Posthumous Humanity: A Study of Phantoms/Introduction

The title of this essay will, perhaps, seem to certain persons in conflict with the philosophical opinions which I have all my life professed, as well as with the great school^[1] towards which the study of the sciences had led me even before I had heard the word of the master.^[2] Let such persons be reassured: the contradiction is but imaginary. Besides the Elements of Analytical Geometry, which his biographers omit to mention, I have accepted of Auguste Comte's writings only his Course of Positive Philosophy. And, furthermore, I have had to reject certain passages wherein were already revealed the familiar tendencies of the "High-priest of Humanity"—tendencies to be regretted in a work which will take rank among the chief ones of this age, and which I regard as the highest expression that philosophic thought has ever attained. This system of expurgation naturally traced my own programme, and the ideas I shall now set forth are as far removed from the dreams of mysticism as from the hallucinations of the spiritists. ​Never transcending the domain of facts, nor invoking any supernatural cause to explain them, I have designed to give to my hook the stamp of Positivism. And now let the reader observe how I have been led into researches so different from my ordinary work.

Every one is familiar with the great impulse that the study of aërolites has acquired of late—their connection with shooting-stars, the relationship between these latter and comets, the part which each of these asteroids plays in the economy of the solar world, the indications they afford as to the chemical nature of the matter diffused throughout space; all these amply prove the value which astronomers attach to this new branch of celestial exploration. Yet it is barely a half-century since the importance of such researches had begun to be felt, and each time that our journals announce a fall of meteors I cannot help recalling to mind the superb disdain with which the men of science used to greet every communication of the sort, and their obstinate denials of the most precise affirmations by observers. We all know the reply one day made by Lavoisier in the name of the Academy of Sciences; "There are no stones in the sky; therefore none can fall thence upon the earth!" Thus it was until 1803. On the 26th of April in that year, an enormous bolide (meteoric stone), which burst near l'Aigle (Orne), covered with its fragments more than ten square kilometers of ground. Several thousand ​persons having witnessed this phenomenon, which occurred in full daylight, the Academy of Sciences came to the conclusion to send one of its members, Biot, to the spot to make an investigation. At his return, he laid before the eyes of his colleagues a number of specimens, and finished by convincing the sceptics. Stones could, then, after all, drop upon the earth, despite the assertion of the scientists that there were none in the sky.^[3] Hoping to extricate the astronomers from their sad predicament, Laplace went into a calculation, by which he attempted to show that the lunar volcanoes possessed a projectile force great enough to fling out fragments of rock to a distance where the attraction of the earth might become preponderant over that of her satellite. Thenceforward projectiles had permission to fall among us. Later it was discovered that these asteroids circulated in countless numbers around the sun, and different observations assign to them for origin the streams of cosmic matter resulting from the rupture of cometary tails. ​Aërolites, so long denied by the scientists, may now be seen by thousands in our collections.

Stone-showers were not the only phenomena of this nature. Many persons had witnessed the fall of large numbers of toads in the midst of certain heavy showers; there was but one answer to their affirmations—that of Lavoisier slightly altered: toads do not exist in the clouds; consequently none can tumble upon the earth. As it was absolutely necessary to take some notice of these animals, which fairly covered the ground, it was added that they came from eggs hidden beneath stones, and which were suddenly hatched out by the heat and electricity which usually accompany showers. It might have been objected that the size of the toads ill accorded with the diminutiveness of the eggs whence they were alleged to have emerged, and that furthermore it was their nature to first show themselves under the form of tadpoles before adopting that of their adult age. But the scientists were not men to permit themselves to be stopped by such trifling annoyances, and it was of small moment to them whether or not they gave a twist to the most fundamental laws of natural history when their theory was jeopardized. A rain of oranges having occurred after a heavy shower, it was soon discovered that these novel projectiles had come from a neighbouring orange-grove that had been stripped by the tempest. This undoubted fact set people to thinking, and to study at closer range the progress ​and nature of storms which produced such phenomena. Before long it was seen they were dealing with cyclones, whose whirlwinds caught up whatever they encountered in their path to deposit it further on. If a sea was being traversed, the water was first sucked up and afterwards dropped, with its aquatic population, elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Toads, then, might fall upon the earth despite their not existing in the clouds.

