be the same with cheese worms, scabies acarus, and a host of animalcules that may originate in air, in water, and in organic bodies.
One might suppose, it is true, that the germs of intestinal worms are introduced into the organism with the air that one breathes and with food, and that they hatch there; but then another difficulty arises; one would wonder why the same cause does not produce the same effect in everybody; why not everyone has tapeworms, or even earthworms, while food and respiration produce identical physiological effects in everyone. This explanation, moreover, would not be applicable to the worms of putrid decomposition that come after death, nor to those of cheese and so many others. Until proven otherwise, we are inclined to regard them as being, at least in part, a product of spontaneous generation, like zoophytes and certain polyps.
The difference of sexes that were recognized, or believed to be recognized in some intestinal worms, notably in the whipworm, would not be a conclusive objection, since they nevertheless belong to the order of the inferior animals, and very primitive for that matter; now, as the difference between the sexes must have had a beginning, nothing would prevent them from being spontaneously born male or female.
These are, however, only hypotheses, but that seem to support the principle. How far does it extend its application? This is what cannot be said, what we can affirm is that it must be circumscribed to plants and animals of the simplest organization, and it does not appear to us doubtful that we are witnessing an incessant creation.
The Spiritist Party
The Spiritists did consider themselves to be a philosophical school, but it had never occurred to them to believe they were a party; low and behold, in one fine day, the Moniteur informed them of this news that surprised them somewhat. And who is it that gave them this qualification? Is it one of those inconsequential journalists that throw epithets at random, without understanding their significance? No, it is an official report prepared to the first body of the state, to the Senate. It is therefore not likely that, in a document of such a nature, this word was uttered thoughtlessly; it was not, undoubtedly, benevolence that dictated it, but it was said, and it was a hit, because the newspapers did not let it down; some, believing to find in it one more grievance against Spiritism, had nothing more urgent than to display in their columns the title The Spiritist Party.
Thus, this poor little school, so ridiculed, so much attacked, that they charitably proposed to send in crowds to Charenton;[1] about which, they said, one had only to breathe to make it disappear; that has been declared dead and buried forever twenty times; to whom there is not a fine hostile writer who has not flattered himself for having given it the death blow, while admitting, with amazement, that it is invading the world and all classes of society; that we wanted, at all costs, to make it a religion, by endowing it with temples and priests, large and small, that it has never seen, and here it is suddenly transformed into a party. By this qualification, Mr. Genteur, the speaker of the Senate, did not give it its true character, but he enhanced it; he gave it a rank, a place, and made it stand out; for the idea of a party implies that of a certain power; of an opinion important enough, active enough and widespread enough to play a role, and one to be accounted for.
Spiritism, by its nature and principles, is essentially peaceful; it is an idea that infiltrates quietly, and if it finds many adherents, it is because it pleases; he never did any advertisements or any exhibition; strengthened by the natural laws on which it leans, seeing itself growing without effort or shock, it goes out to meet no one; it does not violate any conscience; it says what it is and wait for others to come. All the noise that has been made around it is the work of its adversaries; it was attacked, it had to defend itself, but it always did so with calm, moderation and by reasoning alone; it never departed from the dignity that is characteristic of any cause that has the conscience of its moral force; it never used reprisals by paying back insults with insults, bad procedures with bad procedures. This is not, we will agree, the ordinary character of parties, restless by nature, fomenting agitation, and to which everything is justified to achieve their ends; but since it was given this name, it accepts it, certain that it will not dishonor it by any excess; for it would repudiate anyone who took advantage of it to cause the slightest trouble.
Spiritism followed its way without provoking any public demonstration, while taking advantage of the publicity given to it by its adversaries; the more their criticism was mocking, acerbic, virulent, the more it aroused the curiosity of those who did not know it, and who, to know what to expect on this so-called new eccentricity, simply went to find out from the source, that is to say in the special books; they studied it and found something quite different from what they had heard about it. It is a well-known fact that furious narratives, anathemas, and persecutions have powerfully aided in its propagation, because instead of deflecting it, they provoked its examination, even if only by the attraction of the forbidden fruit. The masses have their logic; they say to themselves that if something were nothing, one would not talk about it, and they measure its importance precisely by the violence of the attacks it endures and the terror that it causes to its antagonists.
