Spontaneous generation and GenesisIn our book on Genesis, we developed the theory of spontaneous generation, presenting it as a probable hypothesis. Some absolute supporters of this theory are surprised that we have not affirmed it as a principle. To this we respond that, if the question is resolved for some, it is not for everyone, and the proof is that science is still divided in this regard; it is, moreover, of the scientific domain, from which Spiritism cannot harvest, and where it is not up to resolve anything in a definitive way, in what is not primarily of its competence.
From the fact that Spiritism assimilates all progressive ideas, it does not follow that it blindly champions all new conceptions, however attractive they may be, at first sight, at the risk of later receiving a denial of experience, and to face the ridicule of having sponsored an unsustainable work. If he does not take a clear position on certain controversial questions, it is not, as one might think, to spare the two parties, but out of prudence, and not to advance lightheartedly on a terrain that has not been sufficiently explored; that is why it only accept new ideas, even those that seem correct, first of all with reservation, for future assessment, and only in a definitive manner when they have reached the state of recognized truths.
The issue of spontaneous generation is one of those. Personally, it is a conviction for us, and if we had dealt with it in an ordinary work, we would have resolved it in the affirmative way; but in a work constituting the Spiritist doctrine, individual opinions must not prevail; since the doctrine is not based on probabilities, we could not have decided such a serious issue as soon as it came up, and that is still in dispute among the experts. To affirm the thing without restriction, it would have been to compromise the doctrine prematurely, which we never do, even to make our sympathies prevail.
What has given Spiritism strength, until now, what has made it a positive science with a future, is that it has never come forward frivolously; that it was not formed on any preconceived system; that it has not established any absolute principle upon personal opinion, neither of a man, nor of a Spirit, but only after this principle has received the blessings of experience, and of a rigorous demonstration, resolving all the difficulties of the matter.
When we formulate a principle, it is because we are assured in advance of the agreement of the majority of men and Spirits; that is why we have had no disappointments; such is also the reason why none of the bases that constitute the doctrine has received an official denial, for twelve years now; the principles of The Spirits' Book have been successively developed and completed, but none has fallen into disuse, and our later writings are not in any way in contradiction with the first, despite the time that has elapsed and the new observations that have been made.
It would certainly not be that way if we had yielded to the suggestions of those who ceaselessly shouted at us to go faster, if we had embraced all the theories that hatched from right and left. On the other hand, if we had listened to those who told us to go slower, we would still be watching the turning tables. We go forward, when we feel the time is right, and we see that the minds are ripe to accept a new idea; we stop when we see that the ground is not strong enough to set foot on it. With our apparent slowness, and our over-meticulous circumspection for some people, we have advanced more than if we had started running, because we avoided plunging along the way. Since we have no reason to regret the course we have followed so far, we will not deviate from it.
That said, we will complete with a few remarks what we said in Genesis, concerning spontaneous generation. The Spiritist Review being a field of study and elaboration of principles, we are not afraid to engage the responsibility of the doctrine, by clearly giving it our opinion, because the doctrine will adopt it if it is just and will reject it if it is wrong.
It is a fact now scientifically demonstrated that organic life has not always existed on Earth, and that there was a beginning; geology makes it possible to follow its gradual development. The first beings of the vegetable and animal kingdoms that appeared must, therefore, have been formed without procreation, and belonged to the lower classes, as can be seen from geological observations.
As the dispersed elements came together, the first combinations formed exclusively inorganic bodies, that is, stones, waters, and minerals of all kinds. When these same elements were modified by the action of the vital fluid - that is not the intelligent principle - they formed bodies endowed with vitality, with a constant and regular organization, each in its species. Now, just as the crystallization of crude matter only takes place when no accidental cause opposes the symmetrical arrangement of molecules, organized bodies are formed as soon as the favorable circumstances of temperature and humidity, of rest or movement, and a kind of fermentation, allow the molecules of matter, vivified by the vital fluid, to unite. This is what we see in all seeds in which vitality can remain latent for years and centuries, manifesting at some point, when the circumstances are right.
Non-procreated beings therefore form the first rank of organic beings and will probably count in the scientific classification one day. As for the species that propagate by procreation, an opinion that is not new, but that is spreading today under the aegis of science, is that the first types of each species are the product of a modification of the species immediately below. Thus, an unbroken chain was established from moss and lichen to oak, and from zoophyte, earthworm, and mite to man. Without doubt, between the earthworm and man, if we consider only the two extreme points, there is a difference that seems an abyss; but when we bring together all the intermediate rings, we find a filiation without a solution of continuity.
The partisans of this theory that, we repeat, tends to prevail, and to which we rally without reservation, are far from being all spiritualists, and even less Spiritists. Considering only matter, they disregard the spiritual or intelligent principle. This question therefore does not prejudge anything on the filiation of this principle of animality in humanity; it is a thesis that we do not have to deal with today, but that is already debated in certain non-materialist philosophical schools. It is therefore only the issue of the carnal envelope, distinct from the Spirit, as the house is from its inhabitant. Then, the body of man can perfectly be a modification of that of the monkey, without it following that his Spirit is the same as that of the monkey. (Genesis, Chapter XI, no.15).
The question that is connected with the formation of this envelope is nonetheless very important, firstly because it solves a serious scientific problem, for it destroys long rooted prejudices of ignorance, and secondly because that those who study it exclusively will run up against insurmountable difficulties when they want to realize all the effects, absolutely as if they wanted to explain the effects of telegraphy without electricity; they will find the solution of these difficulties only in the action of the spiritual principle that they will have to admit in the end, to get out of the impasse in which they will have entered themselves, or pay the price of leaving their theory incomplete.
