Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

fifth volume of his Dictionaire Philosophique, he says:-"What man is there who, the moment that he enters into himself, does not perceive that he is a marionette in the hands of Providence? I think, but can I give myself a thought? Alas, if I thought of myself, I should know what idea I should have at any given moment. No one knows it. I acquire knowledge, but I cannot acquire it of myself. My intelligence cannot be the cause of it, for it is necessary that a cause should contain the effect. Now my first acquired knowledge not being in my own intelligence, not being in me, since it was my first, must have been given to me by him who formed me, and who gives everything, whatever it may be.

"I fall annihilated when I am made to see that my first piece of knowledge cannot of itself give me a second, for it would be necessary that the second should be contained in the first to do so.

"The proof that we cannot originate ourselves an idea, is that we receive such in our dreams, and certainly it is neither our will nor our attention which causes us to think in dreams. There are poets who make verses in dreams; geometricians who measure triangles, all which proves that there is a power which acts in us without consulting us. All our sentiments, are they not involuntary: the hearing, the eye, the taste are nothing of themselves: we think spite of ourselves, we know nothing, we are nothing without that supreme power which does everything."

"Who," says Cahagnet, "shall dare to say that this article is written by a Materialist? What Spiritualist has ever written better?" Voltaire when he wrote that saw what all Spiritualists must see, that we receive everything by influx from the spiritual world, the great, immortal store house of all thought, all art, all inventions, all emotion, all beauty. This great truth once learned by the writers and doers of our time, would humble our pride of intellect and augment our gratitude. We talk proudly of the operation of the human intellect as if it were something of our own, and not derived from the same all-glorious and allbountiful source, as our very life and body. We talk of creative genius. There is no creative genius but God. Genius is not a creative faculty but an organization of brain and spirit capable in an ampler degree than average humanity of receiving ideas from the invisible universe. Men and women of genius are not creative but receptive, and should never forget that what they receive in order to disperse it for the general good, they receive as the earth receives its rains and dews and sunshine to endow it with beauty and plenty, and should thank God for it, and be humble as stewards not proprietors. In the article on

But Voltaire has yet something more for us.

Magic, in the same work, Tome VI., ed. 1785, he says, "Magic is a science much more plausible than astrology, or than the doctrine of genius. The moment we begin to think, we perceive in us a being totally distinct from the machine; and as this function continues after death, we give to it a body free, subtle, aerial, resembling the body in which it was here lodged. Two reasons perfectly natural introduce this opinion. First, because in all languages the soul is called a breath, and spirit wind. This breath, this spirit, this wind being in some things very light and very free. The second, because if the spirit of a man did not retain a form similar to that which it possessed in life, we should not, after death, be able to distinguish one man's soul from that of another. This soul, this shadow, which subsists separate from its body, may very well be able to shew itself, on occasion, to re-visit the places which it had inhabited; to return to its relatives, its friends, speak with them, and instruct them. There is no incompatibility in all this. That which exists can appear.

[ocr errors]

Thus we have Voltaire, the prince of sceptics and scoffers, admitting, in a better moment, the whole theory and actuality of Spiritualism. Probably in such a moment he built the church at Ferney by his house, and carved on the front "DEO EREXIT VOLTAIRE," which church his successors have turned into a barn.

Cahagnet quotes a remarkable case of stone-throwing, which escaped us at the time we were giving a collection of such phenomena. La Republique of the 3rd of February, 1849, extracts the following facts from La Gazette des Tribunaux:-" A fact most extraordinary, and which has been repeated every evening, every night for the last three weeks, without the most active researches, the most extended and persevering surveillance having been able to discover the cause, has thrown into commotion all the populous quartier of La Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, the Sorbonne, and Place Saint-Michel. This is what has taken place in accordance with the public clamorous demand, and a double inquiry, judicial and administrative, which has been going on many days, without throwing any light on the mystery.

"In the work of demolition going on to open a new s which shall join the Sorbonne to the Pantheon and the C of Law (l'Ecole de Droit), in traversing the Rue de Grè the old church, which has successively served as a mutual and a barracks of infantry, at the end of a plot of ground formerly stood a public dancing-hall, they came to a wo coal yard, with an inhabited house connected with it o one story and an attic. This house, at some distance f street, and separated from the houses in course of destru

of Roman Catholic Eagmar

large excavations of the ancient wall of Paris built by Philippe Auguste, laid bare by the work in progress, has been assailed every evening and through the whole night by a hail of projectiles, which, from their bulk, and the violence with which they have been thrown, have done such destruction, that it has been laid open to the day, and the woodwork of the doors and windows reduced to shivers, as if it had sustained a siege, aided by a catapult or grape-shot.

"Whence came these projectiles, which are paving-stones, fragments of the demolished walls near, and ashlar stones entire, which from their weight, and the distance they are hurled, are clearly from no mortal hand? This is just what, up to this moment, it has been impossible to discover. In vain has a surveillance been exercised day and night under the personal direction of the commissary of police and able assistants. In vain has the head of the service of safety been continually on the spot. In vain have they let loose every night watch-dogs in the adjoining enclosures. Nothing has been able to explain the phenomena, which, in its credulity, the people has attributed to mysterious means. The projectiles have continued to rain down with great noise on the house, launched forth at a great height above the heads of those who have placed themselves in observation on the roofs of the small surrounding houses, and seeming to come from a great distance, reaching their aim with a precision, as it were, mathematical, and without deviating from the parabolic evidently designed for them.

