Galileo.

— The literary event of the day is the performance of Galileo - Google Books, a drama in verse by Mr. Ponsard. Although it does not deal with Spiritism, it is linked to it on one essential side: that of the plurality of inhabited worlds, and from this point of view we may consider it as one of the works called to favor the development of the Doctrine, by popularizing one of its fundamental principles. The destiny of Humanity is bound up with the organization of the Universe, as that of the inhabitant is bound up with his dwelling. In ignorance of this organization, man must have formed about his past and his future ideas in conformity with the state of his knowledge. Had he always known the structure of the Earth, he would never have thought of situating hell in its entrails; had he known the infinity of space and the multitude of heavenly bodies that move therein, he would not have located heaven above the heaven of the stars; he would not have made the Earth the central point of the Universe, the sole dwelling of living beings; he would not have condemned belief in the antipodes as a heresy; had he known Geology, he would never have believed in the formation of the Earth in six days and in its existence for six thousand years. The mean idea that man formed of Creation was bound to give him a mean idea of the Divinity. He could not comprehend the infinite grandeur, power, and wisdom of the Creator until his thought was able to embrace the immensity of the Universe and the wisdom of the laws that govern it, just as one judges the genius of a mechanic by the whole, the harmony, and the precision of a mechanism, and not from the sight of a single gear. Only then could his ideas grow and rise above his limited horizon. In all times his religious beliefs were modeled on the idea he formed of God and of His work. The error of his beliefs about the origin and destiny of Humanity had as its cause his ignorance of the true laws of Nature; had he, from the origin, known these laws, his dogmas would have been other. Galileo, one of the first to reveal the laws of the mechanism of the Universe, not by hypotheses but by an irrefutable demonstration, opened the way to new progress. For this very reason he was bound to produce a revolution in beliefs, by destroying the erroneous scientific foundations on which they rested. To each his mission. Neither Moses nor the Christ had that of teaching men the laws of Science; the knowledge of these laws was to be the result of man's labor and research, of the activity and development of his own spirit, and not of an a priori revelation that would have given him knowledge without effort. They neither were to nor could have spoken to them except in a language suited to their intellectual state, without which they would not have been understood. Moses and the Christ had their moralizing mission; to geniuses of another order are deferred scientific missions. Now, since the moral laws and the laws of Science are divine laws, religion and philosophy can be true only through the alliance of these laws.

— Spiritism is based on the existence of the spiritual principle, as a constitutive element of the Universe; it rests upon the universality and the perpetuity of intelligent beings, upon their indefinite progress through the worlds and the generations; upon the plurality of corporeal existences, necessary to their individual progress; upon their relative cooperation, whether as incarnate or disincarnate, in the general work, in the measure of the progress accomplished; upon the solidarity that unites all the beings of one same world and the worlds among themselves. In this vast whole, incarnate and disincarnate, each one has his mission, his role, duties to fulfill, from the most lowly up to the angels, who are nothing more than human Spirits that have arrived at the state of pure Spirits, and to whom the great missions are entrusted, the government of the worlds, like seasoned generals. Instead of the deserted solitudes of limitless space, everywhere life and activity, nowhere useless idleness; everywhere the employment of the knowledge acquired; everywhere the desire to progress still further and to increase the sum of happiness, through the useful employment of the faculties of the intelligence. Instead of an ephemeral and single existence, spent in a little corner of the Earth, which decides forever his future lot, sets a limit to his progress, and renders sterile, for the future, the labor to which he devotes himself in order to instruct himself, man has the Universe for his domain; nothing of what he knows or what he does is lost: the future belongs to him; instead of selfish isolation, universal solidarity; in place of nothingness, according to some, eternal life; in place of perpetual contemplative beatitude, according to others, which would render him of perpetual uselessness, an active role, proportioned to the merit acquired; instead of irremissible punishments for temporary faults, the position that each one conquers through his perseverance in good or in evil; instead of an original stain, which renders him liable for faults he did not commit, the natural consequence of his own native imperfections; instead of the flames of hell, the obligation to repair the evil one has done and to begin anew what one has done badly; instead of an irate and vengeful God, a just and good God, who takes into account every repentance and every good will. Such is, in summary, the picture that Spiritism presents, and which stands out from the very situation of the Spirits who manifest themselves; it is no longer a mere theory, but the result of observation. The man who views things from this point of view feels himself growing; he rises in his own eyes; he is stimulated in his progressive instincts upon seeing an objective for his labors, for his efforts to improve himself. But, in order to comprehend Spiritism in its essence, in the immensity of the things it embraces, in order to comprehend the objective and the destiny of man, it was necessary not to relegate Humanity to a small globe, not to limit existence to a few years, not to debase the Creator and the creature. So that man could form a just idea of his role in the Universe, it was necessary that he comprehend, through the plurality of the worlds, the field open to his future explorations and the activity of his spirit; in order to push back indefinitely the limits of Creation, in order to destroy the prejudices about special places of reward and of punishment, about the different stages of the heavens, it was necessary that he penetrate the depths of space; that in place of the crystalline sphere and the empyrean, he see circulating there, in majestic and perpetual harmony, the innumerable worlds, similar to his own; that everywhere his thought encounter the intelligent creature.

