On animals.

I.

There is one thing among you that always arouses your attention and curiosity. This mystery, for it is one, and a very great one for you, is the connection or, better said, the distance existing between your soul and that of the animals, a mystery that, despite all their science, Buffon, the most poetic of naturalists, and Cuvier, the most profound, were never able to penetrate, just as the scalpel does not lay out for you the anatomy of the heart in detail. Now, as you know, animals live, and everything that lives thinks. One cannot, therefore, live without thinking.

This being so, it remains to demonstrate to you that the more man advances, not according to time, but according to perfection, the more he will penetrate spiritual science, which applies not only to you, but also to the beings that are below you: the animals. Oh! some men will exclaim, convinced that the word man signifies all perfection: Can there be any possible parallel between man and the brute? Can you call intelligence what is no more than instinct? Feeling what is merely sensation? Can you, in a word, debase the image of God? We shall reply: there was a time when half of the human race was considered to be on the level of the irrational, when the animal counted for nothing; another time, now your own, in which half of the human race is regarded as inferior and the animal as a brute. And then? From the point of view of the world it is so, certainly; from the spiritual point of view it is completely different. What superior Spirits would say of earthly man, men say of the animals. Everything is infinite in Nature: the material as well as the spiritual. Occupy yourselves, then, a little with these poor irrational creatures, spiritually speaking, and you will see that the animal truly lives, since it thinks.

This serves as a preface to a short course I shall give you on the subject. Besides, when alive I had said that man's best company was the dog.

To be continued in the next issue.

Charlet.

On § I.

— You say: Everything that lives thinks; therefore one cannot live without thinking. Such a proposition seems to us somewhat absolute, for the plant lives and does not think. Do you admit this in principle?

Answer. – Without a doubt. I speak only of animal life and not of vegetable life, as you should well understand.

— Further on you say: You will see that the animal truly lives, since it thinks. Is there not an inversion in the sentence? It seems to us that the proposition is: You will see that the animal truly thinks, since it lives.

Answer. – This is evident.

II.

The world is an immense ladder, whose height is infinite, but whose base rests upon a horrendous chaos. I mean that the world is nothing but a constant progress of beings. You are very far down, always, but there will be many below you. For, hear me well, I speak not only of your planet, but also of all the worlds of the Universe. Do not fear, for we shall limit ourselves to the Earth.

Before that, however, two words about a world called Jupiter, of which the ingenious and immortal Palissy gave you some sketches, so strange and supernatural to your imagination. Do you remember that in one of those charming drawings he had presented to you some animals of Jupiter? Is there not an evident progress in them, and can you deny them a degree of superiority over the earthly animals? And in this do you see only a progress of form and not of intelligence, although the activity in which they are engaged could not be carried out by the animals of Earth? I cite you this example only to indicate that there already exists a superiority of beings that are far below you. What would it be if I were to enumerate for you all the worlds I know, that is, five or six? But, on Earth alone, see the difference existing among them! Well then! If the form is so varied, so progressive, that even in matter there is progress, can you deny the spiritual progress of these beings? Now, as you know, if matter progresses, even the most elementary, all the more so the Spirit that animates it. I shall continue next time.

Charlet.

Note. – In the issue of August 1858 we published a plate drawn and engraved by the Spirit of Bernard Palissy, representing Mozart's house on Jupiter, with a description of that planet, which has always been designated as one of the most advanced worlds of our solar vortex, morally and physically. The same Spirit gave a great number of drawings on the same subject. Among others, there is one representing a scene of animals, at work in the part reserved for them in the house of Zoroaster.

Undoubtedly, it is one of the most curious of the collection.

Among the animals depicted, there are some whose form comes quite close to the earthly human form, having at the same time something of the monkey and of the satyr. Their action denotes intelligence and one understands that their structure may lend itself to the manual labors they carry out for men. They are, as has already been said, the servants and the workers, for men occupy themselves only with the labors of intelligence. It is to this drawing, made more than three years ago, that Charlet alludes in the communication above.

