DO SPIRITS EXIST?

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 600, 31 August 1909, Page 6

DO SPIRITS EXIST?

; VIEWS OF A FRENCH ASTRONOMER. '/ M. Camille Flammirion,'. the Frcuch astronomer, recently., unburdened himself '.0f.,. hiS'-ma-tured views on Spiritualism. "They-ar«-'tlie outcome of observation, and let ms say, philosophical : ''observatidn.',;r.,HS''jsays: "That souls survive the destruction of the body I, have not the. slightest doubt, but that they manifest .themselves by the processes employed, in seances the'..experimental method'has-not yet,given us absolute'proof., -Fadd,' this hypo-, thesis, is not at all likely. : "If tho souls, of the dead are, about us, upon our planet, the, invisible population would increase at the rate/of 100,000 a day,-about 36,000,000 "'a' yyeor,; 3,620,000,000 a, century, 86,000,000,000 in ten centuries, etc.—unless wo admit reincarnation upon the earth itself. How many times do, apparitions, or manifestations, occur? When illusions, auto-suggestions, hallucinations are illuminated, what remains? Scarcely, anything. Such -an exceptional rarity as this pleads against the reality of. apparitions.'■ v . .... '"We may suppose, it is true,, that all human beings, do not survive 'their death," and that, ,in;general, their physical entity is so insignificant, so wavering, so ineffectual, that it almost disappears in the ethor, in the commonreservoir, in the environment, like the souls of animals. But thinking beings who. fyive the consciousness of'their, physical existence do riot close thoir personality, but continue the cycle of their -evolution.. . It would seem natural, therefore, to see.; thorn manifest themselves under certain circumstances:'- . > ' Persons condemned to.-deatb, in consequence of judicial errors,, and .executed,, should they not return to'protest their innocence? Would it not be. reasonable to. suppose; that, persona put to death in such a way that violence was not suspected would return to accuse the assassins?.;- : Knowing the - characters of -Robespierre, of- Saint-Just, of Fonguier. Turville, I should like to have seen them revenge 1 themselves a little on'' those!- who triumphed .'over them. '.The victims of '93,- should they , not have returned ,to ' disturb. the sleep o£. the conquerors? : Out .of the 20,000 citizens shot by fusillades during the time of'the (Commune, of Paris-I should like to havo seen a dozen unceasingly' harassing My Thiers, who was "really too puffed lip' and vain-glorious over his having first permitted the' organisation and-then punished it. '

"Why do' not children, whose death is lamented, by their parents, ever como to console them?/'-.Why do'our , dearest, attachments seem to disappear: for. ever? ' And, how; about'last wills ana testaments stolen away,'and the last will of the" dead, ignored, and their'intentions purposely misinterpreted ? U'p to'this day "I have sought in. vain for certain proof of personal identity ' through mediumisfic communications. And tlwn; one does not see why spirits,' if they- exist around us, should have need of mediums at air in order to manifest themselves. They surely miist form a paTt of nature, of the universal, nature, which includes all things. "It may • be, it is true, that spirits exist around us and that it is normally impossible for,them to mike themselves visible, audible, or tangible, not being able to, reflect rays of light' accessible to 1 our retinas or to ' produce sonorous waves or to, effect touches. I. do not saythat spirits do not'exist—on the contrary, I have ■ reasons • for admitting : their existence, but-as a .faithful servant,of the experimental method- I think we ; ought to all the simple, natural hypotheses already known before having .recourse -to others."—"Science Siftibgs."