THE THREE KINGDOMS.

Minerals and plants.

— 2. Animals and man. — 3. Metempsychosis.

Minerals and plants.

What do you think of the division of Nature into three kingdoms, or rather, into two classes: that of organic beings and that of inorganic ones? According to some, the human species forms a fourth class. Which of these divisions is preferable?

“All are good, according to the point of view. From the material point of view, there are only organic and inorganic beings. From the moral point of view, there are evidently four degrees.”

These four degrees do indeed present definite characteristics, even though they seem to merge into one another at their extreme limits. Inert matter, which constitutes the mineral kingdom, has in itself only a mechanical force.

Plants, although composed of inert matter, are endowed with vitality.

Animals, also composed of inert matter and likewise endowed with vitality, possess, in addition, a kind of instinctive, limited intelligence, and the “consciousness” of their existence and of their individualities.

Man, having all that there is in plants and in animals, dominates all the other classes by a special, indefinite intelligence, which gives him the consciousness and the knowledge of God.

Do plants have consciousness that they exist?

“No, since they do not think; they have only organic life.”

Do they experience sensations? Do they suffer when they are mutilated?

“They receive physical impressions that act upon matter, but they have no perceptions. Consequently, they do not have the sensation of pain.”

Is the force that draws them toward one another independent of their will?

“Certainly, since they do not think. It is a mechanical force of matter, which acts upon matter, without their being able to oppose it.”

Some plants, such as the mimosa and the dionaea, for example, execute movements that denote great sensitivity and, in certain cases, a kind of will, as is observed in the second, whose lobes seize the fly that alights upon it in order to suck it, seeming to weave a trap with the aim of capturing and killing that insect. Are these plants endowed with the faculty of thinking? Do they have will and form an intermediate class between vegetable Nature and animal Nature? Do they constitute the transition from one to the other?

“Everything in Nature is transition, for the very reason that one thing does not resemble another and yet all are bound to one another.

Plants do not think; consequently they lack will. Neither the oyster that opens, nor the zoophytes think: they have only a blind and natural instinct.”

The human organism provides us with examples of analogous movements, without the participation of the will, in the digestive and circulatory functions. The pylorus contracts, at the contact of certain bodies, in order to deny them passage. The same probably occurs in the mimosa, whose movements in no way imply the necessity of perception and, still less, of will.

Is there not in plants, as in animals, an instinct of self-preservation that induces them to seek what may be useful to them and to avoid what may be harmful to them?

“There is, if you wish, a kind of instinct, this depending on the extension that is given to the meaning of this word. It is, however, a purely mechanical instinct. When, in chemical operations, you observe that two bodies unite, it is because the one suits the other; that is to say: it is because there is affinity between them. Now, to this you do not give the name of instinct.”

In the higher worlds, are plants of a more perfect nature, like the other beings?

“Everything is more perfect. Plants, however, are always plants, as animals are always animals and men always men.”

Animals and man.

If, with regard to intelligence, we compare man and animals, it seems difficult to establish a line of demarcation between the former and the latter, since some animals show, in this respect, notorious superiority over certain men. Can this line of demarcation be established in a precise manner?

“In this respect the disagreement among your philosophers is complete. Some would have it that man is an animal and others that the animal is a man. They are all in error.

Man is a being apart, who descends very low sometimes and who can also rise very high.

Physically, he is like the animals and less well endowed than many of them. Nature gave them all that man is obliged to invent with his intelligence, for the satisfaction of his needs and for his preservation.

His body is destroyed, like that of the animals, it is true, but to his Spirit a destiny is assigned that he alone can understand, because he alone is entirely free.

Poor men, who debase yourselves lower than the brutes! do you not know how to distinguish yourselves from them?

Recognize man by the faculty of thinking of God.”

Could it be said that animals act only by instinct?

“There again is a system. It is true that in the majority of animals instinct dominates. But, do you not see that many act denoting marked will? It is because they have intelligence, though limited.”

It could not be denied that, besides possessing instinct, some animals practice combined acts, which betray a will to operate in a determined direction and in accordance with circumstances. There is, therefore, in them, a kind of intelligence, but whose exercise is almost circumscribed to the use of the means of satisfying their physical needs and of providing for their own preservation. Nothing, however, do they create, nor do they realize any improvement. Whatever be the art with which they execute their works, they do today what they did formerly and they do it, neither better nor worse, according to constant and invariable forms and proportions. The young one, separated from those of its species, does not thereby fail to build its nest in perfect conformity with its forebears, without having received any teaching.

The intellectual development of some, who show themselves susceptible to a certain education, a development which, moreover, cannot exceed narrow limits, is due to the action of man upon a malleable nature, since there is no progress there that is proper to it. Even the progress they realize by the action of man is ephemeral and purely individual, seeing that, left to itself, the animal does not delay in shutting itself up again within the limits that Nature traced for it.