Educated by experience, some ads media refrained from speaking either bad or good about it, even avoiding pronouncing its name, for fear of causing a stir, contenting themselves with occasionally throwing offensive remarks at it, and as if stealthily, when a circumstance inevitably made it evident. Some also remained silent, because the idea had penetrated their ranks, and with that perhaps conviction, if not at least hesitation.
The press, in general, was therefore silent about Spiritism, when a circumstance, that could not be the effect of chance, made it necessary to speak about it; and who caused the incident? Always the opponents of the idea that once again were mistaken by producing an effect quite contrary to what they expected. To give more impact to their attack, they carry it awkwardly, not on the grounds of a paper that has no official character, with a very limited number of readers, but by way of petitions, to the tribune of the Senate, where it is the subject of a discussion and from which the expression Spiritist party came out; well, thanks to newspapers of all colors, obliged to report on the debate, the existence of this party was instantly revealed to all of Europe and beyond.
It is true that a member of the illustrious assembly said that it was only fools that were Spiritists, to which the president replied that the fools could also form a party. No one is unaware that the Spiritists count in the millions today, and that high notabilities sympathize with their beliefs; one can therefore be astonished that such an uncourteous and so generalized epithet, came out of that chamber, addressing a notable part of the population, without the author having reflected about its reach.
In fact, the newspapers themselves are responsible for denying such qualification, certainly not out of benevolence, but what does it matter! The journal Liberty, among others, that apparently does not want us to have the freedom to be a Spiritist, as one is to be Jewish, Protestant, Saint-Simonian or free-thinker, published in its issue of June 13th, an article signed by Liévin, whose excerpt is given below:
“The government commissioner Genteur revealed to the Senate the existence of a party that we did not know, and as it seems, contributes like the others, within the limits of its forces, to shake the institutions of the empire. Its influence had already been felt last year, and the Spiritist party - this is the name given by Mr. Genteur - certainly thanks to the subtlety of the means at its disposal, had obtained from the Senate the referral to the government of the famous Saint-Etienne petition, that denounced, as we remember, not the materialist tendencies of the School of Medicine, but the philosophical tendencies of the municipality's library. We had hitherto attributed the honor of this success to the party of intolerance, and we regarded it as a consolation for its last failure; but it seems that we were mistaken, and that the petition of Saint-Etienne was only a maneuver of this Spiritist party, whose hidden power seems to want to be exercised more particularly to the detriment of libraries.
Monday, therefore, the Senate once again received a petition in which the Spiritist party, still raising its head, denounced the tendencies of the library of Oullins (Rhône). But this time the venerable assembly, warned by the revelations of Mr. Genteur, thwarted, by a unanimous decision, the calculations of the Spirists. Only Mr. Nisard was somehow taken by this ruse of war, and in good faith he extended his hand to those perfidious enemies. He lent them the support of a report in which he in turn pointed out the dangers of bad books. Fortunately, the mistake of the honorable senator was not shared, and the Spiritists, unmasked and confused, were brought back as they deserved."
Another journal, the Revue Politique Hebdomadaire, starts an article about the same subject on July 13th, like this:
“We didn’t know all of our perils yet. Weren’t the Legitimist Party, the Orleanist Party, the Republican Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Red Party enough, not to mention the Liberal Party that sums them all up, if we are to believe the Constitutional? Was it really under the second empire, whose claim is to dissolve all parties, that a new party was to be born, grow and threaten French society, the Spiritist party? Yes, the Spiritist party! It was Mr. Genteur, State Councilor, that discovered and denounced it in the middle of the Senate."
