Religion and politics in modern society

Mr. Herrenschneider is a former Saint-Simonian and it was there that he gathered his ardent love of progress. Later he became a Spiritist, and yet we are far from sharing his manner of seeing on all points and from accepting all the solutions he gives. His is a work of lofty philosophy, in which the Spiritist element occupies an important place. We shall examine it only from the point of view of the agreement and divergence of its ideas, in what concerns Spiritism. Before entering upon the examination of his theory, some preliminary considerations seem to us essential. Three great doctrines divide spirits, under the names of different religions and very distinct philosophies: they are materialism, spiritualism, and Spiritism. Now, one may be a materialist and believe or not believe in man's free will; in the second case one is an atheist or a pantheist; in the first one is inconsistent and still takes the name of pantheist or naturalist, positivist, etc.

The creature is a spiritualist as soon as it is not a materialist, that is, as soon as it admits a spiritual principle distinct from matter, whatever idea one may form of its nature and of its destiny. Catholics, Greeks, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, deists are spiritualists, despite the essential differences of dogma that divide them.

The Spiritists form a clearer and more precise idea of the soul; it is not a vague and abstract being, but a defined being, which assumes a concrete, limited, circumscribed form. Independently of intelligence, which is its essence, it has special attributes and effects, which constitute the fundamental principles of their doctrine. They admit: the fluidic body or perispirit; the indefinite progress of the soul; reincarnation or the plurality of existences, as a necessity of progress; the plurality of inhabited worlds; the presence in our midst of the souls or Spirits who lived on Earth and the continuation of their solicitude for the living; the perpetuity of affections; the universal solidarity that binds the living and the dead; the Spirits of all worlds and, consequently, the efficacy of prayer; the possibility of communication with the Spirits of those who no longer live; in man, spiritual or physical sight, which is an effect of the soul. They reject the dogma of eternal, irremissible punishments, as irreconcilable with the justice of God; but they admit that the soul, after death, suffers and bears the consequences of all the evil it did during life, of all the good it could have done and did not do. Its sufferings are the natural consequence of its acts; they last as long as the perversity or moral inferiority of the Spirit lasts; they diminish as it improves itself and cease through the reparation of the evil, a reparation that occurs in the successive bodily existences. Always having its freedom of action, the Spirit is thus the very artificer of its happiness and of its misfortune, in this world and in the other. Man is not fatally led either to good or to evil; he accomplishes one and the other by his will and perfects himself through experience. As a result of this principle, the Spiritists do not admit demons doomed to evil, nor the special creation of angels predestined to infinite happiness, without having had the labor of deserving it. The demons are still imperfect human Spirits, but who will improve with time; the angels, Spirits arrived at perfection, after having passed, like the others, through all the degrees of inferiority. Spiritism admits, for each one, only the responsibility for his own acts; according to it, original sin is personal, consisting in the imperfections that each individual brings at birth, because he has not yet divested himself of them in his preceding existences, and whose consequences he naturally suffers in his present existence.

Neither does it admit, as supreme final reward, the useless and beatific contemplation of the elect throughout all eternity; but, on the contrary, an incessant activity from top to bottom of the scale of beings, in which each one has attributions in conformity with his degree of advancement.

Such is, in a very summarized form, the basis of Spiritist beliefs. One is a Spiritist from the moment one enters into this order of ideas, even when one does not admit all the points of the Doctrine in their integrity or in all their consequences. By not being a complete Spiritist one is no less a Spiritist, which makes it so that sometimes one is so without knowing it, sometimes without wishing to confess it, and that, among the sectarians of the different religions, many are Spiritists in fact, if not in name. For the spiritualists, the common belief is to believe in a creator God and to admit that, after death, the soul continues to exist, in the form of a pure Spirit, completely detached from all matter, and also that it will be able, with or without the resurrection of its material body, to enjoy an eternal existence, happy or unhappy.