On § II.

— You recall the drawing that was made of the animals of Jupiter. It is noted that there is a surprising analogy with the satyrs of fable. Might this idea of the satyrs be an intuition of the existence of these beings in other worlds and, in this case, would it not be a merely fantastic creation?

Answer. – The younger the world, the more it remembered. Man had the intuition of an order of intermediate beings, whether more backward than he, or more advanced. It is what he called the gods.

— Then you admit that the mythological divinities were nothing but what we call Spirits?

Answer. – Yes.

— We have been told that on Jupiter understanding is possible by the simple transmission of thought. When the inhabitants of that planet address the animals, which are their servants and workers, do they resort to a particular language? Would they have, for the animals, an articulate language and, among themselves, that of thought?

Answer. – No; there is no articulate language, but a kind of very intense magnetism that bends the animal and leads it to carry out the slightest wishes and orders of its masters. The all-powerful Spirit cannot lower itself.

— Among us the animals evidently have a language, since they understand one another, though a very limited one. Do those of Jupiter have a more precise, more positive language than ours? In a word, an articulate language?

Answer. – Yes.

— Do the inhabitants of Jupiter understand the language of the animals better than we do?

Answer. – They see through them and understand them perfectly.

— If we examine the series of living beings we shall find an uninterrupted chain, from the madrepore, the plant itself, to the most intelligent animal. But between the most intelligent animal and man there is an evident gap, which must be filled somewhere, for Nature leaves no empty links. Whence comes this gap?

Answer. – This gap among beings is only apparent; it does not exist in reality. It comes from vanished races. (Saint Louis).

— Such a gap may exist on Earth, but it certainly does not exist in the whole of the Universe and must be filled somewhere. Would it not be filled by certain animals of superior worlds which, like those of Jupiter, for example, seem to come very close to earthly man in form, in language and by other signs?

Answer. – In the superior spheres the germ arisen from the earth has developed and is never lost. Becoming Spirits, you will find again all the beings created and vanished in the cataclysms of your globe. (Saint Louis).

Observation. – Since these intermediate races existed on Earth and disappeared from it, what Charlet said a little earlier is justified, that the younger the world, the more it remembered. If these races had existed only in the superior worlds, the man of Earth, being less advanced, could not have kept the memory of them.

III.

In the advanced worlds the animals are so superior that, for them, the strictest order is given by the word, whereas among you, very often, it is given by blows of the club. On Jupiter, for example, a single word suffices, whereas among you whip-lashes are not enough. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable progress on your Earth, never explained: it is that the animal itself improves. Thus, in former times, the animal was much more rebellious to man. There is also progress on your part; for you have instinctively understood this improvement of the animals, since you forbid yourselves to strike them. I was saying that there is moral progress in the animal. There is also progress of condition. Thus, an unfortunate horse, whipped, wounded by a carter more brutish than itself, will be, comparatively, in a much more tranquil, happier condition than that of its tormentor. Is it not wholly just, and should we be astonished that an animal that suffers, that weeps, that is grateful or vengeful according to the gentleness or the cruelty of its masters, should be rewarded for having patiently endured a life filled with tortures? Above all, God is just and all His creatures are under His laws, and these say: “Every weak being that has suffered shall be rewarded.” Always comparatively to man, I mean, and I dare add, to conclude, that the animal, in many circumstances, has more soul and more heart than man. Charlet.

On § III.

— You say that everything improves and, as proof of the progress of the animal, you say that formerly it was more rebellious to man. It is evident that the animal improves, but, at least on Earth, it improves only through the care of man. Left to itself, it returns to its wild nature, even the dog.

Answer. – And through whose care does man improve? Is it not through God's? Everything is graduated in Nature.

