Progression of the terrestrial globe.

The progression of all things necessarily leads to transubstantiation, and spiritual mediumship is one of the forces of Nature that will more swiftly bring our planet there, because, like all worlds, it must undergo the law of transformation and of progress. Not only its human population, but all its mineral, vegetable, and animal productions, its gases and its imponderable fluids, must likewise perfect themselves and transform into more purified substances. Science, which has already worked upon this so interesting question of the formation of this world, has recognized that it was not created by a word, as Genesis says, in a sublime allegory, but that it underwent, over a long succession of centuries, transformations that produced mineral strata of diverse natures. Following the gradation of these strata, vegetable productions appear successively and multiply; later, traces of animals are found, which indicates that only at that period had organized bodies found the possibility of living. Studying the progression of animate beings, as was done with minerals and vegetables, one recognizes that these beings, at first mollusks, rose gradually in the animal scale and that their progression accompanied that of the productions and that of the purification of the soil; one notes, at the same time, the disappearance of certain species, once the physical conditions necessary to their life no longer exist. It was thus, for example, that the great saurians, amphibious monsters, and the giant mammals, of which today only the fossils are found, disappeared completely from the Earth, along with the conditions of existence that the floods had created for them. The deluges being one of the means of transformation of the Earth, they were almost general, that is, during a certain period, they caused a strong commotion in the globe and thus brought about different vegetable productions and atmospheric fluids. Like all organic beings, man appeared on the Earth when he could find there the conditions necessary to his existence. There ends the material creation that depends only on the forces of Nature; there begins the role of the Spirit incarnated in man for the work, for he must contribute to the common work; working for himself, man works for the general improvement. Thus, from the first races, we see him cultivating the earth, making it produce for his bodily needs and, in this way, provoking transformations in its soil, in its products, in its gases, and in its fluids. The more the Earth is populated, the more men work it, cultivate it, sanitize it, the more abundant and varied are its products; the purification of its fluids little by little leads to the disappearance of the vegetable and animal species poisonous and harmful to man, which can no longer subsist in an air too purified and too subtle for their organization, and which no longer provides them the elements necessary to their maintenance. The sanitary state of the globe has improved appreciably since its origin; but as it still leaves much to be desired, this is an indication that it will improve still further through the labor and the industry of man. It is not without purpose that he is impelled to settle in the most ungrateful and most unhealthful regions; he has already made habitable regions infested by filthy animals and deleterious miasmas; little by little the transformations he causes the soil to undergo will lead to complete purification. Through labor man learns to know and to direct the forces of Nature. One can follow in History the thread of the discoveries and conquests of the human spirit and their application made for his needs and satisfactions. But following this thread, one must also note that man has refined himself, dematerialized himself; and if one wishes to draw a parallel of the man of today with the first inhabitants of the globe, one will judge of the progress already accomplished; one will see that the more man progresses, the more he is stimulated to progress, and that progression is in proportion to the progress accomplished. Today progress marches at great speed, forcibly dragging along the laggards.

We have just spoken of physical, material, intelligent progress. But let us look at moral progress and the influence it must have upon the first.

Moral progress awakened at the same time as material development, but it was slower, because, man finding himself in the midst of an exclusively material creation, he had needs and aspirations in harmony with what surrounded him. Advancing, he felt the spiritual develop and grow within him, and, aided by the celestial influences, he began to understand the necessity of the intelligent direction of the Spirit over matter; moral progress continued its development and, at different epochs, advanced Spirits came to guide Humanity and to give a greater impulse to its ascending march; such are Moses, the prophets, Confucius, the sages of antiquity, and the Christ, the greatest of all, though the humblest on Earth. The Christ gave man a greater idea of his own worth, of his independence, and of his spiritual personality. But his successors being much inferior to him, they did not understand the grandiose idea that shines in all his teachings; they materialized what was spiritual; hence the kind of moral status quo at which Humanity halted. Scientific and intelligent progress continues its march; moral progress drags slowly along. Is it not certain that, since the Christ, if all those who professed his doctrine had practiced it, men would have spared themselves many evils and would today be morally more advanced? Spiritism comes to accelerate progress, unveiling to Humanity its destinies; and we already see its strength by the number of adherents and the ease with which it is understood. It is going to provoke an active moral transformation and, through the multiplicity of mediumistic communications, the heart and the Spirit of all the incarnate will be worked upon by the friendly and instructive Spirits. From this instruction a new scientific impulse will arise, for new paths will be opened to Science, which will direct its research toward the new forces of Nature that are revealing themselves; the human faculties that are already developing will develop still more through mediumistic work.

Welcomed at first by the tender souls inconsolable at the loss of relatives and friends, Spiritism was then welcomed by the unfortunate of this world, whose number is great, and who have been encouraged and sustained in their trials by its doctrine, at once so gentle and comforting; it thus spread rapidly, and many astonished unbelievers, who at first studied it out of curiosity, were convinced when, by themselves, they found in it hopes and consolations.

Today the learned begin to grow uneasy and some of them study it seriously and admit it as a natural force hitherto unknown; applying to it their intelligence and the knowledge already acquired, they will make Humanity take an immense scientific step.

But the Spirits do not limit themselves to scientific instruction; their duty is twofold and they must, above all, cultivate your morality. Alongside the studies of Science, they will make you, and already do so from now on, work upon your own self. The incarnate who are intelligent and desirous of progressing will understand that their dematerialization is the best condition for progressive study, and that their present and future happiness is bound to this.

[Without a name.]

Observation. – It is thus that the world, after having attained a certain degree of elevation in intellectual progress, is going to enter the period of moral progress, whose route Spiritism opens to it. This progress will be accomplished by the force of things and will naturally lead to the transformation of Humanity, through the broadening of the circle of ideas in their spiritual sense, and through the intelligent and reasoned practice of the moral laws taught by the Christ. The rapidity with which Spiritist ideas propagate in the very midst of the materialism that dominates our epoch is a sure indication of a prompt change in the order of things. The extinction of one generation suffices for this, for the one that rises already announces itself under entirely different auspices.