Theory of planetary incrustation.

Our learned colleague Mr. Jobard, of Brussels, writes us the following, apropos of our article on the pre-Adamites, published in last month's Review:

“Allow me a few reflections on the creation of the world, with a view to rehabilitating the Bible in your eyes and in those of free-thinkers. God created the world in six days, four thousand years before the Christian era. This assertion the geologists contest, relying on the study of fossils and the thousands of incontestable marks of great age that make the origin of the Earth go back thousands of millions of years. Nevertheless, the Scripture spoke the truth, and so did the geologists. And it was a simple peasant who brought them into agreement, teaching that our globe is nothing but an incrustative planet, very modern, composed of very ancient materials.

“After the carrying off of the unknown planet, which had reached maturity, or in harmony with what existed in the place we occupy today, the soul of the Earth received the order to gather its satellites, in order to form the present Earth, according to the rules of progress in all things and through all things. Only four of these heavenly bodies agreed to the association proposed to them. The Moon alone persisted in its autonomy, since globes too have their free will. To carry out this fusion, the soul of the Earth directed at the satellites an attractive magnetic ray, which placed in a cataleptic state all the vegetable, animal, and human furnishing they possessed and which they brought to the community. The operation had as its only witnesses the soul of the Earth and the great celestial messengers who helped it in this great work, opening those globes to give them common entrails. The welding done, the waters flowed away into the voids that the absence of the Moon had left, from which one had the right to expect a better appreciation of its interests.

“The atmospheres merged, and there began the awakening or the resurrection of the germs that were in catalepsy. Man was the last to be drawn out of the state of hypnotism and found himself surrounded by the luxuriant vegetation of the terrestrial paradise and by the animals grazing peacefully around him. You will have to grant that all this could be done in six days, with workers as powerful as those whom God had charged with the task. The planet Asia brought the yellow race, that of the most ancient civilization; Africa the black race; Europe the white race; and America the red race. The Moon would certainly have brought us the green or blue race.

“Thus, certain animals, of which only the remains are found, would never have lived on the present Earth, but would have been transported from other worlds broken up by old age. The fossils, found in climates under which they could not have existed in this world, lived no doubt in very different zones on the globes where they were born. Such remains on the Earth are found at the poles, whereas they lived at the equator of the globes to which they belonged. And then those enormous masses, whose possibility of existence we cannot conceive in the air, lived at the bottom of the seas, under the pressure of a medium that made locomotion easy for them. The future risings of the seas will bring us other remains, many other germs that will awaken from their long lethargy to show us unknown species of plants, of animals, and of natives, contemporaries of the deluge, and you will be greatly astonished to discover, in the midst of the vast ocean, new islands, peopled with plants and animals that can come from nowhere, neither transported by the winds nor by the waves.

“Our science, which finds the Bible mistaken, will end by restoring to it its esteem, as it was forced to do apropos of the rotation of the Earth, for it is not a matter of error in the Bible, but of those who do not understand it. Here is the proof:

“Joshua stopped the Sun, saying to it: Sta, sol. Now, ever since then it has been stopped, for nowhere do you find that he ordered it to turn again; and if, since the defeat of the Amalekites, night continues to follow day, one must admit that the Earth turns. So it is not Galileo, but the inquisitors, who deserved to be censured for not having taken the Bible literally.

“The existence of the biblical unicorn was likewise denied, and two have just been killed in the mountains of Tibet. The apparition of the specter of Saul was denied, and, thank God, you are on the point of convincing the deniers. Let us always remember this warning of the Scriptures: Noli esse incredulus sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus. [Be not as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding.]

“Cordial and respectful greetings to the author of the Ethnography of the Spirit World.

Jobard.

The theory of the formation of the Earth by the incrustation of several planetary bodies has already been given by certain Spirits at various times, through mediums who were strangers to one another. We do not make ourselves adepts of this doctrine, which we confess has not yet been sufficiently studied for us to pronounce upon it, but we recognize that it deserves serious examination. The reflections it suggests to us are no more than hypotheses, until more positive data come to confirm or refute them. While we wait, it is a marker that may open the way to great discoveries and guide the search. Perhaps scientists will one day find, in this theory, the solution to more than one problem.

But – certain critics will say – do you not have confidence in the Spirits, since you doubt their assertions? How can intelligences freed from matter remove all the doubts of Science and project light where obscurity reigns?

