A. What is the vital principle?

B. What is man from the corporeal and purely anatomical point of view?

C. Is there is a link on the scale of living things? Which one distinguishes man from animals: his body or his soul? 

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481. The increase or decrease in the earth’s size - Physically, the earth experienced the convulsions of childhood; it henceforth entered a period of relative stability: that of a calm progress, accomplished by the regular return of the same physical phenomena and the intelligent cooperation of humankind. However, it is still in the midst of the task of giving rise to moral progress. Therein shall lie the cause of its greatest disturbances. Until humankind has progressed sufficiently in perfection through intelligence and the practice of the divine laws, the greatest disturbances will be events caused by human beings more than by nature; that is, they will be moral and social rather than physical.

482. Does earth’s size increase, decrease or remain the same? In support of the increase in the earth’s size, some individuals base their position on the notion that plants are adding more to the soil than they are taking from it, which in one sense is correct, but not in another. Plants nourish themselves as much, or even more, from the gaseous substances they draw from the atmosphere than from those they extract through their roots. The atmosphere makes up an integral part of the globe; the gases that constitute it come from the decomposition of solid bodies, which, upon recomposing, take back from the atmosphere what they released into it.

483. This is an exchange, or rather, a perpetual transformation; the increase of plants and animals is carried out through the constitutive elements of the globe, and as such, their remains, as considerable as they may be, do not add one atom to the mass. If the solid part of the globe were to continuously increase due to such a cause, it would be at the expense of the atmosphere, which would decrease proportionally and would end up being unsuitable for life if it did not recover through the decomposition of solid bodies what it lost through their composition.

484. At earth’s origin, the first geological strata were formed from solid matter momentarily volatilized by the effect of the high temperature, and which later, condensed by the cooling, fell as precipitation. Undoubtedly, they raised the surface of the ground a little, but without adding anything to the overall mass, since it was nothing but a displacement of matter.

485. Once the atmosphere was purged of the foreign elements that had been in suspension to arrive at a normal state, things began to follow the regular course they took thereafter. Today, the least modification in the atmosphere’s composition would lead to the destruction of the earth’s current inhabitants, but new races would probably form under different conditions.

486. Considered from this point of view, the globe’s mass, i.e., the sum of the molecules that comprise the whole of its solid, liquid and gaseous parts, has incontestably been the same since its origin. If it were to experience a dilation or condensation, its size would increase or decrease without its mass undergoing any change. However, if the earth did increase in mass, it would have to be the effect of some outside cause, since it could not draw from itself the elements needed for its own growth.

487. According to one theory, the globe will increase in mass and volume by the influx of interplanetary cosmic matter. There is nothing irrational about this idea, but it is too hypothetical to be accepted in principle. It is no more than one theory fought by opposing theories, none of which science has yet settled on.

488. Regarding this subject, let us hear the opinion of the eminent spirit who dictated the scholarly uranographic studies described above in chapter VI of this work:

“Worlds become exhausted as they age and tend to dissolve in order to serve as elements for the formation of other worlds. Little by little, they return to the universal cosmic fluid of space, which they themselves took in order to form. Furthermore, all bodies become spent due to attrition; the rapid and incessant movement of the globe through the cosmic fluid has the effect of continuously decreasing its mass, although of an indiscernible quantity over a given time.

As I see it, the existence of worlds is divided into three periods. First period: the condensation of matter, during which the globe’s size decreases considerably while its mass remains the same; this is the period of its infancy. Second period: the contraction and solidification of the crust; the eclosion of prototypes and the development of life up to the appearance of the most perfectible biotype. At this moment, the globe is in all its plenitude; it is the age of adulthood. It loses, though very little, its constitutive elements. As its inhabitants progress spiritually, it passes on to the period of material decrease. It suffers loss not only due to attrition, but also due to the disaggregation of its molecules – like a hard stone which, eroded by time, ends up falling into dust. In its dual movement of rotation and translation, it leaves fluidic bits of its substance in space until the moment in which its dissolution is complete.

