203. Do parents transmit to their children a part of their soul,
or do they only give them the animal life to which another soul afterwards
adds the moral life? "The animal life only is given by the parents, for the soul is
indivisible. A stupid father may have clever children, and vice versa.”
204. As we have had many existences, do our relationships extend
beyond our present existence? "It cannot be otherwise. The succession of their corporeal existences
establishes among spirits a variety of relationships which date back from
their former existences; and these relationships are often the cause of
the sympathies or antipathies which you sometimes feel towards persons
whom you seem to meet for the first time."
205. The doctrine of reincarnation appears, to some minds, to destroy
family ties, by carrying them back to periods anterior to our present existence.
"It extends those ties, but it does not destroy them; on the contrary,
the conviction that the relationships of the present life are based upon
anterior affections renders the ties between members of the same family
less precarious. It makes the duties of fraternity even more imperative,
because in your neighbour, or in your servant, may be incarnated some spirit
who has formerly been united to you by the closest ties of consanguinity
or of affection."
-It nevertheless diminishes the importance which many persons attach
to their ancestry, since we may have had for our father a spirit who has
belonged to a different race, or who has lived in a different social position.
"That is true; but this importance is usually founded on pride,
for what most people honour in their ancestors is title, rank, and fortune.
Many a one, who would blush to have an honest shoemaker for his grandfather,
boasts of his descent from some debauchee of noble birth. But, no matter
what men may say or do, they will not prevent things from going on according
to the divine ordering; for God has not regulated the laws of nature to
meet the demands of human vanity."
206. If there be no filiation among the spirits successively incarnated
as the descendants of the same family, does it follow that it is absurd
to honour the memory of one's ancestors? "Assuredly not; for one ought to rejoice in belonging to a family
in which elevated spirits have been incarnated. Although spirits do not
proceed from one another, their affection for those who are related to
them by family-ties is none the less real; for they are often led to incarnate
themselves in such and such a family by pre-existing causes of sympathy,
and by the influence of attractions due to relationships contracted in
anterior lives. But you may be very sure that the spirits of your ancestors
are in no way gratified by the honours you pay to their memory from a sentiment
of pride. Their merits, however great they may have been, can only add
to your deserts by stimulating your efforts to follow the good examples
they may have given you; and it is only through this emulation of their
good qualities that your remembrance can become for them not only agreeable
but useful also."
207. Parents often transmit physical resemblance to their children;
do they also transmit to them moral resemblance? "No; because they have different souls or spirits. The body proceeds
from the body, but the spirit does not proceed from any other spirit. Between
the descendants of the same race there is no other relationship than that
of consanguinity."
- What is the cause of the moral resemblance that sometimes exists
between parents and children? "The attractive influence of moral sympathy, which orings together
spirits who are animated by similar sentiments and tendencies."
208. Are the spirits of the parents without influence upon the spirit
of their child after its birth? "They exercise, on the contrary, a very great influence upon it.
As we have already told you, spirits are made to conduce to one another's
progress. To the spirits of the parents is confided the mission of developing
those of their children by the training they give to them; it is a task
which is appointed to them, and which they cannot without guilt fail to
fulfil."
209. How is it that good and virtuous parents often give birth to
children of perverse and evil nature? In other words, how is it that the
good qualities of tile parents do not always attract to them, through sympathy,
a good spirit to animate their child? "A wicked spirit may ask to be allowed to have virtuous parents,
in the hope that their counsels may help him to amend his ways; and God
often confides such an one to the care of virtuous persons, in order that
he may be benefited by their affection and care."
210. Can parents, by their intentions and their'. prayers, attract
a good spirit into the body of their child, instead of an inferior spirit?
"No; but they can improve the spirit of the child whom they have
brought into the world, and is confided to them for that purpose. It is
their duty to do this; but bad children are often sent as a trial for the
improvement of the parents also."
211. What is the cause of the similarity of character so often existing
among brothers, especially between twins? "The sympathy of two spirits who are attracted by the similarity
of their sentiments, and who are happy to be together."
212. In children whose bodies are joined together, and who have some
of their organs in common, are there two spirits,- that is to say, two
souls? "Yes; but their resemblance to one another often makes them seem
to you as though there were but one."
213. Since spirits incarnate themselves in twins from sympathy whence
comes the aversion that is sometimes felt by twins for one another? "It is not a rule that only sympathetic spirits are incarnated
as twins. Bad spirits may have been brought into this relation by their
desire to struggle against each other on the stage of corporeal life."
214. In what way should we interpret the stories of children fighting
in their mother's womb? "As a figurative representation of their hatred to one another,
which, to indicate its inveteracy, is made to date from before their birth.
You rarely make sufficient allowance for the figurative and poetic element
in certain statements."
215. What is the cause of the distinctive character which we observe
in each people? "Spirits constitute different families, formed by the similarity
of their tendencies, which are more or less purified according to their
elevation. Each people is a great family formed by the assembling together
of sympathetic spirits. The tendency of the members of these families to
unite together is the source of the resemblance which constitutes the distinctive
character of each people. Do you suppose that good and benevolent spirits
would seek to incarnate themselves among a rude and brutal people ? No;
spirits sympathise with masses of men as they sympathise with individuals.
