Miracles.

— Under the title A Miracle, Mr. Mathieu, a former pharmacist of the Army, has just published an account of several facts of direct writing of which he was a witness. Considering that such facts occurred in circumstances more or less identical to those we reported in our issue of the month of August [Pneumatography or direct writing], and presenting no special characteristic, we deemed it best not to describe them. Nevertheless, we mention them solely to show that the Spiritist phenomena are not the exclusive privilege of anyone, and to take the occasion to congratulate Mr. Mathieu on the zeal with which he propagates them. Several other small pamphlets and articles by the same author, in various newspapers, are proof of this. Mr. Mathieu is a man of science who, like so many others and like ourselves, passed through the ranks of incredulity. He found himself, however, obliged to yield before the evidence, since against facts one must lay down one's arms. We allow ourselves only to criticize the title given to his latest publication, not as a matter of wordplay, but because we believe the subject has a certain importance and deserves serious examination. In its primitive acceptation and by its etymology, the word miracle means an extraordinary thing, a thing admirable to see; but this word, like so many others, departed from its original sense and, according to the Academy, is today said of an act of divine power, contrary to the common laws of Nature. Such is, indeed, its usual acceptation, and it is only by comparison and by metaphor that it is applied to common things that surprise us and whose cause is unknown.

Does the phenomenon reported by Mr. Mathieu have the character of a miracle, in the true sense of the word? Certainly not. As we have already said, the miracle is a derogation of the laws of Nature. It in no way enters into our consideration to examine whether God judged it useful, in certain circumstances, to derogate from the laws established by Himself; our aim is solely to demonstrate that the phenomenon of direct writing, however extraordinary it may be, in no way derogates from those laws, nor possesses any miraculous character. The miracle is not explained; direct writing, on the contrary, is explained in the most rational manner, as we saw in our article on this subject. It is not, then, a matter of a miracle, but of a simple phenomenon that has its reason for being in the general laws. The miracle has yet another character: that of being unusual and isolated. Now, as soon as a fact is reproduced, so to speak, at will and by various persons, there can no longer be a miracle. In the eyes of the ignorant, Science performs miracles every day. This is why in former times those who knew more than the common folk passed for sorcerers; and since it was believed that all science came from the devil, they were burned. Today, now that we are much more civilized, we content ourselves with sending them to the asylums. After we have let the inventors die of hunger, we erect statues to them and proclaim them benefactors of Humanity. But let us leave these sad pages of our history and return to the subject. If a man, who is truly dead, were called back to life by divine intervention, there would be a true miracle, this being a fact contrary to the laws of Nature. But if in such a man there were only the appearances of death, if some latent vitality remained in him and Science, or a magnetic action, succeeded in reviving him, for enlightened persons a simple natural phenomenon will have taken place, but for the ignorant common folk, the fact will pass for miraculous and the author will be stoned or venerated, according to the character of the persons. Let a physicist launch, from the midst of certain fields, an electric kite and cause the lightning to fall upon a tree, and certainly this new Prometheus will be held to be armed with diabolical power; and let it be said in passing, Prometheus seems to have singularly anticipated Franklin. Direct writing is one of the phenomena that demonstrate in the most evident manner the action of the hidden intelligences; but by the fact of being produced by hidden beings it is no more miraculous than all the other phenomena due to invisible agents, because these hidden beings who people space are one of the powers of Nature, whose action is incessant upon the material world, as much as upon the moral world. Enlightening us about this power, Spiritism gives us the key to a host of things inexplicable by other means. Like magnetism, it reveals a law, if not unknown, at least poorly understood; or rather, the effects were known, since they were produced in all times, but the law was not known, and it was precisely the ignorance of this law that engendered superstition. Once the law is known, the marvelous ceases and the phenomena enter into the order of natural things. This is why the Spiritists do not perform miracles when they make a table turn or the dead write, just as the physician does not, when he revives a dying man, nor the physicist, when he makes the lightning fall. This is the reason why we repel with all our strength the qualification employed by Mr. Mathieu, although we are persuaded that he did not wish to give any mystical sense to this word; moreover, the persons who do not descend to the bottom of things — and these are the greater number — might be mistaken and believe that the adepts of Spiritism attribute to themselves a supernatural power. Anyone who claimed, aided by this science, to work miracles would either be ignorant of the subject or a true simpleton. It is useless to give arms to those who laugh at everything, even at that which they do not know, for this would be to deliver oneself voluntarily to ridicule.

The Spiritist phenomena, like the magnetic phenomena, before their cause was known, were held to be prodigies. Now, like the skeptics, the strong-minded, that is to say, those who believe they hold the exclusive privilege of reason and good sense, do not believe that a thing is possible by the fact of not understanding it; this is why all the facts reputed prodigious are the object of mockery; and since religion contains a great number of facts of this kind, they do not believe in it. From there to absolute incredulity there is only one step.