Do animals have any language?

“If you refer to a language formed of syllables and words, no.

But a means of communicating among themselves, they have. They say to one another far more things than you imagine. But, this very language that they possess is restricted to needs, as restricted also are the ideas that they can have.”

a — There are, however, animals that lack a voice. These seem to use no language, do they not?

“They understand one another by other means.

To communicate reciprocally, do you others, men, have only speech? And the mute?

Being granted the life of relation, animals possess means of warning one another and of expressing the sensations that they experience. Do you think that fish do not understand one another?

Man does not enjoy the exclusive privilege of language. But that of the animals is instinctive and circumscribed by their needs and ideas, whereas that of man is perfectible and lends itself to all the conceptions of his intelligence.”

Indeed the fish which, like the swallows, emigrate in shoals, obedient to the guide that leads them, must have means of warning one another, of understanding one another and acting in concert. It is possible that they have a more penetrating sight and that this allows them to perceive the signals that they mutually make. It may also be that they have in the water a vehicle suited to the transmission of certain vibrations. However that may be, what is incontestable is that means of understanding one another are not lacking to them, in the same way as to all the animals lacking a voice and which, nonetheless, work in common.

In view of this, what astonishment can it cause that the Spirits communicate among themselves without the aid of articulate speech?

Do animals enjoy free will, for the practice of their acts?

“Animals are not simple machines, as you suppose. Nevertheless, the freedom of action that they enjoy is limited by their needs 2 and cannot be compared to that of man. Being very much inferior to him, they do not have the same duties as he.

Freedom, they possess it restricted to the acts of material life.”

Whence comes the aptitude that certain animals denote for imitating the language of man and why is this aptitude revealed more in birds than in the monkey, for example, whose conformation presents more analogy with the human?

“It originates from a particular conformation of the vocal organs, reinforced by the instinct of imitation. The monkey imitates gestures; some birds imitate the voice.”

Since animals possess an intelligence that grants them a certain freedom of action, is there in them any principle independent of matter?

“There is, and one that survives the body.”

a — Is this principle a soul similar to that of man?

“It is also a soul, if you wish, this depending on the sense that is given to this word.

It is, however, inferior to that of man.

There is between the soul of animals and that of man a distance equivalent to that which lies between the soul of man and God.”

After death, does the soul of animals preserve its individuality and the consciousness of itself?

“It preserves its individuality; 2 as for the consciousness of its self, no.

Intelligent life remains in it in a latent state.”

Is the soul of animals given to choose the species of animal in which it incarnates?

“No, since it lacks free will.”

Surviving the body in which it dwelt, does the soul of the animal come to find itself, after death, in a state of erraticity, like that of man?

“It remains in a kind of erraticity, since it is no longer united to the body, 2 but it is not a wandering spirit. The wandering spirit is a being that thinks and acts by its free will.

Of an identical faculty the one of the animals does not dispose.

The consciousness of oneself is what constitutes the principal attribute of the Spirit.

That of the animal, after death, is classified by the Spirits to whom this task is incumbent and utilized almost immediately.

It is not given the time to enter into relation with other creatures.”

Are animals subject, like man, to a progressive law?

“Yes; and from this it comes that in the higher worlds, where men are more advanced, the animals are so too, having more ample means of communication.

They are always, however, inferior to man and find themselves subjected to him, man having in them intelligent servants.”

There is nothing extraordinary in this. Let us take our most intelligent animals, the dog, the elephant, the horse, and imagine them endowed with a conformation appropriate to manual labors. What would they not do under the direction of man?

Do animals progress, like man, by an act of their own will, or by the force of things?

“By the force of things, which is why they are not subject to expiation.”

In the higher worlds, do animals know God?

“No. For them man is a god, 2 as formerly the Spirits were gods for man.”

Since the animals, even the perfected ones, existing in the higher worlds, are always inferior to man, it follows that God created intellectual beings perpetually destined to inferiority, which seems in disagreement with the unity of views and of progress that all His works reveal.

“Everything in Nature is linked by ties that you cannot yet appreciate. Thus, the things apparently most disparate have points of contact that man, in his present state, will never come to understand.

By an effort of intelligence he may glimpse them; but, only when that intelligence is at the maximum degree of development and freed from the prejudices of pride and ignorance, will he succeed in seeing clearly into the work of God. Until then, his very restricted ideas will make him observe things through a paltry and narrow prism.

Know that it is not possible for God to contradict Himself and that, in Nature, everything is harmonized by means of general laws, which at no point fail to correspond to the sublime wisdom of the Creator.” a — Is intelligence then a common property, a point of contact between the soul of animals and that of man?

“It is, but animals possess only the intelligence of material life. In man, intelligence provides moral life.”

