We have thought it all the more important to be explicit in regard to this point, because the spiritist theory is naturally based on the existence in us of a being independent of matter, and that survives the body. As the word soul will frequently recur in the course of this work, it was necessary to define the meaning we attach to it, in order to avoid all misunderstanding.
We now come to the principal object of this preliminary explanation.
Ill Spiritist doctrine, like all new theories, has its Supporters and its opponents. We will endeavour to reply to some of the objections of the latter, by examining the worth of the reasons on which they are based, without, however, pretending to be able to convince everybody, but addressing ourselves to those who, without prejudices or preconceived ideas, are sincerely and honestly desirous of arriving at the truth; and will prove to them that those objections are the result of a too hasty conclusion in regard to facts imperfectly observed.
25 THE SPIRITS’ BOOK Of the facts referred to, the one first observed was the movement of objects, popularly called "table-turning." This phenomenon, first observed in America (or rather, renewed in that country, for history proves it to have been produced in the most remote ages of antiquity), was attended with various strange accompaniments, such as unusual noises, raps produced without any ostensible cause, etc. From America this phenomenon spread rapidly over Europe and the rest of the world. It was met at first with incredulity; but the movements were If the phenomenon in question had been limited to the movement of inert objects, it might have been possible to explain it by some purely physical cause. We are far from knowing all the secret agencies of nature, or all the properties of those which are known to us. Electricity, moreover, is not only multiplying, day by day, the resources it offers to mankind but appears to be about to irradiate science with a new light. It seemed, therefore, by no means impossible that electricity, modified by certain circumstances, or some other unknown agent, might be the cause of these movements. The fact that the presence of several persons increased the intensity of the action appeared to strengthen this supposition; for the union of these might not ineptly be regarded as constituting a battery, of which the power was in proportion to the number of its elements.
That the movement of the tables should be circular was in 110 way surprising, for the circular movements is of frequent occurrence in nature. All the stars move in circles; and it therefore seemed to be possible that in the movement of the tables we had a reflex on a small scale of the movement of the universe; or that some cause, hitherto unknown, might produce, accidentally, and, in regard to small objects, a current analogous to that which impels the worlds of the universe in their orbits.
But the movement in question was not always circular. It was often irregular, disorderly; the object moved was sometimes violently shaken, overthrown, carried about in various directions, and, in contravention of all known laws of statics, lifted from the ground and held up in the air. Still in all this, there was nothing that might not be explained by the force of some invisible physical agent. Du we not see electricity overthrow buildings, 26 ALLAN KARDEC uproot trees and hurl to considerable distances the heaviest bodies, attracting or repelling, as the case may be?
The rappings and other unusual noises, supposing them to be due to something else than the dilatation of the wood, or other accidental cause, might very well be produced by an accumulation of the mysterious fluid; for does not electricity produce the loudest sounds?
Up to this point everything might be considered as belonging to the domain of physics and physiology. Without going beyond this circle of ideas, the learned might have found in the phenomenon referred to matter well worthy of serious study. Why was this not done? It is painful to be obliged to make the confession, but the neglect of the scientific world was due to causes that add one more proof to the many already given of the frivolity of the human mind. In the first place, the non-glamour of the object which mainly served as the basis of the earliest experimentations had something to do with this disdain. What an influence, in regard to even the most serious matters, is often exerted by a mere word! Without reflecting that the movement referred to might be communicated to any object, the idea of tables became associated with it in the general mind, doubtless because a table, being the most convenient object upon which to experiment, and also because people can place themselves round a table more conveniently than round any other piece of furniture, was generally employed in the experiments referred to. But men who pride themselves on their mental superiority are sometimes so puerile as to warrant the suspicion that a good many keen and cultivated minds may have considered it beneath them to take any notice of what was commonly known as "the dance of tables." If the phenomenon observed by Galvani had been made known by some unlearned person, and dubbed with some absurd nickname, it would probably have been consigned to the lumber-room, along with the divining-rod; for where is the scientist who would not in that case have regarded it as derogatory to occupy himself with the dance of frogs?
