Free-thought and free-conscience.

— In an article in our last issue, entitled: A retrospective glance at the Spiritist movement, we presented two distinct classes of free-thinkers: the unbelievers and the believers, and we said that, for the former, to be a free-thinker is not merely to believe what one wishes, but to believe in nothing; it is to free oneself from every restraint, even from the fear of God and of the future; for the latter, it is to subordinate belief to reason and to free oneself from the yoke of blind faith. These last have as their organ of publicity the Free-conscience, a significant title; the others, the journal Free-thought, a more vague qualification, but one which specializes itself by the opinions it formulates, which on all points corroborate the distinction we made. There we read in no. 2, of October 28, 1866: “The questions of origin and of end have until now preoccupied Humanity to the point of sometimes disturbing its reason. These problems, which have been qualified as fearsome, and which we judge to be of secondary importance, are not within the immediate domain of Science. Their scientific solution can offer only a semicertainty. Such as it is, however, it suffices us, and we shall not attempt to complete it by metaphysical subtleties. Besides, our aim is to occupy ourselves only with subjects approachable through observation. We intend to remain on the earth. If, at times, we withdraw from it to respond to the attacks of those who do not think as we do, the incursion outside the real will be of short duration. We shall always keep present in our memory this wise counsel of Helvétius: ‘One must have the courage to be ignorant of what one cannot know.’ “A new journal, the Free-conscience, our elder brother, as it remarks, bids us welcome in its first issue. We thank it for the courteous manner in which it used its right of primogeniture. Our colleague thinks that, in spite of the analogy of the titles, we shall not always be in ‘complete affinity of ideas.’ After reading its first issue we are certain of this; nor do we understand free-conscience except as free-thought with a dogmatic limit assigned in advance. When one clearly declares oneself a disciple of Science and a champion of free-conscience, it is irrational, in our opinion, to establish as a dogma any belief whatever, impossible to prove scientifically. Liberty thus limited is not liberty. For our part, we bid welcome to the Free-conscience and are disposed to see in it an ally, for it declares it wishes to fight for all liberties… except one.”

— It is strange that they consider the origin and the end of Humanity to be secondary questions, fit to disturb the reason. What would they say of a man who, living only for today, did not concern himself with how he will live tomorrow? Would he pass for a sensible man? What would they think of one who, having a wife, children, friends, said: What does it matter to me whether tomorrow they are alive or dead? Now, the tomorrow of death is long; it is no wonder, then, that so many people are preoccupied with it.

If one were to make a statistic of all those who lose their reason, it would be seen that the greatest number is precisely on the side of those who do not believe in this tomorrow, or who doubt it, and this for a very simple reason: the majority of cases of madness are produced by despair and by the lack of moral courage that enables one to bear the miseries of life, whereas the certainty of this tomorrow renders the vicissitudes of the present less bitter, and makes one regard them as passing incidents, by which the morale is not affected, or is affected only mediocrely. One's confidence in the future gives one a strength that he who has only nothingness as his prospect will never have. He is in the position of a man who, ruined today, is certain of having tomorrow a fortune superior to the one he has just lost. In this case, he easily makes up his mind and remains calm; if, on the contrary, he hopes for nothing, he falls into despair and his reason may suffer from it. No one will contest that to know whence one comes and whither one goes, what one did the day before and what one will do tomorrow, is a thing necessary for regulating the daily affairs of life, and that this principle does not fail to influence personal conduct. Certainly the soldier who knows where he is being led, who sees his objective, marches with more firmness, more disposition, more enthusiasm than if he were led blindly. The same holds from the small to the great, from the individual to the whole. To know whence one comes and whither one goes is no less necessary for regulating the affairs of the collective life of Humanity. On the day when the whole of Humanity were certain that death has no exit, one would see a general confusion and men hurling themselves against one another, saying: if we are to live but a single day, let us live it as best we can, no matter at whose expense!

