We continue the methodical study of the Pentateuch Kardec, which focuses on the five major works of the spiritual doctrine, in the order they were first published by Allan Kardec, the Encoder of Spiritualism.
The answers to the questions presented, founded in the 2th edition published by FEB, based on translation of Anna Blackwell, are at the end of the text below.
Questions
A. For what purpose God puts the child under the tutelage of their parents? Parenthood is a mission?
B. Animals also make progress? There is such an intelligent principle that survives bodily death? What do you call and what happens to you after the trance of death?
C. In that moment of its existence the spirit acquires the consciousness of their future, the distinction of good and evil and the responsibility of their actions?
D. The spirit that animated the body of a man can embody an animal?
E. The teaching that the Spirit is elaborated through the various kingdoms of nature is not the confirmation of the doctrine of metempsychosis?
Text for reading
317. The Spirit can fail in his mission, his fault? - Yes, if not a superior spirit. In this case, you must restart your task, it is punishment, then suffer the consequences of evil that was the cause. (L.E., 578 and 578-A)
318. God knows that the Spirit will be victorious in your mission? - He knows, you may be sure, and his plans when important, do not depend on those who must leave the work in the middle of work. The whole question is to you, the knowledge of the future that God has, but you is not given. (L.E., 579)
319. The spirit that is embodied to fulfill a mission does not have the same concerns that it does as proof, because he has experience. (L.E., 580)
320. The mission of the missionaries who are mistaken and that, along with great truths, they make big mistakes, was distorted by them. Are actually below the task undertaken. We must however take into account the circumstances: men of genius must speak the second time, and a teaching that seems wrong or childish for a time could be advanced enough for his century. (L.E., 581)
321. The conqueror is not, in most cases, more than an instrument that God uses to fulfill its purposes, and these disasters are often a means of advancing a people more quickly. (L.E., 584)
322. Each one is rewarded according to their works, and who wished to do and rectitude of their intentions. (L.E., 584-A)
323. Everything is transitional in nature, the very fact that nothing is similar, and yet everything is connected. Plants do not think, and therefore have no desire. The oyster that opens and all zoophytes have no thought, no longer have a natural instinct and blind. (L.E., 589)
324. There <nas plantas> a sort of instinct: it depends on the extent to assign to that word, but it is purely mechanical. When you see chemical reactions in the two bodies come together, is that they tune, I mean, there is affinity between them, but do not call it instinct. (L.E., 590)
325. Everything is perfect <nos superiores> worlds: but when the plants are plants, animals are always animals and men are always men. (L.E., 591)
326. The man is a being apart, which sometimes descends too low, or that can rise too high. In the physical man is like the beasts, and less well equipped than many of them, nature has given them everything that a man is forced to invent his intelligence, to meet the needs and conservation. Your body is destroyed as the animal, that's right, but his Spirit is a destiny that only he can understand, because he alone is completely free. (L.E., 592)
327. It is true that the instinct dominates in most animals but not you realize there are those who will act on a given? You who have intelligence, but it is limited. (...) There are animals in a kind of intelligence, but whose performance is more precisely focused on ways to meet their physical needs and provide for their preservation. (L.E., 593)
328. The animals have language? - If you think a language consisting of words and syllables, no, but a means of communicating with each other, yes. They say a lot more than I suppose, but its language is limited, such as ideas, your needs. (L.E., 594)
329. Animals that do not have to understand speech by other means. (L.E., 594-A)
330. The animals are not mere machines, as ye suppose, but their freedom of action is limited by your needs, and can not be compared to that of men. (...) His freedom is restricted to acts of material life. (L.E., 595)
331. The souls of animals preserved after death, their individuality, but not consciousness itself. Intelligent life remains in a latent state. (L.E., 598)
332. The soul of the animal can not choose the species you prefer incarnate, she has no free will. (L.E., 599)
333. The animals progress by force of circumstances, and that is why, for them, there is no atonement. (L.E., 602)
334. Intelligence is a common point between the soul of man and animal? - Yes, but the animals have only the intelligence of material life in men, intelligence produces the moral life. (L.E., 604-A)