This is a very grave question, which is connected with the very foundation of Spiritism, and which we could not resolve at this moment without repeating what we have already said on the subject. We shall therefore add only a few words, in order to justify our reservations. To begin with, we shall reply that we would become learned with great ease if we cared only to question the Spirits in order to know all that we are ignorant of. Since God wills that we acquire knowledge through work, for that very reason He did not charge the Spirits with bringing it to us ready-made and finished, indulging our laziness. In the second place, Humanity, like individuals, has its infancy, its adolescence, its youth, and its manhood. The Spirits, charged by God with instructing men, must therefore provide them with teachings for the development of the intelligence; they will not tell everything to everyone, waiting, before sowing, until the ground is ready to receive the seed that will make it bear fruit. This is why certain truths that are taught to us today were not taught to our fathers, who also questioned the Spirits; this is why the truths for which we are not yet ripe will be taught only to those who come after us. Our mistake lies in believing ourselves arrived at the top of the ladder, when we are only halfway along the road. Let us say, in passing, that the Spirits have two ways of instructing men. They can do it either by communicating directly, which has occurred in all ages, as all sacred and profane histories prove, or by incarnating among them, to carry out missions of progress. Such are those men of goodness and of genius who appear from time to time, like torches for Humanity, making it advance a few steps. See what happens when these same men come before the time propitious for the ideas they are to spread: they are unknown in life, but their teachings are not lost. Deposited in the archives of the world, like a precious grain set in reserve, one fine day it rises from the dust, at the moment when it can bear fruit.

From that point, it is understood that, if the time required to disseminate certain ideas has not yet come, it will be in vain that we question the Spirits. They can say only what is permitted them. But there is also another reason, perfectly understood by all who have some experience of the spirit world.