Considering all the points of contact that exist between man and animals, would it not be lawful to think that man possesses two souls: the animal soul and the spirit soul, and that, if this latter did not exist, he could live only as the brute? In other words: that the animal is a being similar to man, having one less, the spirit soul? From this manner of seeing it would result that the good and the bad instincts of man are the effect of the predominance of one or the other of these souls?

“No, man does not have two souls. The body, however, has its instincts, resulting from the sensation peculiar to the organs.

Double, in man, is only the nature. There is in him the animal nature and the spiritual nature.

Through his body, he participates in the nature of animals and of their instincts. Through his soul, he participates in that of the Spirits.”

a — So that, besides his own imperfections of which it behooves the Spirit to divest himself, man still has to struggle against the influence of matter?

“The more inferior the Spirit is, the tighter are the bonds that link him to matter. Do you not see it?

Man does not have two souls; the soul is always single in each being.

The soul of the animal and that of man are distinct one from the other, to such a point that the one of the one cannot animate the body created for the other.

But, although he does not have an animal soul that, by its passions, would level him to the animals, man has the body that, at times, lowers him to their level, since the body is a being endowed with vitality and with instincts, but these unintelligent and restricted to the care that its preservation requires.”

Incarnating in the body of man, the Spirit brings to it the intellectual and moral principle, which renders him superior to the animals.

The two natures existing in him give to his passions two different origins: some come from the instincts of the animal nature, the others coming from the impurities of the Spirit, of whose incarnation he is the image and which sympathizes more or less with the coarseness of the animal appetites.

By purifying himself, the Spirit frees himself little by little from the influence of matter. Under this influence, he approaches the brute. Free of it, he rises to his true destination.

Whence do animals draw the intelligent principle that constitutes the soul of special nature with which they are endowed?

“From the universal intelligent element.”

a — Then, the intelligence of man and that of animals emanate from a single principle?

“Without any doubt, but, in man, it has passed through an elaboration that places it above that which exists in the animal.”

You said that the state of the soul of man, in its origin, corresponds to the state of infancy in corporeal life, that its intelligence is only just unfolding and trying itself out for life. Where does the Spirit pass this first phase of its development?

“In a series of existences that precede the period you call Humanity.”

a — It seems that, thus, the soul can be considered as having been the intelligent principle of the inferior beings of creation, can it not?

“Have we not already said that everything in Nature is linked and tends toward unity? It is in those beings, the totality of which you are far from knowing, that the intelligent principle is elaborated, individualizes itself little by little and tries itself out for life, as we have just said.

It is, in a certain manner, a preparatory work, like that of germination, by the effect of which the intelligent principle undergoes a transformation and becomes Spirit.

It then enters into the period of humanization, beginning to have consciousness of its future, the capacity to distinguish good from evil and the responsibility for its acts. Thus, the phase of infancy is followed by that of adolescence, then coming that of youth and of maturity.

In this origin, there is nothing humiliating for man. Will the great geniuses feel humiliated for having been shapeless fetuses in the entrails that engendered them?

If there is anything that is humiliating to him, it is his inferiority before God and his powerlessness to sound the depth of His designs and to appreciate the wisdom of the laws that govern the harmony of the Universe.

Recognize the greatness of God in that admirable harmony, by means of which everything is interdependent in Nature.

To believe that God may have made anything whatsoever without an end, and created intelligent beings without a future, would be to blaspheme His goodness, which extends over all His creatures.” b — Does this period of humanization begin on Earth?

“The Earth is not the point of departure of the first human incarnation.

The period of humanization begins, generally, in worlds still inferior to Earth.

This, however, does not constitute an absolute rule, for it may happen that a Spirit, from its human beginning, is fit to live on Earth. The case is not frequent; it constitutes rather an exception.”

Does the Spirit of man have, after death, consciousness of its existences anterior to the period of humanity?

“No, for it is not from that period that its life as Spirit begins.

It is even difficult for it to remember its first human existences, as it is difficult for man to remember the first times of his infancy and still less the time he spent in the maternal womb.

This is the reason why the Spirits say that they do not know how they began .”

Once in the period of humanity, does the Spirit preserve traces of what it was previously, that is to say: of the state in which it found itself in the period that could be called ante-human?

“According to the distance that lies between the two periods and the progress realized. During some generations, it may preserve more or less pronounced vestiges of the primitive state, since nothing operates in Nature by abrupt transition.

There are always rings that link the extremities of the chain of beings and of events.

Those vestiges, however, are erased with the development of free will.

The first progresses are effected only very slowly, because they do not yet have the will to second them. They go in more rapid progression, as the Spirit acquires a more perfect consciousness of itself.”

Were the Spirits who said that man constitutes a being apart in the order of creation mistaken?

“No, but the question had not been developed. Moreover, there are things that can only be clarified in their time.

Man is, in effect, a being apart, seeing that he possesses faculties that distinguish him from all the others and has another destiny.