It is difficult to understand that a party that is composed of nothing but fools could cause the State to be in serious danger; to be afraid of it would be to make believe that one is afraid of fools. By throwing this cry of alarm in the face of the world, they prove that the Spiritist party is something. Not having been able to stifle it under ridicule, they try to present it as a danger to public tranquility; however, what will be the inevitable result of this new tactic? An examination that is the more serious and the more in-depth, the more the danger is exalted; they will want to know the doctrines of this party, its principles, its slogan, its affiliations. If the ridicule thrown at Spiritism, as a belief, has raised curiosity, it will be quite another thing when it is presented as a formidable party; everyone will be interested in knowing what it wants, where it leads to: that's all it asks for; acting in broad daylight, having no secret instructions beyond what is published for the use of everyone, it does not fear any investigation, on the contrary, certain to gain by being known, and that whoever scrutinizes it with impartiality, will see in its moral code a powerful guarantee of order and security. A party, since there is a party, that inscribes on its flag: there is no salvation except through charity, indicates its tendencies clearly enough, so that no one has reason to be frightened by it. Furthermore, the authority, whose vigilance is known, cannot ignore the principles of a doctrine that does not hide itself. They have no shortage of people to give an account of what is said and done in the Spiritist meetings, and the authority would know well how to call to order those who deviate from it.
It is amazing that men who profess liberalism, who demand for freedom, who want it absolute for their ideas, their writings, their meetings, who stigmatize all acts of intolerance, intend to proscribe it for Spiritism.
But see to what inconsistencies blindness leads! The debate, that took place in the Senate, was provoked by two petitions: one from last year against the library of Saint Etienne; the other of this year against the library of Oullins, signed by some inhabitants of these towns, who complained about the introduction of certain books in those libraries, among them Spiritist books.
Well! The author of the article in the La Liberté, who certainly examined the question a little lightly, imagines that the complaint emanates from the Spiritist party, and concludes that the latter received a knockout blow by the order pronounced against the petition of Oullins. Here we have then this very dangerous party easily defeated, and that petitions to have the exclusion of its own works! It would then be really the party of fools. Moreover, this strange mistake is not surprising, since the author declares, in the beginning, that he did not know this party, but that did not prevent him from declaring it capable of shaking the institutions of the empire.
The Spiritists, far from worrying about these incidents, should rejoice in them; this hostile manifestation could not have taken place in more favorable circumstances, and the doctrine will certainly receive a new and valuable impulse from it, as has been the case with all the outcry of which it has been the object. The more impact these attacks have, the more beneficial they are. A day will come when they will turn into open approvals.
The journal Le Siècle of June 18th also published an article on the Spiritist party. Everyone will notice there a spirit of moderation that contrasts with the two others that we have mentioned; we reproduce it in full:
“Who said there is nothing new under the sun? The skeptic, who spoke like that, had no idea that one day the imagination of a Councilor of State would discover the Spiritist party in the middle of the Senate. We already had a few parties in France, and God knows if the speakers fail to enumerate the dangers that this division of minds can create! There is the Legitimist Party, the Orleanist Party, the Republican Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Clerical Party, etc.
The list did not seem long enough to Mr. Genteur. He has just denounced to the vigilance of the venerable fathers of politics, who sit in the Luxembourg Palace, the existence of the Spiritist party. At this unexpected revelation, a shiver ran through the assembly. The defenders of the two morals, Mr. Nisard in the lead, shuddered.
Despite the zeal of its countless officials of the French empire, what is threatened by a new party? - In truth, it is to despair public order. How has this enemy, up until now invisible even to Mr. Genteur himself, been able to hide from all eyes? There is a mystery here that the Councilor of State, if he finds out, will help us understand. Officially informed people claim that the Spiritist party hid the army of its representatives, the knocking Spirits, behind the books, in the libraries of Saint-Etienne and Oullins.
So here we are back to the good old times with fishy stories, turning tables, and indiscreet pedestal tables!
Although Spiritism and its first apostle Mr. Delage, the gentlest of preachers, have not yet convinced many people, they have nevertheless succeeded in forming a party. At least that is being said in the Senate, and it is not us that will ever allow ourselves to suspect the accuracy of what is being said in such high places.
The occult influence of the newly signaled party was felt even in the last discussion of the Senate, where Mr. Désiré Nisard, first in rank, stood up for the reactionaries. Such a role fell right to the man who has been, since leaving the normal school, one of the most active agents of retrograde ideas.