— The journal Free-thought declares that it intends to remain on the earth, and that if it leaves it at times, it will be to refute those who do not think as it does, but that its incursions outside the real will be of short duration. We would understand this with a journal exclusively scientific, dealing with special matters. It is evident that it would be untimely to speak of spirituality, of Psychology, or of Theology apropos of Mechanics, of Chemistry, of Physics, of mathematical calculations, of commerce, or of industry; but since it admits philosophy into its program, it could not carry it out without addressing metaphysical questions. Although the word philosophy is very elastic, and has been singularly diverted from its etymological meaning, it implies, by its very essence, researches and studies that are not exclusively material.

— Helvétius's counsel: “One must have the courage to be ignorant of what one cannot know” is very wise and is addressed above all to the presumptuous learned, who think that nothing can be hidden from man, and that what they do not know or do not understand cannot exist. However, it would be more just to say: “One must have the courage to confess one's ignorance about that which one does not know.” Such as it is formulated, one could translate it thus: “One must have the courage to preserve one's ignorance,” whence this consequence: “It is useless to seek to know what one does not know.” Without doubt there are things that man will never know while he is on the Earth, because, whatever his presumption, Humanity here is still in a state of adolescence. But who would dare to set absolute limits to what it can know? Since today it knows infinitely more than the men of primitive times, why, later on, would it not know more than it knows now? This is what cannot be understood by those who do not admit the perpetuity and the perfectibility of the spiritual being. Many think: I am at the top of the intellectual ladder; what I do not see and do not understand, no one can see or understand.

— In the paragraph related above and relative to the journal Free-conscience, it is said: “Nor do we understand free-conscience except as free-thought with a dogmatic limit assigned in advance. When one declares oneself a disciple of Science, it is irrational to establish as a dogma any belief whatever, impossible to prove scientifically. Liberty thus limited is not liberty.”

The whole doctrine is in these words; the profession of faith is clear and categorical. Thus, because God cannot be demonstrated by an algebraic equation and the soul is not perceptible with the aid of a reagent, it is absurd to believe in God and in the soul. Consequently, every disciple of Science must be an atheist and a materialist. But, to remain within materiality, is Science always infallible in its demonstrations? Has it not so many times given as truths what was later recognized to be errors, and vice versa? Was it not in the name of Science that Fulton's system was declared a chimera? Before knowing the law of gravitation, did it not scientifically demonstrate that there could be no antipodes? Before knowing that of electricity, did it not demonstrate by a + b that there existed no velocity capable of transmitting a dispatch five hundred leagues in a few minutes? Light had been very much experimented upon, and yet, only a few years ago, who would have suspected the prodigies of photography? Nevertheless, it was not the official scientists who made that prodigious discovery, just as they made neither that of the electric telegraph nor those of steam engines. Even today, does Science know all the laws of Nature? Does it know all the resources that can be drawn from the known laws? Who would dare to say so? Is it not possible that one day the knowledge of new laws will render extracorporeal life as evident, as rational, as intelligible as that of the antipodes? Such a result, putting an end to all uncertainties, would it then be something to disdain? Would it be less important for Humanity than the discovery of a new continent, of a new planet, of a new engine of destruction? Well then! this hypothesis has become reality; it is to Spiritism that we owe it, and it is thanks to it that so many people, who believed they would die forever, are now certain of living forever.

— We have spoken of the force of gravitation, of this force that governs the Universe, from the grain of sand to the worlds. But who has seen it? Who has been able to follow and analyze it? In what does it consist? What is its nature, its first cause? No one knows, and yet no one today doubts it. How did they recognize it? By its effects; from the effects they concluded the cause. More was done: by calculating the force of the effects, the force of the cause, which was never seen, was calculated. The same holds with God and spiritual life, which are likewise judged by their effects, according to the axiom: “Every effect has a cause. Every intelligent effect has an intelligent cause. The power of the intelligent cause is in proportion to the magnitude of the effect.” To believe in God and in spiritual life is not, then, a purely gratuitous belief, but the result of observations as positive as those which made one believe in the force of gravitation. Then, in default of material proofs, or concurrent with these, does philosophy not admit the moral proofs which sometimes have as much or more value than the others? You who take for truth only what is materially proved, what would you say if, being unjustly accused of a crime whose appearances were all against you, as is frequently seen in justice, the judges took no account whatever of the moral proofs that were favorable to you? Would you not be the first to invoke them? to assert their preponderance over purely material effects, which can create an illusion? to prove that the senses can deceive the most clear-sighted? If, then, you admit that moral proofs must weigh in the balance of a judgment, you would not be consistent with yourselves in denying their value when it is a question of forming an opinion about things which, by their nature, escape materiality.

