phrase, _believes in nothing_, believes, nevertheless, in his mother.
Like Count B----, he lost her early, and has never ceased to feel her
presence. He told us that he is more frequently with his dead mother,
than he used to be when she was living. This professed apostle of
medical materialism has, without being aware of it, conversations with
an emancipated soul.
A celebrated journalist, M. R----, lost a son, twenty years of age, a
charming, gentle youth, a writer, and a poet. Every day M. R---- has an
intimate conversation with this son. A quarter of an hour of solitary
recollection admits him to direct communication with the beloved being
snatched away from his love.
M. L----, a barrister, maintains constant relations with a sister who,
when living, possessed, according to him, every human perfection, and
who never fails to guide her brother in every difficulty of his life,
great or small.
Another consideration suggests itself in support of the idea which
occupies us at present. It has been remarked that artists, writers, and
thinkers, after the loss of one beloved, have found their faculties,
talents, and inspirations increased. We might surmise that the
intellectual faculties of those whom they have loved have been added
to their own. I know a financier who is remarkable for his business
capacities. When he finds himself in a difficulty, he stops, without
troubling himself to seek for its solution. He waits, knowing that the
missing idea will come to him spontaneously, and, sometimes after days,
sometimes after hours, the idea comes, just as he has expected. This
happy and successful man has experienced one of the deepest sorrows
the heart can know; he has lost an only son, aged eighteen years, and
endowed with all the qualities of maturity, combined with the graces of
youth. Our readers may draw the conclusion for themselves.
This last example may instruct us concerning a peculiarity of the
superior manifestations which we are studying. We have just said
that sometimes a certain time, some days for instance, are required
for the production of the manifestations. The cause of this is that
the superhuman being, to whom they are due, has much difficulty in
putting himself in relation with the inhabitants of our globe. There
are many beings on the earth whom he loves, and whom he would fain
protect, and he cannot be in two different places at the same time.
We may even suppose that the difficulties which human beings feel in
putting themselves in relation with us, added to the spectacle of the
sufferings and misfortunes which overwhelm their friends here below,
are the causes of the only sorrows which trouble their existence, so
marvellously happy in other respects. Absolute happiness exists nowhere
in the world, and destiny has the power to let fall one drop of gall
into the cup of happiness quaffed by the dwellers in ether, in their
celestial abode.
Persons who receive communications from the dead have remarked that
these communications sometimes cease quite suddenly. A celebrated
actress, now retired from the stage, had manifest communications with
a person whom she had lost by a tragical death. These communications
abruptly ceased. The soul of the dead friend whom she mourned warned
her that their intercourse was about to cease. The assigned reason
serves to explain why such relation cannot be continuously maintained.
The superhuman being who was in relations with the terrestrial
person had already risen in rank in the celestial hierarchy, he had
accomplished a new metamorphosis, and he could no longer correspond
with the earth.
Among the French peasantry communication with the dead is a general
habit. In the country death does not involve the lugubrious ideas which
accompany it among the dwellers in cities. People love and cultivate
the memory of those whom they have loved, they hold as most happy those
whom the favour of Providence has early removed from the misfortunes,
the failures, the bitterness of terrestrial life, they call on them,
they confide in them, and the dead, grateful for this pious memory of
them, respond to the simple prayers of these hearts. All the Orientals
have that serene aspiration towards death which in Europe exists
exclusively among country people. The Mussulmans love to invoke death,
to spread the idea of death everywhere. Every one knows the melancholy
proverb of the Arabs, "It is better to be seated than standing; it
is better to be lying down than seated; it is better to be dead than
living."
The preceding chapter terminated with a quotation from Charles
Bonnet, the first of the naturalists who discerned the doctrine of
the plurality of existences above the globe. We shall terminate
this chapter with a quotation from another naturalist philosopher,
a contemporary of Charles Bonnet, who defended that doctrine very
cleverly. Dupont de Nemours, in his _Philosophie de l'Univers_,
expresses himself thus, on the subject of the communications which
may be established between us, and the superior beings, invisible
inhabitants of other worlds, whom he calls _angels_, or _genii_.
"Why," said Dupont, "have we no evident knowledge of these beings,
the necessity, convenience, and analogy of whom strike our
reflective faculties which only can indicate them? of those beings
who must surpass us in perfections, in faculties, in power, as much
as we surpass the lower animals and the plants?--who must have a
hierarchy as various, as finely graduated as that which we admire
among the living and intelligent beings over which we dominate,
and which are subordinate to us?--several others of whom may be
our companions on earth, as we are of animals which, destitute
of sight, hearing, and the sense of smell, of hands and of feet,
do not know what we are even when we are doing them good, or
harm?--some of whom are perhaps travelling from globe to globe, or,
more excellent still, from one solar system to another, more easily
than we go from Brest to Madagascar?
