The Legend of the Eternal Man

Spiritism has conquered its place among the beliefs; if for some writers it is a motive for mockery, it is to be noted that even among those who once ridiculed it, the derision has lowered its tone before the ascendancy of the opinion of the masses, limiting itself to citing, without comments, or with more measured restrictions, the facts that refer to it. Others, without positively believing in it, and even without knowing it thoroughly, judge the idea too important to turn it into a subject of works of imagination and fantasy. Such is, as it seems to us, the case of the work of which we speak. It is a mere novel, based on the Spiritist belief, presented from a serious point of view, but for which we can reproach some errors, arising, no doubt, from an incomplete study of the matter. The author who wishes to fantasize a historical subject must, above all, thoroughly penetrate himself with the truth of the fact, so as not to remain on the margin of history. Thus must do all the writers who wish to draw profit from the Spiritist idea, whether so as not to be accused of ignorance of what they speak, or so as to win the sympathy of the adherents, today numerous enough to weigh in the balance of opinion and to contribute to the success of every work that, directly or indirectly, concerns their beliefs. This reservation having been made from the point of view of perfect orthodoxy, the work in question will be no less read with much interest by the partisans, as by the adversaries of Spiritism, and we thank the author for the gracious homage he was pleased to make us of his book, called to popularize the new idea. We will cite the following passages, which deal more especially with the doctrine.

“At the time when M. Boursonne (one of the principal characters of the novel) had lost his wife, a mystical doctrine was spreading secretly, slowly, propagating itself in the shadow. It still counted few adherents, but it aspired to nothing less than to replace the various Christian cults. To become a powerful religion it lacks only persecution.

“This religion is Spiritism, so eloquently expounded by M. Allan Kardec in his remarkable work The Spirits’ Book. One of its most convinced adherents was the Count of Boursonne.

“I will add only a few words about this doctrine, in order that the unbelievers may understand that the mysterious power of the count was absolutely natural.

“The Spiritists recognize God and the immortality of the soul. They believe that the Earth is for them a place of transition and of trial. According to them, the soul is initially placed by God on a planet of inferior order. There it is enclosed in a more or less gross body, until it becomes purified enough to emigrate to a superior world. It is thus that, after long migrations and numerous trials, the souls arrive, at last, at perfection and are admitted into the bosom of God. It depends, then, on man to abridge his peregrinations and to arrive more promptly near the Lord, by improving himself rapidly.

It is a belief of Spiritism, a touching belief, that the more perfect souls can converse with the Spirits. Thus, according to the Spiritists, we can converse with the beloved beings we have lost, if our soul is perfected enough to hear them and to know how to make itself heard.

“It is, then, the improved souls, the more perfect men among us, who can serve as intermediaries between the common people and the Spirits; these agents, so ridiculed by skepticism, so admired and envied by the believers, are called, in Spiritist language, mediums.

“This having been explained once and for all, let us note in passing that the Spiritist Doctrine today counts its adherents by the thousands, especially in the great cities, and that the Count of Boursonne was one of the most powerful mediums.”

We have here a first serious error. If it were necessary to be perfect in order to communicate with the Spirits, very few would enjoy that privilege. The Spirits manifest themselves even to those who leave much to be desired, precisely in order to lead them, by their counsels, to improve themselves, according to these words of the Christ: “It is not the healthy who need a physician.” Mediumship is a faculty inherent in the organism, more or less developed according to individuals, which can be given to the most unworthy, as to the most worthy, the former risking being punished if he does not make use of it or abuses it. The moral superiority of the medium assures him the sympathy of the good Spirits and renders him apt to receive instructions of a higher order; but the facility of communicating with the beings of the invisible world, whether directly, or through third parties, is given to each one, with a view to his advancement. This is what the author would have known had he made a more profound study of the Spiritist science. “Modern science has proved that everything is linked together. Thus, in the material order, between the infusorian, the last of the animals, and man, who is its most elevated expression, there exists a chain of creatures, successively improved, as the geological discoveries prove to satiety. Now, the Spiritists ask themselves why the same harmony would not exist in the spiritual world; why a gap between God and man, as M. Le Verrier asked himself how a planet could be lacking in a given place of the sky, considering the harmonious laws that govern our incomprehensible and still unknown world.

“It was guided by the same reasoning that led the eminent director of the Paris Observatory to his marvelous deduction, that the Spiritists came to recognize immaterial beings between man and God, before having had the palpable proof, acquired later.

Here, likewise, there is another capital error. Spiritism was led to its theories by the observation of facts, and not by a preconceived system. The reasoning of which the author speaks was rational, no doubt, but it was not thus that things came to pass. The Spiritists concluded the existence of the Spirits because these manifested themselves spontaneously; they indicated the law that governs the relations between the visible and the invisible world, because they observed those relations; they admitted the progressive hierarchy of the Spirits because these showed themselves to them in all the degrees of advancement; they adopted the principle of the plurality of existences not only because the Spirits taught it to them, but because this principle results, as a law of Nature, from the observation of the facts we have under our eyes. In short, Spiritism has admitted nothing by way of prior hypothesis; everything in its doctrine is the result of experience. This is all that we have repeated many times in our works. [1]

One vol. in-12. Price: 3 francs. House of Dentu and at the Central Bookshop, boulevard des Italiens, no. 24. [La légende de l’homme éternel — Google Books.]