The materialists, on the contrary, believe that force is inseparable from matter and cannot exist without it; thus, God is for them only a gratuitous hypothesis, unless it be matter itself; the materialists deny with all their force the conception of an essentially spiritual soul and of a personality surviving death.

Their critique is well founded, in what concerns the soul as the spiritualists accept it, in the sense that, force being inseparable from matter, a personal, active and powerful soul cannot exist like a geometric point in space, without dimension of any kind, neither length, nor breadth, nor height. What force, what power, what action can such a soul have over the body during life? what progress can it accomplish and in what manner does it preserve its trace, seeing that it is nothing? how could it be susceptible of happiness or unhappiness after death? they ask the spiritualists. There is no reason to dissimulate this specious argumentation, although it is without value against the doctrine of the Spiritists. They too admit the soul distinct from the body, like the spiritualists, with an eternal life and an indestructible personality, but they consider this soul as indissolubly united to matter; not to the matter of the body itself, but to another, more ethereal, fluidic and incorruptible matter, which they call perispirit, a felicitous word, which well expresses the thought that is the origin and the very basis of Spiritism. If we summarize the three doctrines, we shall say that, for the materialists, the soul does not exist; or, if it exists, it is confounded with matter, without any distinct personality outside the present life, in which this personality is even more apparent than real.

For the spiritualists, the soul exists in the state of Spirit, independent of God and of all matter.

For the Spiritists, the soul is distinct from God, who created it, inseparable from a fluidic and incorruptible matter, which may be called perispirit.

This preliminary explanation will allow it to be understood that there are Spiritists without knowing it.

Indeed, as soon as one is neither a materialist nor a spiritualist, one can be nothing but a Spiritist, despite the repugnance that some seem to experience for this qualification.

Here we are well far from the fanciful appraisals of those who imagine that Spiritism rests only on the evocation of Spirits. Meanwhile, there are Spiritists who have never made an evocation; others who have never seen them, nor concern themselves with seeing them, for their belief dispenses with that recourse; and by resting solely on reason and study, this belief is no less complete and no less serious.

We even think that it is under its philosophical and moral form that Spiritism finds the firmest and most convinced adherents; the communications are nothing but means of conviction, of demonstration and, above all, of consolation. One should resort to them only with reserve, and when one already knows well what one wishes to obtain.

Not that the communications are the exclusive share of the Spiritists; often they occur spontaneously and, sometimes even, in milieus hostile to Spiritism, of which they are independent. Indeed, they are nothing but the result of natural laws and actions, which the Spirits or men can use, the one or the other, whether independently or in agreement among themselves.

But, just as it is prudent not to place instruments of physics, of chemistry and of astronomy except in the hands of those who know how to make use of them, it is fitting not to provoke communications except when they may have a real utility, and never with a view to satisfying a puerile curiosity.

This said, we may examine the notable work of Mr. Herrenschneider. It is the work of a profound thinker and of a convinced Spiritist, if not a complete one, but we do not approve all the conclusions at which he arrives.

Mr. Herrenschneider admits the existence of a creator God, present in everything in creation, penetrating all bodies with his fluidic substance and finding himself in us as we in him. It is the notable solution that Mr. Allan Kardec presented in his work Genesis, by way of hypothesis.

But, according to the author, in the beginning God filled all space; he would have created each being by withdrawing from the place, which he granted to it, in order to leave to it free development, under his incessant protection. This progressive development operates, at first, under the necessary effect of the laws of Nature and through the coercion of evil; then, when the Spirit has already progressed sufficiently, it can join its own action to the fatal action of the natural laws, in order to activate its progress. Throughout all this phase of the existence of beings, which begins with the molecule of the mineral, continues in the vegetable, develops in the animal and is determined in man, the Spirit gathers and preserves knowledge through its perispirit, thus acquiring a certain experience. The advances that are realized are of great slowness and, the slower they are, the more the incarnations multiply.