— What is freer, more independent, less perceptible by its very essence, than thought? And yet, here is a school that claims to emancipate it by subjugating it to matter; that advances, in the name of reason, that thought circumscribed to earthly things is freer than that which hurls itself into the infinite and wishes to see beyond the material horizon! One might as well say that the prisoner, who can take only a few steps in his cell, is freer than he who roams the fields. If you are not free to believe in the things of the spiritual world, which is infinite, you are a hundred times less so, you who circumscribe yourselves within the narrow limit of the tangible, who say to thought: You shall not leave the circle we have traced for you; and if you do leave it, we declare that you are no longer sound thought, but madness, foolishness, nonsense, because to us alone belongs the discernment of the false from the true. To this spiritualism replies: We form the immense majority of men, of whom you are but the millionth part. By what right do you attribute to yourselves the monopoly of reason? You say that you wish to emancipate our ideas by imposing yours upon us? But you teach us nothing; we know what you know; we believe without restriction in all that you believe: in matter and in the value of tangible proofs, and more than you: in something outside matter; in an intelligent force, superior to Humanity; in causes inappreciable by the senses, but perceptible by thought; in the perpetuity of spiritual life, which you limit to the duration of the life of the body. Our ideas are, then, infinitely broader than yours; while you circumscribe your point of view, ours embraces horizons without limits. How can he who concentrates thought upon a determined order of facts, who places a stopping point in his intellectual movements, in his investigations, claim to emancipate him who moves without hindrance, and whose thought sounds the depths of the infinite? To restrict the field of exploration of thought is to restrict liberty, and that is what you do. You say further that you wish to wrest the world from the yoke of dogmatic beliefs. Do you at least make a distinction among these beliefs? No, because you confound in the same reprobation all that is not within the exclusive domain of Science, all that is not seen by the eyes of the body, in a word, all that is of spiritual essence, consequently God, the soul, and the future life. But if every spiritual belief is a hindrance to the liberty of thinking, the same holds with every material belief; he who believes that a thing is red, because he sees it red, is not free to judge it green. As soon as thought is arrested by any conviction whatever, it is no longer free. To be consistent with your theory, absolute liberty would consist in believing in nothing, not even in one's own existence, because that too would be a restriction. But then, what would thought become?

— Regarded from this point of view, free-thought would be a nonsense. It must be understood in a broader and truer sense, that is, of the free use one makes of the faculty of thinking, and not of its application to any order of ideas whatever. It consists not in believing in one thing rather than another, nor in excluding this or that belief, but in the absolute liberty of the choice of beliefs. It is, then, abusively that some of them make exclusive application of it to anti-spiritualist ideas. Every rational opinion, which is neither imposed nor blindly subjugated to that of another, but which is voluntarily adopted by virtue of the exercise of personal reasoning, is a free thought, whether it be religious, political, or philosophical.

In its vastest acceptation, free-thought signifies: free examination, liberty of conscience, reasoned faith; it symbolizes intellectual emancipation, moral independence, the complement of physical independence; it wishes for no more slaves of thought, for what characterizes the free-thinker is that he thinks for himself, and not for others; in other terms, his opinion is his own. Thus, there can be free-thinkers in all opinions and in all beliefs. In this sense, free-thought elevates the dignity of man, making of him an active, intelligent being, instead of a believing machine.