A few men of superior intellect, however, being modest enough to admit that nature might not have revealed to them all her secrets, conscientiously endeavoured to see into the matter for themselves; but the phenomena not having always responded to their attempts, and not being always produced at their pleasure, and according to their methods of experimenting, they arrived Zt THE SPIRITS’ BOOK at an adverse conclusion in regard to them. The tables, however, despite that conclusion, continued to turn; and we may say of them, with Galileo, "Nevertheless, they move!" We may assert, still further, that the facts alluded to have been multiplied to such an extent that they have become naturalised among us, so that opinions are now only divided as to their nature.
And here let us ask whether the fact that these phenomena are not always produced in exactly the same way, and according to the wishes and requirements of each individual observer, can be reasonably regarded as constituting an argument against their reality? Are not the phenomena of electricity and chemistry subordinated to certain conditions, and should we be right in denying their reality because they do not occur when those conditions are not present? Is it strange, then, that certain conditions should be necessary to the production of the phenomenon of the movement of objects by the human fluid, or that it should not occur when the observer, placing himself at his own individual point of view, insists on producing it at his own pleasure, or in subjecting it to the laws of phenomena already known, without considering that a new order of facts may, and indeed must, result from the action of laws equally new to us? Now, in order to arrive at a knowledge of such laws, it is necessary to study the circumstances under which those facts are produced; and such a study can only be made through long-sustained and attentive observation.
"But," it is often objected, "there is evident trickery in some of the occurrences referred to." To this objection we reply, in the first place, by asking whether the objectors are quite sure that what they have taken for trickery may not be simply an order of facts which they are not yet able to account for, as was the case with the peasant who mistook the experiments of a learned professor of physics for the tricks of a clever conjuror? But even admitting that there has been trickery in some cases, is that a reason for denying the reality of facts? Must we deny the reality of physics because certain conjurors give themselves the title of physicists? Moreover, the character of the persons concerned in these manifestations should be taken into account, and the interest they may have in deceiving. Would they do so by way of a joke? A joke may amuse for a moment, but a mystification, if kept up too long, would become as wearisome to the mystifier as to the mystified. Besides, a mystification carried 28 ALLAN KARDEC on from one end of the earth to the other, and among the most serious, honourable, and enlightened people, would be at least as extraordinary as the phenomena in question.
IV If the phenomena we are considering had been limited to the movement of objects, they would have remained, as we have already remarked, within the domain of physical science; but so far was this from being the case, that they speedily proved to be only the forerunners of facts of a character still more extraordinary. For it was soon found that the impulsion communicated to inert objects was not the mere product of a blind mechanical force, but that it revealed the action of an intelligent cause, a discovery that opened up a new field of observation, and promised a solution of many mysterious problems. Are these movements due to an intelligent power? Such was the question first to be answered. If such a power exists, what is it? What is its nature? What its origin? Is it superhuman? Such were the secondary questions which naturally grew out of that first one.
The earliest manifestations of intelligence were made by means of the legs of tables, that moved up and down, striking a given number of times, and replying in this way by "yes" or "no" to the questions asked. Even here, it must be confessed, there was nothing very convincing for the incredulous, as these apparent answers might be an effect of chance. But fuller replies were soon obtained, the object in motion striking a number of blows corresponding to the number of each letter of the alphabet, so that words and sentences began to be produced in reply to the questions propounded. The correctness of these replies, their correlation with the questions asked, excited astonishment. The mysterious being who gave these replies, when questioned as to its nature, declared itself to be a "spirit" or "genius," gave itself a name, and stated various particulars about itself. This is a circumstance of noteworthy importance, for it proves that no one suggested the idea of spirits as an explanation of the phenomenon, but that the phenomenon gave this explanation of itself. Hypotheses are often framed, in the positive sciences, to serve as a basis of argument; but such was not the case in this instance.
The mode of communication furnished by the alphabet being 29 THE SPIRITS’ BOOK tedious and inconvenient, the invisible agent (a point worthy of note) suggested another, by advising the fitting of a pencil to a small basket. This basket, placed upon a sheet of paper, was set in motion by the same occult power that moved the tables; but, instead of obeying a simple and regular movement of rotation, the pencil traced letters that formed words, sentences, and entire discourses, filling many pages, treating of the deepest questions of philosophy, morality, metaphysics, psychology, etc., and as rapidly as though written by the hand.
