THE SECRETS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY TAKEN FOR SUPERNATURAL THINGS.
It is possible to allege against my reasoning the secrets of physics
and chemistry, which produce an infinity of wonderful effects, and
appear beyond the power of natural agency. We have the composition of
a phosphorus, with which they write; the characters do not appear by
daylight, but in the dark we see them shine; with this phosphorus,
figures can be traced which would surprise and even alarm during the
night, as has been done more than once, apparently to cause
maliciously useless fright. _La poudre ardente_ is another phosphorus,
which, provided it is exposed to the air, sheds a light both by night
and by day. How many people have been frightened by those little worms
which are found in certain kinds of rotten wood, and which give a
brilliant flame by night.
We have the daily experience of an infinite number of things, all of
them natural, which appear above the ordinary course of nature,[438]
but which have nothing miraculous in them, and ought not to be
attributed to angels or demons; for instance, teeth and noses taken
from other persons, and applied to those who have lost similar parts;
of this we find many instances in authors. These teeth and noses fall
off directly when the person from whom they were taken dies, however
great the distance between these two persons may be.
The presentiments experienced by certain persons of what happens to
their relations and friends, and even of their own death, are not at
all miraculous. There are many instances of persons who are in the
habit of feeling these presentiments, and who in the night, even when
asleep, will say that such a thing has happened, or is about to
happen; that such messengers are coming, and will announce to them
such and such things.
There are dogs that have the sense of smelling so keen that they scent
from a good distance the approach of any person who has done them good
or harm. This has been proved many times, and can only proceed from
the diversity of organs in those animals, some of which have the scent
much keener than others, and upon which the spirits which exhale from
other bodies act more quickly and at a greater distance than in
others. Certain persons have such an acute sense of hearing that they
can hear what is whispered even in another chamber, of which the door
is well closed. They cite as an example of this, a certain Marie
Bucaille, to whom it was thought that her guardian angel discovered
what was said at a great distance from her.
Others have the smell so keen that they distinguish by the odor all
the men and animals they have ever seen, and scent their approach a
long way off. Blind persons pretty often possess this faculty, as well
as that of discerning the color of different stuffs by the touch, from
horse-hair to playing-cards.
Others discern by the taste everything that composes a ragout, better
than the most expert cook could do. Others possess so piercing a sight
that at the first glance they can distinguish the most confused and
distant objects, and remark the least change which takes place in
them.
There are both men and women who, without intending to hurt, do a
great deal of harm to children, and all the tender and delicate
animals which they look at attentively, or which they touch. This
happens particularly in hot countries; and many examples might be
cited of it; from which arises what both ancients and moderns call
fascination (or the evil eye); hence the precautions which were taken
against these effects by amulets and preservatives, which were
suspended to children's necks.
There have been known to be men from whose eyes there proceeded such
venomous spirits that they did harm to everybody or thing they looked
at, even to the breast of nurses, which they caused to dry up--to
plants, flowers, the leaves of trees, which were seen to wither and
fall off. They dare not enter any place till they had warned the
people beforehand to send away the children and nurses, new-born
animals, and, generally speaking, everything which they could infect
by their breath or their looks.
We should laugh, and with reason, at those who, to explain all these
singular effects, should have recourse to charms, spells, to the
operations of demons, or of good angels. The evaporation of
corpuscles, or atoms, or the insensible perspiration of the bodies
which produce all these effects, suffice to account for it. We have
recourse neither to miracles, nor to superior causes, above all when
these effects are produced near, and at a short distance; but when the
distance is great, the exhalation of the spirits, or essence, and of
insensible corpuscles, does not equally satisfy us, no more than when
we meet with things and effects which go beyond the known force of
nature, such as foretelling future events, speaking unknown languages,
_i. e._, languages unknown to the speaker, to be in such ecstasy that
the person is beyond earthly feeling, to rise up from the ground, and
remain so a long time.
The chemists demonstrate that the ____________________ or a sort of
restoration or resurrection of animals, insects, and plants, is
possible and natural. When the ashes of a plant are placed in a phial,
these ashes rise, and arrange themselves as much as they can in the
form which was first impressed on them by the Author of Nature.
Father Schol, a Jesuit, affirms that he has often seen a rose which
was made to arise from its ashes every time they wished to see it
done, by means of a little heat.
The secret of a mineral water has been found by means of which a dead
plant which has its root can be made green again, and brought to the
same state as if it were growing in the ground. Digby asserts that he
has drawn from dead animals, which were beaten and bruised in a
mortar, the representation of these animals, or other animals of the
same species.
Duchesne, a famous chemist, relates that a physician of Cracow
preserved in phials the ashes of almost every kind of plant, so that
when any one from curiosity desired to see, for instance, a rose in
these phials, he took that in which the ashes of the rose-bush were
preserved, and placing it over a lighted candle, as soon as it felt a
little warmth, they saw the ashes stir and rise like a little dark
cloud, and, after some movements, they represented a rose as beautiful
and fresh as if newly gathered from the rose-tree.
Gaffard assures us that M. de Cleves, a celebrated chemist, showed
every day plants drawn from their own ashes. David Vanderbroch affirms
that the blood of animals contains the idea of their species as well
as their seed; he relates on this subject the experiment of M.
Borelli, who asserts that the human blood, when warm, is still full of
its spirits or sulphurs, acid and volatile, and that, being excited in
cemeteries and in places where great battles are fought by some heat
in the ground, the phantoms or ideas of the persons who are there
interred are seen to rise; that we should see them as well by day as
by night, were it not for the excess of light which prevents us even
from seeing the stars. He adds that by this means we might behold the
idea, and represent by a lawful and natural necromancy the figure or
phantom of all the great men of antiquity, our friends and our
ancestors, provided we possess their ashes.
These are the most plausible objections intended to destroy or obviate
all that is said of the apparitions of spirits. Whence some conclude
that these are either very natural phenomena and exhalations produced
by the heat of the earth imbued with blood and the volatile spirit of
the dead, above all, those dead by violence; or that they are the
consequences of a stricken and prepossessed fancy, or simply illusions
of the mind, or sports of persons who like to divert themselves by the
panics into which they terrify others; or, lastly, movements produced
naturally by men, rats, monkeys, and other animals; for it is true
that the oftener we examine into what have been taken for apparitions,
nothing is found that is real, extraordinary, or supernatural; but to
conclude from thence that all the apparitions and operations
attributed to angels, spirits or souls, and demons are chimerical, is
carrying things to excess; it is to conclude that we mistake always,
because we mistake often.
Footnotes:
[438] M. de S. Andre, Lett. iii. sur les Malefices.