How we came to hear of Spiritism.

“The article on Spiritism, published in our issue of December 31 [the previous article], provoked numerous questions, with the aim of knowing whether we propose to deal further with this matter and whether we are making ourselves its mouthpiece. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, a categorical explanation becomes necessary. Here is our answer:

“The Discussion is a newspaper open to all progressive ideas. Now, progress can only be made by the new ideas which, from time to time, come to change the course of preconceived ideas. To repel them because they destroy those in which we were nurtured is, in our eyes, to fail in logic. Without becoming apologists for all the lucubrations of the human spirit, which would be no more rational, we consider it a duty of impartiality to put the public in a position to judge them. For this, it suffices to present them just as they are, without prematurely taking sides for or against; because, if they are false, it will not be our adherence that makes them just, and if they are just, our disapproval will not make them false. In all things, it is public opinion and the future that pronounce in the last instance. Yet, in order to appreciate the strong side and the weak side of an idea, one must know it in its essence, and not such as those interested in combating it present it, most often truncated and disfigured. If, then, we set forth the principles of a new theory, we do not wish its authors or its partisans to be able to reproach us for making them say the contrary of what they say. To act thus is not to assume their responsibility: it is to say what is and to reserve everyone’s opinion. We bring out the idea in all its truth. If it is good, it will make its way and we shall have opened the door to it; if it is bad, we shall have furnished the means to judge it with knowledge of the cause. “It is thus that we shall proceed in regard to Spiritism. Whatever the manner of viewing it, no one can conceal the extent it has taken in a few years. By the number and the quality of its partisans it has won a place among the accepted opinions. The storms it provokes, the obstinacy with which it is combated in a certain milieu, are, for the less clear-sighted, the indication that it contains something grave, since it causes disturbance in so many people. Let them think of it what they will; it is, incontestably, one of the great questions of the order of the day. Thus, we would not be consistent with our program if we passed it over in silence. Our readers have the right to ask us to inform them what this doctrine is, which provokes so great an uproar; it is in our interest to satisfy them, and our duty to do so with impartiality. Their little concern is our personal opinion about the matter; what they expect from us is an exact account of the facts and of the attitudes of its partisans, upon which they may form their own opinion. How shall we proceed? It is very simple: we shall go to the very source; we shall do for Spiritism what we do for questions of politics, of finance, of science, of art, or of literature; that is to say, for this we shall charge special men with it. The questions of Spiritism will therefore be treated by Spiritists, as those of architecture by architects, so that they may not call us blind men discoursing on colors and that they may not apply to us these words of Figaro: n “They needed a mathematician and they took a dancer”. “In sum, the Discussion does not set itself up as the organ, nor as the apostle, of Spiritism; it opens to it its columns, as to all new ideas, without pretending to impose that opinion upon its readers, who are always free to control it, to accept it, or to reject it. It leaves to its special editors entire freedom to discuss the principles, the responsibility for which they alone assume. But what it will always repel, in the interest of its own dignity, is aggressive and personal polemic.”

[1] [Figaro, who said he had “anonymous” for a first name (The Marriage of Figaro, Act III, Scene 15) is a character invented by Beaumarchais at the end of the 18th century and who, as hero, is included in three of his plays: The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Guilty Mother.]