5

Objective of incarnation. — The soul. — There are three things in man: the body, the soul, and the perispirit. — Twofold nature of man. — Origin of the passions. — Union of intelligence and perversity. — Instant of the union between the soul and the body. — Congenital relations between children and parents. — Physical and moral resemblances. — Indivisibility of the soul. — Seat of the soul. — Is the soul internal or external? — Influence of matter and of the organs upon the manifestations of the soul. Madness. Idiocy. — Intuitive ideas brought to man by the Spirit incarnated within him. (Questions 80 to 100 b.)

Can Spirits become better during their spiritual existence? “They have the will and the desire to improve themselves; however, to realize that desire, they must pass through all the tribulations of corporeal existence.”

a. What is the objective of the incarnation of Spirits? [Question 132.]

“God imposes incarnation upon them with the aim of bringing them to perfection. For some, it is expiation; for others, mission.”

The passage through material life is necessary to the purification of Spirits. To improve and instruct themselves, they must pass through all the tribulations of corporeal existence. Incarnation is imposed upon them, whether as expiation for some, or as mission for others. Everything is linked together in Nature; at the same time that the Spirit purifies itself through incarnation, it concurs simultaneously in the fulfillment of the designs of Providence.

What is the soul? [Question 134.]

“An incarnated Spirit.”

a. Are souls and Spirits, then, identical, the same thing? [Question

b.]

“Yes, souls are nothing but Spirits.”

b. What should one think of the opinion of those who consider the soul to be the principle of material life? [Question 138.]

“It is a question of words, with which we have nothing to do. Begin by understanding one another.”

The soul is an incarnated Spirit. Before uniting with the body, the soul is a wandering spirit still impure; it is one of the beings that populate the spiritual world and who temporarily clothe themselves in a carnal envelope, in order to purify and instruct themselves.

In incarnating in the body of a man, the Spirit brings to him the intellectual and moral principle that makes him superior to the animals (See in the Introduction the explanation of the word soul).

How many essential parts are there in man?

“Three: the soul, which is the first of all; the body; and then the bond that unites the soul to the body.”

a. Is the bond that unites the soul to the body of a material or a spiritual nature? [Question

a.]

“Of both. It must be so in order that they may communicate with one another. It is by means of this bond that the Spirit acts upon matter and vice versa.”

There are in man three things:

1st) The body, or material being, analogous to that of the animals and animated by the same vital principle;

2nd) The soul, an incarnated Spirit that has its dwelling in the body; 3rd) The intermediary principle, or perispirit, a semimaterial substance that serves as the first envelope of the Spirit and unites the soul to the body. Such, in a fruit, are the seed, the pulp, and the rind.

What is the origin of the moral qualities, good or bad, of man? [Question 361.]

“They are those of the Spirit incarnated within him. The purer the Spirit, the more the man is inclined to good.”

a. It seems to follow from this that the good man is the incarnation of a good Spirit, and the vicious man that of a bad Spirit? [Question

a.]

“Yes, but do not say bad Spirit; say rather that the vicious man is the incarnation of an imperfect Spirit, for otherwise one might believe in the existence of Spirits always bad, those whom you call demons.” Since Spirits are of different orders, some already purified and possessed of the love of good, and others still impure, dominated by bad passions, it follows that they bring to man, in incarnating, the qualities good or bad inherent to the category to which they belong, and that, thus, the good man is the incarnation of a Spirit already purified, and the perverse man that of a Spirit still imperfect.

The vicious man who repents and improves himself is the incarnation of a Spirit who understands his errors and tends toward a better destiny.

Since there are in man a body and a soul, and since by the body he resembles the animals, is there in him a twofold nature?

“Yes, the animal nature and the spiritual nature.” [Question 605.]

a. Do man's passions come to him from the Spirits, or are they inherent to his organism? “From both. We have already said that a part of them is due to the influence of the Spirits.”

There are in man two natures: by his body he partakes of the nature of the animals and of their instincts; by his soul, he partakes of the nature of the Spirits.

These two natures give to man's passions two distinct sources: one proceeds from the instincts of the animal nature, and the other results from the impurities of the Spirit incarnated within him, which sympathizes with the lowness of the animal appetites. [Question 605.]

Does the same Spirit give to man the moral qualities and those of the intelligence? [Question 364.]

“Yes.”

a. Why are some very intelligent men, which is an indication of superiority, at the same time profoundly vicious? [Question 365.]