"It is because we have neither such organs or such senses as would
be necessary to enable our intelligence to communicate with them.
"Thus do the worlds embrace the worlds, and thus are classified
intelligent beings all composed of matter which God has more or
less richly organized and vivified.
"Such is the probability, and, speaking to vigorous minds which do
not shrink from novel suggestions, I will dare to say that such is
the truth.
"Man is capable of calculating that it is frequently for his
own interest to be useful to other species; and, which is more
valuable, more moral, and more amiable, he is capable of rendering
them services for his own satisfaction, and without any other
motive than the pleasure which it affords him to do so.
"That which we do for our lower brethren, we, whose intelligence
is circumscribed, and whose goodness is very limited, the genii,
the angels,--permit me to employ terms in general use to designate
beings whom I only divine but do not know,--these beings who are so
much more worthy than we, ought to do, and doubtless do, the same
for us, with much more beneficence, frequency, and extent on all
occasions which concern them.
"We know perfectly well that these intelligences exist, and it is
of little importance to us whether they are, as some persons think,
formed of a sort of matter, composed of mixed material, or not.
Their quota of intelligence is very brilliant, very remarkable,
and evident; in strong contrast with the properties of inanimate
nature, which can be measured, weighed, calculated, and analyzed.
"In order to comprehend what is the action of superhuman
intelligences, who can only be known to us by induction, reason,
and comparison between what we ourselves are to even the most
intelligent animals, which are efficiently served by us, but have
not the smallest idea of us, we must pursue analogy farther. These
intelligences are above us, and out of the reach of our senses
only because they are endowed with a greater number of senses, and
with a more developed and more active life. These beings are more
worthy than we are, they have many more organs and faculties, they
must therefore, in employing their disposable faculties according
to their will, just as we employ ours according to our will, be
able to dispose, to work, to manœuvre all inanimate matter, and to
do all this among themselves, and also with respect to intelligent
beings who are their inferiors, with much more energy, rapidity,
enlightenment, and wisdom than we possess, we who nevertheless do
it for the beasts subordinate to us. It is, then, in harmony with
the laws and the ways of nature that the superior intelligences
should have power to render us, when it pleases them, most
important services of which we are quite ignorant.
"These unknown protectors who observe us, unperceived, have not our
imperfections, and must prize all that is good and beautiful in
itself more highly than we can.
"We cannot, therefore, hope to please intelligences of a superior
grade by actions which men themselves would condemn as odious.
We cannot flatter ourselves with a hope of deceiving them, as we
may deceive men, by exterior hypocrisy which only renders crime
more despicable. They can behold our most secret actions, they can
overhear our soliloquies, they can penetrate our unspoken thoughts.
We know not in how many ways they can read what is passing in our
hearts, we, whose coarseness, poverty, and unskilfulness limit our
means of knowing to touch, sight, hearing, and sometimes analysis
and conjecture.
"A celebrated Roman wished to have a house built, which should
be open to the sight of the citizens. This house exists, and we
inhabit it. Our neighbours are the chiefs and the magistrates of
the great republic, who are invested with right and power to punish
even our intentions, which are no mystery to them. And those who
most completely penetrate them in their smallest variations, in
their lightest inflections, are the most powerful and the most wise.
"Let us then try, in so far as it depends on us, to keep in accord
with those in comparison with whom we are so small, and, above all,
let us understand our littleness. If it be very important to us
to admit to our complete friendship, to our entire confidence, to
our constant society, none but men of the first rank of mind and
character--if the sweet competition of affection, zeal, goodness,
and capacity which is always going on between them and us,
contributes to our improvement every day, what shall we not gain by
giving them adjuncts, so to speak, higher and more perfect, who are
not subject, either to our ignoble interests, our passions, or our
errors, and before whom we cannot but blush. They do not vary, they
do not abandon us, they never go away, so soon as we are alone we
find them. They accompany us in travel, in exile, in prison, in a
dungeon; they are always floating above the peaceful and reflecting
brain.
"We can question them, and every time we do so, we may be sure that
they reply. Why should they not do so? Our absent friends render us
such service, but only those of their number who inspire us with
great respect. We can even experience something of the kind with
regard to an imaginary personage, if he presents himself to our
minds as uniting several good and heroic qualities. How often, in
difficult circumstances and in the midst of the strife of different
passages, I have asked myself,--In this case, what would Charles
Grandison have done? What would Quesnay have thought? What would
Turgot have approved of? What advice would Lavoisier have given me?
