Chapter 2

Obviously, with thoughts and pursuits of this calibre to engage our attention, we shall be very far from regretting those which harass and enslave us to-day. Leaving out of account the extension of psychical faculties, which will enable the antipodes to commune together at will, and even give us the means of conversing with the inhabitants of other planets, and which will so simplify and deepen language that audible speech, other than the musical sounds indicative of emotion, will be regarded as a comic and clumsy archaism,--apart from all this, the fathomless riches of wisdom to be gathered from the commonest daily objects and outwardly most trivial occurrences, will put an end to all craving for merely physical change of place and excitement. Gradually the human race will become stationary, each family occupying its own place, and living in patriarchal simplicity, though endowed with power and wisdom that we should now consider god-like. The sons and daughters will go forth whither youthful love calls them; but, with the perfecting of society, those whose spiritual sympathies are closest will never be spatially remote; lovers will not then, as now, seek one another in the ends of the earth, and probably miss one another after all. Each member of the great community will spontaneously enlist himself in the service of that use which he is best qualified to promote; and, as in the human body, all the various parts, in fulfilling their function, will serve one another and the whole.

Perhaps the most legitimately interesting phase of this speculation relates to the future of these qualities and instincts in human nature which we now call evil and vicious. Since these qualities are innate, they can never be eradicated, nor even modified in intensity or activity. They belong with us, nay, they are all there is of us, and with their disappearance, we ourselves should disappear. Are we, then, to be wicked forever? Hardly so; but, on the contrary, what we have known as wickedness will show itself to be the only possible basis and energy of goodness. These tremendous appetites and passions of ours were not given us to be extinguished, but to be applied aright.

They are like fire, which is the chief of destroyers when it escapes bounds, or is misused; but, in its right place and function, is among the most indispensable of blessings. But to enlarge upon this thought would carry us too far from the immediate topic; nor is it desirable to follow with the feeble flight of our imagination the heaven-embracing orbit of this theme. A hint is all that can be given, which each must follow out for himself. We have only attempted to indicate what regions await the genius of the new Columbus; nor does the conjecture seem too bold that perhaps they are not so distant from us in time as they appear to be in quality. They are with us now, if we would but know it.

THE UNKNOWN.

PART I.

BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION.

_Translated from the author's manuscript, by G. A. H. Meyer and J. H. Wiggin._

Croire tout découvert est une erreur profonde: C'est prendre l'horizon pour les bornes du monde.

(To fancy all known is an error profound,-- The sky-line mistaking for earth's utmost bound.)

The idea expressed in this distich is so self-evident that we might almost characterize it as trite. Yet the history of every science marks many eminent men, of superior intelligence, who have been arrested in the way of progress by a wholly contrary opinion, and have very innocently supposed that science had uttered to them her last word. In astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, in optics, in natural history, in physiology, in anatomy, in medicine, in botany, in geology, in all branches of human knowledge, it would be easy to fill several pages with the names of celebrated men who believed science would never pass the limits reached in their own time, and that nothing remained to be discovered thereafter. In the army of wise men now living it would not be difficult to name many distinguished scholars who imagine that, in the spheres whereof they are masters, it is needless to search for anything new.

It may be unbecoming to talk about one's self, but as, on the one side, some have done me the honor to ask what I think of certain problems,--while, on the other side, I have been more than once accused of busying myself, in a rather unscientific way, with certain vague investigations,--I will begin by acknowledging that the maxim contained in the two verses of my motto has been the conviction of my whole life; and if, from my callow youth until this very day, I have been interested in the study of phenomena pertaining to the domain of inquiries called occult, such as magnetism, spiritualism, hypnotism, telepathy, ghost-seeing, it is because I believe we know next to nothing of what may be known, and that nearly everything still remains to be apprehended; for I believe the thirst for knowledge is one of our best faculties, the one most prolific, without which we should still be dwelling in an Age of Stone, inasmuch as it is our right, if not our duty, to seek the truth by all the methods accessible to our intellectual powers.

It is for this reason that I published among other things, in the course of the year 1865,--now a quarter-century past,--a treatise entitled Unknown Natural Forces, and touching certain questions analogous to those which are to occupy our attention in this paper; and so I ask my readers to note the following quotations therefrom, as an introduction to our present investigation:

It is foolish to suppose that all things are known to us.

True wisdom involves continual study.

