Precocious incendiary monomania.

— One reads in the Salut public of Lyon, of February 23, 1866:

“The medico-legal question of homicidal monomania and incendiary monomania, says the Moniteur judiciaire, has been raised and will, in all probability, still be raised many times before the tribunals and the courts of appeal.

“With regard to incendiary monomania, we may cite a child of Lyon, currently four and a half years old, son of honest silk workers domiciled in Guillotière, who seems to bring with him, to the highest degree, the instinct of arson. As soon as his eyes opened to the light, the sight of flames seemed to delight him. At eighteen months he took pleasure in lighting matches; at two years he set fire to the four corners of a mattress and partly destroyed the modest furniture of his parents. Today, to the reprimands made to him, he answers only with threats of fire, and only last week he was attempting, with a little straw and pieces of paper, to set fire to the alcove where his parents sleep. “Let us leave to the specialists the task of researching the causes of such a monomania. If it did not disappear with age, what fate would be reserved for the unfortunate one stricken by it?”

— The author of the article says that he leaves to the specialists the task of researching the causes of such a monomania. Of what specialists does he wish to speak? Of physicians in general, of alienists, of scholars, of phrenologists, of philosophers, or of theologians? Each of them will face the question from the point of view of his materialist, spiritualist, or religious beliefs. The materialists, denying every intelligent principle distinct from matter, are incontestably the least apt to resolve it in a complete manner. Making the organism the sole source of the faculties and tendencies, they reduce man to a machine fatally moved by an irresistible force, without free will and, consequently, without moral responsibility for his acts. With such a system, every criminal can excuse himself by his constitution, for it did not depend on him to make it better. In a society where such a principle were admitted as absolute truth, there would be no guilty parties, morally speaking, and it would be as illogical to bring men to justice as to bring animals. We speak here only of the social consequences of materialist doctrines; as for their impotence to resolve all moral problems, that is sufficiently demonstrated. Will it be said, with some, that the tendencies are hereditary, like the defects of constitution? One would oppose to them the innumerable facts in which the most virtuous parents have instinctively vicious children, and reciprocally. In the case that occupies us, it is notorious that the child did not inherit his incendiary monomania from any member of the family. No doubt the spiritualists will recognize that this tendency is due to an imperfection of the soul or Spirit, but they will not fail to be stopped by insurmountable difficulties, with only the elements possessed today. And the proof that the present data of Science, of Philosophy, and of Theology furnish no solid principle for the solution of problems of this nature is that there is not a single one evident enough, sufficiently rational, to rally the majority, and that one is reduced to individual opinions, all divergent from one another. The theologians who admit as an article of faith the creation of the soul at the birth of each body are, perhaps, the most embarrassed to reconcile these native perversities with the justice and goodness of God. According to their doctrine, here, then, is a child conceived with the incendiary instinct, vowed, from his very formation, to crime and to all its consequences, for the present life and for the future life! Since there are instinctively good and bad children, did God then create good souls and bad ones? That is the logical consequence. Why this partiality? With the materialist doctrine the guilty one excuses himself by his organization; with that of the Church, he can cling to God, saying that it is not his fault if He created him with defects. Is it to be wondered at that there are persons who deny God when He is shown to them as unjust and cruel in His acts, partial toward His creatures? It is the manner in which most religions represent Him that makes the unbelievers and the atheists. If He had always been depicted in a way reconcilable in all points with reason, there would be no unbelievers; it is because they cannot accept Him such as they make Him that so many people seek outside of Him the explanation of things.

Every time that Theology, pressed by the inexorable logic of facts, finds itself at an impasse, it takes refuge behind these words: “Incomprehensible mystery!” Well then! Every day we see a corner of the veil being lifted from what was once a mystery, and the question that occupies us is among that number.

This question is far from being puerile, and it would be an error to see in it only an isolated fact, or, if one prefers, an anomaly, a bizarre quirk of Nature, without consequence. It touches upon all the questions of education and moralization of Humanity and, for that very reason, upon the gravest problems of social economy [organization]. It is by researching the first cause of the innate instincts and inclinations that the most efficacious means of combating the bad ones and developing the good ones will be discovered. When this cause is known, education will possess the most powerful moralizing lever it has ever had. One cannot deny the influence of environment and example on the development of good and bad instincts, because moral contagion is as manifest as physical contagion. Yet this influence is not exclusive, for one sees perverse beings in the most honorable families, while others come pure out of the mire. There are, then, incontestably, innate dispositions, and if we had any doubt, the fact that occupies us would be an irrefutable proof of it. Thus, here is a child who, before knowing how to speak, took pleasure at the sight of destruction by fire; who, at two years, voluntarily set fire to furniture, and who, at four years, understands so well what he is doing that he answers reprimands with threats of fire. O all of you, physicians and scholars who research with such avidity the slightest unusual pathological cases, in order to make of them an object of your meditations, why do you not study with the same care those strange phenomena which one may, with reason, qualify as moral pathology! Why do you not acquaint yourselves with them, nor discover their source! By this Humanity would gain at least as much as by the discovery of a nerve filament. Unfortunately, the majority of those who do not disdain to occupy themselves with these questions do so starting from a preconceived idea, to which they wish to subject everything: materialism to the exclusive laws of matter, spiritualism to the idea it forms of the nature of the soul, according to its beliefs. Before concluding, the most sensible course is to study all the systems, all the theories, with impartiality, and to see which resolves best and most logically the greatest number of difficulties. The diversity of innate intellectual and moral aptitudes, independent of education and of all acquisition in the present life, is a notorious fact: it is the known. Starting from this fact to arrive at the unknown, we shall say that if the soul is created at the birth of the body, it becomes evident that God creates souls of all qualities. Now, such a doctrine being irreconcilable with the principle of sovereign justice, it must of necessity be set aside. But if the soul is not created at the birth of the individual, then it existed before. Indeed, it is in the pre-existence of the soul that one finds the only possible and rational solution of the question and of all the apparent anomalies of the human faculties. The children who instinctively have transcendent aptitudes for an art or a science, who possess certain knowledge without having learned it, like the natural calculators, like those to whom music, at birth, seems familiar; those born linguists, like a lady of whom we shall later have occasion to speak and who, at nine years, gave lessons in Greek and Latin to her brothers, and at twelve read and translated Hebrew, must have learned these things somewhere; since it was not in this existence, it must have been in another. Yes, man has already lived, not once, but perhaps a thousand times; in each existence his ideas developed; he acquired knowledge, of which he brings the intuition into the following life, and which helps him acquire new knowledge. The same occurs with moral progress. The vices of which he has rid himself appear no more; those he has retained reproduce themselves until he has corrected himself of them definitively.

