5.

If criticism did not prevent Spiritism from advancing, would its progress not have been even more rapid had it kept silent?

To advance more quickly would be a difficult thing. I believe, on the contrary, that it would have progressed less, for criticism was its greatest propagandist. Advancing in spite of the attacks, it proved its own strength, for it walked supporting itself only on itself, and having for a weapon nothing but the force of the idea. Does not the soldier who reaches the summit of the redoubt through a hail of bullets have more merit than the one before whom the enemy opened ranks to let him pass? By their opposition, the adversaries of Spiritism gave it the prestige of struggle and of victory.