# Posthumous Humanity: A Study of Phantoms/Translator's Preface

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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The present work is one of the most ingenious essays extant upon the solemn theme of the future life. By the quality of mind which Prof. Tyndall calls an "educated imagination," the author propounds a reasonable theory to account scientifically for many of the more striking phenomena of psychic action. While showing no proofs of familiarity with the esoteric theories of Aryan psychology, he nevertheless broaches them as original suggestions of his own mind; and the Indian believer in Karmic palingenesis would be tempted to regard him as one who had, in his previous birth, been a Brahman. Besides the coveted pleasure of introducing so valuable a monograph to the non-French-knowing public, a stronger motive prompted me to undertake the labour of translating and annotating it. Hitherto, the believers in a future life have had to meet their opponents, including the Comtists, upon cis-sepulchral ground; all phenomena ascribed to apparitions and communications therewith being by the majority barred as unscientific, hence indiscussable. No amount of evidence, however seemingly valid, has been accepted as sufficient; not even the countless facts of Modern Spiritualism. Nego quia ​absurdum est, has been the tiresome and conceited rejoinder. Out of the host of scientific leaders a mere handful have dared to investigate; fewer still to report impartially their results. It is in vain that two thousand volumes, exclusive of tracts and pamphlets, have been published upon mediumistic wonders within the past forty years; and that similar testimonies abound in the records of all past generations of mankind: the same absurd answer has been repeated. So malignant has been the scepticism of the majority, the combined weight of professional disfavour has been thrown upon candid scientists like Hare, Wallace, Wagner, Crookes, and Zöllner, who had the integrity and courage to testify to their experiences with mediums and séances. Their facts being unanswerable, their sanity has been questioned. No doubt there are, of late, signs of increased interest in this wide department of research. The formation of a special society at London, and the marvellous experiments of Charcot and his colleagues in France with hysteriacs, betray a turn of the tide; yet we see the most marked desire to trace to some other than the spiritual or psychical source such phenomena as are being observed, rather than concede an inch to the spiritualists. Anything would be preferable to that; even the certainty of annihilation. At such a conjuncture as this, the help of an avowed Positivist in removing the grave barrier and leading us into the frontiers of the Shadow Land is ​most timely and valuable. It matters little that he parts company with us soon afterwards. It is the first step which costs. He drags the question upon solid scientific ground, and we ought to get on alone. If any Pharoah of Comtism shall henceforth pursue us, he will be engulfed in the sea that this new Moses will turn in upon him. M. d'Assier may, if he chooses, believe that final atomic dispersion awaits the posthumous human phantom sooner or later; he has given us weapons to slay materialists withal, and we are his grateful debtors. We are now prepared to trace evolution from the objective up to other and higher planes of activity. We need no modern helper for that; the teachers and textbooks abound, if not in the West, then in the East. It is a source of constant satisfaction to amateurs of Asiatic philosophy and science that the progress of modern research brings Western thought nearer and nearer the point where it must merge into the ancient Esoteric Doctrine. Not a single recent scientific discovery appears to conflict with this idea: quite the contrary; the irresistible force of attraction brings the two schools closer together every year. Electrical science is the Nemesis of the Aryan Rishis against our sciolists. It is in its infancy, it must be remembered; yet how gigantic already its strides! There are those who can foresee that, within the next ten years, electrical discoveries will be made in comparison with which those hitherto achieved will seem trifles. These discoveries will perhaps prove the connection of thought with cosmic forces, and give us a measure ​of intellectual and psychical dynamics. It is also quite possible that within about the same time the present puzzle as to the intelligence behind the mediumistic phenomena will be solved to the general satisfaction. The boldness and originality of M. d'Assier's speculations will then be properly appreciated, and he will take his proper place among psychological writers. Let us all hope he may live to enjoy that satisfaction.
It has seemed to me that it would add value to the present work to collate for it the opinions of the Indian people respecting the shadow-world, and our relations with the same. Their beliefs are those of their ancestors, and, like the latter, founded largely upon personal experience. It is surely useless to argue that popular beliefs are no exception to the law of nature, which in time destroys that which finds no nutriment to renew itself upon. It is all very well to theorize upon the persistency of popular credulity; but if man's opinions are continually modified by education, and his faculties, like his bodily organs, die out when not exercised, it seems almost axiomatic that there would be no believers in apparitions and other psychical proofs of a future life if none had been seen and tested in successive generations up to the present. Allowing as much as possible for the sentiment of reverence, it is incredible that any body of theological dogma about past "miracles" should survive indefinitely, unless fresh "miraculous" phenomena were from time to time occurring. Contemporaneous Hindu belief as to man's future existence, and the reality of psychical ​powers in us, rests upon something more than mere tradition or religious dogma: there is more or less of personal experience; scarcely a fraction as compared with what their parents or grandparents had, to be sure, yet a great body of proof in the aggregate. During my seven years' residence in India, I have heard of nearly every phase of phenomena known among Western spiritualists or recorded in Western history. One may hear of them even in the Presidency towns. My travels have extended to every corner of the land, and brought me amongst most Indian nations, whether of the mountains or plains. I have enjoyed opportunities, probably wider than any other white man, to form close friendships with the most intellectual and influential class of these various nationalities. I think, therefore, that I ought to know what these people believe, and why, and the above assertion is made in the conviction of its truth. I venture to affirm, as the result of this experience, that in the India of to-day there can be found, with diligent search, ample proof of the reality of phenomena like those described by M. d'Assier, and even of phases he omits to mention. There are here true adepts of white magic, and practitioners of black sorcery; mediums; mesmerista; "living phantoms" projected, "posthumous phantoms" haunting their houses and obsessing their relatives; vampires, living and dead; wehr-wolves, or temporary metamorphoses of the human Double into animal shapes; blightings of persons, animals, trees, and crops by malignant will-currents or "evil-eye;" criminal subjections of persons to another's will; ​ascetics in possession of herbs, minerals and preparations capable of effecting results that might almost be called miraculous; others who have metallurgical secrets, of which that of the solidification of mercury by a vegetable juice is a striking yet by no means the greatest example; men who can draw horoscopes that are alleged to premonish of even the petty events of one's life; men who can fast for weeks together, and some who can even suffer themselves to be entombed and afterwards resuscitate themselves. Is it not important, then, to ask what India thinks of our mediums and their phenomena, our speculations and deductions from psychic facts? Can we afford to ignore the Indian records, and keep stumbling and groping through the darkness of our Western inexperience, regardless of risks? I thought not; so I sent out to friends, in a number of places in India, the circular which will be found in the Appendix, soliciting replies. An Asiatic is never in a hurry, so, after waiting until my patience gave out, I got only those answers which have been tabulated with the circular; others will come dropping in for months to come. Yet, though what I have are few as yet, they are interesting, and indicate the rich harvest that awaits the reaping. There are facts enough procurable to fill a library of books, and countless ancient books in which there is more truth written about the mystery of human nature than all the Transactions of our academies and societies contain. Time will show.
It will provoke the sympathy of his readers to learn that M. d'Assier is totally blind, and yet that, like ​the late Mr. Fawcett, the historian Prescott, and a few other courageous men, he labours on as industriously as others do with their eyes to help them. How different from the deplorable despair of Ploetz, the German naturalist, who, becoming almost blind, the other day took poison. He left the following note:—"I consider myself justified, after my long career, which, threatened as I am with complete loss of sight, would be insupportable to me if, as would be the case, I could no longer devote it to the cause of science, &c." In answer to my request for some autobiographical notes for insertion in the present edition, M. d'Assier has been so obliging as to communicate the following facts. He was born March 9th, 1827, and in 1848 was preparing himself at the Ecole Polytechnique for his scientific career when the revolution of February broke out. He was then at Toulouse. As soon as the Republic was declared at the capital, he enlisted as a volunteer in the 11th Artillery, then garrisoned in the former city. When he saw that Europe was not disposed to interfere, he procured a substitute, and went to Paris to resume his scientific studies, at the Sorbonne, the Collège de France, and the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes. He assisted actively in the defence of French liberty against the usurpation of the 2nd December, just escaping the loss of his life. His health was quite broken down, and his constitution never rallied completely, while the fearful events of 1870 dealt him the supreme blow of making him blind. He visited Brazil in 1850–60, and made his début as a publicist in the Revue des Deux Mondes ​in 1863, by the publication of his notes upon that country. At the present writing he is occupying himself, in his quiet retreat among the Pyrenees, with the preparation of a work in 18mo, entitled La Terre, which, with two predecessors, Le Ciel and L'Homme, already issued, will compose a work in three volumes, to be called, Essai de philosophie naturelle—le Ciel, la Terre, l'Homme.
And now to yield the tribune to this instructive teacher.
H. S. O.
Adyar, Madras, 1887.