Death of Mr. Jobard, of Brussels.

Spiritism has just lost one of its most fervent and enlightened followers. Mr. Jobard, director of the Royal Museum of Industry of Brussels, officer of the Legion of Honor, member of the Academy of Dijon and of the Encouragement Society of Paris, died in Brussels of a stroke of apoplexy, on October 27, 1861, at 69 years of age. He was born in Baissey (Haute-Marne), on May 14, 1792. He had been, successively, engineer of the land registry, founder of the first lithography establishment in Belgium, director of the Industriel and of the Courrier belge, editor of the Bulletin de l’Industrie belge, of the Presse and, lately, of the Progrès international. The Parisian Society for Spiritist Studies had conferred upon him the title of honorary president. n Here is the assessment that the newspaper Siècle accorded him: “An original, fertile spirit, ready for paradox and for system, Mr. Jobard rendered real services to industrial technology and to the cause, so long abandoned, of intellectual property, of which he was an obstinate and, perhaps, excessive defender; his theories on the subject were formulated in his Monautopole, n in 1844. To this tireless polygraph is owed a quantity of writings and pamphlets on every possible subject, from Eastern psychism to the usefulness of fools in the social order. He also leaves piquant tales and fables. Among his numerous inventions figures the ingenious and economical one-person lamp, which figured in the universal exhibition of Paris, in 1855.” No newspaper, at least to our knowledge, spoke of what had been one of the most notable traits of the last years of his life: his entire adherence to the Spiritist Doctrine, whose cause he had embraced with ardor. It is hard for the adversaries of Spiritism to confess that men of genius, who cannot be charged with madness without one casting doubt upon one’s own reason, adopt these new ideas. For them, indeed, it is one of the most embarrassing points, of which they have never been able to give a satisfactory explanation, that the propagation of these ideas should take place first and by preference in the most enlightened class of society. Thus, they entrench themselves behind this banal axiom: genius is first cousin to madness; some go so far as to affirm, in good faith and without laughing, that Socrates, Plato, and all the philosophers and sages who professed similar ideas were nothing but madmen, especially Socrates, with his familiar demon. Indeed, is it possible to have common sense and to believe that one has a Spirit at one’s command? Thus, Mr. Jobard could find no favor before that areopagus which sets itself up as supreme judge of human reason, of which it claims to be the metric standard. It was, we were told, to spare the reputation of Mr. Jobard and out of respect for his memory that they passed over in silence this little defect of his spirit. Obstinacy in false ideas has never been regarded as proof of good sense. It is, moreover, pettiness, when it is owed to pride, which is the most common case. Mr. Jobard proved that he was, at the same time, a man of sense and of spirit, abjuring without hesitation his first theories on Spiritism, when it was demonstrated to him that he was not right.

It is known that in the first times, before experience had elucidated the question, various systems arose, each one explaining in its own manner these new phenomena. Mr. Jobard was a partisan of the system of the collective soul. According to this system, “only the soul of the medium manifests itself, although it identifies itself with that of several other living beings, present or absent, in such a way as to form a collective whole, gathering the aptitudes, the intelligence, and the knowledge of each one.” Of all the systems created in that era, how many have remained standing to this day? We do not know whether this one still counts a few partisans, but what is positive is that Mr. Jobard, who had advocated and exalted it, was one of the first to abandon it, when The Spirits’ Book appeared, to whose doctrine he attached himself frankly, as the various letters we have published from him attest.

Above all the doctrine of reincarnation had struck him like a burst of light. He said to us one day: “If I have skated so much in the labyrinth of philosophical systems, it is because I lacked a compass; I found only dead-end paths, which led to nothing; none gave me a decisive solution to the most important problems; however much I racked my brains, I felt that I lacked a key to arrive at the truth. Well then! this key is in reincarnation, which explains everything in a manner so logical, so conformable to the justice of God, that we naturally say to ourselves: Yes, it must be so.”

After his death, will Mr. Jobard have disparaged certain scientific theories which he had upheld during his life? Of this we shall speak in the next issue, in which we shall publish the conversations we held with him. Let us say, for now, that he showed himself promptly detached and that the perturbation lasted only a very short time. Like all the Spiritists who preceded him, he confirms on all points what has been told to us of the world of Spirits, finding himself there much better than on Earth, on which, nevertheless, he leaves sincere regrets in all those who were able to appreciate his eminent learning, his benevolence, and his affability. He was not one of those jealous scientists who bar the way to newcomers, whose merit casts a shadow over them. All those, on the contrary, to whom he extended his hand and opened the way, would suffice to form for him a fine procession. In short, Mr. Jobard was a man of progress, a tireless worker and a partisan of all ideas noble, generous, and apt to make Humanity advance. If his loss is lamentable for Spiritism, it is no less so for the arts and industry, which will inscribe his name in their annals. [1]

Jean-Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin Jobard. Author of Le nouvelles inentions — Google Books.

[2][Le Monautopole, ou Code Complémentaire d’Economie Sociale — Google Books, &c. (Par Jobard.) Broch. en 8. Bruxelles, 1845.]