I

He who, in regard to terrestrial magnetism, knows only the little figures of ducks which, with the aid of a magnet, are made to swim about in a basin of water, would find it difficult to understand that those toy-figures contain the secret of the mechanism of the universe and of the movement of worlds. He, whose knowledge of spiritism is confined to the table-turning which was the starting-point of the modern manifestations, is in a similar position; he regards it merely as an amusement, a social pastime, and cannot understand how a phenomenon so simple and so common, known to antiquity and even to savage tribes, can be connected with the weightiest questions of psychology and of human life. For the superficial observer, what connection can exist between a table that turns and the morality and future destiny of the human race? But as, from the simple pot which, in boiling, raises its lid (a pot, too, which has boiled from the remotest antiquity), there has issued the potent motor with whose aid man transports himself through space and suppresses distance, so, be it known to you, O ye who believe in nothing beyond the material world! there has issued, from the table-turning which provokes your disdainful smiles, a new philosophy that furnishes the solution of problems which no other has been able to solve. I appeal to all honest adversaries of spiritism, and I adjure them to say whether they have taken the trouble to study what they criticise; reminding them that criticism is necessarily of no value unless the critic knows what he is talking about. To ridicule that of which we know nothing, which we have not made the subject of conscientious examination, is not to criticise, but to give proof of frivolity and want of judgement. Assuredly, if we had present this philosophy as being the product of a human brain, it would have met with less disdain, and would have had the honour of being examined by those who profess to be the leaders of opinion; but it claims to be derived from spirits; what an absurdity! It is scarcely held to deserve a single glance by those who judge it merely by its title, as the monkey in the fable judged of the nut by its husk. But put aside all thought of the origin of this book; suppose it to be the work of a man, and say, in truth and honesty, whether, after having carefully read it, you find in it anything to laugh at?