Allan Kardec

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2. Science produces miracles every day before the eyes of the ignorant. If a really dead man be recalled to life by divine intervention, this would be a veritable miracle, because it is a fact contrary to the laws of nature; but if the man had only the appearance of death, if he has still in him the remains of latent vitality, and science or magnetic action succeeds in reanimating him, to enlightened people a natural phenomenon is presented, but to the eyes of the ignorant the fact will appear miraculous. When, in certain countries, a physicist flies an electric kite, and makes lightning strike a tree, this new Prometheus will certainly be credited with diabolical power; but Joshua arresting the movement of the sun, or rather of the Earth, by admitting this fact, we must admit a veritable miracle, for there exists no magnetizer endowed with such power to accomplish so prodigious a feat.

Centuries of ignorance have been fruitful in miracles, because all that was not understood passed for miracle. Measurably as science has discovered new laws, the circle of the marvelous has been narrowed; but, as it has not explored the whole of nature’s field, there remains still quite a large place for the miraculous.

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