After that, can we be surprised on hearing the honorable senator invoking arbitrariness to justify the restrictive measures taken, concerning the choice of books in the library of Oullins? “These popular establishments,” said Mr. Nisard, “are founded by associations; they are therefore subject to art. 291 of the Penal Code, and therefore at the discretion of the Minister of the Interior. He has used, he is using and will use this dictatorial power."
We leave it to the Spiritist party and to its Christopher Columbus, Mr. Councilor of State Genteur, the task of questioning the revealing Spirits, so that they may teach us what the Senate hopes to obtain by preventing citizens from freely organizing the popular libraries, as is done in England?”
Anatole de la Forge
[1] Hospital of the mentally ill (T.N.)
Spiritism Everywhere
Journal Le Siècle – Paris somnambulist
For some time now, Le Siècle has published with the title of Tout Paris, a number of very interesting series written by different authors; there was Paris artist, Paris gastronome, Paris litigator, etc. In its April 24th and 25th, 1868 series, it published Paris somnambulist, by Mr. Eugène Bonnemère, the author of the Novel of the future. It is an account at the same time scientific and true of the different varieties of somnambulism, in which it incidentally brings in Spiritism, with its own name, however with all the rhetorical precautions determined by the requirements of the newspaper, whose responsibility it did not want to take; this is what explains some reluctance. The lack of space does not allow us to quote as many statements as we would have liked, so that we will confine ourselves to the following passages:
“The highest form of somnambulism is unquestionably Spiritism, that aspires to pass to the state of science. It has an already rich literature, and the books of Mr. Allan Kardec are notably authoritative on the subject.”
“Spiritism is the correspondence of souls to one another. According to the followers of this belief, an invisible being communicates with another, called a medium, endowed with a particular organism that allows him to receive the thoughts of those who have once lived, and that write, either by a mechanical, unconscious impulse, written by hand, or by direct transmission to the intelligence of the mediums."
“No, there is no such a thing as death. It is the moment of rest after the journey is over and the task finished; then, it is the awakening for a new work, more useful and greater than the one that has just been accomplished."
“We leave, taking with us the memory of the knowledge acquired here; the world to which we will go gives us its own, and we will group them all in a bundle to form progress."
"It is through the succession of generations that humanity advances, each time walking one more step towards the light, because they arrive animated by souls, always natively pure after they have returned to God, and remain imbued with the progress they have acquired."
“As a result of conquests secured for good, the land we inhabit will deserve to climb the ladder of the worlds itself. A new cataclysm will come; certain plant essences, certain animal species, inferior or harmful, will disappear as others disappeared in the past, to make room for more perfect creations, and we in turn will become a world in which already tried beings will come to seek a greater development. It is up to us to hasten, by our efforts, the advent of this happier period. Our beloved dead come to help us in this difficult task."
“As we can see, these beliefs, serious or not, do not lack a certain magnificence. Materialism and atheism, that human sentiment rejects with all its heart, are only an inevitable reaction against ideas, hardly admissible by reason, about God, nature, and the destinies of souls. Spiritism, by broadening the question, revives a faith that is ready to be extinguished in the hearts."
Theater Cornelius – The rooster of Mycille
This winter counted on a very successful performance, at the Théâtre des Fantaisies-Parisiennes, of a charming operetta entitled: The Elixir of Cornelius, in which reincarnation is the very crux of the plot. Here is the account given by the Siècle on its issue of February 11th, 1868:
“This Cornelius is an alchemist who is particularly concerned with the transmigration of souls. Everything that is told on this subject he listens eagerly, as if it had happened. However, he has a daughter who did not wait for his permission to procure a suitor. No, but he refuses his consent. What to do then to get over his resistance? An idea: the lover tells him that his daughter, before being his daughter, a long time ago, was a gambler, runner of adventures and alleys. At the same time, he, the lover, was a charming young woman who was deceived by the adventurer of fortune. The roles are reversed, and he asks her to give him back his former honor.
“Ah! you tell me so much!”, answers the convinced old doctor. And this is how one more marriage is accomplished before the public, that is so often responsible for replacing the mayor.
The music is as cheerful as the subject that inspired it. Particularly noticed are the serenade, the verses of Cornelius, the burlesque duet, and the finale, written simply and easily.”