In the month of June, 1776, a young man, the Marquis de Jouffroy, was experimenting upon the Doubs,[1] with a steamboat forty feet long by six feet wide. For two years he had been inviting scientific attention to his invention; for two years he had insisted that steam was a powerful force, heretofore unappreciated. All ears remained deaf to his voice. Complete isolation was his sole recompense. When he walked through the streets of Beaume-les-Dames, a thousand jests greeted his appearance. They nicknamed him Jouffroy the Pump. Ten years later, having constructed a _pyroscaphe_ [steamboat] which voyaged along the Saone, from Lyons to Isle Barbe, Jouffroy presented a petition to Cabinet Minister Calonne and to the Academy of Sciences. They refused even to look at his invention.

[1] The Doubs is a stream after which one of the Eastern Departments of France is named. Its principal city is Besançon, the birthplace of Victor Hugo.

On August 9, 1803, Robert Fulton, the American, ascended the Seine in a novel steamboat, at a speed of six kilometers per hour. The Academy of Sciences and the government officials witnessed the experiment. On the tenth they had forgotten him, and Fulton departed to try his fortunes with his own countrymen.

In 1791 an Italian, named Galvani, suspended from the bars of his window at Bologna some flayed frogs, which he that morning had seen in motion on a table, although they had been killed the night before. This incident seemed incredible, and was unanimously rejected by those to whom he related it. Learned men would have considered it below their dignity to take any pains to verify his story, so sure were they of its impossibility. Galvani, however, had noticed that the maximum effect was produced when a metallic arc, of tin and copper, was brought into contact with the lumbar nerves and pedal extremities of a frog. Then the animal would be violently convulsed. The observer believed this came from a nervous fluid, and so he lost the advantage of his observations. It was reserved for Volta to really discover electricity.

Yet already Europe is furrowed by wagons drawn by flame-mouthed dragons. Distances have vanished before the patience of the humble workers of the world, which is reduced to pettiness by the genius of man. The longest journeys have become well-trodden promenades; the most gigantic tasks are accomplished under the potential and tireless hand of this unseen force; a telegraphic despatch flies, in the twinkling of an eye, from one continent to the other; without leaving our armchairs, we converse with the inhabitants of London and Saint Petersburg; yet these miracles pass unnoticed. We do not dream to what struggles, to what mortifications, to what persecutions, these wonders are due; and we do not reflect that the impossible of yesterday has become the actual of to-day.

There are men who call to us: "Halt, ye small scientists! We do not understand you! Consequently, you cannot yourselves comprehend what you are talking about!" We may reply: However narrow your judgment, your myopia does not afflict all mankind. It must be declared to you, gentlemen, that in spite of yourselves, despite your ravings, the chariot of human knowledge advances further than ever before, and will continue its triumphal march towards the conquest of new powers.

Like the spasms of Galvani's frog, certain crude facts, about which you are skeptical, reveal the existence of natural forces as yet unknown. There is no effect without a cause. The human being is the least known of all beings within our ken. We have learned how to measure the sun, to traverse celestial distances, to analyze starlight; yet we are ignorant as to what we ourselves are. Man is a double being, _homo duplex_; and this double nature remains a mystery to himself. We think; but what is thought? Nobody can say. We walk; but what is this organic action? Nobody knows. My will is an immaterial force; all the faculties of my soul are immaterial; nevertheless, if I will to raise my arm, this volition overcomes matter. How does this power act? What mediation serves for the conveyance of the mental command, in order to produce a physical effect? As yet no one can answer.

Tell me how the optic nerve transmits to our mentality a vision of external objects! Tell me how thought conceives and where it resides, and of what nature is cerebral activity! Tell me...! But no! I could question you for ten years, without the greatest among you being able to solve the least of my riddles.

In this, as in the cases before adduced, we have the unknown for our problem. I am far from saying that the force brought into play in these phenomena can some day be employed like electricity or steam. Such a notion would be neither more nor less than absurd! Nevertheless, though differing essentially from those, occult force is not the less real.

Several years ago I designated this unknown force by the title _psychical_. This designation may well be retained.

Can we not find the happy medium between absolute negation and dangerous credulity? Is it reasonable either to deny everything we do not comprehend, or to accept all the fantasies engendered in the vortex of disordered imaginations? Can we not achieve at the same time the humility which becomes the weak and the dignity which befits the strong?

I conclude this statement as I began it, by declaring that it is not in favor of the Davenport Brothers that I plead; nor do I take up the gauntlet for any sect, for any group of people, or for any person whatsoever; but I contend in behalf of certain facts, of whose validity I was convinced years ago, though without understanding their cause.

