Spiritism and Science,

After the Vice-President of the Society, beside the master's tomb, recited the prayer for the dead and, in the name of the Society, bore witness to the feelings of sorrow that accompany Mr. Allan Kardec at his departure from this life, Mr. Camille Flammarion delivered the address that we are going to reproduce in part. Standing on a rise from which he commanded the assembly, Mr. Flammarion could be heard by all, affirming publicly the reality of the Spiritist facts, their general interest to Science, and their future importance. This address is not only a sketch of Mr. Allan Kardec's character and of the role of his works in the contemporary movement, but also, and above all, an exposition of the present state of the physical sciences, from the standpoint of the invisible world, of the unknown natural forces, of the existence of the soul and of its indestructibility. We lack space to give Mr. Flammarion's address in full. Here is what bears directly upon Mr. Allan Kardec and upon Spiritism, considered in itself. (The whole address will be published in pamphlet form). [A. DESLIENS]).

“Gentlemen, “Accepting with deference the sympathetic invitation of the friends of the laborious thinker whose earthly body now lies at our feet, there comes to my mind a somber day in the month of December 1865, on which I uttered words of supreme farewell beside the tomb of the founder of the Academic Bookshop, the honored Didier, who, as publisher, was a convinced collaborator of Allan Kardec in the publication of the fundamental works of a doctrine that was dear to him. He too died suddenly, as though heaven had wished to spare these two upright Spirits the physiological embarrassment of leaving this life by a path other than the one commonly followed. The same reflection applies to the death of our former colleague Jobard, of Brussels. “Today my task is greater still, for I would wish to set before the minds of those who hear me, and before those of the millions of creatures who throughout all Europe and in the New World have occupied themselves with the still mysterious problem of the phenomena called Spiritist; – I would wish, I say, to be able to set before them the scientific interest and the philosophical future of the study of these phenomena, to which, as no one is unaware, eminent men among our contemporaries have devoted themselves. I would be glad to let them glimpse the unknown horizons that the human mind will see opening before it, as it broadens its positive knowledge of the natural forces that act around us; to show them that these verifications constitute the most effective antidote to the leprosy of atheism, with which our age of transition seems chiefly afflicted; in short, to give here public testimony of the eminent service that the author of The Spirits' Book rendered to philosophy, by drawing attention to and provoking discussions upon facts that until then belonged to the morbid and baleful domain of religious superstitions. “It would indeed be an important act to affirm here, beside this eloquent tomb, that the methodical examination of the phenomena erroneously qualified as supernatural, far from renewing the spirit of superstition and weakening the energy of reason, on the contrary dispels the errors and illusions of ignorance and serves progress better than do the illegitimate denials of those who will not take the trouble to see.

“But this is not a fitting place to set up an arena for disrespectful discussions. Let us only allow there to descend from our minds, upon the impassive face of the man now stretched before us, testimonies of affection and feelings of sorrow, that they may remain around him in his tomb, as an embalming of the heart! And since we know that his eternal soul survives these mortal remains, just as it pre-existed them; since we know that indestructible bonds unite our visible world to the invisible world; since this soul exists today just as well as three days ago and it is not impossible that it is at present in my presence: let us say to it that we did not wish his earthly image, enclosed in the sepulcher, to vanish without our unanimously paying homage to his works and to his memory, without paying a tribute of gratitude to his earthly incarnation, so useful and so worthily fulfilled. “I shall first trace, in a rapid sketch, the principal lines of his literary career.

“Dead at the age of 65 years, Allan Kardec had devoted the first part of his life to writing classic, elementary works, intended above all for the use of the educators of youth. When, around the year 1850, the manifestations, new in appearance, of turning tables, of raps without ostensible cause, of unusual movements of objects and furniture, began to engage public attention, even producing, in those of adventurous imagination, a kind of fever owing to the novelty of such experiments, Allan Kardec, studying at the same time magnetism and its singular effects, followed with the greatest patience and judicious clear-sightedness the experimentations and the numerous attempts that were then being made in Paris. “He gathered and set in order the results obtained from that long observation, and with them composed the body of doctrine that he published in 1857, in the first edition of The Spirits' Book. You all know what success that work achieved, in France and abroad. Having reached its 16th edition, it has spread among all classes that body of elementary doctrine which, in its essence, is not at all new, for the school of Pythagoras, in Greece, and that of the druids, in our own Gaul, taught its fundamental principles, but which now assumes a form of true timeliness, by corresponding to the phenomena. “After that first work there appeared, successively, The Mediums' Book, or experimental Spiritism – What is Spiritism, or a summary in the form of questions and answers; – The Gospel According to Spiritism; – Heaven and Hell; – Genesis. Death surprised him at the moment when, with his tireless activity, he was working on another, on the relations between Magnetism and Spiritism.

“Through the Spiritist Review and through the Society of Paris, of which he was president, he had constituted himself, in a sense, the center to which everything tended, the bond uniting all the experimenters. Some months ago, feeling his end near, he prepared the conditions of vitality for such studies after his death and instituted the Central Commission that succeeds him.