It is not enough to be a Spirit in order to possess universal science; otherwise, death would make us almost equal to God. Besides, simple good sense refuses to admit that the Spirit of a savage, of an ignorant man, or of a wicked man, once freed from matter, is on the level of the wise man or the man of goodness. This would not be rational. There are, then, advanced Spirits, and others more or less backward, who must surmount various stages and pass through numerous sieves before stripping themselves of all their imperfections. From this it results that in the world of Spirits are found all the moral and intellectual varieties existing among men, and others besides. Now, experience proves that the wicked communicate as well as the good. Those who are frankly wicked are easily recognizable; but there are also, among them, half-learned ones, false sages, the presumptuous, the systematic, and even hypocrites. These are the most dangerous, because they affect an appearance of gravity, of wisdom, and of science, in favor of which they enunciate, amid some truths and good maxims, the most absurd things. And, the better to deceive, they do not fear to adorn themselves with the most respectable names. To separate the true from the false, to discover the deceit hidden in a display of fine words, to unmask the impostors—this is, beyond contradiction, one of the greatest difficulties of the spiritist science. To overcome it, a long experience is necessary, to know all the cunning of which the Spirits of low class are capable, to have much prudence, to see things with the most imperturbable coolness, and, above all, to guard against the enthusiasm that blinds. With habit and a little tact, one easily comes to unmask them, even beneath the emphasis of the most pretentious language. But woe to the medium who believes himself infallible, who deludes himself with the communications he receives: the Spirit that dominates him can fascinate him to the point of making him find sublime what is often merely absurd and leaps to the eyes of all, save his own. Let us return to the subject. The theory of the formation of the Earth by incrustation is not the only one that has been given by the Spirits. In which to believe? This proves that, outside of morality, which admits no two interpretations, the scientific theories of the Spirits should be accepted only with the greatest reservations, because, once more, they are not charged with bringing us finished science; they are far from knowing everything, above all with regard to the principle of things; finally, one must distrust the systematic ideas that some of them seek to make prevail, to which they have no scruple in attributing a divine origin. If we examine these communications coolly, without prejudice; if we weigh maturely all the words, we shall easily discover the traces of a suspect origin, incompatible with the character of the Spirit supposed to be speaking. They are, at times, scientific heresies so patent that one would have to be blind or very ignorant not to perceive them. Now, how to admit that a superior Spirit could commit such absurdities? At other times they are trivial expressions, ridiculous, puerile forms, and a thousand other signs that betray inferiority, to whoever is not fascinated. What man of good sense would believe that a doctrine contrary to the most positive data of science could emanate from a learned Spirit, even though it bore the name of Arago? How to believe in the goodness of a Spirit who gives counsels contrary to charity and benevolence, even though they be signed by an apostle of beneficence? We say more: there is profanation in mixing venerated names with communications bearing evident traces of inferiority. The more elevated the names, the more they must be received with circumspection, and the more one must fear being the plaything of a mystification. In short, the great criterion of the teaching given by the Spirits is logic. God gave us the capacity to judge and the reason to make use of them; the good Spirits recommend them to us, in this giving us a proof of superiority. The others guard against it: they wish to be believed upon their word, for they know very well that in examination they have everything to lose. As may be seen, we have many reasons not to accept lightly all the theories given by the Spirits. When one arises, we limit ourselves to the role of observer; we make abstraction of its spirit origin, without letting ourselves be fascinated by the luster of pompous names; we examine it as if it emanated from a simple mortal, and we see whether it is rational, whether it accounts for everything, whether it resolves all the difficulties. It was thus that we proceeded with the doctrine of reincarnation, which we had adopted, though it came from the Spirits, only after having recognized that it alone, and it alone, could resolve what no philosophy had ever resolved, and this leaving aside the material proofs that are daily given, to us and to many others. The contradictors matter little to us, then, even though they be Spirits. Since it is logical, in conformity with the justice of God; since they cannot replace it with anything more satisfactory, we are no more troubled than by those who affirm that the Earth does not turn around the Sun—inasmuch as there are Spirits who believe themselves learned—or who claim that man came completely formed from another world, transported on the back of a winged elephant. Still less do we agree with the point of view of the formation and, above all, of the peopling of the Earth. This is why we said, at the outset, that for us the question was not sufficiently elucidated. Considered from the exclusively scientific point of view, we say only that, at first sight, the theory of incrustation did not seem to us devoid of foundation, and, without pronouncing ourselves for or against, we say there is matter in it for examination. Indeed, if we study the physiological characters of the different human races, it is not possible to attribute to them a common origin, because the black race is not a degeneration of the white race. Now, adopting the letter of the biblical text, which makes all men descend from the family of Noah, two thousand four hundred years before the Christian era, it would be necessary to admit not only that in a few centuries this single family had peopled Asia, Europe, and Africa, but that it had transformed itself into blacks. We know perfectly well the influence that climate and habits can exert upon the economy [the organism]. A burning sun reddens the epidermis and darkens the skin, but nowhere has it been seen, even under the most intense tropical heat, that white families have begotten blacks, without a crossing of races. For us, therefore, it is evident that the primitive races of the Earth proceed from different origins. What is the principle? This is the question, and, until concrete proofs, it is not permitted to make anything but conjectures on the subject. It belongs, then, to the learned to see which of them best agree with the facts established by Science. Without examining how the joining and welding of several planetary bodies to form our present globe was possible, we must recognize that the fact is not impossible, and, from that point, there would be explained the simultaneous presence of heterogeneous races, so different in customs and in languages, of which each globe would have brought the germs or the embryos; and, who knows? perhaps completely formed individuals. In this hypothesis the white race would proceed from a world more advanced than the one that would have brought the black race. In any case, the joining would not have been effected without a general cataclysm, which would have left only a few individuals subsisting. Thus, according to this theory, our globe would be at once very ancient by its constituent parts, and very new by its agglomeration. As may be seen, such a system in no way contradicts the geological periods which, thus, would go back to an indeterminate epoch anterior to the joining. Be that as it may, and whatever Mr. Jobard may say, if things happened thus it seems difficult that such an event could have taken place, and, above all, that the equilibrium of such a chaos could have established itself in six days of twenty-four hours. The movements of inert matter are subject to eternal laws, which cannot be derogated save by miracles. It remains for us to explain what is to be understood by the soul of the Earth, since it can enter no one's head to attribute a will to matter. The Spirits have always said that some among them have special attributions. Agents and ministers of God, they direct, according to their degree of elevation, the facts of the physical order, as well as those of the moral order. Just as some watch over individuals, of whom they constitute themselves familiar or protecting genii, others take under their patronage assemblies of individuals, groups, cities, peoples, and even worlds. By soul of the Earth, then, one must understand the Spirit, called by his mission to direct it and to make it progress, having under his orders innumerable legions of Spirits charged with watching over the realization of his designs. The directing Spirit of a world must necessarily be of a superior order, and so much the more elevated as that world is more advanced.

If we have insisted upon several points that might seem foreign to the subject, it was precisely because it is a matter of an eminently controverted scientific question. It is important that it be well established, for those who judge things without knowing them, that Spiritism is far from taking as an article of faith all that comes from the invisible world; thus, as they claim, it does not rest upon a blind belief, but upon reason. If all its partisans do not keep the same circumspection, the fault will not be the science's, but that of those who do not take the trouble to deepen it. Now, it would not be more logical to judge the exaggeration of some than to condemn religion by the opinion of fanatics.

[1] Translator's note: See Genesis, by Allan Kardec, chapter VIII: Theory of incrustation.