“It is because the Spirits incarnated in these men are not yet sufficiently pure, and are therefore dominated by other Spirits more wicked than they themselves.”

The same Spirit gives to man the moral qualities and those of intelligence; but if the Spirit is not sufficiently purified, the man surrenders himself to the animal passions or yields to the influence of another Spirit equally imperfect, which takes advantage of his weakness to dominate him. Hence, in the same individual, the frequent union of perversity and intelligence.

At what time does the soul unite with the body? [Question 344.]

“At birth.” 84

a. Before birth, does the child have a soul?

“No.” [See the important Translator's Note]

b. How, then, does it live?

“Like the plants.”

The soul, or Spirit, unites with the body at the moment when the child sees the light and breathes.

Before birth, the child has only organic life without a soul. It lives like the plants, having only the blind instinct of self-preservation, common to all living beings. [See note 84.]

Do parents transmit to their children a portion of their souls, or do they limit themselves to giving them animal life, to which a new soul later comes to add moral life? [Question 203.]

“Only animal life, for the soul is indivisible. A stupid father may have intelligent children and vice versa.”

Generation operates in man as in the animals. The parents transmit to their children only organic life, to which later a new soul, foreign to that of the father and the mother, comes to add moral and intellectual life.

Frequently parents transmit to their children a physical resemblance. Will they also transmit some moral resemblance? [Question 207.]

“No, for they have different souls or Spirits.”

a. Whence come the moral resemblances that are sometimes noted between parents and children? [Question 207 a.]

“They are sympathetic Spirits, attracted by the similitude of their inclinations.” Parents can transmit to their children a physical resemblance, because the body proceeds from the body; but they cannot transmit a moral resemblance, since the child's soul is foreign to that of the parents. However, their soul can attract to the body of the child a Spirit of the same category and having with it a similitude of tastes and inclinations.

Do the Spirits of the parents exercise any influence over those of the children, after their birth? [Question 208.]

“A very great one. As we have already said, Spirits must contribute to the progress of one another. Well then! The Spirits of the parents have as their mission to develop those of their children through education. This constitutes for them a trial: if they fail, they will be guilty.”

Spirits exercise influence upon one another; the good ones, with a view to advancing those who are still inferior; the impure ones, with the aim of retarding the progress of the good ones. It is thus that the Spirit incarnated in the parents transmits to that of the children, through education, the principles good or bad with which it is animated, according to the category that it occupies, seeking to make it equal to itself.

Can a Spirit incarnate at the same time in two different bodies? [Question 137.]

“No; it is indivisible.”

a. Whence comes the resemblance of character that often exists between two brothers, especially between twins? [Question 211.]

“Sympathetic Spirits who draw near to one another by analogy of sentiments and who feel happy to be together.”

Being indivisible, the Spirit cannot incarnate at the same time in two different bodies. The analogy of character that often exists between several persons, above all between brothers, proceeds from the similitude of the Spirits who draw near to one another through sympathy and feel happy to be together.

Whence comes the distinctive character that is noted in each people? [Question 215.]

“Spirits also possess families, forming them by the resemblance of their inclinations more or less purified, according to the elevation they have attained. Well then! A people is a great family in which sympathetic Spirits gather together.”

Spirits form among themselves groups or families, founded upon the resemblance of their inclinations, tastes, and desires. The tendency that the members of these families have to unite with one another is the origin of the resemblance that exists in the distinctive character of each people.

What should one think of the theory of the soul subdivided into as many parts as there are muscles and thus presiding over each of the functions of the body? [Question 140.]

“That depends on the sense attributed to the word soul. If by soul one understands the vital fluid, the theory is correct; if what is understood is the incarnated Spirit, the theory is wrong. We have already said that the Spirit is indivisible; it transmits movement to the organs through the intermediary fluid, without thereby dividing itself.”

The soul, like the Spirit, is indivisible; it acts by means of the organs, and these are animated by the vital fluid that is distributed among them and, more abundantly, in those that form the centers or foci of movement. Those who call the soul the vital fluid are right to divide it into as many parts as there are functions existing in the body; but this explanation cannot suit the soul, if it is considered to be the Spirit that inhabits the body during life and abandons it at the time of death.

What is the seat of the soul in the body? The head or the heart? [Question 146.]

“That varies according to the person.”

a. Which are the persons who have it in the heart? [Question 146.]