This suggestion was made simultaneously in America, in France, and in various other countries. It was made in the following terms, in Paris, on the 10th of June 1853, to one of the most fervent partisans of the new phenomena-one who, from the year 1849, had been busily engaged in the evocation of spirits:-" Fetch the little basket from the next room; fasten a pencil to it; place it upon a sheet of paper; put your fingers on the edge of the basket." This having been done, the basket, a few moments afterwards, began to move, and the pencil wrote, quite legibly, this sentence -"I expressly forbid your repeating to any one what I have just told you. The next time I write, I shall do it better."
The object to which the pencil is attached being merely an instrument, its nature and form are of no importance, convenience being the only point to be considered. The instrument known as the planchette has since been generally adopted.
The basket, or planchette, will only move under the influence of certain persons gifted with a special power or faculty, who are called mediums,-that is to say, go-betweens, or intermediaries between spirits and men. The conditions which give this power depend on causes, physical and moral, that are as yet but imperfectly understood, for mediums are of all ages, of both sexes, and of every degree of intellectual development. The faculty of mediumship, moreover, is developed by exercise.
V It was next perceived that the basket and the planchette only formed, in reality, an appendix to the hand. The medium, therefore, now held the pencil in his hand, and found that he was made to write under an impulsion independent of his will, and often with an almost feverish rapidity. In this way the communications were not only made more quickly, but also became more 30 ALLAN KARDEC 30 ALLAN KARDEC easy and more complete. At the present day, this method is the one most frequently employed, the number of persons endowed with the aptitude of involuntary writing being very considerable, and constantly increasing. Experience gradually made known many other varieties of the mediumistic faculty, and it was found that communications could be received through speech, hearing, sight, touch, etc., and even through the direct writing of the spirits themselves,-that is to say, without the help of the medium's band, or of the pencil.
This fact established, an essential point still remained to be ascertained, viz., the nature of the medium's action, and the share taken by him, mechanically and morally, in the obtaining of the replies. Two points of the highest importance, and that could not escape the notice of the attentive observer, sufficed to settle the question. The first of these is the way in which the basket moves under the influence of the medium, through the mere laying of his fingers on its edges, and in such a manner that it would be impossible for him to guide it in any direction whatever. This impossibility becomes still more evident when two or three persons place their fingers at the same time on the same basket, for a truly phenomenal concordance of movements and of thoughts would be required between them, in order to produce, on the part of each, the same reply to the question asked. And this difficulty is increased by the fact that the writing often changes completely with each spirit who communicates, and that, whenever a given spirit communicates, the same writing re-appears. In such cases, the medium would have to train himself to change his handwriting an indefinite number of times, and would also have to remember the particular writing of each spirit.
The second point referred to is the character of the replies given, which are often, and especially when the questions asked are of an abstract or scientific nature, notoriously beyond the scope of the knowledge, and even of the intellectual capacity, of the medium, who, moreover, is frequently unaware of what he is made to write, since the reply, like the question asked, may be couched in a language of which he is ignorant, or the question may even be asked mentally. It often happens, too, that the basket, or the medium, is made to write spontaneously, without any question having been propounded, and upon some subject altogether unexpected.
31 THE SPIRITS’ BOOK The replies thus given, and the messages thus transmitted, are sometimes marked by such sagacity, profundity, and appropriateness, and convey thoughts so elevated, so sublime, that they can only emanate from a superior intelligence, imbued with the purest morality; at other times, they are so vapid, frivolous, and even trivial, that they cannot be supposed to emanate from the same source. This diversity of language can only be explained by the diversity of the intelligences who thus manifest themselves. Do these intelligences reside in the human race, or are they beyond the pale of humanity? Such is the next point to be cleared up, and of which the complete explanation will be found in the present work, such as it has been given by the spirits themselves.
The facts referred to, as being of an order beyond our usual circle of observation, do not occur mysteriously, but in broad daylight, so that every one can see them and ascertain their reality; they are not the privilege of a single individual, but are obtained by tens of thousands of persons every day at pleasure. These effects have necessarily a cause; and as they reveal the action of an intelligence and a will, they are evidently beyond the domain of merely physical effects.