As one sees, the author adopts the scientific principles of the progress of beings, set forth by Lamarck, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Darwin, with the difference that the moderating action of the animal forms and organs is no longer merely the result of selection and of vital competition, but, also and above all, the effect of the intelligent action of the animal spirit, incessantly modifying the forms and the matter, which it assumes in order to realize an appropriation more in conformity with the experience it has acquired. It is in this order of ideas that we should have liked to see the author insist upon the beneficent and affectionate action of the more elevated beings, contributing to the advancement of the weaker ones, guiding them and protecting them out of a sentiment of sympathy and of solidarity, whose development is felicitously presented in the book Genesis and in all the works of Mr. Allan Kardec.

Mr. Herrenschneider does not speak of the reciprocal action of some beings upon others, except from the sad point of view of the malefic action and of the necessary progress that results from evil in Nature. On this point, he well understood that evil is only relative, and that it is one of the very conditions of progress. This part of his work is well developed.

“Created,” he says, “in extreme weakness, in extreme idleness, and being destined to be the means of our own end, we are obliged to arrive at perfection and at power, at happiness and at liberty by our own efforts; our destiny is to be in everything and everywhere the children of our works, to create for ourselves our unity, our personality, our originality, as well as our happiness.

“Such, in my opinion, are the designs of God concerning us. But, in order to attain it, the creator evidently cannot abandon us to ourselves, because, created in that minute and molecular state, we are naturally plunged into a profound torpor; there we should even have remained perpetually, and we should never have taken a step forward if, in order to awaken us, in order to render sensible our inert substance and to activate our force deprived of initiative, God had not subjected us to a system of coercion, which binds us to our origin, never leaves us, and forces us to develop efforts in order to satisfy the needs and the moral, intellectual and material instincts, of which it has made us the slaves, in consequence of the system of incarnation, which it has arranged for this end.” Going further than the Stoics, who claimed that pain was nothing but a word, one sees that the Spiritists arrive at pronouncing this strange formula: that evil itself is a good, in the sense that it leads to it fatally, necessarily.

In all that precedes, we shall make to the author the criticism of having forgotten that the most intimate solidarity binds all beings, and that the best of all are those who, having better understood this principle, put it into action incessantly, in such a way that all beings in Nature contribute to the general aim and to the progress of one another: some without knowing it and under the impulse of their spiritual guides; others, understanding their duty to elevate and to instruct those who surround them, or who depend on them, and helping themselves with the concourse of those more advanced than they themselves are. Today everyone understands that parents owe their children a suitable education, and that those who are happy, instructed and advanced ought to help the poor, the suffering and the ignorant. Consequently, one ought to understand the utility of prayer, which puts us in relation with the Spirits who can guide us. Does it not happen to us to ask of those who live like us? who are our superiors or our equals? and can our life pass without this perpetual appeal that we make to the concourse of others? It is not, then, astonishing that, hearing us, those who no longer live should be equally sensible to our prayers, to the measure of what they can do, as, moreover, they would have done in life. Sometimes it is given to one who did not ask, but it is given above all to those who ask. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you; ask, and if it is possible, you shall be answered. Believe not that everything is owed to you and that you ought to await the benefits without asking for them and without deserving them; believe not that everything comes fatally and necessarily, but, on the contrary, reflect that you are in the midst of free and voluntary beings, as numerous as the sand of the sea, and that their action may join itself to yours, at your request and according to their sympathy, which one must know how to deserve.

To pray is a means of acting upon others and upon oneself, but this is not the moment to develop this important subject. Let us say only that prayer is of value only when it accompanies effort or labor, and can do nothing without it, whereas general labor and efforts may very well replace prayer. It is above all among the Spiritists that this old adage is admitted: To labor is to pray.

The most important part of Mr. Herrenschneider's book is that where he makes what one might call the psychology of the soul, conceived just as the Spiritists understand it. From this point of view, his work is new and of the most curious.