— The history of the Earth is bound up with that of Humanity. So that man could rid himself of his mean and false opinions about the epoch, the duration, and the mode of creation of our globe, of his legendary beliefs about the deluge and his own origin; so that he might consent to dislodge from the bosom of the earth hell and the empire of Satan, it was necessary that he be able to read in the geological strata the history of its formation and of its physical revolutions. Astronomy and Geology, seconded by the discoveries of Physics and Chemistry, supported by the laws of Mechanics, are the two powerful levers that will assail his prejudices about his origin and his destiny. Matter and spirit are the two constitutive principles of the Universe. But the knowledge of the laws that govern matter had to precede that of the laws that govern the spiritual element; only the former could victoriously combat the prejudices, by the evidence of the facts. Spiritism, which has as its special objective the knowledge of the spiritual element, could come only afterward; in order that it might take its impulse and bear fruit, in order that it might be comprehended in its whole, it was necessary that it find the ground prepared, the field of the human spirit freed from prejudices and from false ideas, if not in totality, at least in great part, without which one would have had only a cramped, bastard, incomplete Spiritism mixed with absurd beliefs and practices, as it still is today among backward peoples. If one considers the situation of the advanced nations, one will recognize that it came at an opportune time, to fill the voids that are forming in beliefs. Galileo opened the way. By tearing the veil that concealed the infinite, he widened the domain of the intelligence and dealt a fatal blow to erroneous beliefs; he destroyed more superstitions and false ideas than all the philosophies, because he undermined them at the base, by showing reality. Spiritism must place him in the class of the great geniuses who tore open the way, by lowering the barriers opposed by ignorance. The persecutions of which he was the object, and which are the lot of whoever attacks prejudices, made him great in the eyes of posterity, while at the same time debasing the persecutors. Who is greater today: he or they? We regret that lack of space does not permit us to cite some fragments of Mr. Ponsard's fine drama. We shall do so in the next issue. [2nd Article. May Review.]

GALILEO.

FRAGMENTS OF MR. PONSARD'S DRAMA.

(See the preceding issue.)

A century before Galileo, Copernicus had conceived the astronomical system that bears his name. With the aid of the telescope he had invented, and joining direct observation to theory, Galileo completed the ideas of Copernicus and demonstrated their truth by calculation. With his instrument, he was able to study the nature of the planets and, from their similitude with the Earth, concluded their habitability. He had likewise recognized that the stars are so many suns, disseminated in limitless spaces, and thought that each one must be the center of the movement of a planetary system. He had just discovered the four satellites of Jupiter, and this event shook the scientific world and the religious world. The poet sets himself to paint, in his drama, the diversity of the sentiments it excited, according to the character and the prejudices of the individuals. Two students of the University converse about Galileo's discovery, and as they are not in agreement, they seek the opinion of a professor of renown. Albert: We on one point, doctor, in disagreement stand, We wished, then, to know what you think.