— You speak of rewards for the animals that suffer ill-treatment and you say that it is wholly just that there be compensation for them. It seems, according to this, that you admit in the animal the consciousness of the self after death, with the recollection of its past. This is contrary to what we have been told. If things happened as you say, it would follow that in the spiritual world there would be Spirits of animals. Thus, there would be no reason why those of oysters should not exist. Can you say whether you see around you Spirits of dogs, cats, horses or elephants, as you see human Spirits?

Answer. – The soul of the animal – you are perfectly right – does not recognize itself after the death of the body; it is a confused aggregate of germs that may pass into the body of this or that animal, according to the development acquired. It is not individualized. I shall say, however, that in certain animals, and even among many, there is individuality.

— Moreover, this theory absolutely does not justify the ill-treatment of animals. Man is always guilty for making any sensitive being suffer, and the doctrine tells us that for this he will be punished. But from this to placing the animal in a position superior to him, there is a great distance. What do you think of this?

Answer. – Yes; nevertheless, you always establish a scale among the animals. You think there is distance between certain races. Man is the more guilty the more powerful he is.

— How do you explain that, even in the wild state, man makes himself obeyed by the most intelligent animal?

Answer. – It is chiefly nature that acts thus. The wild man is the man of Nature; he knows the animal familiarly; the civilized man studies the animal and the latter bows before him. Man is always man before the animal, whether wild or civilized.

IV.

The superiority of man is manifested on your globe by that elevation of intelligence which makes of him the king of the Earth. Beside man, the animal is very weak, very insignificant and, poor captive of this land of trial, it must often endure the cruel caprices of its tyrant: man! The ancient metempsychosis was a very confused memory of reincarnation, and yet this doctrine is no more than a popular belief. The great Spirits admitted progressive reincarnation. The ignorant mass, not understanding the Universe as they did, naturally said: Since man reincarnates, this can occur only on Earth; then his punishment, his Tartarus, his trial is life in the body of an animal; absolutely as in the Middle Ages the Christians said: It is in the great valley that the judgment will take place, after which the damned will go into the interior of the earth, to burn in its entrails. Believing in metempsychosis, the ancients believed, therefore, in spirits of animals, since they admitted the passage of the human soul into the bodies of animals. Pythagoras remembered his former existence and recognized the shield he had worn at the siege of Troy. Socrates died predicting his new life.

Since, as I told you, everything is progress in the Universe, since the laws of God are not and cannot be other than laws of progress, from the point of view in which you stand, from the point of view of your spiritualist tendencies, not to admit the progress of what is below man would be a contradiction, a proof of ignorance or of complete indifference.

Like man, the animal has what you call conscience, and which is nothing other than the sensation of the soul when it has done good or evil. Observe and see whether the animal does not give proof of conscience, always relatively to man. Do you believe that the dog does not know when it has done good or evil? If it did not feel it, it would not live. As I have already told you, the moral sensation, the conscience, in short, exists in it as much as in man; without this it would be to deny it the feeling of gratitude, the suffering, the sorrows, in short, all the characteristics of an intelligence, characteristics that any serious man can observe in all the animals, according to their various degrees, for, even among them, there are extraordinary diversities. Charlet.

V.

King of the Earth by intelligence, man is also a superior being from the material point of view. His forms are harmonious and, to make himself obeyed, his Spirit has an admirable organism: the body. Man's head is held high and looks at the sky, says Genesis. The animal looks at the Earth and, by the structure of its body, seems more bound to it than man. Moreover, the magnificent harmony of the human body does not exist in the animal. Observe the infinite variety that distinguishes them from one another, a variety that, however, does not correspond to their Spirit, because the animals — and I mean their immense majority — have, almost all, the same degree of intelligence. Thus, in the animal, variety of form; in man, on the contrary, variety of Spirit. Take two men who have similar tastes, aptitudes and intelligence; and take a dog, a horse, a cat, in a word, a thousand animals and you will scarcely notice a difference in their intelligence. The Spirit sleeps in the animal; in man it shines in every sense. His Spirit divines God and understands the reason for the being of perfection. Thus, then, in man, the simple harmony of form, the beginning of the infinite in the Spirit; and see now the superiority of man who dominates the animal, materially by his admirable structure and intellectually by his immense faculties. It seems that, in the animals, it pleased God to vary the form more, enclosing the Spirit, whereas, in man, He made of the very human body the material manifestation of the Spirit.

