The Intervention of Science in Spiritism.

The intervention of scientific corporations is one of the arguments incessantly invoked by the adversaries of Spiritism. Why did they not take possession of the phenomenon of the turning tables? Had they seen anything serious in it, they say, they would not have put themselves on guard against such extraordinary facts, and still less would they have treated them with contempt, whereas now they are all against you. Are the scientists not the beam of light of the nations, and is it not their duty to spread it? Why would you have them stifle it, when so fine an occasion presented itself to them to reveal to the world a new force?

In the first place, it is a very grave error to assert that all the scientists are against us, considering that Spiritism is spreading precisely among the enlightened class. There are scientists only in official science and in the constituted bodies. Because Spiritism does not yet enjoy the rights of citizenship within the realm of official science, could one prejudge the question? The circumspection of that science with regard to new ideas is well known. If Science had never been mistaken, its opinion might weigh in the balance; experience, unfortunately, proves the contrary. Did it not repel as chimeras an immense number of discoveries which, later, brought renown to the memory of their authors? Must one therefore conclude that the learned are ignorant? Does this justify the trivial epithets that certain persons take pleasure in lavishing upon them at the expense of good taste? No, certainly not. There is no one of good sense who does not do justice to the learned, while recognizing that they are not infallible and that their judgment, therefore, does not represent the last instance. Their error is to settle certain questions a little lightly, trusting too much in their own lights, before time has pronounced itself, and thus exposing themselves to receiving the denials of experience.

Each person is competent to judge only what he knows. If we wish to build a house, shall we call a musician? If we are ill, shall we be treated by an architect? If we have a lawsuit, shall we seek the opinion of a dancer? In short, if it is a question of theology, shall we ask for its solution from a chemist or an astronomer? No; let each remain in his own craft. The ordinary sciences rest upon the properties of matter, which we can manipulate at will; the phenomena it produces have material forces as their agents. Those of Spiritism have as their agents intelligences that possess their own independence, their own free will, and would in no way submit to our caprices; they thus escape our anatomical and laboratory procedures, as well as our calculations, and therefore are not within the competence of science properly so called. Science was mistaken in wishing to experiment upon the Spirits as it would upon a voltaic pile; it set out from a fixed, preconceived idea, to which it clings, and which it wishes forcibly to attach to the new idea. It failed, and so it had to happen, because it acted with a view to an analogy that does not exist. Then, without going any further, it concluded in the negative: a rash judgment which time daily takes upon itself to reform, as it has reformed so many others, and those who pronounced it will be greatly ashamed of having lightly assumed a false position against the infinite power of the Creator. Thus, then, the scientific corporations should not, nor ever should, pronounce upon the matter; it is not within their jurisdiction, any more than is the right to decree whether God exists. It is, therefore, an error to constitute them as judge. But who shall be the judge? Do the Spirits deem themselves entitled to impose their ideas? No; the great judge, the sovereign judge, is public opinion. When that opinion is formed by the acquiescence of the masses and of enlightened men, the official scientists will accept it as individuals and will yield to the force of circumstances. Let a generation pass, and with it the prejudices of self-love that persists obstinately, and we shall see happen with Spiritism the same as happened with so many other combated truths, which it would now be ridiculous to call into doubt. Today the believers are called madmen; tomorrow it will be the turn of those who do not believe, exactly as in former times those who believed that the Earth turned were treated as madmen, which did not prevent it from turning. But not all the learned judged in the same manner. Some reasoned as follows: There is no effect without a cause, and the most ordinary effects may open the way to the greatest problems. If Newton had disdained the fall of an apple; if Galvani had repelled his servant, treating her as a madwoman and a visionary when she spoke to him of the frogs that danced on the plate, perhaps we would still be searching for the admirable law of gravity and the fecund properties of the pile. The phenomenon designated by the burlesque name of the dance of the tables is no more ridiculous than that of the dance of the frogs, and perhaps it encloses some of those secrets of Nature that will revolutionize Humanity, when we possess its key. Moreover, they said: Since so many people occupy themselves with such facts, and since very serious men have studied them, it is because there is something there; an illusion, a madness, if you will, cannot have this character of generality; it may seduce a circle, a little group, but it will not go around the world.

