The soul of the Earth.

— The preceding question [Increase and decrease of the volume of the Earth,] naturally leads us to that of the soul of the Earth, debated several times and interpreted in various ways. [see Victor Hennequin.]

The soul of the Earth plays a principal role in the theory of the formation of our globe by the incrustation of four planets, a theory whose material impossibility we have demonstrated, in accordance with geological observations and the data of experimental science. (See Genesis, chapter VII, no. 4 and following.) As concerns the soul, we shall likewise rely upon the facts.

This question prejudges another: Is the Earth a living being? We know that certain philosophers, more systematic than practical, consider the Earth and all the planets as animate beings, basing themselves on the principle that everything in Nature lives, from the mineral to man. First of all, we believe that there is a capital difference between the molecular movement of attraction and repulsion, of aggregation and disaggregation of the mineral, and the vital principle of the plant; there are different effects there, which point to different causes or, at least, to a profound modification in the first cause, if that cause be single. (Genesis, chapter X, nos. 16 to 19.) But, granting for an instant that the principle of life has its source in molecular movement, it cannot be contested that it is still more rudimentary in the mineral than in the plant; now, from there to a soul, whose essential attribute is intelligence, the distance is great. We believe that no one has thought of endowing a pebble or a piece of iron with the faculty of thinking, of willing, and of understanding. Even making all the concessions possible to this system, that is, placing ourselves at the point of view of those who confuse the vital principle with the soul properly so called, the soul of the mineral would be in it only in a state of latent germ, since it reveals itself in it by no manifestation. A fact no less evident than the one we have just spoken of is that organic development is always in relation to the development of the intelligent principle. The organism is completed as the faculties of the soul multiply. The organic scale follows constantly, in all beings, the progression of intelligence, from the polyp to man, and it could not be otherwise, since the soul needs an instrument appropriate to the importance of the functions it must perform. Of what use would it be to the oyster to have the intelligence of the monkey, without the organs necessary for its manifestation? If, then, the Earth were an animate being, serving as the body of a special soul, that soul would have to be still more rudimentary than that of the polyp, since the Earth does not have the same vitality as the plant, whereas, by the role attributed to that soul, above all in the theory of incrustation, they make of it a being endowed with reason and with the most complete free will, a superior Spirit, in a word, which is neither rational nor in conformity with the general law, because never would a Spirit have been more imprisoned and worse endowed. The idea of the soul of the Earth, understood in this sense, as much as the one that makes of the Earth an animal, must, therefore, be ranged among the systematic and chimerical conceptions. Moreover, the most insignificant animal has the freedom of its movements; it goes where it wishes and even when it pleases it, while the heavenly bodies, those supposed beings living and animated by superior intelligences, would be subject to perpetually automatic movements, without ever being able to depart from their course; they would be, in truth, far less favored than the lowest plant louse. If, according to the theory of incrustation, the souls of the four planets that formed the Earth had the freedom to unite their envelopes, they would have the freedom to go where they wished, to change the laws of celestial mechanics at will. Why do they no longer have it? There are ideas that refute themselves and systems that fall as soon as one seriously scrutinizes their consequences. Spiritism would be ridiculed, and justly so, by its adversaries, if it made itself the responsible editor of utopias that do not withstand examination. If ridicule has not killed it, it is because ridicule kills only what is ridiculous.

By soul of the Earth one may understand, more rationally, the collectivity of the Spirits charged with the elaboration and the direction of its constitutive elements, which already supposes a certain degree of advancement and of intellectual development; or, better still: the Spirit to whom is entrusted the high direction of the moral destinies and the progress of its inhabitants, a mission that can only be attributed to a being eminently superior in knowledge and in wisdom. In such a case, that Spirit is not, properly speaking, the soul of the Earth, inasmuch as it is not incarnated in it, nor subordinate to its material state. It is a chief appointed to its direction, as a general is to the command of an army. A Spirit, charged with a mission as important as the government of a world, could not have caprices, or else we would have to recognize in God the improvidence of entrusting the execution of his laws to beings capable of contravening them at their pleasure. Now, according to the doctrine of incrustation, it was the ill will of the soul of the Moon that had given cause for the Earth to remain incomplete.

— Numerous communications, given in various places, have come to confirm this manner of regarding the question of the soul of the Earth. We shall cite only one, which in a few words sums them all up.

(Spiritist Society of Bordeaux, April 1862.)

The Earth has no soul that properly belongs to it, because it is not an organized being, like those that are endowed with life; it has them by the millions, which are the Spirits charged with its equilibrium, its harmony, its vegetation, its heat, its light, the seasons, the incarnation of the animals, over which they watch, as well as over that of men. This does not mean that such Spirits are the cause of these phenomena: they preside over them, as the functionaries of a government preside over each of the gears of the administration. The Earth progressed as it was formed; it progresses always, without ever stopping, until the moment when it has attained the maximum of its perfection. All that is life and matter in it progresses at the same time, since, as progress is realized, the Spirits charged with watching over it and its products progress on their side, by the work that falls to them, or yield their place to more advanced Spirits. At that moment it arrives at a transition from evil to good, from the mediocre to the beautiful. God, the creator, is the soul of the Universe, of all the worlds that gravitate in the infinite, and the Spirits charged, in each world, with the execution of his laws, are the agents of his will, under the direction of a superior delegate. That delegate belongs, necessarily, to the order of the most elevated Spirits, since it would be unjust to the divine wisdom to believe that it would abandon to the caprice of an imperfect creature the care of watching over the realization of the destiny of millions of its own creatures.

— Q. Can the Spirits charged with the direction and the elaboration of the constitutive elements of our globe incarnate themselves?

Answer. – Certainly, because, in the state of incarnation, having a more direct action upon matter, they can do what would be impossible for them as Spirits, just as certain functions, by their nature, belong more especially to the spiritual state. To each state are conferred particular missions.

Do the inhabitants of the Earth not work for its material improvement? Consider, then, all incarnated Spirits as forming part of those who are charged with making it progress, at the same time that they themselves progress. It is the collectivity of all those intelligences, incarnated and disincarnated, including the superior delegate, that constitutes, so to speak, the soul of the Earth, of which each of you forms part. The incarnated and the disincarnated are the bees that work at the building of the hive, under the direction of the chief Spirit. The latter is the head, the others are the arms. Q. – Can that chief Spirit also incarnate itself?

Answer. – Without any doubt, when it receives the mission, which occurs when its presence among men is judged necessary to progress.

One of your spiritual guides.