Being is substance and life; life manifests by movement; movement is perpetuated by equilibrium; equilibrium is therefore the law of immortality. Conscience is the awareness of equilibrium, which is equity and justice. All excess, when it is not mortal, is corrected by an opposite excess; it is the eternal law of reaction; but if excess subverts all equilibrium it is lost in the outer darkness and becomes eternal death. The soul of the earth carries with it in the vertigo of astral movement all which offers no resistance in virtue of the equilibrated forces of reason. Wherever an imperfect and ill-formed life manifests, this soul directs its energies to destroy it, just as vitality pours in to heal wounds. Hence the atmospheric disorders which occur in the neighbourhood of certain diseased persons, hence fluidic commotions, the automatic movement of tables, levitations, stone-throwing, and the visible and tangible projection of astral hands and feet by obsessed persons. It is Nature at work on a cancer which it is trying to extirpate, on a wound which it seeks to close, or on some vampire whose death is desired, that it may revert to the common source of life. The spontaneous movement of inert objects can result only from the operation of forces which magnetise the earth; a spirit, or in other words, a thought can raise nothing in the absence of a lever. Were it otherwise, the—so to speak—infinite toil of Nature for the creation and perfecting of organs would be without an object. If the spirit freed from the senses could render matter obedient to its will, the illustrious dead would be the first to manifest in accordance with order and harmony, but in place of this there are only incoherent and feverish activities produced about diseased and capricious beings. These are irregular magnets which derange the soul of the earth; but when the earth is in delirium through the eruption of such abortive beings, it is because it is passing through a crisis on its own part, and through one which will end in violent commotions. There is extraordinary puerility in some who pass for serious. There is for example the Marquis de Mirville,[216] who refers all inexplicable phenomena to the devil. But, my dear Sir, if the devil could intervene in the natural order, would he not demolish everything? By the hypothesis concerning his character, scruples could scarcely influence him. You will reply that God’s power restrains, and that it does or does not is obvious; but on the first supposition the devil is rendered impotent, while on the second it is he who is master. M. de Mirville might say further that God suffers him a little while. Does he mean just enough to deceive poor men, just enough to puzzle their heads, so wooden already—as is known? In this alternative it is no longer the devil who is master; it is rather God Who is—but no, one dares not continue: to go further would be to blaspheme.