I might have accumulated not a little testimony and considerable external evidence, but to have done so would not have been the means of convincing a single extra reader. Those, whom my simple affirmation leaves sceptical, would not be convinced by reports signed by witnesses, whose sincerity and competence are frequently called into question. Neither did I wish to adopt the method followed by the Agnélas, Milan, and Carqueiranne experimenters, in giving a detailed report of all my sittings; this method too has its advantages and disadvantages. However exhaustive a report may be, it is difficult to indicate therein all the conditions of the experiment; oversights are inevitable. Moreover, it would be useless to say that every precaution had been taken against fraud, for in enumerating such precautions, the omission of a single one would suffice to expose oneself to most justifiable criticism. Probably that very precaution was elementary and had been taken, or was considered useless and put aside deliberately; nevertheless such circumstances would not escape criticism. We wish to convince by pointing out the exact conditions of the experiment; but those, whom we would most wish to convince, are the very persons least prepared to judge of the conditions in which psychical experiences are obtained. These are physicists and chemists; but living matter does not react like inorganic matter or chemical substances.

I do not seek to convince these savants; my book is unassuming and makes no pretence of having been written for them. If they in their turn should be tempted to try for those effects which I have obtained, the methods indicated will be easily accessible to them. It is in this way they can be indirectly convinced, though to convince them is not my present aim. Others are better qualified than I am to try their hand at this most desirable but, for the moment, most difficult task.

Difficult! Ay, and for a thousand reasons. First of all because it is the fashion of to-day to look upon these facts as unworthy of science. I acknowledge taking a delicate pleasure in comparing the different opinions which many young Savants (I beg the printer not to forget a very big capital S) bring to bear upon their contemporaries. Here is a man surrounded by deferential spectators: solemnly he hands a paper-knife to a sleeping hysterical subject, and gravely invites him to murder such or such an individual who is supposed to be where there is really only an empty chair. When the patient springs forward to carry out the suggestion, and strikes the chair with the paper-knife, the lookers-on behold a scientific fact, according to classical science. On the other hand, here is another man who, not a whit less solemnly, makes longitudinal passes upon his subject, puts him to sleep, and then tries to exteriorise the said subject’s sensibility; but the onlookers in this case are not recognised as witnessing a scientific fact! I have never been able to see wherein lies the difference between these two experimenters, the one experimenting with an hysterical subject more or less untrustworthy, the other examining a phenomenon which, if it be true, may be observed without the necessity of trusting oneself solely to the honesty of the individual asleep.

In fact there is a most intolerant clique among savants. Facts it seems are of no importance when pointed out by those who stand beyond the pale of official science. Unfortunately, psychical phenomena cannot be as easily and readily demonstrated as the X-rays or wireless telegraphy, incontestable facts which any one can prove to his entire satisfaction. Therefore young savants rejoice in making an onslaught on those who apply themselves to the study of these phenomena. It was the same thing in olden times when budding theologians made their débuts in the arena of theology against notorious arch-heretics, Arians, Manicheans, or gnostics. Nil novi sub sole.

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I readily admit that many, who turn their attention to the curious phenomena of which I am going to speak, frequently lay themselves open to criticism. Sometimes they are not very strict concerning the conditions under which their experiments are conducted: they trust naïvely, and their conviction is quickly formed. I cannot too forcibly beg them to be on their guard against premature assertions: may they avoid justifying Montaigne’s saying, ‘L’imagination crée le cas.’ My remark is more particularly addressed to occult, theosophical, and spiritistic groups. The first-named follow an undesirable method. Their manner of reasoning is not likely to bring them many adepts, from among those who are given to thinking deeply. In ordinary logic, analogy and correspondence have not the same importance as deduction and induction. On the other hand it does not seem to me prudent to consider the esoteric interpretation of the Hebrew writings as being necessarily truth’s last word. I do not see why I should transfer a belief in their exoteric assertions to a belief in their talmudistic or kabbalistic commentaries. I can hardly believe that the Rabbis of the middle ages, or their predecessors, Esdras’ contemporaries, had a more correct notion of human nature than we have. Their errors in physics are not valid security for their accuracy in metaphysics. Truth cannot be usefully sought in the analysis of a very fine but very old book: all occult speculations upon secret hebraic exegeses seem to me but intellectual sport, to the results of which the words of Ecclesiastes might well be applied: Habel habalim vekol habel.

I may pass the same criticism upon theosophists. The curious mystical movement to which the teachings of Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, and Mrs. Besant have given birth in Europe and in America has not yet been arrested. Many cultured minds and refined intelligences have allowed themselves to be led away by the neo-buddhistic evangile; doubtless they find what they look for in the ‘Secret Doctrine’ or in ‘Isis Unveiled.’ Trahit sua quemque voluptas. I cannot help thinking that the Upanishads have no more a monopoly of truth than the Bible has, and that every philosophy ought to hold fast to the study of Nature if it wishes to live and progress. This is, moreover, the advice of a man whom theosophists and occultists alike respect—I mean Paracelsus—‘Man is here below to instruct himself in the light of Nature.’

That is what spiritists claim to do. Their philosophy, to use the term which they themselves employ to designate their doctrine, is founded, they say, upon fact and experience. It is not a revelation, contemporary with the splendour of Thebes or the pomp of Açoka’s court, which gives the foundation to their dogmas. It is an everyday revelation, a real, continuous, and permanent revelation. Their ideas concerning our origin and destiny, their certitude of immortality and the persistence of human individuality, are due to well-informed witnesses. These are no less than the spirits of the dead, who come to enlighten them and to tell them what is done in the hereafter.

I envy them their simple faith, but I do not altogether share it. I am persuaded that our individuality has an infinitely longer period given it for its evolution than one human existence. But it is not from spiritistic seances that I have derived my belief; no, my belief is of a philosophical kind, and is the result of pondering over what I know of life, of nature, and of the extremely slow development of the human species. It is true the knowledge I possess is limited, and my belief wavers; yet the probabilities seem to me favourable to the persistence of that mysterious centre of energy which we call individuality.