Many theories have been broached in relation to this subject; these we shall presently examine, and shall then be able to decide whether they can account for all the facts now occurring. Let us, meanwhile, assume the existence of beings distinct from the human race, since such is the explanation given of themselves by the intelligences thus revealed to us, and let us see what they say to us.
VI The beings who thus enter into communication with us designate themselves, as we have said, by the name of spirits or genie, and as having belonged, in many cases at least, to men who have lived upon the earth. They say that they constitute the spiritual world, as we, during our earthly life, constitute the corporeal world.
We will now briefly sum up the most important points of the doctrine which they have transmitted to us, in order to reply more easily to the objections of the incredulous.
"God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, all-powerful, sovereignly just and good.
a2 ALLAN KARDEC "He has created the universe, which comprehends all beings, animate and inanimate, material and immaterial.
"The material beings constitute the visible or corporeal world, and the immaterial beings constitute the invisible or spiritual world, that is to say, the spirit-world, or world of spirits.
"The spirit-world is the normal, primitive, eternal world, pre-existent to, and surviving, everything else.
"The corporeal world is only secondary; it might cease to exist, or never have existed, without changing the essentiality of the spiritual world.
"Spirits temporarily assume a perishable material envelope, the destruction of which, by death, restores them to liberty.
"Among the different species of corporeal beings, God has chosen the human species for the incarnation of spirits arrived at a certain degree of development; it is this which gives it a moral and intellectual superiority to all the others.
"The soul is an incarnated spirit, whose body is only its envelope.
"There are in man three things -(1.) The body, or material being, analogous to the animals, and animated by the same vital principle; (2.) The soul, or immaterial being, a spirit incarnated in the body; (3.) The link which unites the soul and the body, a principle intermediary between matter and spirit.
"Man has thus two natures.: by his body he participates in the nature of the animals, of which it has the instincts; by his soul, he participates in the nature of spirits.
"The link, or perispirit, which unites the body and the spirit, is a sort of semi-material envelope. Death is the destruction of the material body, which is the grossest of man's two envelopes; but the spirit preserves his other envelope, viz., the perispirit, which constitutes for him an ethereal body, invisible to us in its normal state, but which he can render occasionally visible, and even tangible, as is the case in apparitions.
"A spirit, therefore, is not an abstract, undefined being, only to be conceived of by our thought; it is a real, circumscribed being, which, in certain cases, is appreciable by the senses of sight, hearing, and touch.
"Spirits belong to different classes, and are not equal to one another either in power, in intelligence, in knowledge, or in morality. Those of the highest order are distinguished from those below them by their superior purity and knowledge, their nearness to 33 THE SPIRITS’ BOOK God, and their love of goodness; they are "angels" or "pure spirits." The other classes are more and more distant from this perfection; those of the lower ranks are inclined to most of our passions, hatred, envy, jealousy, pride, etc.; they take pleasure in evil. Among them are some who are neither very good nor very bad, but are teazing and troublesome rather than malicious are often mischievous and unreasonable, and may be classed as giddy and foolish spirits.
"Spirits do not belong perpetually to the same order. All are destined to attain perfection by passing through the different degrees of the spirit-hierarchy. This amelioration is effected by incarnation, which is imposed on some of them as an expiation, and on others as a mission. Material life is a trial which they have to undergo many times until they have attained to absolute perfection; it is a sort of filter, or alembic, from which they issue more or less purified after each new incarnation.
"On quitting the body, the soul re-enters the world of spirits from which it came, and from which it will enter upon a new material existence after a longer or shorter lapse of time, during which its state is that of an errant or wandering spirit.
"Spirits having to pass through many incarnations, it follows that we have all had many existences, and that we shall have others, more or less perfect, either upon this earth or in other worlds.
"The incarnation of spirits always takes place in the human race; it would be an error to suppose that the soul or spirit could be incarnated in the body of an animal.
"A spirit's successive corporeal existences are always progressive, and never retrograde; but the rapidity of our progress depends on the efforts we make to arrive at perfection.
"The qualities of the soul are those of the spirit incarnated in us; thus, a good man is the incarnation of a good spirit, and a bad man is that of an unpurified spirit.
"The soul possessed its own individuality before its incarnation; it preserves that individuality after its separation from the body.
"On its re-entrance into the spirit world, the soul again finds there all those whom it has known upon the earth, and all its former existences eventually come back to its memory, with the There is. between this doctrine of re-incarnation and that of metempsychosis, as held by certain sects, a characteristic difference, which is explained in the course of the present work.
34 ALLAN KARDEC remembrance of all the good and of all the evil which it has done in them.
"The incarnated spirit is under the influence of matter; the man who surmounts this influence, through the elevation and purification of his soul, raises himself nearer to the superior spirits, among whom he will one day be classed. He who allows himself to be ruled by bad passions, and places all his delight in the satisfaction of his gross animal appetites, brings himself nearer to the impure spirits, by giving preponderance to his animal nature.
"Incarnated spirits inhabit the different globes of the universe.
"Spirits who are not incarnated, who are errant, do not occupy any fixed and circumscribed region; they are everywhere, in space, and around us, seeing us, and mixing with us incessantly; they constitute an invisible population, constantly moving and busy about us, on every side.
"Spirits exert an incessant action upon the moral world, and even upon the physical world; they act both upon matter and upon thought, and constitute one of the powers of nature, the efficient cause of many classes of phenomena hitherto unexplained or misinterpreted, and of which only the spiritist theory can give a rational explanation.
‘Spirits are incessantly in relation with men. The good spirits try to lead us into the right road, sustain us under the trials of life, and aid us to bear them with courage and resignation; the bad ones tempt us to evil: it is a pleasure for them to see us fall, and to make us like themselves.
"The communications of spirits with men are either occult or ostensible. Their occult communications are made through the good or bad influence they exert on us without our being aware of it; it is our duty to distinguish, by the exercise of our judgement, between the good and the bad inspirations that are thus brought to bear upon us. Their ostensible communications take place by means of writing, of speech, or of other physical manifestations, and usually through the intermediary of the mediums who serve as their instruments.
"Spirits manifest themselves spontaneously, or in response to evocation. All spirits may be evoked: those who have animated the most obscure of mortals, as well as those of the most illustrious personages, and whatever the epoch at which they lived; those of our relatives, our friends, or our enemies; and we may obtain from them, by written or by verbal communications, counsels, 2) THE SPIRITS’ BOOK information in regard to their situation beyond the grave, their thoughts in regard to us, and whatever revelations they are permitted to make to us.
Spirits are attracted by their sympathy with the moral quality of the parties by whom they are evoked. Spirits of superior elevation take pleasure in meetings of a serious character, animated by the love of goodness and the sincere desire of instruction and improvement. Their presence repels the spirits of inferior degree who find, on the contrary, free access and freedom of action among persons of frivolous disposition, or brought together by mere curiosity, and wherever evil instincts are to be met with. So far from obtaining from spirits, under such circumstances, either good advice or useful information, nothing is to be expected from them but trifling, lies, ill-natured tricks, or humbugging; for they often borrow the most venerated names, in order the better to impose upon those with whom they are in communication.
"It is easy to distinguish between good and bad spirits. The language of spirits of superior elevation is constantly dignified, noble, characterised by the highest morality, free from every trace of earthly passion; their counsels breathe the purest wisdom, and always have our improvement and the good of mankind for their aim. The communications of spirits of lower degree, on the contrary, are full of discrepancies, and their language is often commonplace, and even coarse. If they sometimes say things that are good and true, they more often make false and absurd statements, prompted by ignorance or malice. They play upon the credulity of those who interrogate them, amusing themselves by flattering their vanity, and fooling them with false hopes. In a word, instructive communications worthy of the name are only to be obtained in centres of a serious character, whose members are united, by an intimate communion of thought and desire, in the pursuit of truth and goodness.
“The moral teaching of the higher spirits may be sumnied up, like that of Christ, in the gospel maxim, 'Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you;' that is to say, do good to all, and wrong no one. This principle of action furnishes mankind with a rule of conduct of universal application, from the smallest matters to the greatest.
1 Vide, in connection with the statements of this paragraph, the qualifying explanations and practical counsels of The Mediums' Book- TRANS.