However, since its force of attraction is due to its mass – I am not referring to size – as the globe’s mass decreases, its conditions for equilibrium in space are modified. Overpowered by more massive planets against which it can no longer act as a counterweight, it suffers deflections in its movements, and as a result, there are profound changes in the conditions for life on its surface. Thus: birth, life and death; or infancy, adulthood, and decrepitude; these are the three phases through which every agglomeration of organic or inorganic matter passes. Only the spirit, which is not matter at all, is indestructible.” (Galileo, Parisian Society, 1868)

489. Chapter X - The Organic Genesis - The First Formation of living beings - There was a time when there were no animals; thus, they had a beginning. Each species appeared to the degree that the globe acquired the conditions necessary for its existence – that is certain. How were the first biotypes of each species formed? We can understand that once the first couple appeared, individuals multiplied. But where did this first couple come from? This is one of those mysteries connected to the beginning of things and about which one can only make hypotheses. If science cannot yet completely resolve the problem, it can at least point the way.

490. One of the first questions that arise is the following: Did each animal species come from a primary couple or from many couples created, or, if you will, germinated simultaneously in different places? This latter supposition is the most probable; we might even say that it results from observation. In fact, the study of the geological layers attests to the presence – in terrains of similar formation and across vast areas – of the same species on the farthest apart points of the globe. Such generalized and somewhat contemporaneous multiplication would have been impossible with one single primitive type.

491. Additionally, the life of one individual, especially an emerging individual, is subject to so many eventualities that an entire creation could have been compromised if not for the plurality of types, which would imply an unacceptable improvidence on the part of the Supreme Creator. Moreover, if a particular type could have been formed at one point, it could have been formed at many points by the same cause. Hence, everything concurs in demonstrating that there was a simultaneous and multiple creations of the first couples for each animal and plant species.

492. The formation of the first living beings may be deduced by analogy from the same law according to which inorganic bodies were formed and continue to be formed each and every day. As one delves further into the laws of nature, one can see the mechanisms, which at first seem so complicated, become simplified and melded together in the great law of unity that presides over the whole work of creation. This will be better understood when one becomes aware of the formation of inorganic bodies, which was the first step.

493. Chemistry regards a certain number of substances as elementary, such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, chlorine, iodine, fluorine, sulfur, phosphorous and all the metals. Through their combination, they form compounds: oxides, acids, alkalis, salts and the innumerable varieties that result from combinations of these.

494. The combination of two elements to form a third requires a particular concourse of circumstances, whether a particular degree of heat, dryness or humidity, whether movement or rest, whether an electric current, etc. Unless these conditions are present, the combination does not occur.

495. When a combination does occur, the elements lose their characteristic properties, whereas the resultant compound possesses new and different qualities from those of the originals. It is thus, for example, that oxygen and hydrogen, which are invisible gases, when combined chemically form water, which is liquid, solid or gaseous, depending on the temperature. Properly speaking, in water there is no longer either oxygen or hydrogen, but rather a new substance. If water is decomposed, the two gases return to their free state, recover their own properties and there is no longer water. The same quantity of water can thus be alternately decomposed and recomposed ad infinitum.

496. The composition and decomposition of substances occur as a result of the degree of affinity the basic elements have for one another. The formation of water, for example, results from the mutual affinity between oxygen and hydrogen. However, if water comes in contact with an element that has a greater affinity for oxygen than hydrogen has, the water decomposes: the oxygen is absorbed, the hydrogen is released and there is no longer water.

497. Compound substances are always formed in definite proportions, that is, by the combination of a certain quantity of constituent elements. Hence, in order to form water, one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen are required. If two parts oxygen are combined with two of hydrogen, then instead of water one gets hydrogen dioxide, a corrosive liquid, formed nonetheless from the same elements as water, but in a different proportion.

