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

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
harmony with their degree of scientific advancement. Reason and science concur in admitting
the fantastic character of certain theories. The explanation of the subject now given through
spirit communication is confirmatory of the opinion which has long been adopted by the most
enlightened exponents of modern science.
This explanation will no doubt be objected to, on the ground that it is in contradiction with
the statements of the Bible; but a careful examination of those statements shows us that this
contradiction is more apparent than real, and that it results from the interpretation which has
been given to expressions whose meaning is allegorical rather than historical.
The question of the personality of Adam, regarded as the first man, and sole progenitor of the
human race, is not the only one in regard to which the religious convictions of the world have
necessarily undergone modification. The hypothesis of the rotation of the earth round the sun
appeared, at one time, to be in such utter opposition to the letter of the Bible, that every
species of persecution was directed against it, and against those who advocated it. Yet the
earth continued to move on in its orbit in defiance of anathemas; and no one, at the present
day, could contest the fact of its movement without doing violence to his own powers of
reasoning.
The Bible also tells us that the world was created in six days, and fixes the epoch of this
creation at about 4000 years before the Christian era. Previously to that period the earth did
riot exist. At that period it was produced out of nothing. Such is the formal declaration of the
sacred text, yet science, positive, inexorable steps in with proof to the contrary. The history of
the formation of the globe is written in indestructible characters in the worlds of fossils,
proving beyond the possibility of denial that the six lays of the creation arc successive
periods, each of which may have been of millions of ages. This is not a mere matter of
statement or of opinion. It is a fact as incontestably certain as is the motion of the earth, and
one that theology itself can no longer refuse to admit, although this admission furnishes
another example of the errors into which we are led by attributing literal truth to language
which is often of a figurative nature. Are we therefore to conclude that the Bible is a mere
tissue of errors ? No; but we must admit that men have erred in their method of interpreting
it.