THE FUTURE AND NOTHINGNESS.

— We live, we think, and we act, this is what is positive; and that we die is no less certain.

But, leaving the Earth, where do we go? What shall we be after death? Shall we be better off or worse?

Shall we exist or not? To be or not to be, such is the alternative. Forever or nevermore; either all or nothing: shall we live eternally, or will everything be annihilated once and for all? This is a thesis that imposes itself.

Every man feels the need to live, to enjoy, to love, and to be happy.

Tell the dying man that he will yet live; that his hour is delayed; tell him above all that he will be happier than he may perchance have been, and his heart will rejoice.

But of what use would these aspirations to happiness be, if a slight breath could dissipate them?

Could there be anything more despairing than this thought of absolute destruction? Dear affections, intelligence, progress, knowledge laboriously acquired, all shattered, all lost!

No effort whatever would therefore serve us in restraining the passions, in toiling to instruct ourselves, in devoting ourselves to the cause of progress, since we would profit nothing from all this, the thought predominating that tomorrow, perhaps, all this would serve us in nothing.

If it were so, the lot of man would be a hundred times worse than that of the brute, because the latter lives entirely in the present in the satisfaction of its material appetites, with no aspiration toward the future.

A secret intuition tells us, however, that this is not possible.

— Through the belief in nothingness, man necessarily concentrates all his thoughts on the present life; logically, concern for a future that is not hoped for could not be explained.

This exclusive preoccupation with the present leads man to think of himself in preference to all else; it is, therefore, the most powerful stimulus to selfishness, 3 and the unbeliever is consistent when he arrives at the following conclusion: Let us enjoy while we are here; let us enjoy as much as possible, since with us everything ends; let us enjoy quickly, because we do not know how long we shall exist; 4 still consistent is this other conclusion, indeed more serious for society: Let us enjoy in spite of everything, let us enjoy in any way at all, each one for himself; happiness in this world belongs to the most cunning.

And if human respect restrains some beings, what means will there be for those who fear nothing? These latter believe that human laws reach only the inept, and thus they employ all their ingenuity in the best means of evading them.

If there is a senseless and antisocial doctrine, it is, surely, nihilism, which breaks the true bonds of solidarity and fraternity on which social relations are founded.

— Let us suppose that, by some circumstance or other, an entire people acquires the certainty that in eight days, in a month, or in a year it will be annihilated; that not a single individual will survive it, just as not a single trace of its existence will survive: what will that condemned people do, awaiting extermination?

Will it labor for the cause of its progress, of its instruction? Will it devote itself to work in order to live? Will it respect the rights, the goods, the life of its fellow being? Will it submit to any law or authority, however legitimate, even paternal?

Will there be for it, in that emergency, any duty whatever? Certainly not.

Well then! What does not occur collectively, the doctrine of nihilism brings about every day in isolation, individually.

And if the consequences are not as disastrous as they could be, it is, in the first place, because in the majority of unbelievers there is more boastfulness than true incredulity, more doubt than conviction, 6 they possessing more fear of nothingness than they pretend to show — the qualification of strong spirits flatters their vanity and self-love; 7 in the second place, because absolute unbelievers number a tiny minority, and they feel, to their regret, the ascendancy of the contrary opinion, maintained by a material force; 8 let the incredulity of the majority become, nevertheless, absolute, and society will enter into dissolution. This is what the propagation of the nihilist doctrine tends toward.

But whatever its consequences might be, once it imposed itself as true, it would be necessary to accept it, and neither contrary systems nor the idea of the resulting evils could prevent its existence.

It must be said that, in spite of the best efforts of religion, skepticism, doubt, and indifference gain ground day by day.

But if religion shows itself powerless to stem incredulity, it is because something is lacking to it in the struggle; if, on the other hand, religion condemned itself to immobility, it would be, in a given time, dissolved.

What it lacks in this century of positivism, in which one seeks to understand before believing, is, without doubt, the sanction of its doctrines by positive facts, as well as their agreement with the positive data of Science. When it says that what is white is what the facts say is black, one must choose between evidence and blind faith.

— It is in these circumstances that Spiritism comes to set up a dam against the diffusion of incredulity, not only by reasoning, not only by the perspective of the dangers it entails, but by material facts, rendering the soul and the future life visible and tangible.