498. Such is, in a few words, the law that presides over the formation of all the substances in nature. The innumerable variety of these substances results from a small number of basic elements combined in different proportions. Thus, oxygen combined in certain proportions with carbon, sulfur and phosphorous forms carbonic, sulfuric and phosphoric acid; oxygen and iron form iron oxide or rust; oxygen and lead – both harmless – form lead oxides such as litharge (lead monoxide), white lead and red lead oxide, which are poisonous. Oxygen combined with calcium, sodium or potassium forms lime, soda and potash. Lime combined with carbonic acid forms calcium carbonate or calcareous stone such as marble, chalk, sandstone, and stalactites in caves; combined with sulfuric acid it forms calcium sulfate or gypsum and alabaster; with phosphoric acid it forms calcium phosphate, the main component of bone. Chlorine and hydrogen form hydrochloric acid; chlorine and sodium form sodium chloride or sea salt.

499. All these combinations and thousands of others are obtained artificially in small quantities in chemistry labs; they form spontaneously on a large scale in the great laboratory of nature. At its origin, the earth did not contain these compounds but only their volatilized constituent elements. When the calcareous terrains and others, turned stony over time, were deposited on the earth’s surface, those elements did not exist completely formed. However, they were contained in the air, in a gaseous state.

500. Having precipitated due to the cooling effect, these elements combined under favorable conditions according to the degree of their molecular affinity. It was then that the different varieties of carbonates, sulfates, etc. were formed, at first dissolved in the waters and afterwards deposited on the surface of the ground.

501. These considerations show how much chemistry is necessary for the understanding of Genesis. Before the knowledge of the law of molecular affinity, it was impossible to comprehend how the earth formed. Chemistry has clarified the question under a completely new light, just as astronomy and geology have from other points of view. 

Answers to Proposed Questions 

A. What is the vital principle?  

There is in organic matter in a special, elusive principle, which has not yet been defined: the vital principle. This principle, active in the living being and extinct in the dead one, gives to substance the characteristic properties that distinguish it from inorganic substances.

Is the vital principle something distinct with an existence of its own? Or rather, going back to the theory of a sole generative element, is the vital principle a particular state, one of the modifications of the universal cosmic fluid, which then becomes the life principle, just as it becomes light, fire, heat or electricity? It is in this last sense that the issue has been resolved through the spirit communications quote in this work. Whatever one’s opinion may be on the nature of the vital principle, however, it does exist, because we see its effects. (Genesis, chapter X, items 16 to 18)

B. What is man from the corporeal and purely anatomical point of view?

From a purely physical and anatomical perspective, man belongs to the class of mammals, differing from them only by nuances in their outward appearance; furthermore, they are of the same chemical composition as all animals, and have the same organs, the same functions, and the same modes of nutrition, breathing, secretion and reproduction; they are born, live and die under the same conditions, and at death their body decomposes just as those of everything else that lives. In their blood, flesh and bones there is not one atom different from those found in the body of animals; like them, upon dying, the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon that had combined to form them return to the earth, and through new combinations will form mineral, plant and animal bodies once more. (Genesis, chapter X, items 26 and 27; Chapter XI, items 10 and 14)

C. Is there is a link on the scale of living things? Which one distinguishes man from animals: his body or his soul?

However little one might observe the scale of living beings from the point of view of their organisms, one realizes that, from the lichen to the tree, and then from the zoophyte to the human being, there is an unbroken gradual chain in which all the links have a point of contact with the preceding one; in following the series of beings step by step, it may be said that each species is an improvement, a transformation of the one immediately beneath it. Since the human body is under identical conditions as other bodies chemically and constitutionally, that it is born, lives, and dies in the same way, it must have been formed under the same conditions.

Whatever the impact on their pride, humans must resign themselves to seeing in their physical bodies nothing but the last link of animality on the earth. The inexorable argument of the facts is in plain sight, against which it is useless to protest.

However, the more the body decreases in value in their eyes, the more the spiritual principle increases in importance. If the former places them on the level of the animal, the latter raises them to an immeasurable height. We see the circle within which the animal is contained; we do not see the limit that can be reached by the human spirit.

If we were to subtract the spirit and consider matter only, the human being would have nothing that distinguishes it from the animal. However, all that changes when a distinction is made between the habitation and the inhabitant. The same applies to the human being: it is not its garment of flesh that sets it above the animal and makes it a being apart; it is its spiritual being, its spirit. (Genesis, chapter X, items 28 and 29; Chapter XI, item 14)