37 to 40.

[III]

(Pages)

The Spiritist Doctrine, like everything that constitutes a novelty, has its adherents and its contradictors. We shall try to answer some of the objections of the latter, examining the value of the motives on which they rest, without, however, having the pretension of convincing everyone, for there are persons who believe that the light was made only for them.

We address ourselves to persons of good faith, without preconceived or irrevocable ideas, but sincerely desirous of instructing themselves, and we shall demonstrate to them that the majority of the objections they make to the Doctrine arise from incomplete observation of the facts and from a judgment made with much frivolity and haste.

Let us recall, first of all, in a few words, the progressive series of phenomena that gave rise to this Doctrine.

The first fact observed was that of the movement of various objects. It was commonly designated by the name of turning tables or the dance of tables.

This phenomenon, which seems to have been first observed in America, or, rather, which was repeated in that country, since History proves that it goes back to the highest antiquity, was produced accompanied by strange circumstances, such as unusual noises, rappings with no known ostensible cause.

From there it propagated rapidly through Europe and through other parts of the world; 7 at first it aroused much incredulity, but soon the multiplicity of experiments no longer permitted its reality to be doubted.

If such a phenomenon had been limited to the movement of material objects, it could be explained by a purely physical cause.

We are far from knowing all the hidden agents of Nature, or all the properties of those we do know: electricity, moreover, daily multiplies the resources it affords man and seems destined to illuminate Science with a new light.

There would be nothing, then, impossible in electricity, modified by certain circumstances, or some other unknown agent, being the cause of that movement.

The gathering of many persons, increasing the power of action, seemed to support that theory, since the group could be considered as a battery, whose potency corresponds to the number of elements.

The circular movement had nothing extraordinary about it: it is in Nature; all the heavenly bodies move circularly. We could, then, have on a small scale a reflection of the general movement of the Universe, or, better said, a hitherto unknown cause, capable of producing accidentally, with small objects and under given conditions, a current analogous to that which carries the worlds along.

But the movement was not always circular; many times it was abrupt, disordered, the object violently shaken, overturned, carried in any direction whatever and, contrary to all the laws of statics, lifted and held in suspension.

There was still nothing in these facts that could not be explained by the power of an invisible physical agent. Do we not see electricity overturn buildings, uproot trees, hurl far away the heaviest bodies, attract or repel them?

Supposing that the unusual noises and the rappings were not one of the ordinary effects of the dilation of wood, or of some other accidental cause, they could very well be produced by the accumulation of a hidden fluid: does not electricity produce the most violent noises?

Up to that point, as is seen, everything can fit within the domain of purely physical and physiological facts. Even without leaving that circle of ideas, there was there matter for serious studies, worthy of holding the attention of scientists.

Why did this not happen? It is painful to say it, but it is due to causes that prove, among a thousand similar facts, the frivolity of the human mind.

At the outset, the vulgarity of the principal object that served as the basis of the first experiments was perhaps not foreign to this. What influence has a word not often had over the gravest matters!

Without considering that the movement could be transmitted to any object whatever, the idea of tables prevailed, no doubt because it was the most convenient object and because everyone sits down more naturally around a table than around any other piece of furniture.

Now, superior men are sometimes so puerile that it would not be impossible for certain choice minds to deem themselves unworthy of their position, were they to occupy themselves with what has come to be called the dance of tables.

It is even probable that if the phenomenon observed by Galvani had been observed by vulgar men and had been characterized by a burlesque name, it would still be relegated to the side of the magic wand. What scientist, indeed, would not have judged it an indignity to occupy himself with the dance of frogs?

Some, however, modest enough to agree that Nature might well not have spoken its last word to them, wished to see, for the tranquility of their consciences.

But it happened that the phenomenon did not always correspond to their expectation and, because it was not produced constantly at their will and according to their mode of experimentation, they concluded in the negative.

In spite, however, of what they decreed, the tables—for there are tables—continue to turn, and we may say like Galileo: and yet they move!

We shall say more: the facts multiply in such a way that they have today the right of citizenship, it now being a matter only of finding a rational explanation for them.

Could anything be inferred against the reality of the phenomenon from the fact that it is not always produced in an identical manner, according to the will and the demands of the observer? Are not the phenomena of electricity and of chemistry subordinated to certain conditions? And must we deny them because they are not produced outside those conditions?

What is there, then, surprising in the phenomenon of the movement of objects by the human fluid also having its conditions and ceasing to be produced when the observer, placing himself at his point of view, intends to make it follow at the pleasure of his caprice or to subject it to the laws of known phenomena, without considering that for new facts there can and must be new laws?

Now, in order to know these laws, it is necessary to study the circumstances in which the facts are produced, and that study requires persevering, attentive, and at times very long observation.

But, some persons object, there are often evident frauds. We will ask them, in the first place, whether they are quite sure that there are frauds and whether they have not taken for frauds effects they could not explain, more or less like the peasant who took a physicist performing experiments for a skillful conjurer.

Even supposing that this has occurred a few times, would it be a reason to deny the fact? Should Physics be denied because there are prestidigitators who adorn themselves with the title of physicists?

It is necessary, moreover, to take into account the character of the persons and the interest they may have in deceiving. Would it then be a mere jest? One may very well amuse oneself for some time, but a jest prolonged indefinitely would be as tedious for the mystifier as for the mystified.

There would be, besides, in a mystification that is prolonged from one end of the world to the other and among the most serious, most honorable, and most enlightened persons, something at least as extraordinary as the phenomenon itself. >>>