III

“No science has ever emerged ready-made from the human brain; all of them, without a single exception, are the fruit of successive observations, founded upon preceding observations…”

By its nature, the Spiritist revelation has a twofold character; it partakes at once of divine revelation and of scientific revelation. It partakes of the former, because its appearance was providential and not the result of the initiative, nor of a premeditated desire, of man; because the fundamental points of the Doctrine derive from the teaching given by the Spirits charged by God with enlightening men about things of which they were ignorant, which they could not learn by themselves, and which it concerns them to know, since they are now able to understand them. It partakes of the latter, because this teaching is not the privilege of any individual, but is dispensed to all in the same manner; because those who transmit it and those who receive it are not passive beings, exempted from the labor of observation and research; because they do not renounce reasoning and free will; because examination is not forbidden them but, on the contrary, recommended; in short, because the Doctrine was not dictated complete, nor imposed upon blind belief; because it is deduced, through the labor of man, from the observation of the facts which the Spirits set before his eyes and from the instructions they give him, instructions which he studies, comments upon, compares, in order to draw for himself the consequences and applications. In sum, what characterizes the Spiritist revelation is the fact that its origin is divine and proceeds from the initiative of the Spirits, while its elaboration is the fruit of the labor of man.

As a means of elaboration, Spiritism proceeds in exactly the same manner as the positive sciences, that is, by applying the experimental method. When new facts present themselves which cannot be explained by the known laws, it observes, compares, and analyzes them, and, ascending from effects to causes, arrives at the law that governs them; then it deduces the consequences therefrom and seeks the useful applications. It has established no preconceived theory; thus, it has not laid down as a hypothesis the existence of the Spirits, nor of the perispirit, nor reincarnation, nor any of the principles of the Doctrine. It concluded in favor of the existence of the Spirits when that existence became evident from the observation of the facts, proceeding in like manner with regard to the other principles. It was not the facts that came afterward to confirm the theory: it is the theory that came subsequently to explain and summarize the facts. It is, therefore, rigorously exact to say that Spiritism is a science of observation and not a product of the imagination. 34 and 35 Spiritism and Science complete each other reciprocally; Science, without Spiritism, finds itself in the impossibility of explaining certain phenomena by the laws of matter alone; Spiritism, without Science, would lack support and corroboration. The study of the laws of matter had to precede that of spirituality, because it is matter that first strikes the senses. Had Spiritism come before the scientific discoveries, it would have failed, like everything that arises before its time.

Spiritism establishes as an absolute principle only that which is evidently demonstrated, or which follows logically from observation. Concerning itself with all the branches of social economy, to which it lends the support of its own discoveries, it will always assimilate all progressive doctrines, of whatever order they may be, provided they have assumed the state of practical truths and abandoned the domain of utopia, without which it would commit suicide. Ceasing to be what it is, it would belie its origin and its providential end. Walking in step with progress, Spiritism will never be surpassed, for, if new discoveries should demonstrate to it that it is in error upon any point, it would modify itself upon that point. If a new truth should be revealed, it would accept it.” 37 the first control to be exercised is, incontestably, that of reason, to which it is necessary to submit, without exception, everything that comes from them. Every theory in notorious contradiction with good sense, with rigorous logic, and with the positive data one possesses, must be rejected, however respectable be the name it bears as a signature. But, in many cases, this control will remain incomplete by reason of the insufficiency of knowledge of certain persons and of the tendency of many to take their own opinion as the sole judge of truth. In such a case, what do the men who do not place absolute confidence in themselves do? They go to seek the opinion of the majority and take its opinion as their guide. Thus must one proceed with regard to the teaching of the Spirits.

The concordance in what the Spirits teach is, therefore, the best control; but it is still necessary that it occur under certain conditions. The least sure of all is when the medium himself questions several Spirits about a doubtful point. Evidently, if he is under the sway of an obsession, or dealing with a mystifying Spirit, the latter can tell him the same thing under different names. Nor is there sufficient guarantee in the conformity presented by what may be obtained through various mediums in one and the same center, for they may all be under the same influence. The only serious guarantee of the teaching of the Spirits lies in the concordance that exists among the revelations they make spontaneously, by means of a great number of mediums who are strangers to one another, and in diverse places […]. This universal control is a guarantee for the future unity of Spiritism and will annul all contradictory theories. It is there that, in the future, the criterion of truth will be found.

Generality and concordance of teaching, such is the essential character of the Doctrine, the very condition of its existence, whence it results that every principle which has not yet received the consecration of the control of generality cannot be considered an integral part of that same Doctrine, but a mere isolated opinion, for which Spiritism cannot assume responsibility. It is this concordant collectivity of the opinion of the Spirits, submitted, moreover, to the criterion of logic, that constitutes the strength of the Spiritist Doctrine and assures it perpetuity. 39