Eugénie Colombe, phenomenal precocity.

— Several newspapers reproduced the following fact:

“The Sentinelle, of Toulon, speaks of a young phenomenon, who is being admired at the moment in this city.

“It is a little girl of two years and eleven months, named Eugénie Colombe.

“This little girl already knows how to read and write perfectly; moreover she is in a condition to sustain the most serious examination on the principles of the Christian religion, on French grammar, geography, the history of France and the four operations of arithmetic.

“She knows the compass rose and perfectly sustains a scientific discussion on all these subjects.

“This admirable little girl began to speak very distinctly at four months of age.

“Presented in the salons of the maritime prefecture, Eugénie Colombe, endowed with a charming countenance, obtained an admirable success.”

This article had seemed to us, as to many other persons, marked by such exaggeration that we had attached no importance to it. Nevertheless, in order to know positively what to make of it, we asked one of our correspondents, a naval officer at Toulon, to inquire into the fact. Here is what he answered us:

“To assure myself of the truth, I went to the house of the parents of the little girl referred to by the Sentinelle Toulonnaise of November 19; I saw this charming little girl, whose physical development is compatible with her age: she is no more than three years old. Her mother is a teacher and directs her instruction. In my presence she questioned her on the catechism, on sacred history, from the creation of the world to the flood, on the first eight kings of France and various circumstances relating to their reigns and to that of Napoleon I. As to Geography, the little girl named the five parts of the world, the capitals of the countries they contain, several capitals of the Departments of France. She also answered perfectly on the first notions of French grammar and the metric system. The little girl gave all these answers without the least hesitation, amusing herself with the toys she had in her hands. Her mother told me that she has known how to read since the age of two and a half and assured me that she is capable of answering in the same manner more than five hundred questions.”

— The fact, cleared of the exaggeration of the newspapers’ account, and reduced to the proportions above, is no less remarkable and important in its consequences. It forcibly draws attention to analogous facts of intellectual precocity and innate knowledge. Involuntarily one seeks the explanation of them, and with the ideas in circulation, of the plurality of existences, one comes to find their rational solution in a prior existence. These phenomena must be placed in the number of those that are announced as destined, by their multiplicity, to confirm the Spiritist beliefs and to contribute to their development.

In the case in question, memory certainly seems to play an important role. The little girl’s mother being a teacher, doubtless the little one was habitually present at the school and will have retained the lessons given to the pupils by her mother, whereas one sees certain pupils possess, by intuition, knowledge in a certain way innate and outside of any teaching. But why, in her and not in others, this exceptional facility for assimilating what she heard and which, probably, no one thought of teaching her? It is that what she heard only awakened in her the remembrance of what she knew. The precocity of certain children for languages, music, mathematics, etc., all innate ideas, in a word, are likewise nothing but remembrances; they remembered what they had known, as one sees certain persons remember, more or less vaguely, what they did or what happened to them. We know a boy of five who, being at table, where nothing in the conversation could have provoked an idea on this subject, set himself to saying: “I was married, and I remember it well; I had a wife, of small stature, young and pretty, and I had several children.” Certainly one has no means of verifying his assertion, but, one asks, whence could such an idea have come to him, when no circumstance would have provoked it? From this must one conclude that the children who learn only at the cost of labor were ignorant or stupid in their preceding existence? Certainly not. The faculty of recollecting is an aptitude inherent in the psychological state, that is, in the easier disengagement of the soul in certain individuals than in others, a sort of spiritual vision, which recalls the past to them, whereas in those who do not possess it, that past leaves no apparent trace. The past is like a dream, which we remember with greater or lesser exactitude, or of which we lose the remembrance entirely. (See the Spiritist Review of July 1860; idem of November 1864).

— At the moment of going to press, we received from one of our correspondents from Algeria, who, passing through Toulon, saw little Eugénie Colombe, a letter containing the following account, which confirms the preceding one, and adds details that are not without interest:

“This little girl, of remarkable beauty and extreme liveliness, is of an angelic gentleness. Seated on her mother’s knees, she answered more than fifty questions on the Gospel. Questioned on Geography, she designated for me all the capitals of Europe and of various states of America; all the capitals of the French Departments and of Algeria; she explained to me the decimal system, the metric system. In grammar, the verbs, the participles and the adjectives. She knows, or at least defines, the four operations. She wrote what I dictated to her with such rapidity that I was led to believe that she wrote mediumistically. At the fifth line she interrupted the writing, looked at me fixedly with her great blue eyes and said to me abruptly: “Sir, that is enough.” Then she got down from the chair and ran to her toys. “This child is certainly a very advanced Spirit, for one sees that she answers and cites without the least effort of memory. Her mother told me that since the age of 12 to 15 months she dreams at night, but in a language that does not allow one to understand her. She is charitable by instinct; she always draws her mother’s attention when she catches sight of a poor person; she cannot bear that dogs, cats, or any animal be struck. Her father is a workman of the naval arsenal.”

Only enlightened Spiritists, like our two correspondents, could appreciate the psychological phenomenon that this little girl presents and probe its cause; for, just as to judge a mechanism one needs a mechanic, to judge Spiritist facts one needs to be a Spiritist. Now, in general to whom is the verification and the explanation of phenomena of this kind entrusted? Precisely to persons who have not studied them and who, denying the primary cause, cannot admit its consequences.