Pompey: He accepts to give counsels good and real – What is it about, then? Vivian: About the satellites seen.

Around Jupiter in the predicted orbits.

Pompey: They do not exist, no.

Vivian: But…

Pompey: They cannot exist.

Vivian: We can, however, see and verify them.

Pompey: No, not even count those which are nonexistent. Albert: Do you hear him, Vivian?

Vivian: And why, master, then?

Pompey:

And because to maintain that God could have made Four globes beyond the seven, in effect Is a bad purpose, a theme in fantasy, Antireligious and without philosophy.

(And seeing Galileo followed by many students)

Dolts, fools they are! and infamous charlatan!

Albert to Vivian: You see that Doctor Pompey reveals himself against you. Vivian: All the better for the Doctrine in which I believe and which is so fair; It is, of all truth, the natural march, That against it the pedants of evil should rise in revolt. [Observation of ALLAN KARDEC.] There indeed lies the force of the reasoning of certain deniers of new ideas: this is not so because it cannot be. One asked a learned man: What would you say if you saw a table rise without a point of support? – I would not believe it, he answered, because I know that this cannot be.

A MONK, preaching to the multitude:

Hear what the Apostle says: In the heavens You let your eyes roam, why, O Galileans?

That he, thus, beforehand cast anathema Against you, Galileo, and attacked your scheme. We ourselves see, today, and very clearly, How much horror the heaven has for this ignorant teaching, And the Arno overflowed and the ice in the vineyards, Are doleful signs of the divine fury.

My brothers, disdain the gross lies;

For the Earth to march only with feet, without weariness? For if the Moon moves, it is because there is an angel that guides it; Because over each planet a conductor keeps watch; But of the Earth, its angel, where is he, in the mountains? He would be seen there. – In the center? Evil has its sources. …Why heat the mind, New teachings you have, in vain, to spread?

Such novelties are summed up in one term, Invention of the devil and evil expressed in the wilderness. By the manner in which each one looks at you, If you do not guard yourself well, this will end badly. Oh! why not follow the worthy professors Who say this, citing their predecessors?

Here are persons in whom good sense always reigns; They teach without question what they hope will find consent, And without wearing themselves out in dejected public Whether one ought to have believed in Aristotle or Copernicus, They maintain with learning that the right opinion Must be that for which one is then paid, If to Aristotle belongs the opening of the strongbox, Aristotle makes Copernicus go out.

Thus they do not bring themselves to dissent with anyone; But they pocket in peace the florins that come to them; They prosper; they dwell well; and always well nourished; Their daughters have dowries with which they find husbands; Their audience is gentle and never tormented;

They always return home for the awaited broth;

But you, you stir up rage, and someone applauded you And in the meantime, behold, the dinner grows cold. No more the time when, in the solitude of the realm, The Earth on its throne was then immobile;

No, the swift chariot, bearing the orb of day From rising until setting no longer guides its course; For already of the firmament the crystalline curve Which, like a blue ceiling, is lit with luster; It is not only for us that God made the Universe; But before He had us, we were immersed in pride! For if we abdicate a false royalty, Inasmuch as the Science of truth exalts us;

The body is made smaller, but the Spirit grows; Our nobility believes, or our faith diminishes. For man it is more beautiful, lowly creature, To open the intricate veils of Nature, And to dare to embrace in his conception The universal law of creation itself, Than to be, as in the days of vain lying, King of a certain illusion that is gazed at in a dream, Uncultivated center of a whole and of which he believes himself the author, And merely for having thought, today finds himself lord. The Sun, globe of fire, gigantic furnace, An incandescent chaos, and from which life spreads, Tempestuous ocean where, lost, there oscillate Rocks that dissolve and some molten metals, Beating and mingling, the inflamed waves Are black explosions laden with smoke, A red islet rises from the crucible, Veils, in the morning, today the face of the Sun; The Earth, our mother, longs around you, O fecund blaze, For a deep cooling, And, cooled like her, and who live like her;

Mars ever bloody and Venus of fair light;

Beside your splendor, Mercury thus lives, And at the confine of this realm of yours, Saturn, And, by God, for me, and with its felicities A quadruple of moons crowns Jupiter.