335. The man has two souls, but the body has the instincts, which result from the feeling of the organs. But there is in man a double nature, animal nature and the spiritual. By his body, he partakes of the nature of animals and their instincts, for his soul, partakes of the nature of the Spirits. (L.E., 605)
336. The soul of the animal and man are distinct from each other, so that one can not animate the body created for the other. (L.E., 605-A)
337. The animals take the intelligent principle which constitutes its soul of universal intelligent element. Thus, the intelligence of man and animals emanate from a single principle, but in man it has undergone a development that towers over the brutes. (L.E., 606 and 606-A)
338. The Earth is not the starting point of the first human incarnation. The period begins humanity in general, even lower worlds. This, however, is not an absolute rule, and it could happen that one Spirit, from the beginning human is able to live on Earth. This case is not frequent, and it would be rather an exception. (L.E., 607-B)
339. Once the period of humanity, the spirit retains traces of that period he was in ante-human, only the first human incarnations. These remains, however, fade with the development of free will. Nothing in Nature is operated by abrupt transition. There is always rings that connect the ends of the chains of beings. The first steps are carried out only very slowly, because the secondary does not have them at will. They are faster, as the spirit acquires more perfect self-awareness. (L.E., 609)
340. Man can be considered to be a part in the creation only in the sense that the human species is the one that God chose for the incarnation of beings who can know it. (L.E., 610)
341. Since the intelligent principle reaches the level required to be Spirit and enter the period of humanization, not related to their primitive state and no longer is the soul of animals, as the tree is not the seed. The fact that living beings have a common origin is not, therefore, the consecration of metempsychosis. Animal there is only a man's body and the passions that arise from the influence of the body and the survival instinct, inherent in matter. The metempsychosis, as I understand it is not therefore true. (L.E., 611)
Answers to questions
A. For what purpose God puts the child under the tutelage of their parents? Parenthood is a mission?
Fatherhood is, unchallenged as possible, a real mission and at the same time, a very great duty, and that involves more than the man thinks, his responsibility for the future. God placed the child under the tutelage of parents, so that these directs the path of good, and they facilitated the task giving that organization a weak and delicate, which makes it conducive to all impressions. (The Spirits' Book, 582 and 583 questions.
B. Animals also make progress? There is such an intelligent principle that survives bodily death? What do you call and what happens to you after the trance of death?
Yes, animals can progress. There is such a principle independent of matter that survives the body, which we call the soul, although there is between the soul of man and animals a great distance. After death, the souls of the animals retain their individuality and live a kind of erraticity until after classified lop a new bodily existence. (Ibid., 597 issues, 598, 600 to 606.)
C. In that moment of its existence the spirit acquires the consciousness of their future, the distinction of good and evil and the responsibility of their actions?
In a series of stocks prior to the period that you call Humanity is the intelligent principle is elaborated, individualizes itself little by little and you rehearse for life, a preparatory work, such as germination, the effect of which undergoes a transformation and Spirit makes. He then enters the period of humanization, which begins to be aware of their future ability to distinguish good from evil and the responsibility of their actions. (Ibid., 607 issues, 607-A, 607-B and 608.)
D. The spirit that animated the body of a man can embody an animal?
No, that would be retrograde and Spirit is not retrograde. (Ibid., 612 and 613 questions.)
E. The teaching that the Spirit is elaborated through the various kingdoms of nature is not the confirmation of the doctrine of metempsychosis?
No. Two things can have the same origin and not at all resemble later. Who would recognize the tree with its leaves, flowers and fruits, wheat germ report that contains the seed from which it arises? Since the intelligent principle reaches the level required to be Spirit and enter the period of humanization, have no relation to their original state and is no longer the soul of animals, as the tree is not the seed. Animal there is only a man's body and the passions that arise from the influence of body and self-preservation inherent in matter. It can not therefore say that this man is the incarnation of the Spirit of that animal. Therefore, the metempsychosis, as I understand it is not true. (Ibid., 611 to 613 questions.)
