In any case, beyond
certain limits, the preexistence of causes seems no clearer than
that of effects. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the
spiritualists gain a slight advantage here.
They believe that they gain another when they say or might say
that it is still possible that the spirits stimulate us to
realize the events which they foretell without themselves clearly
perceiving them in the future. After announcing, for instance,
that on a certain day we shall go to a certain place and do a
certain thing, they urge us irresistibly to proceed to the spot
named and there to perform the act prophesied. But this theory,
like those of self-suggestion and telepathy, would explain only a
few phenomena and would leave in obscurity all those cases,
infinitely more numerous because they make up almost the whole of
our future, in which either chance intervenes or some event in no
way dependent upon our will or the spirit's, unless indeed we
suppose that the latter possesses an omniscience and an
omnipotence which take us back to the original mysteries of the
problem.
Besides, in the gloomy regions of precognition, it is almost
always a matter of anticipating a misfortune and very rarely, if
ever, of meeting with a pleasure or a joy. We should therefore
have to admit that the spirits which drag me to the fatal place
and compel me to do the act that will have tragic consequences
are deliberately hostile to me and find diversion only in the
spectacle of my suffering.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107