“He aroused rivalries; he founded a school of a somewhat personal cast, there being still some disagreements between the “spiritualists” and the “Spiritists.” Henceforth, gentlemen (such, at least, is the wish formulated by the friends of truth), we must all unite in a fraternal solidarity, in the same efforts on behalf of the elucidation of the problem, in the general and impersonal desire for the true and the good.

“How many hearts were consoled, at first, by this religious belief! How many tears were wiped away! How many consciences opened to the rays of spiritual beauty! Not all are happy here on Earth. Many affections have been destroyed! Many souls have been lulled into skepticism. Is it nothing to have brought to spiritualism so many beings who wavered in doubt and who no longer loved life, whether physical or intellectual?

“Allan Kardec was what I shall simply call “common sense incarnate.” A straight and judicious mind, he ceaselessly applied to his permanent work the intimate indications of common sense. This was no minor quality, in the order of things with which we occupy ourselves. It was, on the contrary, one may affirm, the first of all and the most precious, without which the work could not have become popular, nor cast its immense roots throughout the world. Most of those who have given themselves to these studies remember that in their youth, or in certain circumstances, they witnessed unexplained manifestations. Few are the families that do not count in their history proofs of this nature. The starting point was to apply to them the firm reason of simple common sense and to examine them according to the principles of the positive method. “As the very organizer of this long and difficult study had foreseen, this doctrine, hitherto philosophical, must now enter a scientific period. The physical phenomena, upon which at first no insistence was laid, must become the object of experimental criticism, without which no serious verification is possible. That experimental method, to which we owe the glory of modern progress and the marvels of electricity and steam, must take up the phenomena of a still mysterious order that we witness, in order to dissect, measure, and define them.

“For, gentlemen, Spiritism is not a religion, but a science, of which we know only the A B C. The time of dogmas has passed. Nature embraces the Universe, and God Himself, once made in the image of man, modern Metaphysics can no longer consider otherwise than as a spirit within Nature. The supernatural does not exist. The manifestations obtained with the aid of mediums, like those of magnetism and somnambulism, are of a natural order and must be rigorously submitted to the verification of experience. There are no more miracles. We are witnessing the dawn of an unknown science. Who can foresee to what consequences, in the world of thought, the positive study of this new psychology will lead? “Henceforth the world is governed by science, and, gentlemen, it will not be out of place, in this funeral address, to point out to you its present work and the new inductions that it discloses to us, precisely from the standpoint of our researches.”

Here Mr. Flammarion enters into the scientific part of his address. He sets forth the present state of Astronomy and Physics, developing in particular the discoveries relating to the recent analysis of the solar spectrum. It follows from these discoveries that we see almost nothing of what takes place around us in Nature. The caloric rays, which evaporate water, form the clouds, cause the winds and the currents, organize the life of the globe, are invisible to our retina. The chemical rays that govern the movements of plants and the chemical transformations of the inorganic world are likewise invisible. Contemporary science thus authorizes the points of view revealed by Spiritism and, in its turn, opens to us a real invisible world, the knowledge of which can only enlighten us as to the manner of production of the Spiritist phenomena. Next the young astronomer presented the picture of the metamorphoses, from which it follows that the existence and immortality of the soul are revealed by the very laws of life. We cannot here enter into that exposition, but we earnestly advise our brethren in doctrine to read and study in full Mr. Flammarion's address.

After his scientific exposition, the author thus concludes:

“Let those whose sight is restricted by pride or by prejudice utterly fail to understand the yearnings of our minds eager to know, and cast upon this kind of study their sarcasms or anathemas! We place our contemplations higher!… You were the first, oh master and friend! you were the first, from the beginning of my astronomical career, to bear witness with lively sympathy to my deductions concerning the existence of the celestial humanities, for, taking up the book on the Plurality of Inhabited Worlds, you placed it at once at the base of the doctrinal edifice of which you dreamed. Very often we conversed about that celestial life, so mysterious; now, oh soul, you know, by direct vision, in what consists the spiritual life to which we shall return and which we forget during our existence on Earth. “You have returned to that world from which we came, and you gather the fruit of your earthly studies. At our feet sleeps your envelope, your brain is extinguished, your eyes have closed never to open again, your word will no more be heard… We know that we must all plunge into that same last sleep, return to that same inertia, to that same dust. But it is not in that envelope that we place our glory and our hope. The body falls, the soul remains and returns to Space. We shall meet again in a better world and in the immense heaven where we shall employ our most precious faculties, where we shall continue the studies for whose development Earth is too cramped a theater. “It is more comforting to us to know this truth than to believe that you lie wholly within this corpse and that your soul has been annihilated with the cessation of the functioning of an organ. Immortality is the light of life, as this resplendent Sun is the light of Nature.

“Until we meet again, my dear Allan Kardec, until we meet again!”

[1] Translator's note: This address is also transcribed in Posthumous Works, just after the Biography of Allan Kardec.

[2] The address delivered by Mr. Flammarion beside the tomb of Mr. Allan Kardec has just been printed. It forms a pamphlet of 24 pages, in the format of The Spirits' Book. Price: at the Spiritist Bookshop, 50 centimes postage included; to receive it, it suffices to send this sum in postage stamps; per dozen, 4 fr. 75 postage included.