As we see, the substance of the story here rests not only on the principle of reincarnation, but also on the change of sex.
The dramatic subjects are exhausted, and the authors are often very embarrassed to leave the cliched paths; the idea of reincarnation will provide them with a profusion of new situations for all genres; having the road open, it is likely that all theaters will soon have their reincarnation play.
The French Theater had a play, at the end of May, in which the soul plays the main role; it is The Rooster of Mycille, by Messrs. Trianon and Eugène Nyon, with the following main subject:
Mycille is a young shoemaker from Athens; across from his stall, a young magistrate, archon[1] Eucrates, lives in a delightful marble house. The poor cobbler envies Eucrates, his wealth, his wife, the beautiful Chloe, his kitchen, his many slaves. The opulent archon, prematurely aged, crippled by gout, envies Mycille for his good looks, his health, the disinterested love shown to him by a pretty slave, Doris. Mycille has a rooster given to him by the young Doris, and that wakes the archon in the morning with its song.
The latter orders his slaves to beat the cobbler if he does not silence his rooster; the cobbler, in turn, wants to beat the rooster; but at that moment the animal is metamorphosed into a man: it is the philosopher Pythagoras whose soul had come to animate the body of the rooster, according to his doctrine of transmigration. He momentarily assumed his human form to enlighten Mycille on the foolishness of the envy that he carries to the position of Eucrates.
Unable to persuade him, he says: “I want to give you,” he said, “the means of enlightening you by your own experience. Pick up that feather you dropped from my rooster body; put it in the lock of the door of Eucrates; his door will immediately open; your soul will pass into the body of the archon, and conversely the soul of the archon will pass into your body. However, before doing anything, I urge you to think carefully. Then, Pythagoras disappears. Mycille thinks, but the thirst for gold wins, and prompted by various incidents, he makes up his mind, and the metamorphosis takes place. So, here we have the cobbler who has become the rich archon, but sick and gouty, and the archon who has become a cobbler. This transformation brings with it a host of comic complications, and consequently each one dissatisfied with their new position, they resume the one they had before.
The play, as we can see, is a new edition of the story of the cobbler and the financier, already exploited in so many forms. What characterizes it is that instead of the cobbler himself, body, and soul, who takes the place of the financier, it is the two souls that exchange their bodies. The idea is new, original, and the authors explored it with a lot of wit; but it is in no way borrowed from the Spiritist idea, as we had said; it is taken from a dialogue by Lucien: The song and the rooster. We only mention it to point out the error of those who confuse the principle of reincarnation with the transmigration of souls or metempsychosis.
Cornelius' play, on the contrary, is entirely within the Spiritist idea, although the alleged reincarnation of the young man and the young girl is only an invention on their part to achieve their ends, while the latter stays away from it completely. First of all, Spiritism has never admitted the idea of the human soul retrograding into animality, because it would be the negation of the law of progress; second, the soul does not leave the body until death, and when, after a certain time spent in erraticity, it begins a new existence again, it is by passing through the ordinary phases of life: birth, childhood, etc., and not by the effect of an instantaneous metamorphosis or substitution, only seen in fairy tales, and are not the gospel of Spiritism, whatever the critics may say, who do not know much about it.
However, although the data is false in its application, it is nonetheless founded on the principle of the individuality and independence of the soul; it is the soul distinct from the body, and the possibility of living again in another envelope put into action, an idea with which it is always useful to familiarize public opinion. The impression that remains from it is not lost for the future, and it is more valuable than the plays that stages the shamelessness of passions.
[1] A chief magistrate in ancient Athens (T.N.)
Alexandre Dumas – Monte-Cristo
“Listen, Valentin, have you ever felt for someone, one of those irresistible sympathies that when you see a person for the first time, you believe you have known him for a long time, and you wonder where and when you saw him? And unable to remember either the place or the time, you come to believe that it is in a world prior to ours, and that this sympathy is only a memory that awakens?” (Monte-Cristo, part 3, chapter XVIII, The Alfalfa Enclosure).