This is principally what an illustrious doctor of Medicine told us, incredulous until a short time ago and today a fervent adept: “They say that invisible beings communicate; and why not? Before the invention of the microscope, did we suspect the existence of that myriad of animalcules that cause so much devastation in the economy [in the organism]? Where is the material impossibility of the existence, in space, of beings that escape our senses? Would we, perchance, nourish the ridiculous pretension of knowing everything and saying to God that He can teach us nothing more? If those invisible beings that surround us are intelligent, why would they not communicate with us? If they are in relation with men, they must play a part in destiny and in events. Who knows whether they may not be one of the powers of Nature, one of those occult forces that we do not suspect? What a new horizon opens to our thought! What a vast field of observation! The discovery of the invisible world would be quite different from that of the infinitely small; it would be more than a discovery: it would be a complete revolution in ideas. How much light may pour forth from it! How many mysterious things would be explained! Those who believe thus are ridiculed. But what does that prove? Did not the same happen with all the great discoveries? Was not Christopher Columbus harshly repelled, covered with vexations, and treated as a madman? They said that these ideas are so strange that reason refuses them. Only half a century ago we would have laughed in the face of anyone who had said that in only a few minutes it would be possible to correspond from one end of the world to the other; that in a few hours we would cross France; that with the steam exhaled from a little water in ebullition a ship would sail against the wind; that from water would be drawn the means of lighting and of heating. Had someone proposed a way of lighting the whole of Paris in a minute, with a single source of an invisible substance, they would have sent him to the asylum. Would there be, then, more of a prodigy in imagining that space is peopled with thinking beings who, after having lived on Earth, left there their material envelope? Would we not find in this fact the explanation of an infinity of beliefs that go back to the highest Antiquity? Would it not be the confirmation of the existence of the soul, of its individuality after death? The proof of the origin of religion itself? Yet religion tells us only vaguely what becomes of souls, while Spiritism defines it. To all this, what can the materialists and the atheists argue? Such things deserve to be deepened.” These are the reflections of a scientist, but of an unpretentious scientist. They are, also, those of a significant portion of enlightened men who have reflected, studied seriously and without preconceived ideas, and have had the modesty not to say: I do not understand, therefore this does not exist. Their conviction was formed through observation and in recollection. If such ideas were chimeras, would it be possible to imagine that so many people of distinction had adopted them? that for so long they had been the victim of an illusion? There is, then, no material impossibility to the existence of beings invisible to us that people space. This consideration alone ought to make us act with a little more circumspection. Until some time ago, who would have thought that a drop of limpid water could contain thousands of living beings, of a smallness that confounds our imagination? Now, it was more difficult for reason to conceive of beings so subtle, provided with all our organs and functioning as we do, than to admit those whom we call Spirits.

The adversaries ask why the Spirits, who ought to strive to make proselytes, do not lend themselves better to the work of convincing certain creatures whose opinion would have great influence. They add that we accuse them of lack of faith, and to this they reply, and rightly, that they cannot believe in advance.

It is an error to think that faith is necessary; but good faith is another thing. There are skeptics who deny even the evidence, and miracles themselves would not convince them. There are even those who would be very vexed to be forced to believe, for their self-love would suffer at acknowledging that they had been mistaken. What is to be answered to certain persons who, everywhere, see nothing but charlatanism and illusion? Nothing. They must be left in peace and allowed to say, as long as they wish, that they saw nothing, and even that we were unable to make them see anything. Alongside these hardened skeptics, there are those who wish to see in their own way; those who, having formed an opinion, wish to submit everything to it, because they do not understand the existence of phenomena that do not obey their will. Either they do not know, or they do not wish to bend to the necessary conditions. If the Spirits do not display so much zeal in conquering them by means of prodigies, it is because, at the moment, at least apparently, they have little interest in convincing certain persons, whose importance they do not measure as those persons themselves do. We must agree that it is little flattering, but we do not govern their opinion. The Spirits have a manner of judging things that is not always ours; they see, think, and act according to other elements. While our sight is circumscribed by matter, limited by the narrow circle in the midst of which we find ourselves, they embrace everything; time, which seems to us so long, is to them an instant, and distance nothing more than a step; certain details, which seem to us of extreme importance, in their eyes are no more than childishness, whereas they judge essential certain things whose scope we do not grasp. To understand them, we must raise ourselves, by thought, above our material and moral horizon, and place ourselves under their point of view. It is not for them to descend to us: it is we who must ascend to them, led by study and observation. The Spirits esteem the assiduous and conscientious observers, for whom they multiply the sources of light; what drives them away is not the doubt that arises from ignorance, but the fatuity of those pretended observers who observe nothing, who aspire to put them in check and to manipulate them like marionettes. It is above all the sentiment of hostility and of discredit that they bring, sentiments that are in the mind, when not in the words, despite protests to the contrary. For these the Spirits do nothing, caring very little about what they may say or think, because their turn will come. This is why we said that faith is not necessary, but good faith. Now, we ask whether our learned adversaries will always be in these conditions. They want the phenomena at their orders, but the Spirits do not obey their command: from these one must await their good will. It is not enough to say: show me such a fact and I will believe; one must have will and perseverance, allow the facts to be produced spontaneously, without wishing to force or to direct them. What you desire will be precisely what you will not obtain, but others will present themselves, and what you desire will probably come at the moment when you least expect it. To the eyes of the attentive and assiduous observer there arises a multitude of phenomena, which corroborate one another reciprocally. But he who imagines that it is enough to turn the crank to set the machine in motion is roundly mistaken. What does the naturalist do who wishes to study the habits of an animal? Does he order it to do this or that thing in order to give himself the pleasure of observing it at will, and according to his convenience? No, for he knows perfectly well that he will not be obeyed. Instead, he watches for the spontaneous manifestations of its instinct; he awaits them and surprises them in passing. Simple good sense shows us, with even stronger reason, that so it must be with the Spirits, who are intelligences far more independent than that of the animals.