II

Spiritism is the most formidable opponent of materialism, and it is therefore not surprising that it should have the materialists for adversaries; but as materialism is a doctrine which many of those who hold it hardly dare to avow, they cover their opposition with the mantle of reason and science, Their shafts are especially aimed at the marvellous and the supernatural, which they deny; and as, according to them, spiritism is founded on the marvellous and the supernatural, they declare that it can be nothing more than a ridiculous delusion.

Strange to say, some of those who are most incredulous in regard to spiritism deny the possibility of its phenomena in the name of religion, of which they often know as little as they do of spiritism. They do not reflect that, in denying, without restriction, the possibility of the “marvelous” and the “supernatural”, they deny religion, for religion is founded on revelation and miracles; and what is revelation if not extra-human communications? All the sacred writers, from Moses downwards, have spoken of this order of communications. And what are miracles if not facts of a character emphatically marvellous and supernatural, since they are, according to liturgical acceptation, derogations from the laws of nature, so that, in rejecting the marvellous and the supernatural, they reject the very basis of all religions? But it is not from this point of view that we have to consider the subject. Belief in spirit-manifestation does not necessarily settle the question of miracles; that is to say, whether God does, or does not, in certain cases, derogate from the eternal laws that regulate the universe; it leaves, in regard to this question, full liberty of belief to all. Spiritism says, and proves, that the phenomena on which it is based are supernatural only in appearance, that they only appear to some persons to be such, because they are unusual, and out of the pale of facts hitherto known; and that they are no more supernatural than all the other phenomena which the science of the present day is  explaining, though they appeared to be "miraculous" in the past. All spiritist phenomena, without exception, are the consequence of general laws; they reveal to us one of the powers of nature, a power hitherto unknown, or rather that has not hitherto been understood, but which observation shows us to be included in the scheme of things. Spiritism, therefore, is founded less on the marvellous and the supernatural than is religion itself; and those who attack it on this score do so because they know not what it really is. As for those who oppose it in the name of science, we say to them, be they ever so learned, "If your science, which has taught you so many things, has not taught you that the domain of nature is infinite, you are scientific to very little purpose."