“You have never dared to rise with a flick of your wing into the higher spheres that God has populated with invisible and exceptional beings. - And do you admit, sir, that these spheres exist; that exceptional and invisible beings mingle with us? - Why not? Do you see the air you breathe, and without which you could not live? - So, we do not see these beings that you speak of. - you see them when God allows them to materialize…” (Monte-Cristo, part 3, chapter IX, Ideology).
And I, Monsieur (Villefort), I tell you that it is not so as you believe. Last night I slept a terrible sleep, because in a way I could see myself sleeping, as if my soul had already hovered above my body; my eyes, that I tried to open, closed unwillingly; and yet ... with my eyes closed, I saw, in the very place where you are, a white shape entering silently. (Monte-Cristo, part 4, chap. XIII, Madame Mairan).
One hour before he died, he said to me: Father, no man's faith can be stronger than mine, for I saw and heard a soul separate from her body. (François Picaut, continuation of Monte-Cristo).”
There is, in these thoughts, only one very small criticism to be made, it is the qualification of exceptional given to the invisible beings that surround us; there is nothing exceptional about these beings since they are the souls of men, and all men, without exception, must go through this state. Apart from that, wouldn't we say that these ideas were textually drawn from the Doctrine?
Bibliographic News
The soul, demonstration of its reality, deduced from the study of the effects of chloroform and curare on the animal organism, by Mr. Ramon de la Sagra, corresponding member of the Institut de France (Academy of moral and political sciences), Royal Academy of Sciences of the Netherlands, etc.[1]
We said, in an article above, that the researches of science, even with views of an exclusively material study, would lead to spiritualism, by the inability to explain certain effects using only the laws of matter; on the other hand, we have repeatedly said that in catalepsy, lethargy, anesthesia[2] by chloroform or other substances, natural somnambulism, ecstasy and certain pathological states, the soul is revealed by an independent action of the organism, and gives, by its isolation, the positive proof of its existence. We are not talking about magnetism, or artificial somnambulism, or double sight, or Spiritist manifestations that official science has not yet recognized, but phenomena with which it is able to experiment every day.
Science has searched the soul with the scalpel and the microscope in the brain and the nerve ganglia and has not found it; analysis of these substances only provided oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, from which science concluded that the soul was not distinct from matter. If science does not find it, the reason is quite simple: it has a preconceived, fixated idea of the soul; it believes the soul endowed with the properties of tangible matter; it is in such a form that science seeks it, and naturally it could not recognize it even when it had it in front of its eyes. From the fact that certain organs are the instruments of the manifestations of thought, that by destroying these organs, it stops the manifestation, science draws a not very philosophical consequence that it is the organs that think, absolutely like a person who would have cut the telegraph wire and interrupted the transmission of a dispatch, claiming to have destroyed the person who sent it.
The telegraph device offers us, by comparison, an exact picture of the functioning of the soul in the organism. Suppose that an individual receives a dispatch, and that, ignoring its origin, he engages in the following searches. He follows the transmitting wire to its starting point; he seeks his sender along the wire and does not find him; the wire leads him to Paris, to the office, to the device; he says: "It was from there that the dispatch left, I have no doubt; it is a materially demonstrated fact;" He explores the apparatus, dismantles it, moves it to look for its sender, and finding there only wood, copper, and a wheel, he says to himself: "Since the dispatch left from here, and I don't find anybody, it is this mechanism that conceived the dispatch; this is demonstrated to me not less materially." In the meantime, another individual, standing next to the device, begins to repeat the dispatch word for word, and says to him: "How can you suppose, you man of intelligence, that this mechanism composed of inert, destructible matter, could have conceived the thought of the dispatch that you received, and know the fact that this dispatch conveyed to you? If matter had the faculty of thinking, why shouldn't iron, stone, wood have ideas? If this faculty depends on the order and arrangement of the parts, why shouldn't man build thinking machines? Has it ever occurred to you to believe that these dolls that say: mommy, daddy, are aware of what they are doing? Have you not, on the contrary, admired the intelligence of the author of this ingenious mechanism?"