— In the exclusive sense that some give it, instead of emancipating the spirit, it restricts its activity, making it a slave of matter. The fanatics of incredulity do in one sense what the fanatics of blind faith do in another. Thus the latter say: To be according to God, one must believe in all that we believe; outside our faith there is no salvation. The others say: To be according to reason, one must think as we do, believe only in what we believe; outside the limits we trace to belief, there is neither liberty nor good sense, a doctrine that is formulated by this paradox: Your spirit is free only on the condition of not believing what it wishes, which signifies for the individual: You are the freest of all men, provided you go no farther than the end of the rope to which we tie you. We certainly do not contest the unbelievers' right to believe in nothing beyond matter; but they must admit that there are singular contradictions in their pretension to attribute to themselves the monopoly of the liberty of thinking.

— We said that, by the quality of free-thinker, certain persons seek to attenuate what absolute incredulity has that is repulsive to the opinion of the masses. Indeed, let us suppose that a journal entitled itself openly: The Atheist, The Unbeliever, The Materialist; one can judge of the impression that this title would leave upon the public. But if it shelters the same doctrines under the cover of Free-thinker, they will say to this emblem: It is the banner of moral emancipation; it must be that of liberty of conscience and, above all, of tolerance. Let us see. It is evident that one need not always refer to the label.

Besides, it would be an error to be terrified beyond measure at the consequences of certain doctrines; momentarily they may seduce certain individuals, but they will never seduce the masses, who oppose them by instinct and by necessity. It is useful that all systems come to light, in order that each one may judge the strong side and the weak, and, by virtue of the right of free examination, may adopt or reject them with full knowledge of the matter. When the utopias have been seen in action and when they have proved their impotence, they will fall to rise no more. By their very exaggeration, they agitate society and prepare its renewal. In this too lies the sign of the times.

— Is Spiritism, as some think, a new blind faith, which has replaced another blind faith? In other words, a new slavery of thought under a new form? To believe this, one must be ignorant of its first elements. Indeed, Spiritism establishes as a principle that before believing one must understand. Now, to understand it is necessary to make use of reasoning; this is why it seeks to give an account of everything before admitting anything, namely, the why and the how of each thing. It is for this reason that Spiritists are more skeptical than many others, with regard to the phenomena that escape the circle of habitual observations. It is not based on any preconceived or hypothetical theory, but on the experience and the observation of facts; instead of saying: “Believe first, and then you will understand, if you can,” it says: “Understand first, and then you will believe, if you wish.” It imposes itself on no one; it says to all: “See, observe, compare, and come to us freely, if this suits you.” Speaking thus, it enters with great chance into the number of the competitors. If many go to it, it is because it satisfies many, but no one accepts it with eyes closed. To those who do not accept it, it says: “You are free and I do not want you; all I ask of you is that you leave me my liberty, as I leave you yours. If you seek to exclude me, fearing that I might supplant you, it is because you are not very sure of yourselves.”

— Since Spiritism does not seek to set aside any of the competitors in the lists opened to the ideas that must prevail in the regenerated world, it is within the conditions of true free-thought; since it admits no theory that is not founded on observation, it is, at the same time, within those of the most rigorous positivism; finally, it has over its adversaries of the two extreme opposite opinions the advantage of tolerance.

Note. – Some persons have reproached us for the theoretical explanations that, from the beginning, we have sought to give of the Spiritist phenomena. These explanations, based on attentive observation, mounting from the effects to the cause, proved, on one hand, that we wished to give ourselves an account, and not to believe blindly; on the other hand, that we wished to make of Spiritism a science of reasoning, and not of credulity. By these explanations, which time has developed, but which it has consecrated in principle, because none has been contradicted by experience, Spiritists believed because they understood, and there is no doubt that it is to this that the rapid increase in the number of serious adherents must be attributed. It is to these explanations that Spiritism owes its having emerged from the domain of the marvelous, and its having attached itself to the positive sciences; by them it demonstrated to the unbelievers that it is not a work of the imagination; without them we should still be at a loss to understand the phenomena that arise daily. It was urgent to establish Spiritism, from the outset, on its true ground. Theory founded on experience was the curb that prevented superstitious incredulity, as much as malevolence, from diverting it from its course. Why did those who reproach us for having taken this initiative not take it themselves?