Conclusion.

(Summary)

Preliminaries.

— God. — The Spirits.

— Manifestations of the Spirits.

— Progression of the Spirits.

— The worlds.

— Man.

— Faculties of man.

— Emancipation of the soul.

— Destiny of man.

— Return to corporeal life.

— Influence of the Spirits.

— Good and evil.

— Prayer.

— Moral consequences of Spiritism.

MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF SPIRITISM.

Through reasoning, practical study, and the observation of facts, Spiritism confirms and proves the fundamental bases of religion, namely: The existence of a single God, all-powerful, creator of all things, sovereignly just and good; The existence of the soul, its immortality and its individuality after death;

The free will of man, and the responsibility he incurs in all his acts;

The happy or unhappy state of man after death, according to the use he made of his faculties during his life; The necessity of good and the dire consequences of evil;

The usefulness of prayer.

It resolves a number of problems that find their only plausible explanation in the existence of an invisible world composed of the beings who have stripped off their corporeal envelope, who surround us and exercise an incessant influence over the visible world. It is a source of consolations:

By the certainty it gives us of the future that awaits us;

By the material proof of the existence of those we have loved upon the Earth, the certainty of their presence near us, that of finding them again in the world of the Spirits, and the possibility of communicating with them and receiving salutary counsel; By the courage it gives us against adversities;

By the elevation it imparts to our thoughts, giving a just idea of the value of the things and goods of this world. It contributes to the happiness of man upon the Earth:

By calming the causes of despair;

By teaching man to be content with what he has;

By making him regard riches, honors, and power as trials more to be feared than to be envied; By placing a curb on the evil passions, the source of the greater part of his afflictions; By inspiring in him real sentiments of charity and fraternity toward his neighbor. The result of these principles, once propagated and rooted in the heart of man, will be: To make him better and more indulgent toward his fellows;

To destroy little by little egoism through the solidarity it establishes among them; To exercise a praiseworthy emulation toward good;

To place a curb on disordered ambitions;

To neutralize the evils inseparable from the effervescence of brutal passions;

To favor intellectual and moral development, not only with a view to present well-being, but to the future bound up with it; And, by all these causes, to aid the progressive improvement of humanity.

END.

[1] In this second version of this book, published in 1860, the author presents What is Spiritism from a new point of view.