Here, the new speaker is the soul that conceives the thought; the apparatus is the brain where it is concentrated and formulated; electricity is the fluid directly impregnated with the thought and responsible for carrying it far away, as the air carries sound; the metallic wires are the nerve cords intended for the transmission of the fluid; the first individual is the scientist, in pursuit of the soul, who follows the nerve cords, seeks it in the brain, and not finding it there, concludes that it is the brain that thinks; he does not hear the voice that cries to him: “You persist in looking for me inside, while I am outside; look aside and you will see me; the nerves, the brain and the fluids do not think more than the metallic wire, the telegraph apparatus and the electricity; they are only the instruments of the manifestation of thought, ingeniously combined by the inventor of the human machine."
At all times, quite frequent spontaneous phenomena, such as catalepsy, lethargy, natural somnambulism, and ecstasy, have shown the soul acting outside the organism; but science has disdained them from that point of view. Now, here is a new discovery, anesthesia by chloroform, of indisputable utility in surgical operations, and of which, for that very reason, we are forced to study the effects, makes science witness to this phenomenon on a daily basis, by exposing, so to speak, the soul of the patient; it is the voice that cries: “Look outside, and not inside, and you will see me;” but there are people who have eyes and cannot see, ears and cannot hear.
Among the many facts of this kind, the following occurred in the practice of Mr. Velpeau:
“A lady that had shown no signs of pain while I was removing a large tumor from her, woke up smiling and said, I know it's over; let me come back altogether and I will explain this to you… I did not feel anything at all, she soon added, but this is how I knew I had been operated on. In my sleep, I had gone to visit a lady I knew, to talk to her about a poor child that we had to shelter. While we were chatting, this lady said to me: You think you are at my place right now, don't you? Well! my dear friend, you are completely wrong, for you are at home, in your bed, where the operation is being performed on you right now. Far from alarming me with that language, I naively answered her: Ah! if so, I ask your permission to extend my visit a little longer, so that it is all over when I get home. And that's how, by opening my eyes, even before I was fully awake, I was able to tell you that I had been operated on."
The use of chloroform offers thousands of examples just as conclusive as this one.
In communicating this fact and others analogous to the Academy of Sciences, on March 4th, 1850, Mr. Velpeau said: "What a fruitful source for psychology and physiology, that these acts that go so far as to separate the spirit from matter, or intelligence from the body! "
Mr. Velpeau therefore saw the soul function outside the organism; he was able to ascertain its existence through its independence; he heard the voice saying to him: I am outside and not inside; why then has he supported materialism? He has said, since he entered the spiritual world: "Pride of the scientist, who did not want to deny himself." However, he was not afraid to withdraw certain erroneous scientific opinions that he had publicly professed. In his Treatise on Operative Medicine, published in 1839, Volume I, page 32, he said: “Avoiding pain in operations is a chimera that cannot be continued today. Sharp instrument and pain, in operative medicine, are two words that do not present themselves one without the other, to the minds of patients, and whose association must necessarily be admitted.” The chloroform came to give him a denial on this point, as on the question of the soul. Why then did he accept one and not the other? Mystery of human weaknesses!
If, in his lessons, M. Velpeau had said to his students: "Gentlemen, you are told that you will not find the soul at the end of your scalpel, and they are right, because it is not there, and you would seek it there in vain as I did myself; but study the intelligent manifestations in the phenomena of anesthesia, and you will have incontestable proof of its existence; that is where I found it, and any bona fide observer will find it. In the presence of such facts, it is no longer possible to deny it, since we can ascertain its action independent of the organism, and we can isolate it, so to speak, at will.” By speaking like that, he would only have completed the thought that he had expressed before the Academy of Sciences. With such language, supported by the authority of his name, he would have made a revolution in the art of medicine. It is a glory that he repudiated, and that he bitterly regrets today, but that others will inherit.