But, sovereign star and center of these worlds Beyond this empire's profound limits, The thousands of suns numerous and dense, Which no one can count in their immense groups. They prolong, like you, their vast craters, Moving, like you, planetary spheres, Which turn around them, composing their course, And gather from their king brightness and heat. Oh! yes, you are better than the nocturnal lamps, Which would give more light than the taciturn flames, Innumerable glows, stars that you scatter as dust, With your sand of gold you turn the paths blue, In your house the universal life palpitates, Yet we see no more than an astral spark.

And everywhere action, movement, and soul!

Rolling, here and there, in their restless centers, Globes of habitation, whose men I foresee, Living my living, feeling as I feel, Some lowered more, while others perhaps Upon higher rungs in the order of their turn!

How great! How beautiful! In what profound worship! The Spirit, in torpor, loses itself in a deep abyss! Most copious Author, how your omnipotence Shows itself there in glory and in such magnificence! That life, expanding in waves into the infinite, Vastly proclaims your blessed name!

Persecutors, go! Cast your anathemas!

I have more faith than you; knowing, then, remain. God, whom you invoke, better than you immersed In Him I see: only mire, and for you it is the Universe; For me above all the divine work shines;

You make it narrow, and I redouble its path;

As triumphal chariots were given to kings, I place universes at the feet of the Creator.

The true is not that of the Scriptures;

Error is all that remains, and visions, and impostures; Whoever believes the contrary in his teaching Is not enlightened, he is a heedless blind man. Yes, the faith of the Christian has the norm that guides it; Its sole power reigns in theology, And adoration must bow our spirits To the divine dogmas inscribed therein;

But the world of matter escapes the insane force; God delivers it entire to human discussion;

Because it treats of things that fall under the senses, The senses and reason show themselves enfeebled; Authority falls silent; and the order is made null At the very center of the sphere of the unequal rays, The compass is acquitted of being accused of heresy, Nor can it be imposed upon the bodies that they not turn in space. In the end, the eye is judge of the visible Universe. If the immutable dogma is intangible in the Bible, Science repels that immobility, And, dying in irons, attains liberty.

Now, do you not see, then, that your new system, Troubling astronomy, leaves the faith in a dilemma? The material error in a certain point accepted, In the whole Testament renders examination suspect; Whoever once erred is no longer infallible;

Doubt is accepted, examination is a possible act, And soon there is a conclusion, if someone dares to judge, That the dogma of inexact physics is mistaken.

I destroy the faith, when I exalt the worship!

Is to see God in His work to do Him insult?

Ah! to feel it better is to adore it better, And yet, to honor it badly is to disfigure it.

The heavens, according to the Bible in which we must believe, The heavens make us see the glory of their Author; Far better than anyone I listen to its narration, And I have repeated what they are saying.

….Is there one who would bar the thread of a new truth? To hold back a drop, will it be to hold back a river? Believe me, respect these aspirations, They have too much impulse and too many expansions To let themselves be held back within the bars of the prison; Leave them the field free, or death to the barrier! - Ah! Rome, on seeing one day your cults proscribed, You said you opposed nothing but the rites of the sword; You triumphed only, then, by changing your role And by opposing to the sword itself the word in laurel. Your daughter, here I am. Yes, my pious love Will follow the proscribed one, victor over the heavens. Bearing, from valley to valley, your staff thus, I will say: “Bring me the bread of Galileo, For him to whom the Christians denied a home, And who would have had an altar among the pagan peoples.”