We shall not enter into the ample details of these facts, which will, without doubt, receive a speedy explanation; thanks to the solicitude which they have awakened. Already the inquiry extends itself in every direction to which the adage,― Cui prodest is auctor. The author is some one or more whom it may benefit. Nevertheless, we will remark that, in circumstances somewhat analogous, and which equally excited a certain sensation in Paris, when for example, a rain of pieces of small money drew together the loungers of Paris every evening in the Rue de Montesquieu, or when all the bells were rung in a house in the Rue de Malte by an invisible hand, it was found impossible to make any discovery, to find any palpable cause for the phenomena. Let us hope that this time we shall arrive at a result more precise."

The Republique of the 4th of February continues:-" La Gazette des Tribunaux speaks still of the famous machine of war, so redoubtable and, moreover, so mysterious, which keeps in commotion the inhabitants of the Quartier Saint Jacques. This is what it states to-day. The singular fact of a launching of projectiles against the house of a wood and coal merchant in the

Rue Neuve de Cluny near the Place da Pantheon, continues in activity to the present time, in spite of the strict and incessant watch kept on these places. At eleven o'clock when the watches were all stationed on every available approach, an enormous stone struck the barricaded door of the house. At three o'clock, whilst the officer of the service of public safety, on duty at the time, with five or six of his subordinates, were engaged in an enquiry into the different circumstances with the master of the house, a square of ashlar stone fell at their feet and burst with the explosion of a bombshell. People are lost in conjectures. The doors, the windows, are closed by planks nailed inside to protect the inhabitants from being struck, as their furniture and even, their beds have been, and shattered by the projectiles."

AN ODIOUS APPARITION.

M. Binet, a manufacturer of chemical utensils, 5, Rue Neuve, Saint Sabin, Paris, wrote to M. Cahagnet on the 4th of September, 1848:-"A fact very extraordinary occurred to mo one night in the month of April, 1839. I awoke about two o'clock in the morning in a condition of moral suffering, very fearful. I found myself held down by an occult power, and, as it were, crucified upon my bed by the side of my wife, who slept, and whom the power which oppressed me prevented me from awaking. All my moral force seemed concentrated in my heart. I had presence of mind, and though it was impossible to move my body, I had all my powers of observation. I perceived my heart filled with a fluid which caused mo an agony as if it had been sewed together with threads of silk. But spite of the force which constrained me, I had confidence in God, and felt certain that I should be enabled to conquer this miserable condition. When my eyes were opened, I perceived the moon which threw its light into my chamber, and when I closed them I found myself addressed by a being that I knew on earth. He approached in the first instance to ask something of me. He was dressed in a wretched black coat his shirt was very dirty; in fact his condition announced utmost misery. He concluded by ordering me to pray for but, as I detested the constraint in which he held me, I and braved the consequences. I then perceived his enter my nostrils and poison me with an infernal supportable stench, but, thanks to God, I made a stro and, spite of the exertions he made in opposition, I wife, and begged her to push me out of bed, which traversed the chamber with naked feet, but still I f held in the power of this man by my interior sens

1

gave me a glass of fresh water which I drank, and I begged of her to kneel with me in prayer to God for my deliverance. This we did with fervour. I found myself better, though the agony of heart remained, still seeming drawn together by threads. I went in the morning to walk in the Exhibition of the Products of Industry.* to distract my attention and recover my calmness." M. Binet continues his account of a long period of suffering under this obsession, for such it was. At length he was advised to visit a clairvoyante-Madame Perin. This took place in the presence of M. and Madame Pirlot, and Colonel Roger. The moment the clairvoyante touched his hand, though he was an utter stranger to her, she gave a loud cry, and exclaimed that he was obsessed by a hideous spirit, which she saw enveloped in an atmosphere of the most disgusting character, the odour of which infected all around. All the company joined in earnest prayer for his deliverance, which took place a few days afterwards.

INSTANCES OF SPIRITS CARRYING MATERIAL SUBSTANCES.

Colonel Roger, probably the same mentioned in M. Binet's account of his obsession, sent Cahagnet several instances of spirits carrying material substances which had come under his own observation. It is to be regretted that he was not at liberty to give the names of the other witnesses, as he frankly gave his own, and his address, 4, Rue Neuve de l'Université, Paris.

First Fact.

M. Rev. ***, senior, and myself were walking on the high road of a town in Brittany. On entering the hotel, M. Rev. *** perceived that he had lost his gold seal, which was of great value. After dinner, he put a clairvoyante to sleep, who said :"Call such a spirit, and pray him to go and search for your seal in a heap of stones near the sea, in the place indicated." Scarcely was the command given, when the spirit brought the seal to the clairvoyante, who said to M. Rev. ***, "Thank the spirit, and dismiss him."

says,

Second Fact.

The Colonel that on their return to Nantes he was very unwell. The same clairvoyante, M. Rev. *** being present, prepared a glass of sugar and water, and prayed a spirit known

*It appears from this that Paris had an Exhibition of the Products of National Industry in 1848, so that our Great Exhibition of 1851 was not the original idea of such Exhibitions. It was only the extension of the idea from a national to an international one.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »