Persons who receive communications from the dead have remarked that these communications sometimes cease quite suddenly. A celebrated actress, now retired from the stage, had manifest communications with a person whom she had lost by a tragical death. These communications abruptly ceased. The soul of the dead friend whom she mourned warned her that their intercourse was about to cease. The assigned reason serves to explain why such relation cannot be continuously maintained. The superhuman being who was in relations with the terrestrial person had already risen in rank in the celestial hierarchy, he had accomplished a new metamorphosis, and he could no longer correspond with the earth.
Among the French peasantry communication with the dead is a general habit. In the country death does not involve the lugubrious ideas which accompany it among the dwellers in cities. People love and cultivate the memory of those whom they have loved, they hold as most happy those whom the favour of Providence has early removed from the misfortunes, the failures, the bitterness of terrestrial life, they call on them, they confide in them, and the dead, grateful for this pious memory of them, respond to the simple prayers of these hearts. All the Orientals have that serene aspiration towards death which in Europe exists exclusively among country people. The Mussulmans love to invoke death, to spread the idea of death everywhere. Every one knows the melancholy proverb of the Arabs, "It is better to be seated than standing; it is better to be lying down than seated; it is better to be dead than living."
The preceding chapter terminated with a quotation from Charles Bonnet, the first of the naturalists who discerned the doctrine of the plurality of existences above the globe. We shall terminate this chapter with a quotation from another naturalist philosopher, a contemporary of Charles Bonnet, who defended that doctrine very cleverly. Dupont de Nemours, in his Philosophie de l'Univers, expresses himself thus, on the subject of the communications which may be established between us, and the superior beings, invisible inhabitants of other worlds, whom he calls angels, or genii.
"Why," said Dupont, "have we no evident knowledge of these beings, the necessity, convenience, and analogy of whom strike our reflective faculties which only can indicate them? of those beings who must surpass us in perfections, in faculties, in power, as much as we surpass the lower animals and the plants?—who must have a hierarchy as various, as finely graduated as that which we admire among the living and intelligent beings over which we dominate, and which are subordinate to us?—several others of whom may be our companions on earth, as we are of animals which, destitute of sight, hearing, and the sense of smell, of hands and of feet, do not know what we are even when we are doing them good, or harm?—some of whom are perhaps travelling from globe to globe, or, more excellent still, from one solar system to another, more easily than we go from Brest to Madagascar?
"It is because we have neither such organs or such senses as would be necessary to enable our intelligence to communicate with them.
"Thus do the worlds embrace the worlds, and thus are classified intelligent beings all composed of matter which God has more or less richly organized and vivified.
"Such is the probability, and, speaking to vigorous minds which do not shrink from novel suggestions, I will dare to say that such is the truth.
"Man is capable of calculating that it is frequently for his own interest to be useful to other species; and, which is more valuable, more moral, and more amiable, he is capable of rendering them services for his own satisfaction, and without any other motive than the pleasure which it affords him to do so.
"That which we do for our lower brethren, we, whose intelligence is circumscribed, and whose goodness is very limited, the genii, the angels,—permit me to employ terms in general use to designate beings whom I only divine but do not know,—these beings who are so much more worthy than we, ought to do, and doubtless do, the same for us, with much more beneficence, frequency, and extent on all occasions which concern them.
"We know perfectly well that these intelligences exist, and it is of little importance to us whether they are, as some persons think, formed of a sort of matter, composed of mixed material, or not. Their quota of intelligence is very brilliant, very remarkable, and evident; in strong contrast with the properties of inanimate nature, which can be measured, weighed, calculated, and analyzed.
"In order to comprehend what is the action of superhuman intelligences, who can only be known to us by induction, reason, and comparison between what we ourselves are to even the most intelligent animals, which are efficiently served by us, but have not the smallest idea of us, we must pursue analogy farther. These intelligences are above us, and out of the reach of our senses only because they are endowed with a greater number of senses, and with a more developed and more active life. These beings are more worthy than we are, they have many more organs and faculties, they must therefore, in employing their disposable faculties according to their will, just as we employ ours according to our will, be able to dispose, to work, to manœuvre all inanimate matter, and to do all this among themselves, and also with respect to intelligent beings who are their inferiors, with much more energy, rapidity, enlightenment, and wisdom than we possess, we who nevertheless do it for the beasts subordinate to us. It is, then, in harmony with the laws and the ways of nature that the superior intelligences should have power to render us, when it pleases them, most important services of which we are quite ignorant.
"These unknown protectors who observe us, unperceived, have not our imperfections, and must prize all that is good and beautiful in itself more highly than we can.
"We cannot, therefore, hope to please intelligences of a superior grade by actions which men themselves would condemn as odious. We cannot flatter ourselves with a hope of deceiving them, as we may deceive men, by exterior hypocrisy which only renders crime more despicable. They can behold our most secret actions, they can overhear our soliloquies, they can penetrate our unspoken thoughts. We know not in how many ways they can read what is passing in our hearts, we, whose coarseness, poverty, and unskilfulness limit our means of knowing to touch, sight, hearing, and sometimes analysis and conjecture.
"A celebrated Roman wished to have a house built, which should be open to the sight of the citizens. This house exists, and we inhabit it. Our neighbours are the chiefs and the magistrates of the great republic, who are invested with right and power to punish even our intentions, which are no mystery to them. And those who most completely penetrate them in their smallest variations, in their lightest inflections, are the most powerful and the most wise.
"Let us then try, in so far as it depends on us, to keep in accord with those in comparison with whom we are so small, and, above all, let us understand our littleness. If it be very important to us to admit to our complete friendship, to our entire confidence, to our constant society, none but men of the first rank of mind and character—if the sweet competition of affection, zeal, goodness, and capacity which is always going on between them and us, contributes to our improvement every day, what shall we not gain by giving them adjuncts, so to speak, higher and more perfect, who are not subject, either to our ignoble interests, our passions, or our errors, and before whom we cannot but blush. They do not vary, they do not abandon us, they never go away, so soon as we are alone we find them. They accompany us in travel, in exile, in prison, in a dungeon; they are always floating above the peaceful and reflecting brain.
"We can question them, and every time we do so, we may be sure that they reply. Why should they not do so? Our absent friends render us such service, but only those of their number who inspire us with great respect. We can even experience something of the kind with regard to an imaginary personage, if he presents himself to our minds as uniting several good and heroic qualities. How often, in difficult circumstances and in the midst of the strife of different passages, I have asked myself,—In this case, what would Charles Grandison have done? What would Quesnay have thought? What would Turgot have approved of? What advice would Lavoisier have given me? How shall I gain the approval of the angels? What line of action will be most conformable to the order, the laws and the beneficent views of the wise and majestic King of the universe? For the homage, the aspirations of a soul eager to do good, and careful to avoid debasement, may also be raised to God, in salutary and pious invocation."[11]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] "Liber de animâ," ch. xlvi
[11] Pezzani: "Pluralité des Existences de l'âme," pp. 206-210.
