A. What are the constituent elements of the Universe?
B. What is the goal to be achieved by the Spiritual beings?
C. Who models man's physical wrapping?
Reading Text
519. Scale of organic beings - Among the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom there are no boundaries clearly marked. On the limits of the two kingdoms are the zoophytes or animal-plants. As their name clearly indicates they can be one or another and there is, therefore, a connecting-link.
520. As the animals, the plants are born, live, grow, are nurtured, breathe, reproduce and die. Like those, they need light, heat and water. If they lack these elements, they will rot and die. They will be poisoned if maintained in stale air and harmful substances. They are characterized by being fixed to the ground and absorbing from it their nourishment without moving.
521. The zoophyte has the outward appearance of the plant. As plant it remains fixed to the ground; as animal life is more marked in it: it takes its food from the environment. On the following step, the animal is free and looks for food. Some metamorphose, like the caterpillar that turns into an elegant butterfly. Following the invertebrate animals, we have the vertebrates, animals with bony skeletons, an order that includes the fish, reptiles, and birds. This is followed finally by the mammals, whose organization is more complete.
522. If we consider only the two extreme points of the chain, there is no apparent analogy between animals and plants. But if we go from one ring to another without continuity, we go, with no abrupt transition, from the plants to vertebrates. We then understand that animals of a complex organization are only a transformation, or, if you wish, a gradual development, at the beginning almost unnoticeable, of the species immediately below, and so on, until we reach the primitive elementary being.
523. The corporeal man - Considering his body and anatomy, man belongs to the class of mammals, and only differs in a few points in his exterior aspect. As for the rest, the composition is the same as the animals, the same organs, same functions and same way of nutrition, breathing, secretion, and reproduction. He is born, and lives and dies the same way and, when he dies, his body rots just as everything else alive. In his blood, flesh and bones there is not one atom different to those found in the animals. As these, when he dies, the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon that had combined to form him are returned to earth. And these elements, through new combinations will form other mineral, vegetable and animal bodies. The analogy between animals and humans is so great that man studies his organic functions in certain animals, when the experiences cannot be carried out in his own body.
524. Within the class of mammals, man belongs to the order of bimans (two-hands). Immediately below are the quadrumans (animals with four hands) or monkeys, some of which, such as the orangutan and chimpanzee, have certain gestures of man, to the point that, for a long time, they were called the men of the forests. Like man, these monkeys walk upright, use sticks, build huts and take the food to the mouth, using their hands.
525. If one pays attention to the scale of living beings, from the point of view of the organism, one is forced to recognize that from the lichen to the tree and from zoophyte to man, there is a chain that rises gradually without interruption, and the rings all have a point of contact with the previous ring.
526. Following step by step the series of beings, we can say that each species is an improvement, a transformation of the species immediately below. Since the conditions of man's body, chemically and in its formation, are identical to those of other animals; considering that he is born, and lives and dies in the same way and conditions as the others, then we can conclude that man was also formed in the same way as the others.
527. Even if it hurts his pride, man has to accept and see in his body the last ring coming from animalism on Earth. This is the inevitable argument of facts against which it is useless to protest. However, the more the body's value decreases, the more important becomes the spiritual principle. If the first one compares him to the animal, the second one raises man to an immeasurable height.
528. Materialism can see that Spiritism, far from fearing the discoveries of Science and its positivism, challenges it, because it is assured that Science can cause no impairment to the Spiritual Principle, which has its own existence.
529. Spiritism marches side by side with materialism regarding matter. It accepts everything the second accepts. However, it goes beyond where the latter stops. Spiritism and materialism are like two travelers as they walk together, starting from the same point. However, when they arrive to a certain point, one says to the other "I cannot go any further". The other one goes on and discovers a new world.
530. Moving up to the point where we are regarding Genesis, materialism stops while Spiritism goes on with its research in the field of the spiritual Genesis.
531. Chapter XI - Spiritual Principle - The existence of the spiritual principle is a fact, so to speak, it does not need proof, just as the existence of the material principle. It is, somehow, an axiomatic truth. It is demonstrated and based on its effects, as matter does with those which belong to it.
532. According to this principle: "Every effect has a cause, and every intelligent effect is to have an intelligent cause". Therefore, we can all distinguish a mechanical move of a bell stirred by the wind, from when a bell gives a sign, a warning, thus showing the intention of the thought of who stirred the bell. It is impossible to think that the matter of the bell thinks, but we can say that there is an intelligence which the bell serves as an instrument allowing this intelligence to manifest itself.
533. For the same reason, no one can say that there is any thought in a dead man's body. If, when the man is alive he thinks, it is because there is something in him, which leaves him when he is dead. The difference between this man and the bell is that the intelligence that stirs a bell is outside it, while the intelligence that makes man operate is in him.
534. The spiritual principle is a corollary of the existence of God; without this principle, God would have no reason to be, since we could not conceive the sovereign intelligence reigning for all eternity, only over the raw material. We could also not conceive an earthly king reigning throughout his life exclusively over stones. It is not possible to accept God without the essential attributes of Deity: justice and kindness. These qualities would be useless, if he exercised them only on matter.
535. On the other hand, we cannot imagine God, supreme and just, creating intelligent beings, making them aware of suffering, and then just casting them to nothing, without any compensation for their suffering. We would have to imagine God recreating Himself by contemplating this infinite succession of beings, born without requesting it, becoming aware of reasoning and pain, and then being extinguished forever, after a fleeting existence.
536. If there was no purpose to survive, then all man's sufferings would just be a pointless cruelty on the part of God. This is why materialism and atheism are corollaries of each other; by denying the effect, they cannot admit the cause. Materialism is, therefore, consequent to itself, although it is not with reasoning.
537. It is innate in man the idea of the perpetuity of the spiritual being. This idea is in him in a state of intuition and aspiration. Man realizes that he is only there to offset the miseries of life. That is why there has always been and will always be an increasing higher number of Spiritists than Materialists and more devotes than Atheists.
538. Spiritism adds to the intuitive idea and the strength of reasoning the sanction of the facts, the material existence of the spiritual being, of its survival, its immortality and proves its individuality. It changes this idea into something precise and it defines how, earlier, it was vague and abstract. It shows the intelligent operating outside the matter after and during the life of his body.
Answers to the proposed questions
A. What are the constituent elements of the Universe?
The Universe is formed by the material element and the spiritual element. The spiritual element forms the beings called Spirits, and the material element forms the different organic and inorganic bodies in Nature. (Genesis, Chapter XI, item 6).
B. What is the goal to be achieved by the Spiritual beings?
According to Spiritism, created simple and ignorant, with equal ability to progress through their individual activities, all spiritual beings have the same goal to achieve and that is relative perfection. This is their ultimate purpose. (Genesis, Chapter XI, items 7 through 9.)
C. Who models man's physical wrapping?
It is the Spirit himself, who shapes its wrapping/body and adapts it to his new needs. He improves, develops, and finishes his body according to his need to express his new powers. In a word, he projects it according to his intelligence. God supplies him with the material and it is up to him to use them. This is the reason why developed peoples have a body, or if they wish so, a brain more developed than the primitive peoples. (Genesis, Chapter XI, item 11.)