We are all free in the choice of our beliefs; we may believe in something or believe in nothing, 3 but those who seek to make the negation of the future prevail in the minds of the masses, of the youth especially, relying on the authority of their knowledge and on the ascendancy of their position, sow in society germs of disturbance and dissolution, incurring great responsibility.

— There is a doctrine that defends itself from the stigma of being materialist because it admits the existence of an intelligent principle outside of matter: it is that of absorption into the Universal Whole.

According to this doctrine, each individual, at birth, assimilates a portion of this principle, which constitutes his soul, and gives him life, intelligence, and feeling. Through death, this soul returns to the common focus and is lost in the infinite, like a drop of water in the ocean.

Incontestably this doctrine is a step in advance of pure materialism, seeing that it admits something, whereas the latter admits nothing. The consequences, however, are exactly the same.

For man to be immersed in nothingness or in the common reservoir is for him the same thing; annihilated or losing his individuality, it is as though he did not exist; social relations are broken none the less, and forever.

What is essential to him is the conservation of his self; without this, what does it matter to him whether or not he subsists? The future always appears to him null, and the present life is the only thing that interests and concerns him.

From the point of view of moral consequences, this doctrine is, therefore, as senseless, as despairing, as subversive as materialism properly so called.

— One may, moreover, raise this objection: all the drops of water taken from the ocean resemble one another and possess identical properties as parts of one same whole; why, then, do souls taken from the great ocean of universal intelligence so little resemble one another? Why genius and stupidity, the most sublime virtues and the most ignoble vices? Why goodness, gentleness, meekness alongside wickedness, cruelty, barbarity? How can the parts of one same homogeneous whole be so different from one another?

Will it be said that it is education that modifies them? In that case, whence come the innate qualities, the precocious intelligences, the good and bad instincts independent of all education and so often in disharmony with the milieu in which they develop?

There is no doubt that education modifies the intellectual and moral qualities of the soul; but here another difficulty occurs: Who gives this education to the soul in order to make it progress? Other souls, which by their common origin must not be more advanced.

Besides, the soul, re-entering the Universal Whole from which it came, and having progressed during life, brings to it a more perfect element. From this it is inferred that this Whole would find itself, by continuation, profoundly modified and improved. Thus, how is it explained that ignorant and perverse souls come forth incessantly from this Whole?

— In this doctrine, the universal source of intelligence that supplies human souls is independent of the Divinity; it is not precisely pantheism.

Pantheism properly so called considers the universal principle of life and intelligence as constituting the Divinity. God is concurrently Spirit and matter; all beings, all bodies of Nature compose the Divinity, of which they are the molecules and the constitutive elements; God is the assemblage of all intelligences united; each individual, being a part of the whole, is God himself; no superior and independent being governs the whole; the Universe is an immense republic without a chief, or rather, where each one is chief with absolute power.

— To this system innumerable objections may be opposed, of which these are the principal ones: 2 since divinity cannot be conceived without infinite perfection, one asks how a perfect whole can be formed of parts so imperfect, having the need to progress?

Each part being subject to the law of progress, one must agree that God himself must progress; and if He progresses constantly, He must have been, at the origin of time, very imperfect.

And how can an imperfect being, formed of ideas so divergent, conceive laws so harmonious, so admirable in unity, in wisdom, and in foresight as those that govern the Universe?

If all souls are portions of the Divinity, all contributed to the laws of Nature; how comes it, then, that they murmur unceasingly against those laws that are their own work?

A theory cannot be accepted as true except on the condition of satisfying reason and accounting for all the facts it embraces; if a single fact brings it a contradiction, it does not contain absolute truth.

— From the moral point of view, the consequences are equally illogical. In the first place there is, for souls, as in the preceding system, absorption into a whole and the loss of individuality.

Granting that one admits, in accordance with the opinion of some pantheists, that souls preserve this individuality, God would cease to have a single will, becoming a compound of myriads of divergent wills.

Moreover, each soul being an integral part of the Divinity, ceases to be dominated by a superior power; it incurs no responsibility for its acts, good or bad; sovereign, having no interest whatever in the practice of good, it may practice evil with impunity.

— Furthermore, these systems satisfy neither reason nor human aspiration; from them arise insurmountable difficulties, for they are powerless to resolve all the questions of fact that they raise.

