Introduction.

This new work is one more step forward in the consequences and applications of Spiritism.

As its title indicates, its object is the study of points, until today diversely interpreted and commented upon: Genesis, the miracles and the predictions, in their relations with the new laws that proceed from the observation of the spiritist phenomena.

Two elements, or, if you will, two forces govern the Universe: the spiritual element and the material element; from the simultaneous action of these two principles are born special phenomena, which are naturally inexplicable if we make abstraction of one of the two, absolutely as the formation of water would be inexplicable if we made abstraction of one of its two constituent elements: oxygen and hydrogen.

Spiritism, in demonstrating the existence of the spiritual world and its relations with the material world, gives the key to an immensity of phenomena that are not understood and, for that very reason, considered as inadmissible by a certain class of thinkers.

These facts are abundant in the Scriptures, and it is because they do not know the law that governs them that the commentators of the two opposing camps return without cease to the same circle of ideas, some making abstraction of the positive data of science and the others of the spiritual principle, being unable to arrive at a rational solution.

This solution lies in the reciprocal action of the Spirit and matter.

It removes, it is true, from the majority of these facts their supernatural character; but which is better: to admit them as the result of the laws of Nature, or to reject everything about them in fact?

Their absolute rejection results [in the rejection] of that very foundation of the edifice, whereas their admission on this footing, suppressing only the accessories, leaves that foundation intact.

It is for this reason that Spiritism leads so many people to belief in truths that they formerly regarded as utopias.

This work is, then, as we have already said, a complement of the applications of Spiritism, from a special point of view. The materials were ready, or, at least, elaborated for a long time; but the moment had not yet come for them to be published. It was necessary, first of all, that the ideas destined to serve as their basis should have attained maturity and, moreover, should take into account the opportuneness of the circumstances.

Spiritism has neither mysteries nor secret theories; everything must be said in the full light of day, in order that all may judge it with knowledge of the cause; each thing, however, must come in its own time, in order to come surely.

A solution given lightly, before the complete elucidation of the question, would be a cause of delay rather than of advance.

In the one with which we are here concerned, the importance of the subject imposed upon us the duty of avoiding any precipitation.

Before entering into the matter, it seemed to us necessary to define clearly the respective roles of the Spirits and of men in the elaboration of the new doctrine; these preliminary considerations, which cleanse it of every idea of mysticism, form the object of the first chapter, entitled: Characters of the spiritist revelation. We ask serious attention to this point, because, in a certain way, therein lies the crux of the question.

Notwithstanding the part that belongs to human activity in the elaboration of this doctrine, the initiative [of the work] belongs to the Spirits; it does not constitute, however, the personal opinion of any one of them; it is, and cannot but be, the resultant of their collective and concordant teaching.

Only under this condition can it be called the doctrine of the Spirits; otherwise, it would be no more than the doctrine of one Spirit, and it would have only the value of a personal opinion.

Generality and concordance in the teaching, such is the essential character of the doctrine, the very condition of its existence, whence it results that every principle that has not yet received the consecration of the control of generality cannot be considered as an integral part of that same doctrine, but as a simple isolated opinion, for which Spiritism cannot assume responsibility.

This concordant collectivity of the opinion of the Spirits, passed, moreover, through the criterion of logic, is what makes the strength of the Spiritist Doctrine and assures its perpetuity.

For it to change, it would be necessary that the universality of the Spirits should change opinion and that they should one day come to say the contrary of what they said; 20 since it has its source [of origin] in the teaching of the Spirits, for it to succumb, it would be necessary that the Spirits should cease to exist.

It is also what will make it always prevail over personal systems, which do not have, as it does, their roots everywhere.

The Spirits' Book did not see its credit consolidated except because it is the expression of a collective, general thought. In April of 1867, it completed its first decennial period; in that interval, the fundamental principles, whose bases it had laid, were successively completed and developed, as a result of the progressive teaching of the Spirits, but none received contradiction from experience; all, without exception, remained standing, more vivacious than ever, while that, of all the contradictory ideas that some attempted to oppose to it, none prevailed, precisely because, everywhere, the contrary was taught.

This is a characteristic result that we can proclaim without vanity, since we never attributed to ourselves the merit [of such a fact].

The same scruples having presided over the redaction of our other works, we were able to call them: according to Spiritism, because we were certain of their conformity with the general teaching of the Spirits.

The same is true of this one, which we can, for similar reasons, give as a complement of the preceding ones, with the exception, however, of some theories still hypothetical, which we took care to indicate as such and which are to be considered only as simple personal opinions, so long as they are not confirmed or contradicted, in order that the responsibility for them may not weigh upon the Doctrine.

Moreover, the assiduous readers of the Review have had occasion to note, in the form of sketches, the majority of the ideas that are developed in this latest work, as we have done with the preceding ones.

The Review is frequently for us a testing ground, destined to sound out the opinion of men and of Spirits on certain principles, before admitting them as constitutive parts of the Doctrine.