Equally admirable in these two creations, Providence is as infinite in the material world as in the spiritual. Man is to the animal as the flower and the whole vegetable kingdom are to raw matter.

In these few lines I wished to establish the place that the animal should occupy on the ladder of perfection. We shall see how it can raise itself comparatively to man.

Charlet.

On § V.

— (To Charlet) We have nothing to say about this paragraph, which seems to us very rational. Do you have anything to add?

Answer. – Only this: the animals have all the faculties I indicated, but in them progress is realized through the education they receive from man, and not by themselves. Left in the wild state, the animal returns to the type it had upon leaving the hands of the Creator. Subjected to man, it improves; that is all.

— This is perfectly certain for individuals and species. But if we consider the whole of the ladder of beings there is an evident ascending march, which does not stop at the animals of the Earth, for those of Jupiter are physically and intellectually superior to ours.

Answer. – Each race is perfect in itself and does not emigrate to foreign races. On Jupiter there are the same types, forming distinct races, but they are not the Spirits of the animals that have died.

— Then what becomes of the intelligent principle of dead animals?

Answer. – It returns to the mass from which each new animal extracts the portion of intelligence necessary to it. Now, it is chiefly this that distinguishes man from the animal. The Spirit is individualized in man and progresses by itself; it is this that gives him superiority over all the animals. This is why man, even when wild, as you have pointed out, makes himself obeyed even by the most intelligent animals.

VI.

How does the Spirit raise itself? By submission, by humility. What ruins man is the prideful reason that leads him to despise every subordinate, to envy every superior. Envy is the most vivid expression of pride; it is not the pleasure of pride, it is the sickly, incessant desire to be able to enjoy it. The envious are the proudest, when they become powerful. Look at the master of you all, the Christ, man par excellence, but in the highest phase of sublimity. The Christ, I say, instead of coming with audacity and insolence to overthrow the ancient world, comes to Earth to incarnate in a poor family and is born among the animals. For you will find everywhere these poor animals, at every instant, wherever man lives simply with Nature, in a word, thinking of God. He is born among the animals and these exalt His power in their so expressive, so natural and so simple language. See what material for reflection! The still inferior Spirit that animates them senses the Christ, that is, the Spirit in all its essence of perfection. Balaam, the false prophet, human pride in all its corruption, blasphemed against God and struck his animal. Suddenly the Spirit illuminates the still very vague Spirit of the ass and it speaks; for an instant it becomes equal to man and, by its word, it is what it will be in thousands upon thousands of years. We could cite many other facts, but this one seems to me quite admirable, in connection with what I affirmed about the pride of man, who denies even his soul, because he cannot understand it, and goes as far as the denial of feeling among the inferior beings, in the midst of which the Christ preferred to be born. Charlet.

On § VI.

— You give the story of Balaam as a positive fact. Seriously, what do you think of it?

Answer. – It is pure allegory or, better said, a fiction to scourge pride. They made Balaam's ass speak, as La Fontaine made many other animals speak.

VII.

I have entertained you for some time with what I had promised you. As I said at the outset, I did not speak from the anatomical or medical point of view, but solely of the spiritual essence that exists in animals. I shall still have to speak to you of many other points which, being quite different, are no less useful to the doctrine. Permit me one last recommendation, that of reflecting a little on what I have told you: it is neither lengthy nor pedantic and, believe me, it is no less useful for that. May the Good Shepherd one day, when He divides His sheep, count you among the good and excellent animals that have best followed His precepts. Forgive this somewhat lively image. Once again, you need to reflect on what I tell you. Besides, I shall continue to speak to you as long as you wish. I shall have to tell you something else next time, to define my thought on the intelligence of the animals. Wholly yours, Charlet.

