A. With regard to the revelation of natural law, what is the difference between spiritism and materialism?
B. How can we prove the existence of the spiritual principle?
C. Are the spiritual principle and the vital principle one and the same thing?
Text for reading
502. In the formation of solid bodies, one of the most remarkable phenomena is crystallization, which consists in the symmetrical form assumed by certain substances in passing from the liquid or gaseous state to the solid state. This form, which varies according to the nature of the substance, is usually that of geometric solids such as the prism, the rhomboid, the cube or the pyramid.
503. The regular arrangement of crystals has to do with the particular shape of the molecules of each body. These particles, infinitely small to us, but which nevertheless occupy a certain amount of space, seek one another out through molecular attraction and arrange and juxtapose themselves according to the requirement of their shape so as to take their place around the nucleus or initial center of attraction to form a symmetric whole.
504. Crystallization occurs only under certain favorable circumstances, apart from which it cannot take place. Temperature and motionlessness are essential conditions. One knows that high heat keeps the molecules apart and does not allow them to condense, and that agitation opposes their symmetric arrangement, yielding only a disorganized and irregular mass, differing from crystallization per se.
505. The law that presides over the formation of minerals leads naturally to the formation of organic bodies. Chemical analysis shows us that all plant and animal substances are composed of the same elements as inorganic compounds. Of these elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon play a principal role, while others are found only accessorily.
506. The different combinations of elements needed to form mineral, plant and animal substances cannot, therefore, occur except in a favorable environment and circumstances. Apart from such circumstances, the elementary principles are in a sort of inertia. However, as soon as the circumstances become favorable, a process of development begins; the molecules start to move, to jiggle, to attract, approaching and separating in virtue of the law of affinity, and through their multiple combinations, they compose the infinite variety of substances.
507. What occurs daily under our very eyes can set us on the road to what happened at the beginning of time, for the laws of nature are invariable. Since the constituent elements of both organic and inorganic beings are the same, and since we see them incessantly form rocks, plants and fruit, one can conclude that, like the first rocks, the bodies of the first living beings were formed by the aggregation of elementary molecules in virtue of the law of affinity to the degree that the conditions for life on the globe were favorable for this or that species.
508. Vital principle - In stating that plants and animals are formed from the same basic constituents as minerals, one must understand it in an exclusively material sense; moreover, it is an issue that relates solely to the body. Without speaking of the intelligent principle, which is a separate concept altogether, there is in organic matter a special, elusive principle, which has not yet been defined: the vital principle.
509. 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. The chemical processes that decompose and recompose the greater part of inorganic bodies can decompose organic bodies as well, but have never succeeded at recomposing even one dead leaf, obvious proof that in organic bodies there is something that is non-existent in the others.
510. 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 communications quoted earlier in the work (See chap. VI, General Uranography)
511. Whatever one’s opinion may be on the nature of the vital principle, however, it does exist, because we see its effects. One can therefore logically admit that as organic beings are formed they assimilate the vital principle that is necessary for their purpose; or if we prefer, that this principle develops in each individual by the same effect of the combination of the elements, much like we see heat, light and electricity develop under the influence of certain circumstances.
512. If oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon combine without the vital fluid, they form only a mineral or inorganic body; the vital principle modifies the molecular composition of that body to give it special properties. Instead of a mineral molecule one has an organic molecule.
513. The activity of the vital principle is maintained during life by the activity of the organs, just as heat is maintained by the rotating movement of a wheel. When this action ceases because of death, the vital principle is extinguished like the heat when the wheel stops turning.
514. Organic bodies would thus be veritable electric batteries, which function as long as the components of these batteries can sustain the conditions required to produce electricity, that is, life; and which stop when such conditions cease, that is, death. According to this, the vital principle would be but a particular type of electricity called animal electricity, released during life by the activity of the organs, and whose production ceases upon death by the cessation of such action.
515. Spontaneous Generation - One might of course ask why living beings no longer form under the same conditions in which the first ones appeared on the earth. The proposed problem is this: are organic beings nowadays formed spontaneously by the sole union of constituent elements, without prototypes produced beforehand by ordinary methods of generation; in other words, without fathers or mothers?
516. The supporters of spontaneous generation respond in the affirmative and support themselves on direct observations that seem to be conclusive. Others think that all living beings are reproduced by one another and support themselves on the fact that experience has proven that when the prototypes of certain plant and animal species are scattered about, they can retain a latent vitality for a considerable amount of time, until circumstances are favorable for their eclosion. This opinion always leaves open the question of the formation of the first types of each species.
517. Without discussing the two theories, one should note that the principle of spontaneous generation could obviously apply only to beings of the lowest orders of the plant and animal kingdoms, to those in which the manifestation of life begins, whose extremely simple organism is somewhat rudimentary. In fact, these are the first beings that appeared on the earth, and whose generation had to have been spontaneous.
518. In the current state of our knowledge, we cannot present the theory of ongoing spontaneous generation except as a hypothesis, although a probable one, and which may someday take its place among recognized scientific truths.(1)
(1) See Revue Spirite, July 1868, p. 201: “Développement de la théorie de la génération spontanée.” – Auth.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. With regard to the revelation of natural law, what is the difference between spiritism and materialism?
“Spiritism walks hand in hand with materialism on the terrain of matter; it accepts everything that materialism accepts; but at the point where materialism stops, Spiritism goes farther. Spiritism and materialism are like two travelers who journey together from the same starting point; having gone a certain distance, one says, “I cannot go any farther,” while the other continues on his way and discovers a new world. Why, then, would the former say that the latter is mad simply because, in seeing new horizons, he wants to go beyond the limits in which it is proper for the former to stop?” (Genesis, Ch. X, item 30)
B. How can we prove the existence of the spiritual principle?
The existence of the spiritual principle is a fact that, so to speak, has no more need of demonstration than the material principle. To some extent, it is an axiomatic truth: its effects affirm it, just as matter is affirmed by its own effects. According to the principle, “Since every effect has a cause, every intelligent effect must have an intelligent cause,” there is no one who cannot tell the difference between the mechanical movement of a bell rattled by the wind and the movement of this same bell meant as a signal or a warning, thereby attesting to a thought, an intent behind it. Now, since it would not occur to anyone to attribute the thought to the physical matter comprising the bell, one must conclude that it was moved by an intelligence that used it as an instrument to manifest itself.
For the same reason, it would not occur to anyone to attribute thought to the corpse of a dead person. If living persons think, it is because there is something within them that is no longer there when they are dead. The difference between living persons and the bell is that the intelligence that makes the latter move is outside of it, whereas the intelligence that causes the former to act is within them. The spiritual principle is the corollary of the existence of God. Without this principle, God would have no reason to exist, since one could no more conceive of the supreme intelligence reigning solely over brute matter throughout eternity than an earthly monarch reigning solely over stones throughout his or her life. (Genesis, Ch. XI, items 1 to 4)
C. Are the spiritual principle and the vital principle one and the same thing?
No. Starting, as always, from the observation of the facts, we will state that, if the vital principle were inseparable from the intelligent principle, there would be good reason to confuse the two. However, because there are beings that live but do not think, such as plants, human bodies that are still animated with organic life while there is no manifestation of thought, vital movements that are produced in living beings independent of any act of their will, and organic life that during sleep is preserved in full activity while mental life does not manifest itself by any outward sign, we should conclude that there are grounds to believe that organic life per se resides in a principle inherent to matter, independent of the spiritual life that is inherent to the spirit. The sui generis properties that are recognized in the spiritual principle prove that it has its own independent existence, since if its origin were in matter, it would lack such properties. (Genesis, Ch. XI, items 5 and 6)