I beg the reader to excuse the length of this citation; but it seems to me to serve so naturally as an introduction to this present inquiry that even to-day, after a lapse of a quarter-century, I really see no important changes to be made in this old declaration, except to add that it now appears to me to have been rather audacious on the part of a man so very young, and that it forthwith won him many hearty enemies among the elect of science.

The experimental method is bound to conquer here, as everywhere. Let us, then, without partisanship, study the question under its divers aspects.

1

"The immortality of the soul is a matter so important," writes Pascal, "that one must have lost all moral sensibility if he remains indifferent as to its nature."

Why should we give up the hope of ever arriving at a knowledge of the nature of the thinking principle which animates us, and of ascertaining whether or not it outlives the destruction of the body? It must be admitted that hitherto science has taught us nothing on this fundamental subject. Is this any reason for renouncing the study of the problem? On this, as on many other points, we are not of the same mind as those material Positivists who declare themselves satisfied with not knowing anything. We think, on the contrary, that we should attack the problem by all methods, and not neglect a single hint which may aid the solution.

Personally, I declare that I have not yet discovered for myself one fact which proves with certainty the existence of soul as separate from body. Otherwise, however sublime astronomical science may be,--though it stand at the head of human researches, as the first, the most important, and the most widespread of all sciences,--I avow that, if the inductive method had permitted me to penetrate secrets of existence, I should inevitably have abandoned the science of the firmament, for that which would have dethroned the other through its prime and unequalled importance; since it would be superfluous for us to evade the fact that the gravest and most interesting of all questions, to ourselves, is that of our continuous personal existence. The existence of God, of the entire universe, touches us far less intimately. If we ever cease to live (for what is the span of a human life in the light of eternity!) it is a matter of utter indifference to us whether other things exist or not. Doubtless this reasoning is severely egotistic! Ah, how can it be otherwise?

If we have no clear and irrefutable proofs, we have still the aid of a goodly number of observations, establishing the conclusion that we are compassed about by a set of phenomena, and by powers differing from the physical order commonly observed day by day; and these phenomena urge us to pursue every line of investigation, having for its end a psychical acquaintance with human nature.

Let us begin at the beginning, with a recital of observations which, from their very nature, have the disadvantage of being very personal.

2

At the age of sixteen, on my way home one day from the Paris Observatory, I noticed, on the bookseller's stand in the Galeries de l'Odeon, a green-covered volume entitled Le Livre des Esprits (Book of Spirits), by Allan-Kardec. I bought it, and read it through at a sitting. There was in it something unexpected, original, curious. Were they true, the phenomena therein recounted? Did they solve the great problem of futurity, as the author contended? In my anxiety to ascertain this I made the acquaintance of the high-priest, for Allan-Kardec had made of Spiritism a veritable religion. I assisted at the séances. I experimented and became myself a medium. In one of Allan-Kardec's works, called Genesis, over the signature of Galilee, may be read a whole chapter on Cosmogony, which I wrote in a mediumistic condition.

I was at that time connected with the principal circles in Paris where these experiments were tried, and for two years I even filled the exacting position of secretary to one of these circles, an office which morally bound me not to be absent from a single séance.

Communications were received in three different ways: by writing with our own hands; by placing our hands upon planchette, in which a pencil was placed which did the writing; by raps beneath the table, or by movements which indicated certain letters, when the alphabet was repeated aloud by one of the sitters.

The first method was the only one in use in the Society for Spiritualist Study presided over by Allan-Kardec; but it is the method leaving the widest margin for doubt. Indeed, at the end of several years of experimenting in this fashion, the result was that I became skeptical even of myself, and for the reasons following.

It cannot be denied that, under mediumistic conditions, one does not write in his usual fashion. In the normal state, when we wish to write a sentence, we mentally construct that sentence--if not the whole of it, at least a part of it--before writing the words. The pen and hand obey the creative thought. It is not so when one writes mediumistically. One rests one's hand, motionless but docile, on a sheet of paper, and then waits. After a little while the hand begins to move, and to form letters, words, and phrases. One does not create these sentences, as in the normal state, but waits for them to produce themselves. Yet the mind is nevertheless associated therewith. The subject treated is in unison with one's ordinary ideas. The written language is one's own. If one is deficient in orthography, the composition will betray this fault. Moreover, the mind is so intimately connected with what is written, that if it ponders something else, if the thoughts are allowed to wander from the immediate subject, then the hand will pause, or trace incoherent signs.

