Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

193
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
373. What merit can there be in the existence of beings who, like idiots, can do neither good
nor evil, and therefore cannot progress ?
"Such an existence is imposed as an expiation of the abuse which a spirit has made of certain
faculties; it constitutes a pause in his career.'
-The body of an idiot may, then, contain a spirit that has animated a man of genius in a
preceding existence?
"Yes; genius sometimes becomes a scourge when it is abused."
Intellectual superiority is not always accompanied by an equal degree of moral superiority, and the
greatest geniuses may have much to expiate. For this reason, they often have to undergo an existence
inferior to the one they have previously accomplished, which is a cause of suffering for them the
hindrances to the manifestation of his faculties thus imposed upon a spirit being like chains that fetter the
movements of a vigorous man. The idiot may be said to be lame in the brain, as the halt Is lame in the
legs, and the blind, in the eyes.
374. Is the idiot, in the spirit-state, conscious of his mental condition ?
"Yes; very often. He comprehends that the chains which hinder his action are a trial and an
expiation."
375. When a man is mad, what is the state of his spirit?
"A spirit, in the state of freedom, receives his impressions directly, and exerts his action
directly upon matter; but when incarnated, he is in an altogether different condition, and
compelled to act only through the instrumentality of special organs. If some or all of those
organs are injured, his actions or his impressions, as far as those organs are concerned, are
interrupted. If he loses his eyes, he becomes blind; if he loses his hearing, he becomes deaf;
and so on. Suppose that the organ which presides over the manifestations of intelligence and
of will is partially or entirely weakened or modified in its action, and you will easily
understand that the spirit, having at his service only organs that are incomplete or diverted
from their proper action, must experience a functional perturbation of which he is perfectly
conscious, but is not able to arrest the course.
- It is then always the body, and not the spirit, that is disorganised?
"Yes; but you must not forget that, just as a spirit acts upon matter, matter, to a certain extent,
reacts upon him; and that he may therefore find himself, for the time being, subjected to the
influence of the false impressions consequent on the vitiated state