“Those whose actions, all of them, have Humanity for their object.”

b. Which are those who have it in the head? [Question 146.]

“The great geniuses, the men of letters, the politicians, etc.”

c. What should one think of the opinion of those who situate the soul at a determined and circumscribed point: at a vital center? [Question 146 a.]

“It means saying that the Spirit dwells by preference in that part of your organism, for there converge all the sensations: sight, taste, smell, hearing, and even touch. This, however, does not mean that the Spirit is confined there, but rather that the organism concentrates all these senses in a single place, in order to prove to you that it is solely through the union and harmony of matter that the Spirit can act freely and thus acquire the knowledge that is necessary to it.” The soul, properly speaking, does not possess an absolute seat in the body, because the incarnated Spirit is not confined to any one organ. Those who place it in the center that they consider to be that of vitality confuse it with the vital fluid or principle. However, one can say that the seat of the soul is found especially in the organs that serve the intellectual and moral manifestations, that is, in the brain and the heart. It is localized more particularly in one or the other, according to the person, being able, nevertheless, to reside simultaneously in these two places. It is in the heart of those whose actions, all of them, have Humanity for their object, and in the brain of the great geniuses and of the intellectuals.

One can be a man of good without having superior intelligence, and an intellectual without being a man of heart.

Is there any foundation of truth in the opinion of those who think that the soul is external and envelops the body? [Question 141.]

“The soul is not enclosed in the body like the bird in a cage. It radiates and manifests itself outwardly like light through a globe of glass. It is in this sense that one can say that it is external. The soul has two envelopes. One, subtle and light: it is the first, the one you call perispirit; the other, coarse, material, and heavy: the body. The soul is the center of all these envelopes, like the germ in a nucleus, as we have already said.” The soul, or the Spirit, inhabits the body, but is not imprisoned there. It radiates all around itself through its manifestations, like sound around a sonorous center, or like light around a luminous focus. From this point of view, it is internal and external at the same time, but it is not for that the envelope of the body.

For those who call soul the semimaterial envelope of the Spirit, or perispirit, it would be external in relation to the Spirit. For us, the soul is the Spirit itself, that is, the center or intellectual and moral focus, and cannot, therefore, be any envelope whatsoever.

In uniting with the body, does the Spirit identify itself with matter? [Question 367.]

“No; matter is only the envelope of the Spirit, as clothing is the envelope of the body.”

The Spirit, in its incarnation, does not identify itself with matter. Matter is only an envelope, and always distinct from it, as the body itself is distinct from the clothing that covers it.

In uniting with the body, does the Spirit preserve the attributes of the spiritual nature? “Yes.” [Question 367.]

a. Are the faculties of the Spirit exercised with complete liberty after its union with the body? [Question 368.]

“No; they depend on the organs that serve it as instrument. The coarseness of matter weakens them.”

b. According to this, the material envelope would be an obstacle to the free manifestation of the faculties of the Spirit, as an opaque glass opposes the free emission of light? [Question 368 a.]

“Yes, and very opaque.”

In uniting with the body, the Spirit preserves the attributes of its spiritual nature; but its faculties are limited by the organs that serve it to manifest itself.

The organs being the instruments of manifestation of the faculties of the soul, such manifestation is subordinated to the development and the degree of perfection of those same organs. The density of matter that envelops the Spirit also takes from it a part of its faculties, just as muddy water takes the liberty of movements from the body that is plunged into it, or as a globe of opaque glass that dims the clarity of light.

Is the Spirit that animates the body of a child as developed as that of an adult? [Question 379.]

“Yes; only the imperfection of the organs prevents it from manifesting itself.” Since the manifestations of the faculties of the Spirit are subordinated to the development of the organs of the body, the Spirit that animates the child is as mature as that of an adult; but it acts in function of the instrument, of whose aid it has need in order to manifest itself.

What is the cause of the moral and intellectual nullity of certain beings, such as those designated by the names of idiots or cretins?

“Imperfection of the organs.”

a. If the moral and intellectual nullity is caused only by the imperfection of the organs, must one conclude that the soul of the cretin and the idiot is as developed as that of a man in the full enjoyment of his faculties?

“Yes, and often more so.”

b. What is the objective of Providence in creating beings so unfortunate? 87 [Question 372.]

