doubtedly come to pass. Spiritualism has been tended and nursed by the lowly and unpretending; and the stubborn facts that have been elicited are not now to be set aside.

The man who has perhaps approached nearest to the character of a leader of the spiritual movement in France, is M. Hippolyte-Léon-Denizard Rivail, who, under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec, has had remarkable success, by his writings and teachings, in making a belief in the spiritual solution of the modern phenomena carry with it the Platonic doctrine, somewhat modified, of pre-existence and re-incarnation. Before Kardec, this ancient doctrine had been advocated by several of the French philosophers and mystics; by St. Simon, Prosper Enfantin, St. Martin, Fourier, Pierre Leroux; and, lastly, by Jean Reynaud, the literary associate of Leroux, and author of a remarkable work entitled "Terre et Ciel," of which we shall have more to say.

Kardec was born in Lyons, in 1804. A pupil of Pestalozzi, he became one of the propagators of the educational system of that distinguished reformer. Born of Catholic parents, Kardec gave much thought from an early age to the subject of religious reform. In 1850, he began the examination of the American spiritual phenomena. Becoming convinced of their genuineness, he applied himself to the deduction of their philosophical consequences. In this task, he employed both the inductive and the deductive processes; investigating phenomena, interrogating the supposed spirits through a great variety of mediums, and then examining the results by the light of his own reason and spiritual intuitions. The information thus procured he has condensed and arranged methodically, adding his own remarks and explanations in a manner to distinguish them from the rest of the text.

To his system he gives the name of Spiritism. "The words Spiritualism, Spiritualist," he says, "have a well-defined acceptation: to give them a new one by applying them to the doctrine of spirits, would be to multiply the causes, already so numerous, of amphibology. Properly speaking, Spiritualism is the oppoKARDEC'S SPIRITISM.

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site of materialism: whoever believes he has within him something distinguished from matter, is a Spiritualist; but it may not follow that he believes in the existence of spirits, or in their communications with the visible world. To designate this latter belief, we employ, in place of the words Spiritualism, Spiritualist, the words Spiritism, Spiritist."

In 1858, Kardec established "La Revue Spirite," a monthly magazine, which is still published. He is the author of several volumes, in which his peculiar doctrines are set forth in a remarkably clear, matter-of-fact style, methodical and precise, free from all mysticism and prolixity. One great cause of his success is perhaps his lucid, intelligible way of treating the profoundest questions relating to the dual nature of man.

According to the doctrine* of Spiritism, the soul is the intelligent principle which animates human beings, and gives them thought, will, and liberty of action. It is immaterial, individual, and immortal; but its intimate essence is unknown: we cannot conceive it as absolutely isolated from matter, except as an abstraction. United to an ethereal or a fluid envelope or perisprit, it constitutes the concrete spiritual being, determinate and circumscriptive, called spirit. By metonymy, we often employ the words soul and spirit, the one for the other, speaking of happy souls or happy spirits, &c.; but the word soul, according to Spiritism, suggests the idea rather of an abstract principle, and the word spirit that of an individuality.

The spirit, united to the material body by incarnation, constitutes the man; so that in man there are three things: the soul, properly so-called, or intelligent principle; the perisprit, or fluid envelope of the soul; the body, or material envelope. The soul is thus a simple being; the spirit, a double being, composed of the soul and the perisprit; the man, a triple being, composed of the soul, the perisprit, and the body. The body, separated from the spirit, is inert matter; the perisprit, separated from the soul, is a fluid matter without life or intelligence. The soul is the principle of life and of intelligence.

It is not true, therefore, as certain critics have pretended, that in giving to the soul a fluid, semi-material envelope, Spiritism has made of it a material being.

The first origin of the soul is unknown, because the principle of things is one of the secrets of Omnipotence; and it is not given to man, in his actual state of inferiority, to comprehend all. On this point, one can only formulate systems. According to some, the soul is a spontaneous creation of Divinity; according to others, it is a very emanation, a portion, a spark of the divine essence. The problem is one on which we can only establish hypotheses, inasmuch as there are reasons for and against. Against the second of these opinions, the following objection is brought: God being perfect, if souls are portions of Divinity, they ought to be perfect, by reason of the axiom that the part is of the same nature as the whole; whence the question would arise, Why are souls imperfect and in need of further improvement?

