The true point of departure of this history and the first of the facts which show themselves there, is the co-existence of man and the universe, spectator and spectacle, the one confronting the other, the "_moi_" and the "_non moi_," the subject and the object, in the language of philosophy. I hasten to say that I repudiate absolutely the different systems,--Pantheism, whether materialistic or idealistic,--Scepticism, whether idealistic or absolute,--which refuse to admit this primary fact, deny the reality of the external world, or the legitimacy of the knowledge of it which the understanding acquires, see only illusions in the relations of man to the universe, or absorb man and the universe together, in the confusion and the obscure darkness of a pretended identity. I do not dream of here discussing these different systems; if I engaged in such discussion, I should have to deal with something very different from the question to which I am applying myself at this moment. {179} Here I have only to do with Rationalistic Spiritualism. This form of Spiritualism has so much in common with Christianity, that it admits the reality and the distinction of the "_moi_" and of the "_non moi_" of the subject and the object, of the spectator and the spectacle, of spirit and matter, of man and the universe. For Rationalistic Spiritualists as well as for Christians, this is the great fact in the midst of which, and under the empire of which, man's intelligence is developed, man's life passed. Man is there passive, active, and witness, all simultaneously. As spectator he receives impressions from the spectacle, which both prompt him to act, and which stir his being from within; he is witness both to what is passing within himself and to what is passing without himself. Notwithstanding the diversity and the mobility of the impressions which he receives from without, and of the acts which he originates himself, he has a consciousness of his own personal and permanent existence, and also the consciousness of existences other than his own; he knows not, by the way of reasoning or hypothesis, but by instinctive and immediate intuition, that which, although it is not himself, yet acts upon himself as something coming from himself. {180} Man discovers the external world as he becomes aware of himself, by the intercommunication which takes place between them, and which, nevertheless, shows him how distinct from himself is that external world. He observes and notes both what takes place without him and within him. The results of this observation he terms facts, nor are they for him vain appearances, creations merely of his thought or volition; they are manifestations to him of realities independent of himself, and yet to which he stands in relation; they are bonds of union in which he feels that he is highly interested, not merely as any curious spectator might be, but as a real being; interested, not merely for the sake of