In a word, man is born such as he himself has made himself. Those who have lived more, acquired more, and profited better are more advanced than the others; such is the cause of the diversity of instincts and aptitudes noticed among them; such is, also, the reason why we see, on Earth, savages, barbarians, and civilized men. The plurality of existences is the key to an immensity of moral problems, and it is for not having known this principle that so many questions have remained insoluble. Let it be admitted only as a hypothesis, if one wishes, and one will see all these difficulties leveled out. Civilized man has reached a point where he is no longer content with blind faith; he wishes to account for everything, to know the why and the how of each thing; he will, then, prefer a philosophy that explains to one that explains nothing. Besides, the idea of the plurality of existences, like all great truths, germinates in a number of minds, outside of Spiritism; and as it satisfies reason, the time is not far off when it will be placed among the laws that govern Humanity.

What will they now say of the child who is the subject of this article? His present instincts are explained by his antecedents. He was born an incendiary, as others were born poets and artists, because, without the least doubt, he was an incendiary in another existence and retained the instinct of it.

But then, they will ask, if each existence is a progress, in the present one progress is null for him.

This is not a reason. From his present instincts one must not conclude that progress is null. Man does not suddenly divest himself of all his imperfections. This child probably had others, which made him worse than he is today. Now, even if he had advanced only one step, even if he had only the repentance and the desire to better himself, it would always be a progress. If this instinct manifests itself in him in such a precocious manner, it is to draw attention early to his tendencies, so that the parents and those charged with his education may strive to repress them before they develop. Perhaps he himself asked that it be so, and to be born into an honorable family, out of the desire to progress. It is a great task for his parents, for it is a wayward soul that is confided to them to be led to the right path, and great would be their responsibility if they did not do, with this aim, all that lay in their power. If their son fell ill, they would care for him with solicitude. They must regard him as stricken by a grave moral illness, which requires care no less assiduous.

In accordance with all these considerations, we believe without vanity that the Spirits are the best specialists in such a circumstance, because they devote themselves to the study of moral phenomena and appreciate them, not according to personal ideas, but according to natural laws.

— This fact having been presented to the Society of Paris as a subject of study, the following question was put to the Spirits:

What is the origin of the precocious incendiary instinct in this child, and what would be the means of combating it through education?

Four concordant answers were given. We shall cite only the following two.

(Society of Paris, April 13, 1866. – Medium: Mr. Br…)

I.

You ask what was the existence of this child who shows so precocious an inclination toward destruction and, particularly, toward fire. Alas! his past is horrible, and his present tendencies tell you well enough what he could have done. He came to expiate, and he must struggle against his incendiary instincts. It is a great trial for the parents, who are constantly under the blows of his evil actions, and do not know how to repress this fatal inclination. The knowledge of Spiritism would be a powerful aid to them, and God, in His mercy, will grant them this grace, because it is only through this knowledge that one can hope to improve this Spirit. This child is an evident proof of the anteriority of the soul to the present incarnation. As you see, this strange moral state arouses attention and makes one reflect. God makes use of every means to bring you to the knowledge of the truth concerning your origin, your progression, and your end.

A Spirit.

(Medium: Miss Lat…)

II.

Spiritism has already played a great role in your world, but what you have seen is only the prelude to what you are called to see. When Science falls silent before certain facts, and religion likewise cannot resolve them, Spiritism comes to give the solution. When Science fails your scholars, they set the cause aside, for lack of sufficient explanations. In many circumstances the lights of Spiritism could be of great value to them, notably in this case of incendiary monomania. For them it is a kind of madness, because they regard all monomanias as madness. Here is a great error. Here Medicine has nothing to do; it is for the Spiritists to act. It is inadmissible for you that this inclination to destroy by fire dates from the present existence; one must go further back and see in the perverse inclinations of this child a reflection of his prior acts.

Moreover, he is impelled by those very ones who were his victims, since, to satisfy his ambition, he did not recoil before arson, nor before the sacrifice of those who could be an obstacle to him. In a word, he is under the influence of Spirits who have not yet forgiven him the torments he made them suffer. They await vengeance.

He has as a trial to come out victorious from the struggle; but God, in His sovereign justice, has placed the remedy beside the evil. Indeed, this remedy lies in his tender age and in the good influence of the environment in which he finds himself. Today the child can do nothing for the moment; it is for the parents to watch over him. Later he himself will have to overcome, and as long as he is not master of his position the struggle will perpetuate itself. It would be necessary for him to be educated in the principles of Spiritism; there he would gather the strength and, understanding his trial, would have more will to triumph. Good Spirits, charged with enlightening the incarnate, turn your gaze upon this poor being, whose chastisement is just; go to him, help him, direct his thoughts toward Spiritism, so that he may triumph more quickly and the struggle may be advantageous for him.

A Spirit.