“They are Spirits in punishment who inhabit the bodies of idiots. The same thing occurs in cases of madness. These Spirits suffer from the constraint they experience and from the impossibility in which they find themselves of manifesting themselves by means of undeveloped or defective organs. It is for this reason that, often, they seek in death a means of breaking these fetters.” The moral and intellectual nullity of certain beings is due to the imperfection of the organs, which does not permit the soul to manifest itself fully. Frequently it is an expiation for the Spirit that inhabits such a body. Now, since moral superiority is not always in relation to intellectual superiority, the greatest geniuses may still have much to expiate; hence, not rarely for them, an existence inferior to the one they have already had and a cause of sufferings.

Such are the idiots, the cretins, and the madmen, although the physiological cause of such maladies is different. Their Spirit is as developed as that of the man of genius; the impediments it encounters in its manifestations are for it, the Spirit, like the fetters that compress the movements of a vigorous man, which is why, so often, it seeks to break them through suicide.

Why does the incarnated Spirit lose the remembrance of its past and the knowledge of the future? [Question 392.]

“Man can neither nor should know everything. God wills it thus.”

a. Are the past and the future hidden from man in an absolute manner? “Yes, for certain things; no, for all. That depends on the will of God.”

The corporeal envelope takes from the Spirit the memory of the past prior to its present existence; it also hides from it the future and the mysteries that Providence saw fit to conceal from man. Without the veil that covers certain things from it, man would be dazzled, like one who passes without transition from obscurity to light.

Does the incarnated Spirit preserve any vestige of the perceptions it had before uniting with the body? [Question 218.]

“Yes; it keeps a vague remembrance, which gives it what are called innate ideas.”

a. Is it to this vague remembrance that man owes, even in the state of savagery, the instinctive sentiment of the existence of God and the presentiment of the future life? [Question 221.]

“Yes; but pride often stifles that sentiment.”

b. Is it to this same remembrance that are owed certain beliefs relating to the Spiritist Doctrine, and that are found among all peoples? [Question

a.]

“Yes; that doctrine is as ancient as the world.”

Although the Spirit loses, under the action of its corporeal envelope, the perception of the spiritual world, it does not for that cease to bring with it the intuition of what it knew before incarnating, and which remains in its innermost being as a vague remembrance. Such is the origin of the innate sentiment that leads man to recognize the existence of a Supreme Being, that gives him the consciousness of good and evil and makes him have a presentiment of the future. Such is also the source of countless beliefs related to the Spiritist Doctrine and that are found developed within the bosom of all peoples and in all the epochs, although interpreted under more or less coarse forms through ignorance, fanaticism, and ambition.

[83], [85], [86], [87] E. N.:

See “Explanatory Note,” p. 551.

[84]

T. N.: Later this answer received the following wording: “The union begins at conception, but is only completed at the moment of birth. From the instant of conception, the Spirit designated to inhabit a certain body is bound to it by a fluidic bond, which becomes ever tighter until the instant when the child sees the light. The cry, which then escapes from its lips, announces that it is counted in the number of the living and of the servants of God.” (The Spirits' Book, 2nd edition, question 344). Were it not so, all abortions would be justified, performed in any period of gestation, including those carried out on the eve of the probable date of delivery, which not even the most fervent defenders of that criminal practice admit.

Less than a year after the publication of the 1st edition of The Spirits' Book, in the (Spiritist Review of March 1858 — Familiar Conversations from Beyond the Tomb — “Doctor Xavier,” question 26, page 141 of the FEB edition), Allan Kardec, with the clear aim of better clarifying the question, asks that Spirit whether there is a crime in depriving a child of life, before its birth, receiving from it the following answer: “There is a crime every time you transgress the Law of God. A mother, or any other person, will commit a crime whenever she takes the life of a child before birth, for she is preventing a soul from undergoing the trials for which the body that was being formed would serve as instrument.” As one can see, the answer given by Doctor Xavier in 1858 came to be incorporated into question 358, of the definitive edition of The Spirits' Book, published in 1860.

In 1861, at the reprinting of the Spiritist Review of 1858, Allan Kardec saw fit to add the following observation, inserted after the answer to question 34 of the same article — “Doctor Xavier” — thus conceived: “The union [between the soul and the body] begins from conception, that is, from the moment when the Spirit, without being incarnated, binds itself to the body by a fluidic bond, which ever more tightens until the instant when the child sees the light. Incarnation is only completed when the child breathes” (see The Spirits' Book, question 344 and following).