By explaining the majority of these facts, Spiritism gives them a reason for being. It comes, therefore, to the aid of religion, demonstrating the possibility of certain facts that, no longer having the miraculous character, are nonetheless no less extraordinary, and God is no smaller nor less powerful for not having derogated from His laws.

Of how many jests were the levitations of Saint Cupertino not the object? Now, the etheric suspension of heavy bodies is a fact demonstrated and explained by Spiritism; we ourselves were an eyewitness, and Mr. Home, as well as other persons of our acquaintance, repeated several times the phenomenon produced by Saint Cupertino; therefore, this phenomenon enters into the order of natural things. Among the facts of this kind one must place in the first rank the apparitions, as being the most frequent. The apparition of Salette, which divides the clergy itself, has for us nothing unusual. Certainly we cannot affirm that the fact occurred, because we do not have material proof of it; but for us it is possible, since thousands of recent analogous facts are known to us; we believe in them not only because their reality is verified by us, but, above all, because we know perfectly the manner in which they are produced. Refer to the theory we gave of apparitions and you will see that this phenomenon becomes as simple and as plausible as a host of physical phenomena, which are considered prodigious only because we lack possession of their key. As for the person who presented herself at Salette, that is another question; her identity is in no way demonstrated. We verify only that an apparition occurred; the rest is not within our competence. Our objective, likewise, is not to examine whether God can derogate from His laws by performing miracles, in the true sense of the word; this is a question of theology that does not enter into our considerations. Let each one, therefore, keep his convictions in this regard, for Spiritism has no reason to occupy itself with this; we say only that the facts produced by Spiritism reveal to us new laws and give us the key to a multitude of things that seemed supernatural. If some of them, which passed for miraculous, found a logical explanation and a reason for being in Spiritism, this is one more motive for us not to hasten to deny that which we do not understand. Certain persons criticize us for setting forth Spiritist theories that they consider premature. They forget that the facts of Spiritism are contested by many precisely because they seem to depart from the common law and because they are not explained. Give them a rational basis and the doubt will cease. Tell someone, purely and simply, that you will dispatch a telegram from Paris to America, receiving the reply in a few minutes, and that someone will laugh in your face. Explain the mechanism of the process and he will believe, even without seeing the operation. In this century in which words are not spared, the explanation is, then, a powerful motive of conviction; thus, we see every day persons who have witnessed no fact, who have not seen a table turn, nor a medium write, and who find themselves as convinced as we are, solely because they have read and understood. If we were to believe only in that which we have before our eyes, our convictions would be reduced to very little.

OBSERVATIONS REGARDING THE WORD MIRACLE.

[Spiritist Review of November 1859.]

Mr. Mathieu, whom we cited in our article of the month of October, concerning miracles, addresses to us the following complaint, which we hasten to attend to:

“Sir, “If I do not have the advantage of being in agreement with you on all points, at least I am so in that which you had occasion to say of me in the last issue of your newspaper. Thus, I greatly appreciate your observation relative to the word miracle. If I made use of it in my booklet, I took care to say at the same time (p. 4): ‘Convinced that the word miracle expresses a fact produced outside the known laws of Nature; a fact that escapes all human explanation, all scientific interpretation.’ I supposed thus to indicate sufficiently that I attributed to this word only a relative and conventional value; it seems that I was mistaken, for you took the trouble to censure me.

“In any case, I count on your impartiality, sir, so that these brief lines, which I have the honor of addressing to you, may find a place in your next issue. I do not feel offended; let your readers know that I did not wish to attribute to the word in question the sense that you censure in it. There was clumsiness on my part, or misunderstanding on yours, perhaps a little of one and of the other.

“Receive, etc.

Mathieu.”

As we said in our article, we were perfectly convinced of the sense in which Mr. Mathieu had employed the word miracle; thus, our criticism was in no way aimed at his opinion, but at the use of the word, even in its most rational acceptation. There are so many persons who see only the surface of things, without taking the trouble to deepen them — which does not prevent them from judging as if they knew them — that such a title, given to a Spiritist fact, could be taken literally, in good faith by some, with malevolence by the greater number. Our observation in this regard is all the more well-founded when we remember having read somewhere, in a newspaper whose name escapes us, an article where those who enjoy the faculty of provoking the Spiritist phenomena were classified, by way of mockery, as workers of miracles, and this concerning a very zealous adept, who himself was convinced he was producing them. It is the case to recall that nothing is more dangerous than an imprudent friend. Our adversaries are very impetuous in leading us to ridicule, without our having offered them any pretext.