How shall I gain the approval of the angels? What line of action
will be most conformable to the order, the laws and the beneficent
views of the wise and majestic King of the universe? For the
homage, the aspirations of a soul eager to do good, and careful to
avoid debasement, may also be raised to God, in salutary and pious
invocation."[11]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] "Liber de animâ," ch. xlvi
[11] Pezzani: "_Pluralité des Existences de l'âme_," pp. 206-210.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
WHAT IS AN ANIMAL?--THE SOULS OF ANIMALS.--MIGRATIONS OF SOULS THROUGH
THE BODIES OF ANIMALS.
HITHERTO we have left animals out of our plan, although, owing to their
immense number, and their influence upon the places which they inhabit,
they play a highly important part in the world. It is now time to
define the place in nature which our system assigns to them.
Have animals souls? Yes, in our belief, animals have souls; but among
animals of all classes the soul is far from being endowed with an
equal degree of activity. The activity of the soul is different in
the crocodile and in the dog, in the eagle and in the grasshopper.
In inferior animals, zoophytes and mollusca, the soul exists only
in the condition of a germ. This germ develops itself, and becomes
amplified according to the elevation of animals in the series of
organic perfection. The sponge and the coral are zoophytes (animal
plants). In these beings, the characteristics of animality, although
they exist very positively, are obscure and hardly discernible.
Voluntary motion, which is the distinctive characteristic formerly
demanded for animals, is wanting in them; they are motionless, like the
plants. Nevertheless, their nutrition is the same as that of animals,
therefore they belong to the animal world. We cannot, however, grant
to them a complete soul, but only the germ, the originating point of
a soul. Among mollusca (such as marine and land shells, the oyster,
the snail, &c.), the motions and the conduct of life are dictated by
the will, and that suffices, in our belief, to reveal their possession
of a soul, imperfect and very elementary, but certainly existent.
Among articulated animals, the insects especially, will, sensibility,
acts which denote reason, deliberation, and action resulting from
deliberation, are numerous, and recurrent at every moment. They denote
intelligence already active.
The smallness of the bodies of these animals is not an argument to
be used against the fact of their intelligence. In nature nothing is
great, and nothing is little; the monstrous whale and the invisible
gnat are equal in the presence of its laws; both one and the other
have received as their inheritance the degree of intelligence which is
suitable to its need, and it is not by the scale of grandeur that we
must measure the degrees of mind among living creatures. Every one is
familiar with the prodigies of intelligence performed by associated
bees, and by the ants, in their camps and hills. The habits of these
two species of insects, which have been studied and expounded only
in our age, fill us with wonder, almost with awe. But the bees and
the ants do not constitute an exception among the insect class. It
is very probable that in the entire class intelligence exists to the
same degree as in bees and ants, for we do not see why two species of
hymenopterous insects should exclusively possess this privilege, to
the exclusion of other species of the same order, and all the other
orders of the insect class. The fact is, that the bee has been studied
profoundly, because that insect is an object of agricultural industry,
and that, in consequence, it was for man's interest to understand
its customs. This accounts for the successful surmounting of the
difficulties attendant on the study of bees.
We may add, that the observer to whom our knowledge of bees is due,
Pierre Huber, of Geneva, who published his fine works at the end of the
last century, was blind, and that he was obliged to have recourse for
all his observations to the eyes of an illiterate servant, François
Burnens, which is a proof that this kind of study was not inordinately
difficult.
The habits of other species of insects, still unknown to us, must,
according to this, conceal marvels quite as great as those which the
Hubers have revealed in the case of bees and ants.
Let us conclude that insects have souls, since intelligence is a
faculty of the soul.
We may apply the same reasoning to fishes, reptiles, and birds.
In these three classes of animals intelligence progresses towards
perfection, the faculty of reason is manifest, and the degree of
intelligence seems to march at a progressive rate from the fish to the
reptile, and from the reptile to the bird.
In mammiferous animals we observe a degree of advance in intelligence
upon the classes of animals we have just named. But, ought we to
calculate the degree of intelligence of the different mammifers
according to the order in which naturalists have classed these animals?
Ought we to say that the strength of intelligence increases as we
follow the zoological distribution of Cuvier, that is to say, that it
rises from cetacea to carnivora, from carnivora to pachyderms, and from
pachyderms to ruminants, &c.? No, evidently not.
It would be absurd to apportion the intellect of animals to the place
which they occupy in zoological classification. We do not possess
any certain method by which to form such an appreciation in detail.