The author clearly determines the phenomena dependent on the perispirit, and as it has at the disposal of the spirit the entire sum of its prior advances, it preserves the trace of the efforts and of the new advances attempted and realized by the being, at whatever moment it may be.

According to these data, the nature of the soul or of the perispirit must be considered as an acquired treasure, preserved within us and enclosing all that concerns our being in the moral, intellectual and practical order.

We shall avoid using the terms adopted by the author who, in order to express that the soul can act, whether through the effect of its acquired treasure or intimate nature (perispirit), or through a new effort or voluntary action, makes use of the expression duality of the soul, although he points out that the soul is one. There is an unfortunate expression, which does not express the true thought of the author and which could lend itself to confusion for a little attentive mind.

Like the Spiritists, Mr. Herrenschneider believes in the unity of the soul; like them, he admits the existence of the perispirit, which allows him to make a very fine critique of the psychology of the spiritualists, which he studies more especially according to the works of Mr. Cousin.

Starting from the same point as Socrates and Descartes: the knowledge of oneself, the author establishes the primordial fact from which all our knowledge results, that is, the affirmation of ourselves, made each time we employ the word I. The affirmation of the I is, then, the true basis of psychology. Now, there are several manifestations of this I, which present themselves to our observation, without one having any priority over the others and without their engendering one another reciprocally: I feel myself, — I know myself, — I have consciousness of my individuality, — I have the desire to be satisfied. These two last facts of consciousness are evident and clear in themselves; they constitute the principle of the unity of the being and that of our final cause or destiny, namely: to be happy. In order to feel oneself and to know oneself, one must note that one has perfect consciousness of feeling oneself without having need to make any effort; on the contrary, the perception of feeling is an act that results from an effort of the same order as attention; as soon as I make no more effort, I no longer think, nor pay attention, and then I feel all the exterior things that cause me an impression, until the moment when one of them strikes me vividly enough for me to examine it, directing my attention toward it. Thus, I can think or feel, be impressed or perceive, and judge my impression when I wish. There are here two different, heterogeneous psychological orders, one of which is passive and is characterized by sensibility and by permanence; it is feeling, and the other is active and is distinguished by the effort of attention and by its intermittence: it is voluntary thought.

It is from this observation that the author arrives at concluding for the existence of the perispirit, through a series of very interesting deductions, but too long to relate here.

For Mr. Herrenschneider, the perispirit, or substance of the soul, is a simple, incorruptible, inert, extended, solid and sensible matter; it is the potential principle which, by its subtlety, receives all impressions, assimilates them, preserves them and transforms itself, under that incessant action, in such a way as to enclose all our moral, intellectual and practical force.

The force of the soul is of a virtual, spiritual order, active, voluntary and reflective; it is the principle of our activity. Everywhere where our perispirit is found, our force is equally found. On the perispirit or on the acquired treasure of our nature depend our sensibility, our sensations, our sentiments, our memory, our imagination, our ideas, our good sense, our spontaneity, our moral nature and our principles of honor, as well as dreams, passions and even madness.

From our force derive, as virtual qualities, attention, perception, reason, remembrance, fancy, humor, thought, reasoning, reflection, will, virtue, conscience and vigilance, as well as somnambulism, exaltation and monomania.

Since these qualities can substitute one for another without excluding themselves, and also because the same organs must be employed both for perception and for sensation, which are equivalent, by sentiment as by reason, etc., it results that each Spirit rarely makes use of the two orders of its faculties with the same facility. From this observation, it results for the author that the individuals who function more easily, by virtue of the so-called potential faculties, will have these more developed than the others and will make use of them more at will, and reciprocally. From this point of view and from an observation relative to the greater or lesser virtual force of certain collections of individuals, generally grouped under one and the same name of race, the author arrives at the conclusion that there exist Spirits that may be called French, English, Italian, Chinese, black Spirits, etc.