VIII.

All that I can tell you at the moment, friends, is that I see with pleasure the line of conduct you follow. May charity, this virtue of truly frank and noble souls, always be your guide, for it is the sign of true superiority. Persevere in this path, which must necessarily lead you to truth and to unity, despite efforts whose force you do not suspect.

Modesty also is a gift very difficult to acquire; is it not, sirs? It is a virtue rather rare among men. Consider that to advance on the path of good, on the road of progress, you have only to use modesty. What would you be without God and without His divine precepts? A little less than these poor animals, of whom I have already spoken to you and about whom I intend to entertain you still. Gird your loins and prepare yourselves to struggle anew, but do not weaken. Consider that it is not against God that you struggle, like Jacob, but against the Spirit of evil, which invades everything and yourselves, at every instant.

What I have to tell you would be too long for this evening. I intend to explain to you the moral fall of the animals, after the moral fall of man. To conclude what I have already told you about the animals, I shall take as a title: The first ferocious man and the first animal made ferocious.

Beware of the evil Spirits. You do not suspect their force, I told you a little while ago: And although this last sentence has no relation to the preceding one, it is no less true and comes very much to the point. Now, reflect.

Charlet.

Observation. – The Spirit deemed it fitting to interrupt on that day the principal subject he had been treating, in order to make this incidental dictation, motivated by a particular circumstance, of which he wished to take advantage. We publish it nonetheless, for it contains very useful instructions.

IX.

When the first man was created, everything was harmony in Nature. The omnipotence of the Creator had placed in each being a word of goodness, of generosity and of love.

Man was radiant; the animals desired his celestial gaze and his caresses were the same for them and for his celestial companion. The vegetation was luxuriant. The Sun gilded and illuminated all Nature, just as the mysterious sun of the soul, a spark of God, illuminated inwardly the intelligence of man. In a word, all the kingdoms of Nature presented that infinite calm, which seemed to comprehend God. Everything seemed to have enough intelligence to exalt the omnipotence of the Creator. The cloudless sky was like the heart of man, and the limpid and blue water had infinite reflections, as the soul of man had the reflections of God.

Long afterward, everything seemed to change suddenly. Oppressed Nature exhaled a long sigh and, for the first time, the voice of God made itself heard. Terrible day of misfortune, in which man, who until then had heard nothing but the great voice of God, which in everything said to him: “Thou art immortal,” was terrified by these terrible words: “Cain, why hast thou slain thy brother?” [see Genesis, chapter 4.] Soon everything changed: the blood of Abel spread over all the Earth; the trees changed color; the vegetation, so rich and so colorful, withered; the sky became black.

Why did the animal become ferocious? An all-powerful, invincible magnetism, which then took hold of each being; the thirst for blood, the desire for slaughter shone in its eyes, formerly so gentle, and the animal became ferocious like man. Since man was the king of the Earth, should he not have set the example? The animal followed his example and from then on death hovered over the earth, a death that became hideous, instead of a gentle and spiritual transformation. The body of man was meant to disperse into the air, like the body of the Christ, and it dispersed into the earth, into that earth watered by the blood of Abel. And man labored, and the animal labored.

Charlet.

On § IX. [3]

— In this passage Charlet seems to have been carried away by his imagination, for the picture he draws of the moral degradation of the animal is more fantastic than scientific. In effect, the animal is ferocious only out of necessity, and it was to satisfy this necessity that Nature gave it a special organization. If some must nourish themselves on flesh, it is for a providential reason and because it was useful to the general harmony that certain organic elements be absorbed. The animal is, in this way, ferocious by constitution, and it would not be conceivable that the moral fall of man should have developed the canine teeth of the tiger and shortened its intestines, because, then, there would be no reason why the same should not have occurred with the sheep. Rather we say that man, being little advanced on Earth, finds himself with beings inferior in every respect, whose contact, for him, is a cause of disquiet, of sufferings and, consequently, a source of trials that aid his future progress. What does Charlet think of these reflections?

