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

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
783. Does the improvement of the human race always proceed by slow progression?
"There is the regular slow progress that inevitably results from the force of things; but, when
a people does not advance quickly enough, God also prepares for it, from time to time, a
physical or moral shock that hastens its transformation."
Man cannot remain perpetually in ignorance, because he must reach the goal marked out for him by
Providence; he is gradually enlightened by the force of things. Moral revolutions, like social revolutions,
are prepared, little by little, in the ideas of a people; they go on germinating for centuries, and at length
suddenly burst forth, overthrowing the crumbling edifice of the past, which is no longer in harmony with
the new wants and new aspirations of the day.
Man often perceives, in these public commotions, only the momentary disorder and confusion that affect
him in his material interests ; but he who raises his thoughts above his own personality admires the
providential working which brings good out of evil. Such commotions are the tempest and the storm that
purify the atmosphere after having disturbed it.
784. Man's perversity is very great; does he not seem to be going back instead of advancing,
at least, as regards morality?
“You are mistaken. look at the human race as a whole, and you will see that it is advancing;
for it has arrived at a clearer perception of what is evil, and every day witnesses the reform of
some abuse. The excess of evil is required to show you the necessity of good and of reforms'."
785. What is the greatest obstacle to progress?
"Pride and selfishness. I refer to moral progress; for intellectual progress is always going on,
and would even seem, at the first glance, to give redoubled activity to those vices, by
developing ambition and the love of riches, which, however, in their turn, stimulate man to
the researches that enlighten his mind, for it is thus that all things are linked together, in the
moral world as in the physical world, and that good is brought even out of evil; but this state
of things will only last for a time, and will change, as men become aware of that, beyond the
circle of terrestrial enjoyments, there is a happiness infinitely greater and infinitely more
lasting." (See Selfishness, chap. xii.)
There are two kinds of progress, that mutually aid one another, and yet do not proceed side by sideintellectual
progress, and moral progress. Among civilised peoples the first is receiving, at the present
day, abundant encouragement; and it has accordingly reached a degree of advancement unknown to past
ages. The second is very far from having reached the same point; although, if we compare the social
usages of periods separated by a few centuries, we are compelled to admit that progress has also been
made in this direction. Why then should the ascensional movement stop short in the region of morality
any more than of intelligence? Why should there not be as great a difference between the morality of the
nineteenth and the twenty-fourth centuries as between that of the fourteenth and the