They go to the region of the earth with which they are most in harmony."
216. Does a spirit, in his new existence, retain
any traces of the moral character of his former existences? "Yes, he may do so; but, as he improves, he changes. His social
position, also, may be greatly changed in his successive lives. If, having
been a master in one existence, he becomes a slave in another, his tastes
will be altogether different, and it would be difficult for you to recognise
him. A spirit being the same in his various incarnations, there may be
certain analogies between the manifestations of character in his successive
lives; but these manifestations will, nevertheless, be modified by the
change of conditions and habits incident to each of his new corporeal existences,
until, through the ameliorations thus gradually effected, his character
has been completely changed, he who was proud and cruel becoming humble
and humane through repentance and effort."
217. Does a man, in his different incarnations, retain any traces
of the physical character of his preceding existences? "The body is destroyed, and the new one has no connection with
the old one. Nevertheless, the spirit is reflected in the body; and although
the body is only matter, yet, being modelled on the capacities of the spirit,
the latter impresses upon it a certain character that is more particularly
visible in the face, and especially in the eyes, which have been truly
declared to be the mirror of the soul-that is to say, that the face reflects
the soul more especially than does the rest of the body. And this is so
true that a very ugly face may please when it forms part of the envelope
of a good, wise, and humane spirit; while, on the other hand, very handsome
faces may cause you no pleasurable emotion, or may even excite a movement
of repulsion. It might seem, at first sight, that only well-made bodies
could be the envelopes of good spirits, and yet you see every day virtuous
and superior men with deformed bodies. Without there being any very marked
resemblance between them, the similarity of tastes and tendencies may,
therefore, give what is commonly called a family-likeness to the corporeal
bodies successively assumed by the same spirit." The body with which the soul is clothed in a new incarnation not having
any necessary connection with the one which it has quitted (since it may
belong to quite another race), it would be absurd to infer a succession
of existences from a resemblance which may be only fortuitous but. nevertheless,
the qualities of the spirit often modify the organs which serve for their
manifestations, and impress upon the countenance, and even on the general
manner, a distinctive stamp. It is thus that an expression of nobility
and dignity may be found under the humblest exterior, while the fine clothes
of the grandee are often unable to hide the baseness and ignominy of their
wearer. Some persons, who have risen from the lowest position, adopt without
effort the habits and manners of the higher ranks, and seem to have returned
to their native element while others, notwithstanding their advantages
of birth and education, always seem to be out of their proper place in
refined society. How can these facts be explained unless as a reflex of
what the spirit has been in his former existences?
218. Does a spirit retain, when incarnated, any trace of the perceptions
he has had, and the knowledge he had acquired, in its former existences?
"There remains with him a vague remembrance, which gives him what
you call innate ideas."
- Then the theory of innate ideas is not a chimera? "No; the knowledge acquired in each existence is not lost. A spirit,
when freed from matter, always remembers what he has learned. He may, during
incarnation, forget partially and for a time, but the latent intuition
which he preserves of all that he has once known aids him in advancing.
Were it not for this intuition of past acquisitions, he would always have
to begin his education over again. A spirit, at each new existence, takes
his departure from the point at which he had arrived at the close of his
preceding existence."
219. If that be the case, there must be a very close connection between
two successive existences.? "That connection is not always so close as you might suppose it
to be; for the conditions of the two existences are often very different,
and, in the interval between them, the spirit may have made considerable
progress."-(2l6)
220. What is the origin of the extraordinary faculties of those individuals
who, without any preparatory study, appear to possess intuitively certain
branches of knowledge, such as languages, arithmetic, etc.? "The vague remembrance of their past; the result of progress previously
made by the soul, but of which it has no present consciousness. From what
else could those intuitions be derived? The body changes, but the spirit
does not change, although he changes his garment."
221. In changing our body, can we lose certain intellectual faculties,
as, for instance, the taste for an art? "Yes, if you have sullied that faculty, or made a bad use of it.
Moreover, an intellectual faculty may be made to slumber during an entire
existence, because the spirit wishes to exercise another faculty having
no connection with the one which, in that case, remains latent, but will
come again into play in a later existence."
222. Is it to a retrospective remembrance that are due the instinctive
sentiment of the existence of God, and the presentiment of a future life,
which appear to be natural to man, even in the savage state? "Yes, to a remembrance which man has preserved of what he knew
as a spirit before he was incarnated; but pride often stifles this sentiment."
- Is it to this same remembrance that are due certain beliefs analogous
to spiritist doctrine, which are found among every people? "That doctrine is as old as the world, and is, therefore, to be
found everywhere; a ubiquity which proves it to be true. The incarnate
spirit, preserving the intuition of his state as a spirit, possesses an
instinctive consciousness of the invisible world; but this intuition is
often perverted by prejudices, and debased by the admixture of superstitions
resulting from ignorance."