Answer. – I can only approve them. I was a painter, and not a man of letters or a scholar. This is why I let myself be carried away, from time to time, by the pleasure of writing beautiful phrases, a pleasure so new for me, even at the expense of truth. But what you say is very just and very inspired. In the picture I traced, I embroidered certain received ideas, in order not to offend any conviction. The truth is that the first ages were the age of iron, very far from the alleged sweetnesses. Discovering daily the treasures accumulated by the goodness of God, both in space and on Earth, civilization led man to the conquest of the true promised land, the one that God will grant to intelligence and to labor, and which He did not deliver adorned into the hands of the child-men, who were to discover it at the cost of their own intelligence. Besides, the error I committed could not be harmful in the eyes of enlightened persons, who would easily recognize it; for the ignorant it would pass unnoticed. Nevertheless, I agree that I erred; I acted thoughtlessly and this proves to you to what extent you must control the communications you receive. X.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION of Charlet's dissertations on the animals.

GENERAL OBSERVATION.

From the point of view of spirit science an important teaching emerges from these communications. The first thing that strikes the attention, upon reading them, is a mixture of just, profound ideas, which bear the mark of the observer, alongside others, evidently false and founded more on imagination than on reality. Undoubtedly, Charlet was a man above the common; but, as a Spirit, he is no more universal than he was in life and may be mistaken, because, not yet being elevated enough, he considers things only from his point of view. Besides, only the Spirits arrived at the last degree of perfection are exempt from errors; the others, however good they may be, do not know everything and may be deceived; but, when truly good, they do so in good faith and frankly agree, whereas the others do so knowingly and obstinately cling to the most absurd ideas. It is for this reason that we must guard ourselves against accepting everything that comes from the invisible world, without first submitting it to the control of logic. The good Spirits recommend it incessantly and are never offended by criticism, because, of two things one: either they are sure of what they say and, then, they fear nothing, or they are not sure and, if they are conscious of their insufficiency, they themselves seek the truth. Now, if men can instruct themselves with the Spirits, some Spirits can also instruct themselves with men. The others, on the contrary, want to dominate, hoping that their utopias will be accepted because of their condition as Spirits. Then, whether out of presumption on their part, or out of ill intention, they do not tolerate contradiction; they want to be believed on their word, because they know perfectly well that they will lose under examination. They take offense at the least doubt about their infallibility and haughtily threaten to abandon you, as unworthy to hear them. Thus, they like only those who prostrate themselves on their knees before them. Are there not men like this? And should we be astonished to find them with their extravagances in the world of the Spirits? In men, such a character is always, in the eyes of sensible persons, an indication of pride, of vain self-sufficiency, of foolish vanity and, therefore, of smallness of ideas and of false judgment. What would be a sign of moral inferiority in men, could not be a sign of superiority in the Spirits. As we have just seen, Charlet lends himself willingly to controversy; he listens and admits the objections, replying with benevolence; he develops what was obscure and loyally acknowledges what is not exact. In a word, he does not wish to pass for wiser than he is, and in this he proves more elevation than if he obstinately clung to false ideas, after the example of certain Spirits who are scandalized at the mere announcement that their communications seem susceptible of commentary.

What is still characteristic of these prideful Spirits is the kind of fascination they exercise over their mediums, by means of which they sometimes make them share the same sentiments. We say purposely their mediums, because they take hold of them and want in them instruments that act with their eyes closed. They would in no way accommodate themselves to a probing medium or one who saw very clearly. Does the same not occur also among men? When they find one, fearing that he might escape them, they inspire in him the avoidance of whoever might enlighten him. They isolate him in a certain manner, so as to be able to act with entire freedom, or they bring him near only to those from whom they have nothing to fear. And, to better capture his confidence, they make themselves out to be good apostles, usurping the names of venerated Spirits, whose language they seek to imitate. But, however much they may do, ignorance will never be able to simulate true knowledge, nor an evil nature true virtue. Pride will always show itself beneath the mantle of a false humility; and because they fear being unmasked, they avoid discussion and remove their mediums. There is no one who, judging coldly and without bias, would not recognize such an influence as evil, since it becomes evident to the most common good sense that a truly good and enlightened Spirit would never seek to exercise it. One may, therefore, say that every medium who submits to it is under the empire of an obsession, from which he ought to seek to disengage himself as soon as possible. What is wanted, above all, is not communications at any price, but good and true communications. Now, to obtain good communications, good Spirits are necessary, and to have good Spirits one must have good mediums, free from all evil influence. The nature of the Spirits who habitually assist a medium is, therefore, one of the first things to consider. To know it with exactness there is an infallible criterion, and it is not in the material signs, nor in the formulas of evocation or of conjuration that it will be found. This criterion lies in the sentiments that the Spirit inspires in the medium. By the manner in which the latter acts one may judge the nature of the Spirits who direct him and, consequently, the degree of confidence the communications deserve. This is not a personal opinion, a system, but a principle deduced from the most rigorous logic, if we admit this premise: an evil thought cannot be suggested by a good Spirit. Until it is proved that a good Spirit can inspire evil, we shall say that every act that departs from benevolence, from charity and from humility, or that denotes hatred, envy, jealousy, wounded pride or mere acrimony, can only be inspired by an evil Spirit, even though it should hypocritically preach the most beautiful maxims, for, if it were truly good, it would prove it by putting its acts in harmony with its words. The practice of Spiritism is surrounded by so many difficulties, the deceiving Spirits are so cunning, so artful and, at the same time, so numerous, that we could never arm ourselves with sufficient precautions to frustrate their plans. It is important, therefore, to search out with the greatest care the indications by which they may betray themselves. Now, these indications are, at the same time, in their language and in the acts they provoke. Having submitted these reflections to the Spirit of Charlet, here is what he said on the subject: “I can only approve what you have just said and exhort all who occupy themselves with Spiritism to follow such wise counsels, evidently dictated by good Spirits, but which are absolutely not, as you may well believe, to the taste of the evil ones, for these know very well that this is the most effective means of combating their influence. Thus, they do all they can to divert those whom they wish to entangle in their nets.”