Without stopping at the different systems touching the intimate nature and the origin of the soul, Spiritism considers it as it is manifested in the human race: it ascertains, by the proofs, of its isolation and of its action, independent of matter during life and after death, the great facts of its existence, its attributes, its survivance, and its individuality. Its individuality is shown in the diversity which exists in the ideas and qualities of each in the phenomenon of the manifestations; a diversity which implies for each a proper existence.

A fact not less important is proved by observation: it is that the soul is essentially progressive, and that it makes acquisitions unceasingly in knowledge and in moral wisdom, since we find it at all stages of development. The almost unanimous teaching of spirits tells us it is created simple and ignorant; that is to say, without knowledge, without consciousness of good and of evil, with an equal aptitude for either, and for acquiring all. Creation being incessant, and from all eternity, there are souls

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arrived at the summit of the ladder when others are arriving at the consciousness of life; but, all having the same point of departure, God creates no one of them better endowed than another, and this is in conformity with his sovereign justice: a perfect equality presiding at their formation, they advance more or less rapidly, by virtue of their free will, and according to the pains they take. God thus leaves to each the merit or demerit of his acts, and the responsibility increases as the moral sense develops. So that of two souls created at the same time, the one may arrive at a certain height more quickly than the other, if it labors more actively for its amelioration; but those who lag behind have it equally in their power to reach that height, although not so soon, and after many rude experiences, for God does not shut the future to any of his children.

The incarnation of the soul in a material body is, according to Spiritism, necessary to its improvement, by the labor which the corporeal existence demands, and the intelligence it develops. Not being able, in a single life, to acquire all the moral and intellectual qualities which are needed to conduct it to its goal, it arrives there in passing through an unlimited series of existences, whether upon this earth or in other worlds, in each of which it takes a step in the way of progress, and gets rid of some of its imperfections. Into every existence the soul brings what it has acquired in its preceding existences. And thus is explained the difference which exists in the innate aptitudes, and in the degree of advancement of races and people.

According to Spiritism, the universe is an immense laboratory, where humanity, "emanating from an ethereal fluid, becomes elaborated, individualizing itself by incarnation, purifying itself in bodies as in so many crucibles; and, through a progressive advancement, by virtue of its inherent perfectibility, arriving finally at the state where it is the crowning work of creation." *

* "La Raison du Spiritisme, par Michel Bonnamy. Paris: 1868." See, also, "Du Spiritualisme Rationnel, par G. H. Love. Paris: 1862." A work by a man of science, in which the doctrine of pre-existence and re-incarnation is supported by arguments drawn from physical facts.

Such is the system of Spiritism in regard to the soul's reincarnation. It is claimed for it, that it reconciles to our notions of divine justice the fact of those striking differences, moral and intellectual, in human beings, from the very moment

of birth.

To its doctrine of pre-existence, it is objected, that it shifts the difficulty, but does not remove it; for, go back as far as we may, we come at last to a point where we have two souls, supposed to have been created equal. Now, if in virtue of their free will, one of these souls takes a bias to good, and the other to evil, how can there have been perfect equality in their conditions, or in the temptations to which they were exposed? Perfect equality throughout ought to lead to an equality of results. Why, then, should one soul get the start of another in goodness?

To this objection the Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, the principal American advocate of the doctrine of pre-existence, replies, in his able "Conflict of Ages," as follows: "The real and great difficulty lies, not in the idea that free agents should sin, but in the idea that God should bring man into being with a nature morally depraved, anterior to any will, wish, desire, or knowledge of his own, or with a constitution so deranged and corrupt, as to tend to sin with a power that no man can overcome in himself or in others; and that, in addition to this, He should place him in a state of so great social disadvantage, and, as the climax, expose him, so weak, to the fearful wiles of powerful and malignant spirits. This difficulty, pre-existence does touch and entirely remove, by referring the origin of his depravity to his own action in another state, and showing that the system of this world is a system of sovereignty established over beings who have lost their original claims on the justice of God.*

"If now a difficulty is alleged still to exist as to their first

* Here Dr. Beecher diverges from the teachings of Spiritism, in his attempt to accommodate the theory of pre-existence to the demands of the Calvinistic theology. It will be seen that Origen believed that all our punishment here is remedial, and that there is no spirit so evil that he may not ultimately reform.