Such is the thesis that has just been developed with remarkable talent by Mr. Ramon de la Sagra, in the work that is the subject of this article. The author describes, with method and clarity, from the point of view of pure science, with which he is familiar, all the phases of anesthesia by chloroform, ether, curare[3], and other agents, according to his own observations, and those of the most accredited authors, such as Velpeau, Gerdy, Bouisson, Flourens, Simonin, etc. The technical and scientific part occupies a large place, but that was necessary for a rigorous demonstration. It contains numerous facts from which we have drawn the reported above. We also borrowed the following conclusions:
"Since it is a fact perfectly established by the anesthetic phenomena, that the ether extinguishes the life of the nerves, that conduct the impressions of the senses, while leaving the intellectual faculties free, it also becomes incontestable that these faculties do not depend essentially on the senses of the nervous system. Now, as the organs of the senses, that provide impressions, act only through the nerves, it is certain that the latter being paralyzed, the whole organism of animal life, of the life of relation, remains annihilated, for these intellectual faculties that nevertheless work. It is therefore necessary to admit that their existence, or rather their reality, does not depend essentially on the organism, and that, consequently, they proceed from a different principle, independent of it, being able to function without it and in outside of it.
Here then is the reality of the soul, rigorously demonstrated, incontestably established, without any physiological observation being able to affect it. We can see like jets of light coming out of this conclusion that illuminate distant horizons, that we will not discuss, however, because this kind of study goes beyond the framework that we have established for ourselves.
The psychological point of view from which we have just presented the effects of anesthetic substances, in the animal body, and the consequences that we have deduced from them, in favor of the reality of the existence of the soul, must suggest the hope that a similar method, applied to the study of other analogous phenomena of life, might lead to the same result.
No inference would be more correct, for the physiological and psychological effects that show themselves during alcoholic intoxication, pathological delirium, natural and magnetic sleep, ecstasy and even madness, bear the greatest resemblance, in many points, with the effects of the anesthetic substances that we have just studied in this work. Such a concordance of various phenomena, proceeding from different causes, in favor of an identical conclusion, should not surprise us. It is only the consequence of what we have proved: the reality of the existence of an essence distinct from matter in the human organism, and to which are delegated the intellectual functions that matter alone could never fulfill. This would be the place to examine another issue, to make an incursion into the field of animal magnetism, that supports the permanence of sensory faculties outside the senses, that is of vision, of hearing. of taste, of smell, during the complete paralysis of the organs that, in the normal state, provide these impressions. But such doctrine, of which we neither want to dispute nor to support the truth, is not accepted by physiological science, being enough for us to eliminate it from our current research.”
This last paragraph proves that the author has done, for the demonstration of the soul, what Mr. Flammarion has done for that of God; that is to say, he insisted on placing himself on the very ground of experimental science, and that he wanted to draw only from the officially recognized facts the proof of his thesis. He promises us another book, that cannot fail to be of great interest, in which will be studied, from the same point of view, the various phenomena that he only mentions, having been limited to those of anesthesia by chloroform. This proof is certainly not necessary to strengthen the conviction of the Spiritists, nor of the spiritualists; but since after God, being the existence of the soul the fundamental basis of Spiritism, we must consider as eminently useful to the doctrine any work that tends to demonstrate its fundamental principles. Now, the demonstration of the action of the soul, apart from the organism, is a starting point that, like the plurality of existences and the perispirit, step by step and by logical deduction, leads to all the consequences of Spiritism.
Indeed, the example reported above is of pure Spiritism in the first place, that Mr. Velpeau hardly suspected when he published it, and if we had been able to quote them all, we would have seen that the anesthetic phenomena prove, not only the reality of the soul, but that of Spiritism. It is thus that everything contributes, as it has been announced, to clear the way for the new doctrine; we get there through a multitude of outcomes that converge towards a common center, and a crowd of people contribute with their share, some consciously, others unwillingly. The book by Mr. Ramon de la Sagra is one of those whose publication we are happy to applaud, because, although Spiritism is ignored in it, it can be considered like God in the nature, by Mr. Flammarion, and the Plurality of Existences, by Mr. Pezzani, like monographs of the fundamental principles of the Doctrine to which they give the authority of science.
[1] One vol. in-12, price 2.50 francs; by post 2.75 francs. At Germer-Baillière, libr., 17, rue de l'École-de-Médecine.
[2] Anesthesia, from the Greek suspension of sensitivity
[3] Curare is an eminently poisonous substance that the savages of the Orinoco remove from certain plants, and with which they moisten the tips of arrows that produce fatal wounds.