Man has, therefore, three alternatives: nothingness, absorption, or the individuality of the soul before and after death.

It is toward this last belief that logic irresistibly impels us, a belief that has formed the basis of all religions since the world has existed.

And if logic leads us to the individuality of the soul, it also points out to us this other consequence: the lot of each soul must depend on its personal qualities, for it would be irrational to admit that the backward soul of the savage, like that of the perverse man, should be on the level of that of the wise man, of the man of good.

According to the principles of justice, souls must bear the responsibility for their acts, 6 but for this responsibility to exist, it is necessary that they be free in the choice of good and evil; 7 without free will there is fatality, 8 and with fatality responsibility could not coexist.

— All religions have equally admitted the principle of the happiness or unhappiness of the soul after death, or, in other words, the future pains and joys, which are summed up in the doctrine of Heaven and hell found everywhere.

Wherein they differ essentially is as to the nature of these pains and joys, principally as to the conditions determining the one and the other.

Hence the contradictory points of faith giving rise to different cults, and the duties imposed by these, consequently, to honor God and thereby attain Heaven, avoiding hell.

— All religions had to be, at their origin, relative to the degree of moral and intellectual advancement of men; 2 these, too materialized to comprehend the merit of purely spiritual things, made the greater part of religious duties consist in the fulfillment of exterior formulas.

For a long time these formulas satisfied their reason; but later, because light was made in their mind, feeling the emptiness of these formulas, since religion did not fill it, they abandoned it and became philosophers.

— If religion, appropriate at the beginning to the limited knowledge of man, had always accompanied the progressive movement of the human spirit, there would be no unbelievers, because the need to believe lies in the very nature of man, and he will believe provided that he be given the spiritual nourishment in harmony with his intellectual needs.

Man wants to know whence he came and where he is going.

Showing him an end that corresponds neither to his aspirations nor to the idea he forms of God, nor yet to the positive data that Science furnishes him; imposing on him, moreover, in order to attain his desideratum, conditions whose utility his reason contests, he rejects everything; 4 materialism and pantheism seem to him more rational, because with them at least one reasons and discusses, falsely though it be. And he is right, because it is better to reason falsely than not to reason at all.

But present to him a future conditionally logical, worthy in everything of the grandeur, the justice, and the infinite goodness of God, and he will repudiate materialism and pantheism, whose emptiness he feels in his inmost being, and which he had accepted for want of a better belief.

Spiritism gives something better; this is why it is eagerly welcomed by all those tormented by doubt, those who find neither in the common beliefs nor in the common philosophies what they seek;

Spiritism has on its side the logic of reasoning and the sanction of facts, and that is why it has been combated in vain.

— Instinctively Man has the belief in the future, but not having until now any sure basis for defining it, his imagination has fancied the systems that gave rise to the diversity of beliefs.

The Spiritist Doctrine on the future — not being a work of imagination more or less ingeniously contrived, but the result of the observation of material facts that unfold today before our eyes — will reconcile, as is already happening, the divergent or fluctuating opinions and will gradually bring, by the force of things, unity of beliefs on this point, no longer based on simple hypothesis, but on certainty.

The unification made with respect to the future lot of souls will be the first point of contact of the various cults, an immense step toward religious tolerance in the first place and, later, toward complete fusion. [1] A young man of eighteen years, afflicted with a disease of the heart, was declared incurable. Science had said: He may die within eight days or within two years, but he will not go beyond that. Knowing this, the young man at once abandoned his studies and gave himself over to excesses of every kind. When the danger of a disordered life was pointed out to him, he answered: What does it matter to me, if I have no more than two years of life? Of what use would it be to me to weary my mind? I enjoy the little that remains to me and I want to amuse myself to the end. — Such is the logical consequence of nihilism. Had this young man been a Spiritist, he would have said: Death will destroy only the body, which I shall leave behind like a worn-out garment, but my Spirit will live. I shall be in the future life that which I myself shall have made of myself in this life; of whatever I am able to acquire in it in moral and intellectual qualities I shall lose nothing, because it will be so much gain for my advancement; every imperfection of which I rid myself will be one more step toward happiness. My happiness or unhappiness depends on the usefulness or uselessness of the present existence. It is therefore in my interest to make use of the little time that remains to me, and to avoid everything that may diminish my strength. Which of these doctrines is preferable?