Charlet said that he let himself be carried away by the pleasure, new for him, of writing beautiful phrases, even at the expense of truth. What would have happened if we had published his work without making commentary? They would have accused Spiritism of giving credit to ridiculous ideas and ourselves of not knowing how to distinguish the true from the false. Many Spirits are in the same case; they find a satisfaction for self-love in divulging, through the mediums – since they cannot do it by themselves – literary, scientific, philosophical or dogmatic works of great scope. But when these Spirits have only a false knowledge, they write absurd things, exactly as men would do. It is, above all, in these serialized works that we can judge them, since their ignorance makes them incapable of sustaining their role for long and they themselves reveal their insufficiency, clashing at every step with logic and reason. Through a quantity of false ideas there are, at times, some very good ones, which they use to get the others accepted. This incoherence only demonstrates their incapacity; they are masons who know how to align the stones of a construction, but who would be incapable of building a palace. It is, at times, curious to see the inextricable labyrinth of combinations and reasonings into which they venture, and from which they cannot emerge except by dint of sophisms and utopias. We have seen some who, by dint of expedients, abandoned the work, but others do not give themselves up for beaten and want to carry it through to the end, laughing at the expense of those who take them seriously. These reflections are suggested to us as a general principle and it would be an error to see in them any application whatever. Among the numerous writings published on Spiritism, no doubt some might give rise to well-founded criticism; but we do not put them all on the same line; we indicate a means of appreciating them and each one will do as he understands. If we have not yet undertaken to make an examination of them in our Review it is for fear that they might be mistaken about the motive of the criticism we might make. In this way, we preferred to wait until Spiritism should be better known and, above all, better understood. Thus our opinion, supported on a generally admitted basis, could not be suspected of partiality. What we hope for happens every day, for we see that in many circumstances the judgment of opinion runs ahead of our own. We have, therefore, only to applaud our reserve. We shall undertake this examination when we judge the moment opportune. But one may already see what will be the basis of our appreciation: this basis will be logic, of which each one may make his own use, for we do not entertain the foolish pretension of having the privilege of it. Logic, in effect, is the great criterion of every spirit communication, as it is of all human works. We know perfectly well that he who reasons in a mistaken manner believes himself to be logical. He is so in his own manner, but only for himself and not for others. When a logic is rigorous as two and two are four, and the consequences are deduced from evident axioms, the general good sense sooner or later does justice to all these sophisms. We believe that the following propositions have this character: 1st The good Spirits can teach and inspire only good; thus, everything that is not rigorously good cannot come from a good Spirit;

2nd The enlightened and truly superior Spirits cannot teach absurd things; thus, every communication tainted with manifest errors or contrary to the most common data of science and observation, attests by this alone the inferiority of its origin;

3rd The superiority of any writing lies in the justness and the depth of the ideas, and not in the material form and the redundancy of the style; thus, every spirit communication in which there are more brilliant words and phrases than consistent thoughts, cannot come from a truly superior Spirit;

4th Ignorance cannot imitate true knowledge, nor evil mimic good in an absolute manner; thus, every Spirit that, under a venerated name, says things incompatible with the title it attributes to itself, is guilty of fraud;

5th It is of the essence of an elevated Spirit to attach itself more to the thought than to the form and the matter, whence it is concluded that the elevation of a Spirit is in proportion to the elevation of the ideas; thus, every Spirit meticulous about the details of form, which prescribes puerilities, in a word, which attaches importance to signs and to material things, betrays, by this very fact, a smallness of ideas and cannot be truly superior;

6th A truly superior Spirit cannot contradict itself; thus, if two contradictory communications are given under one same respectable name, one of them is necessarily apocryphal; and if one is true, it will be the one that in no way belies the superiority of the Spirit whose name heads it.

The consequence to be drawn from these principles is that, outside of moral questions, one should not accept what comes from the Spirits except with reservations and, in all cases, never accept them without examination. From this follows the necessity of having the greatest circumspection in the publication of the writings emanating from this source, above all when, by the strangeness of the doctrines they contain, or by the incoherence of the ideas, they may lend themselves to ridicule. One must beware of the inclination of certain Spirits toward systematic ideas, and of the self-love they seek to spread. Thus, it is above all in scientific theories that there needs to be extreme prudence, guarding oneself against giving precipitately as truths systems sometimes more seductive than real, and which, sooner or later, may receive an official refutation. That they be presented as probabilities, if they are logical, and as being able to serve as a basis for ulterior observations, is admissible; but it would be imprudence to take them prematurely as articles of faith. A proverb says: Nothing is more dangerous than an imprudent friend. Now, such is the case of those who, in Spiritism, let themselves be carried away by a zeal more ardent than reflective. [1] [see Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet.]

[2] [The examination of Charlet's dissertations on the animals were gathered by the Codifier into the “Critical Examination” published right after the nine communications. To facilitate study, we placed Allan Kardec's analysis next to the articles dictated by Charlet, leaving only the “General Observation” for the end.]

[3] Translator's note: There is an evident inversion of letters. In reality Kardec refers to § IX (§ XI [of the original] does not exist).