The human species is the one that God chose for the incarnation of the beings that can know Him.”

Metempsychosis.

Is the fact that living beings have a common origin in the intelligent principle not the consecration of the doctrine of metempsychosis?

“Two things can have the same origin and absolutely not resemble each other later on. Who would recognize the tree, with its leaves, flowers and fruits, in the shapeless germ contained in the seed from which it springs?

From the moment the intelligent principle attains the degree necessary to be Spirit and to enter into the period of humanization, it no longer keeps relation with its primitive state and is no longer the soul of animals, as the tree is no longer the seed.

Of the animal there is in man only the body and the passions that are born of the influence of the body and of the instinct of preservation inherent in matter.

It cannot, therefore, be said that such a man is the incarnation of the Spirit of such an animal. Consequently, metempsychosis, as it is understood, is not true.” [See question 78.]

Could the Spirit that animated the body of a man incarnate in an animal?

“That would be to retrograde and the Spirit does not retrograde. The river does not go back up to its source.”

Although altogether erroneous, will the idea linked to metempsychosis not have resulted from the intuitive sentiment that man possesses of his different existences?

“In this, as in many other beliefs, this intuitive sentiment is encountered. Man, however, has denatured it, as he is wont to do with the majority of his intuitive ideas.”

Metempsychosis would be true, if it indicated the progression of the soul, passing from an inferior state to a superior one, where it acquired developments that transformed its nature. It is, however, false in the sense of a direct transmigration of the soul from the animal to man and reciprocally, which would imply the idea of a retrogradation, or of fusion.

Now, the fact that such a fusion cannot operate, between the corporeal beings of the two species, shows that these are of unassimilable degrees, the same having to occur with respect to the Spirits that animate them. If one same Spirit could animate them alternately, there would be, as a consequence, an identity of nature, translating itself into the possibility of material reproduction.

Reincarnation, as the Spirits teach it, is founded, on the contrary, on the ascending march of Nature and on the progression of man, within his own species, which in no way diminishes his dignity. What lowers him is the bad use that he makes of the faculties that God granted him so that he may progress.

Be that as it may, the antiquity and the universality of the doctrine of metempsychosis and, likewise, the circumstance that eminent men have professed it prove that the principle of reincarnation is rooted in Nature itself. Rather, then, do they constitute arguments in its favor, than contrary to this principle.

The initial point of the Spirit is one of those questions that pertain to the origin of things and of which God keeps the secret. It is not given to man to know them in an absolute manner, nothing more being possible to him in this respect than to make suppositions, to create systems more or less probable.

The Spirits themselves are far from knowing everything and, concerning what they do not know, they too may have personal opinions more or less sensible.

It is thus, for example, that not all think in the same manner regarding the relations existing between man and animals.

According to some, the Spirit does not reach the human period except after having elaborated and individualized itself in the diverse degrees of the inferior beings of Creation.

According to others, the Spirit of man would have always belonged to the human race, without passing through the animal series.

The first of these systems presents the advantage of assigning a goal to the future of animals, which would then form the first links of the chain of thinking beings.

The second is more in conformity with the dignity of man and may be summarized in the following manner: The different species of animals do not proceed intellectually one from another, by means of progression. Thus, the Spirit of the oyster does not become successively that of the fish, of the bird, of the quadruped and of the quadrumane. Each species constitutes, physically and morally, an absolute type, each of whose individuals draws from the universal source the quantity of the intelligent principle that is necessary to it, in accordance with the perfection of its organs and with the work that it has to execute in the phenomena of Nature, a quantity that it, at its death, restores to the reservoir from which it drew it. Those of the worlds more advanced than ours, (see no. 188.) likewise constitute distinct races, appropriate to the needs of those worlds and to the degree of advancement of the men whose auxiliaries they are, but in no way do they proceed from those of Earth, spiritually speaking.

Not so with man. From the physical point of view, he evidently forms a link in the chain of living beings; but, from the moral point of view, there is, between the animal and man, a solution of continuity. Man possesses, as his own property, the soul or Spirit, divine spark that confers on him the moral sense and an intellectual reach that the animals lack and that is in him the principal being, which preexists and survives the body, preserving its individuality.

What is the origin of the Spirit? Where its initial point? Is it formed from the individualized intelligent principle? All this are mysteries that it would be useless to want to fathom and about which, as we said, nothing more can be done than to construct systems.

What is constant, what stands out from reasoning and from experience is the survival of the Spirit, the preservation of its individuality after death, the progressiveness of its faculties, its happy or unhappy state in accordance with its advancement in the path of good and all the moral truths deriving from this principle.

As for the mysterious relations that exist between man and animals, this, we repeat, is among the secrets of God, like many other things, the present knowledge of which matters nothing to our progress and about which it would be useless to dwell.