So let materialism study the properties of matter; this study is essential, and it will be effectively done; spiritualism will not have to complete the work with that respect. Let us accept its discoveries, and do not worry about its absolute conclusions, because their insufficiency, to solve everything, being demonstrated, the necessities of a rigorous logic will inevitably lead to spirituality; and the general spirituality being itself powerless to solve the innumerable problems of the present life and of the future life, one will find the only possible key to it in the more positive principles of Spiritism. We are already seeing a crowd of men arriving at the consequences of Spiritism on their own, without knowing it, some starting with reincarnation, others with the perispirit. They do like Pascal, who discovered the elements of geometry without prior study, and without suspecting that what he thought he had discovered was an accomplished work. A day will come when serious thinkers, studying this doctrine with the attention it entails, will be quite surprised to find in it what they were looking for, and they will openly proclaim a work whose existence they did not suspect.
This is how everything is linked in the world; from brute matter came organic beings, more and more perfected; from materialism will emerge, by force of circumstances, and by logical deduction, general spiritualism, then Spiritism that is nothing else, but spiritualism established with accuracy, based on facts.
Does what happened at the origin of the world for the formation of the first organic beings take place today, by way of what is called spontaneous generation? That is the question. From our side, we do not hesitate to state affirmatively.
The partisans and the adversaries reciprocally oppose experiments that have given opposite results; but the latter forget that the phenomenon can only occur under desired conditions of temperature and aeration; in seeking to obtain it outside of such conditions, they must necessarily fail.
We know, for example, that for the artificial hatching of eggs, a certain regular temperature is necessary, and certain special minute precautions. The one who would deny this hatching because he would not obtain it with a few degrees above or below, and without the necessary precautions, would be in the same case as the one who does not obtain the spontaneous generation in an unsuitable environment. It therefore seems to us that if this generation necessarily occurred in the first ages of the globe, there is no reason for it not to occur in our time, if the conditions are the same, as there would be none for the formation of limestones, oxides, acids, and salts, as in the first period.
It is now recognized that the barbs of the mold constitute a vegetation that is born on the organic matter that reached a certain stage of fermentation. Mold seems to us to be the first, or one of the first types of spontaneous vegetation, and this primitive vegetation that continues, taking various forms according to the environment and the circumstances, gives us lichens, mosses, etc. Do you want a more direct example? What is the hair, beard, and the bodily hair of animals, if not spontaneous vegetation?
Animalized organic matter, that is, containing a certain proportion of nitrogen, gives rise to worms that have all the characteristics of spontaneous generation. When man or any animal is alive, the activity of the circulation of the blood and the incessant work of the organs maintains a temperature and a molecular movement that prevents the constituent elements of this generation from forming and gathering. When the animal is dead, the cessation of circulation and movement, the lowering of the temperature to a certain limit, brings about putrid fermentation, and consequently, the formation of new chemical compounds. It is then that we see all the tissues suddenly invaded by myriads of worms that feed on them, to undoubtedly hasten their destruction. How would they be procreated since there were no traces of them before?
One will certainly object that these are the eggs deposited by the flies on the dead flesh; but this would not prove anything, since the eggs of flies are deposited on the surface, and not in the interior of the tissues, and that the flesh, sheltered from the flies, after sometime is nonetheless rotten and filled with worms; they are often even seen invading the body before death, when there is a partial onset of putrid decomposition, especially in gangrenous wounds.
Certain species of worms are formed during life, even in an apparent state of health, especially in lymphatic individuals whose blood is poor and who do not have the superabundance of life that is observed in others; they are roundworms or intestinal worms; flatworms or tapeworms that sometimes reach sixty meters in length, and reproduce in fragments such as polyps and certain plants; the dragonflies, peculiar to the black race and to certain climates, thirty to thirty-five centimeters long, thin as a thread, and that emerge through the skin by pustules; ascarids, whipworms, etc. They often form masses so considerable that they obstruct the digestive canal, ascend into the stomach and even into the mouth; they pass through the tissues, lodge in the cavities or around the viscera, curl up like caterpillar nests, and cause serious disorders in the organism. Their formation could well be due to a spontaneous generation, having its source in a special pathological state, in the deterioration of the tissues, the weakening of the vital principles, and in morbid secretions. It could be the same with cheese worms, scabies acarus, and a host of animalcules that may originate in air, in water, and in organic bodies.
One might suppose, it is true, that the germs of intestinal worms are introduced into the organism with the air that one breathes and with food, and that they hatch there; but then another difficulty arises; one would wonder why the same cause does not produce the same effect in everybody; why not everyone has tapeworms, or even earthworms, while food and respiration produce identical physiological effects in everyone. This explanation, moreover, would not be applicable to the worms of putrid decomposition that come after death, nor to those of cheese and so many others. Until proven otherwise, we are inclined to regard them as being, at least in part, a product of spontaneous generation, like zoophytes and certain polyps.
The difference of sexes that were recognized, or believed to be recognized in some intestinal worms, notably in the whipworm, would not be a conclusive objection, since they nevertheless belong to the order of the inferior animals, and very primitive for that matter; now, as the difference between the sexes must have had a beginning, nothing would prevent them from being spontaneously born male or female.
These are, however, only hypotheses, but that seem to support the principle. How far does it extend its application? This is what cannot be said, what we can affirm is that it must be circumscribed to plants and animals of the simplest organization, and it does not appear to us doubtful that we are witnessing an incessant creation.