We remain within the terms of a very acceptable philosophical thesis
in advancing our belief, in a general manner, that the intellectual
faculties of animals augment from the mollusk to the mammifer,
following almost exactly the progressive scale of zoological
classification, but to enter into the peculiarities of these orders
would be to expose ourselves to certain contradiction. In zoophytes the
soul exists as a germ; this germ develops itself and grows in mollusca,
and then in articulated creatures and fishes. The soul acquires certain
faculties, more or less obscure and dim, when it enters the body of a
reptile, and these faculties are manifestly augmented in the body of
a bird. The soul is provided with far more perfected faculties when
it reaches the body of a mammifer. Such is the general outline of our
system.
Let us now follow this system out to the end. In the first pages of
this book, we have advanced our theory that the soul of man, at the
close of its terrestrial existence, passes into the planetary ether,
where it is lodged in the body of a new being, superior to man in
intelligence and morality. If this theory be correct, if this migration
of the soul of man into the body of the superhuman being be real,
analogy obliges us to establish the same relation between the animals,
and then between the animals and man.
We firmly believe that a transmigration, a transmission of souls, or
of the germs of souls, throughout the entire series of the classes of
animals takes place. The germ of a conscious soul which existed in
the zoophyte and the mollusk passes, on the death of those beings,
into the body of an articulated animal. In this first stage of its
journey, the animate germ strengthens and ameliorates itself. The
nascent soul acquires some rudimentary faculties. When this rudiment of
a conscious soul passes out of the body of an articulated animal into
that of a fish or a reptile, it undergoes a new degree of elaboration,
and its power increases. When, escaping from the body of the reptile
or the fish, it is lodged in the form of the bird it receives other
impressions, which become the origin of new perfections. The bird
transmits the spiritual element, already much modified and aggrandized,
to the mammifer, and then, the soul, having again gained power, and the
number of its faculties being augmented, passes into the body of man.
It is probable that in the case of the inferior animals many animate
germs are united to form the superior being. For instance, the
principal animators of a certain number of little zoophytes, of those
beings who live in the waters by millions, may, probably, on quitting
the bodies of those beings, be united in one in order to form the soul
of a single individual of a superior order.
It would be impossible to specify from what particular mammifer the
soul must escape, in order to penetrate a human organism. It would
be impossible to decide whether, before reaching man the soul has
successively traversed the bodies of several mammifers, of more or less
complicated organism; if it has passed through the body of a cetacian,
then of a carnivorous creature, then of a quadrumane, the last term of
the animal series. A pretension to detail would be a stumbling block to
such a system as ours.
To maintain, for instance, that our soul is transmitted to us by the
quadrumane, would be incorrect. The intelligence of the quadrumane is
inferior to that of many animals more highly placed than he in the
zoological scale. Apes, which compose only one family in the very
numerous order of quadrumana, are animals of middling intelligence.
They are malicious, cunning and gross, and possess only a few features
of the human face, and even these belong to but few species. All the
other quadrumanes are bestial in the highest degree.
It is not, therefore, in the quadrumana that we must look for the
soul to be transmitted to man. But there are animals endowed with
intelligence which is both powerful and noble, who would have a
title to be accredited with such an honour. Those animals would vary
according to the inhabited parts of the earth. In Asia, it may be
that the wise, grave, and noble elephant is the depositary of the
spiritual principle which is to pass into man. In Africa, the lion,
the rhinoceros, the numerous ruminants which fill the forests may,
perhaps, be the ancestors of the human race. In America, the horse,
the wild ranger of the pampas, the dog, the faithful friend, the
devoted companion of man, everywhere are, it may be, charged with
the elaboration of the spiritual principle, which, transmitted to
the child, is destined to develop itself, to increase in that child,
and become the human soul. A writer in our time has called the dog a
candidate for humanity. He little knew how true his definition is.
It will be urged, in objection, that man cannot have received the soul
of an animal, because he has not the smallest remembrance of such a
genealogy. To this we reply that the faculty of memory is wanting
in the animal, or is so fugitive that we may consider it _nil_. The
child can therefore receive from the animal only a soul unendowed with
memory. And, in fact, the child itself is totally destitute of that
faculty. At the moment of his birth he differs not at all from the
animal as regards the faculties of his soul. It is not until twelve
months have elapsed that the soul makes itself evident in him, and it
is afterwards perfected by education. How, therefore, should the child
remember an existence prior to his birth? Have we any memory of the
time which we passed in our mother's womb?
Let us observe here that the progressive order which we have indicated
for the migration of soul through the bodies of different animals,
is precisely that which nature followed in the first creation of the
organized beings which people our globe. It will be seen in ch. xiv.,
pp. 196-200, that plants zoophytes, mollusca, and articulated animals
are the first living beings which appeared on our globe. After them
came the fishes, and then the reptiles. After the reptiles birds, and
at a later period mammifers appeared. Thus our system responds to the
routine which nature has followed in the creation of plants and animals.