Despite the difficulties of explanation that would result from such an order of ideas, one is forced to grant that the very careful studies made by Mr. Herrenschneider on the various peoples are very notable and, in any case, very interesting; but we should have wished that the author had indicated his thought with more clarity, and which evidently is the following: The Spirits group themselves, in general, according to their affinities; it is this that makes it so that Spirits of the same order and of the same degree of elevation tend to incarnate themselves at one and the same point of the globe, whence results this national character, a phenomenon in appearance so singular. We shall say, then, that there are no French or English Spirits, but that there are Spirits whose state, habits, traditions impel some to incarnate themselves in France, others in England, just as one sees them, during life, group themselves according to their sympathies, their moral worth and their characters. As for individual progress, it depends always on the will, and not on the already acquired worth of the perispirit which, to tell the truth, serves only as a point of departure, destined to permit a new elevation of the Spirit, new conquests and new advances. We shall leave aside the part of the book that treats of the social order and of the necessity of an imposed religion, because the author, still imbued with the principles of authority that he drew from Saint-Simonism, departs very much, on this point, from the principles of absolute tolerance that Spiritism glories in professing. We find it just to teach, but we should fear a doctrine imposed and necessary, inasmuch as, even were it just for the present generation, it would forcibly become a hindrance for the following generations, when these had progressed. Mr. Herrenschneider does not understand that morality can be independent of religion. In our opinion, the question is badly posed, and each one discusses it precisely from the point of view in which he is right. The independent moralists are correct when they say that morality is independent of religious dogmas, in the sense that, without believing in any of the existing dogmas, many of the ancients were moralized, and among the moderns there are some, and many, who have the right to boast of being so. But what is certain is that morality and, above all, its practical application, is always dependent on our individual beliefs, whatever they may be. Now, even were they of the most philosophical, a belief constitutes the religion of the one who possesses it. This is easily demonstrated by the daily facts of existence, and the moralists who say they are independent have, themselves, as a belief, that one must respect oneself and respect others, developing as much as possible, in oneself and in others, the elements of progress. Their morality will depend, then, on their belief; their actions will forcibly feel the effect of it, and that morality will be independent only of the religions, the beliefs and the dogmas in which they have no faith, which we find very just and rational, but, also, very elementary. What can be said is that, in the present state of our society, there are principles of morality that are in accord with all individual beliefs, whatever they may be, because individuals have modified their religious beliefs on certain points, by virtue of the scientific and moral advances of which our ancestors made the happy conquest.

We shall conclude by saying that the author is, on many points, a disciple of Jean Reynaud. His book is the summary of serious studies and thoughts, expressed clearly, and with force; it is made with a care worthy of praise, and that care goes even to minuteness in the material details of the printing, which is of great importance for the clarity of so serious a book.

In spite of the profound disagreement that separates us from Mr. Herrenschneider, both with regard to his manner of seeing in imposing religion, and as to his ideas relative to authority, to the family, which he greatly forgot, as well as to prayer, to the benevolent solidarity of the Spirits, which he did not know how to appreciate, etc.; ideas that Jean Reynaud himself had already disapproved, it is impossible not to be touched by the merit of the work and by the worth of the man who knew how to find strong thoughts, often just and always clearly expressed. Spiritism is therein affirmed without circumlocution, at least in its fundamental principles, and taken into consideration in the elements of philosophical science. There is, however, this difference: at the point of departure the author arrives at the result by induction, whereas Spiritism, proceeding by the experimental way, founded its theory on the observation of facts. He is too serious a writer, which gives it the right of citizenship.

Emile Barrault, engineer.

Allan Kardec.

[1] 1 vol. in-12, of 600 pages. Price: 5 fr.; by post, 5 fr. 75 c. Dentu, Palais-Royal. [La Religion et la politique de la société moderne, précédé de deux lettres de Jean Reynaud, par Frédéric Herrenschneider - Google Books.]

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