Such is the state of the writing-medium,--at least, so far as I have observed it in myself. It is a sort of auto-suggestive state. We are assured there are mediums who write so mechanically that they know not what they are writing, and record theses in strange tongues, on subjects concerning which they are ignorant; but this I have never been able to verify with any certainty.

A few years previous to my commencement of these studies, my illustrious friend Victorien Sardou had undergone similar experiences. As a medium he wrote descriptions of divers planets in our system, principally of Jupiter, and drew very odd pictures, representing the habitations of that planet. One of these pictures depicted the house of Mozart, while others represented the dwellings of Zoroaster and of Bernard Palissy, who seemed to be country neighbors in that immense planet. These habitations appeared to be aërial and of marvellous lightness. The first of them, Mozart's, was essentially formed of musical instruments and indications, such as the staff, notes, and clefs. The second was principally bucolic. There were to be seen flowers, hammocks, swings, flying men; while underneath were intelligent animals, engaged in playing a novel game of tenpins, in which the sport did not lie in bowling the pins over, but in crowning their heads, as in the childish game of cup-and-ball. I reproduced this last design in the work entitled, Les Terres du Ciel (Heavenly Globes), page 180.

These curious drawings prove, beyond a peradventure, that the signature, _Bernard Palissy in Jupiter_, is apocryphal, and that it was not a spirit inhabitant of Jupiter who guided Victorien Sardou's hand. Neither did the gifted author conceive these sketches beforehand, and execute them in pursuance of a deliberate purpose; but at that time he found himself in a mental condition similar to that above described. We may neither be magnetized nor hypnotized, nor put to sleep in any fashion, and yet the brain may remain alien to our mechanical productions. Its cells are functionally agitated, and doubtless act by a reflex impulsion on the motor nerves. We all then believed that Jupiter was inhabited by a superior race. These communications were the reflections of opinions generally held. In these days, however, nobody imagines anything of the kind about Jupiter. Moreover, spirit séances have never taught us the least thing in astronomy. Such manifestations in nowise prove the intervention of spirits. Have writing-mediums given us other proofs, more convincing? This question we will examine later.

3

The second method, planchette, is more independent. This little wooden writer became the fashion chiefly through Madame de Girardin. Its communications soothed her last days, and prepared her for a death fragrant with hope. She believed she was in communication with the spirits of Sappho, Shakespeare, Madame de Sévigné, and Molière; and amidst these convictions she died, without disquietude, without rebellion, without regret. She had introduced a taste for such experiments into the home of Victor Hugo, in Jersey. Nine years later, Auguste Vacquerie, in Les Miettes de l'Histoire (Crumbs of History), wrote as follows:

Madame de Girardin's departure [from Jersey] did not abate my desire for experimenting with the tables. I pressed eagerly forward into this great marvel,--the half-opened door of death.

No longer did I wait for the evening. At midday I began my investigations, and forsook them only with the dawn. If I interrupted myself at all during that time, it was only to dine. Personally I had no effect upon the table, and did not touch it; but I asked questions. The mode of communication was always the same, and I had accustomed myself to it. Madame de Girardin sent me two tablets from Paris,--a little tablet, one of whose legs was a pencil, for writing and drawing. A few trials proved that this tablet designed poorly and wrote badly. The other was larger, and consisted of a disk, or dial, whereon was inscribed the alphabet, the letters being designated by a movable pointer. This apparatus also was rejected after an unsuccessful trial, and I finally resumed the primitive process, which--simplified by familiarity and sundry convenient abbreviations--soon afforded all desirable rapidity. I talked fluently with the table, the murmur of the sea mingling with our conversation, whose mysteriousness was increased by the winter, at night, amidst storms, and through isolation. The table no longer responded by a few words merely, but by sentences and pages. It was usually grave and magisterial, but at times it would be witty and even comical. Sometimes it had an access of choler. More than once I was insolently reproved for speaking to it irreverently, and I confess to not feeling at ease until I had obtained forgiveness. The table made certain exactions. It chose the interlocutors it preferred. It wished sometimes to be questioned in verse, and was obeyed; and then it would answer in verse. All these dialogues were collected, not at the close of the séance, but at the moment, and under the dictation of the table. They will some day be published, and will propound an imperious problem to all intelligent minds thirsting for new truths.