It was permissible to suppose that such lessons would not be wasted, and that persons calling themselves discreet would for the future show more circumspection in their wholesale and systematic denials. It was not so. False notions, that we found upon our prejudices or an imperfect education, imprint upon our brain a sort of personal equation, of which we cannot rid ourselves. During thirty years I had laughed at the reply of Lavoisier, without perceiving that I myself invoked the identical argument in trying to account for certain phenomena equally strange with the showers of stones or toads. I refer to the weird noises that are sometimes heard in certain habitations, and that cannot be ascribed to any physical cause, at least in the vulgar sense that we give to that word. A circumstance worthy of remark doubles the singularity of this phenomenon. It is that these noises usually occur only after the decease of some occupant of the dwelling. While yet a child, I had seen the entire population of a canton thrown ​into excitement. The Abbé Peyton, curé of the parish of Sentenac (Ariège), had died. The following days there were heard strange noises in the Presbytery, and of so persistent a character that the new incumbent was on the point of abandoning his post. The country people, as ignorant as superstitious, were not in the least embarrassed to account for the prodigy. They declared that the soul of the defunct was in suffering, because he had not had time to say before dying all the masses for which he had been feed. For my part I was not at all convinced. Reared in the Christian dogma, I said to myself that the Abbé Peyton must have undoubtedly quitted the planet for one or the other of the three posthumous residences, Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, and I fancied that the gates of the two penitentiaries were too solidly bolted to permit of his indulging any fancy of returning to make up arrears. Later, having fallen into another current of ideas, as much from the study of comparative religion as of that of science, I grew still more incredulous, and felt a pity for those who pretended that they had witnessed such spectacles. Spirits, said I, exist only in the imagination of mediums or spiritists; hence one could not meet them elsewhere. In 1868, finding myself in Berry, I reddened with impatience against a poor woman who persisted in affirming that, in a lodging she had occupied at a certain time, every night an invisible hand had pulled the clothes off her bed as soon ​as she put out the light. I treated her like a crazy idiot. Soon afterwards came the terrible year.^[4] I came out of it, for my part, with the loss of my sight and, a still graver thing, with the first symptoms of a complete paralysis. Having been an eye-witness to the marvellous cures effected by the medicinal springs of Aulus in the treatment of certain diseases, especially those due to the prostration of vital energy, I went there in the spring of 1871, and was able to arrest the progress of my malady. The purity of the mountain air, as well as the vivifying action of the mineral waters, determined me to fix my permanent residence in that locality. I could then study at close quarters these nocturnal disturbances which I had previously but known by hearsay.

After the death of the old proprietor of the springs, the bathing establishment had become almost nightly the theatre of scenes of this character. The watchmen dared not sleep there alone. Sometimes the bathing-tubs resounded at midnight as with the strokes of a hammer. If the closet was opened whence the noise proceeded, it straightway stopped, but recommenced in the next compartment. When they were quiet, there were other manifestations not less curious: blows were struck on the partitions, human footfalls were heard in the watchman's room, objects of various ​sorts were flung upon the floor, &c. My first impulse upon hearing these stories was, as usual, incredulity. However, finding myself in daily contact with persons who had been witnesses of these nightly scenes, the conversation would naturally keep reverting to the one topic. Certain peculiarities at last riveted my attention. I cross-questioned the manager and watchmen of the establishment, all those who had passed the night, and, in short, every person who could give me any facts about these mysterious occurrences. Their answers were identical, and the details they supplied so circumstantial that I saw myself forced into this dilemma—to believe, or to suppose them all insane. But I could not tax with madness some twenty honest villagers living peaceably about me, solely because they repeated what they had seen or heard, and because their stories were identical.

This unexpected result recalled to memory circumstances of a similar kind that had been related to me at other times. Knowing the localities where these phenomena had occurred, and the witnesses as well, I made further researches, and there again was forced to yield to the evidence. I then began to see that I had been as absurd as those whom I had so long been ridiculing, in denying facts which I had declared impossible simply because they had not been produced under my own eyes, and because I could not explain them. This ​posthumous dynamic, which in certain points seems the antithesis of the ordinary dynamic, caused me to reflect, and I began to suspect that in certain cases, possibly very rare, the action of the human personality may prolong itself for some time after the cessation of the phenomena of life. The proofs which I possessed seemed to me strong enough to convince unprejudiced minds. However, I did not stop there, but consulted the most reputed authors of different countries. I then chose between such as presented the characteristics of the most incontestable authority, giving most value to facts which had been observed by a large number of witnesses.

It remained to interpret these facts, that is, to strip them of everything like the marvellous, so as to connect them, like all other natural phenomena, with the laws of time and space. Such is the chief aim of this book. In presence of a task so arduous I would not have the pretension of pronouncing the last word of the enigma: it suffices for me to state the problem exactly, and indicate some of the coefficients which must be included in the equation. My successors will find the exact solution within the lines I have traced for them.

A single word now as to the plan upon which I have worked. At the outset, I cite without comment the facts which seem worthy of keeping in mind, and only begin to draw inferences when there are enough to cover the different circumstance ​which may enter into so delicate and obscure a question. Invariably one is forced to notice a mysterious agent revealing itself by manifestations of the most peculiar and varied nature. Averse from invoking a supernatural cause, I seek to discover whether there may not be in living nature some unfamiliar principle which, in certain cases and within certain limits, may act as an active and independent force. I find this principle not only in man, but as well in the higher species of the zoological scale; so that posthumous humanity is, in fact, but a special example of posthumous animality, and that this latter presents itself as the immediate consequence of the living world.

The study of this principle leads me to that of the magnetic fluid, which seems to be its generative cause. I then analyze the various manifestations of this factor of psychology, notably in mesmerism, and find the explanation of a crowd of phenomena which, having been known only on their mystical sides, have seemed to be capable only of attachment to theology properly so called, or to its younger sister, demonology. Shorn of all supernatural explanation, the post-mortuary personality appears in its real aspect, and one can trace the origin of phantoms, their physical and moral state, and the destiny reserved for them. The philosophical purpose of the book may then be stated thus to bring within the compass of the laws of time and space the phenomena of the posthumous order, hitherto denied by science ​because it was unable to explain them, and to rescue the people of our epoch from the enervating hallucinations of spiritism.^[5]