36 ALLAN KARDEC They teach us that selfishness, pride, sensuality, are passions which bring us back towards the animal nature, by attaching us to matter; that he who, in this lower life, detaches himself froni matter through contempt of worldly trifles, and through love of the neighbour, brings himself back towards the spiritual nature; that we should all make ourselves useful, according to the means which God has placed in our hands for our trial; that the strong and the powerful owe aid and protection to the weak; and that he who misuses strength and power to oppress his fellow-creature violates the law of God. They teach us that in the spirit-workl nothing can be hidden, and that the hypocrite will there be un-masked, and all his wickedness unveiled; that the presence, unavoidable and perpetual, of those whom we have wronged in the earthly life is one of the punishments that await us in the spirit-world; and that the lower or higher state of spirits gives rise in that other life to sufferings or to enjoyments unknown to us upon the earth.
"But they also teach us that there are no unpardonable sins, none that cannot be efaced by expiation. Man finds the means of accomplishing this in the different existences which permit him to advance progressively, and according to his desire and his efforts, towards the perfection that constitutes his ultimate aim.
Such is the sum of spiritist doctrine, as contained in the teachings given by spirits of high degree. Let us now consider the objections that are urged against it.
Vil Many persons regard the opposition of the learned world as constituting, if not a proof, at least a very strong presumption of the falsity of Spiritism. We are not of those who affect indifference in regard to the judgment of scientific men; on the contrary, we hold them in great esteem, and should think it an honour to be of their number, but we cannot consider their opinion as l)eing, under all circumstances, necessarily and absolutely conclusive.
When the votaries of science go beyond the bare observation of facts, when they attempt to appraise and to explain those facts, they enter tipon the field of conjecture; each advances a system of his own, which he does his utmost to bring into favour, and defends with might and main. Do we not see every day the most 37 THE SPIRITS’ BOOK divergent systems brought forward and rejected. one after the other; now cried down as absurd errors, and now cried up as incontestable truths? Facts are the sole criterion of reality, the sole argument that admits of no reply: in the absence of facts. the wise man suspends his judgment.
In regard to all matters that have already been fully examined, the verdict of the learned is justly held to be authoritative, because their knowledge of them is fuller and more enlightened than that of ordinary men; but in regard to new facts or principles, to matters imperfectly known, their opinion can only be hypothetic, because they are no more exempt from prejudice than other people It may even be said that scientific men are more apt to be prejudiced than the rest of the world, because each of them is naturally inclined to look at everything from the special point of view that has been adopted by him; the mathematiciau admitting no other order of proof than that of an algebraic demonstration, the chemist referring everything to the action of the elements, etc. When a man has made for himself a specialty, he usually devotes his whole mind to it; beyond the scope of this specialty he often reasons falsely, because, owing to the weakness of human reason, he insists on treating every subject in the same way; and therefore, while we should willingly and confidemly consult a chemist in regard to a question of analysis, a physicist in regard to electricity, a mechanician in regard to a motive power, we must be allowed, without in any way derogating from the respect due to their special knowledge, to attach no more weight to their unfavourable opinion of Spiritism than we should do to the judgment of an architect on a question relating to the theory of music.
The positive sciences are based on the properties of matter, which may be experimented upon and manipulated at pleasure; but spiritist phenomena are an effect of the action of intelligences who have wills of their own, and who constantly show us that they are not subjected to ours. The observation of facts, therefore, cannot be carried on in the latter case in the same way as in the former one, for they proceed from another source, and require special conditions; and, consequently, to insist upon submitting them to the same methods of investigation is to insist on assuming the existence of analogies that do not exist. Science, properly so called, is therefore incompetent, as such, to decide the question of the truth of Spiritism; it has nothing to do with it; and 38 ALLAN KARDEC its verdict in regard to it, whether favourable or otherwise, is of no weight. Spiritist belief is the result of a personal conviction that scientific men may hold as individuals, and independent of their quality as scientists; but to submit the question to the decision of physical science would be much the same thing as to set a company of physicists and astronomers to decide the question of immortality. Spiritism deals exclusively with the existence of the soul, and its state after death; and it is stipremely un-reasonable to assume that a man must be a great psychologist simply because he is a great mathematician or a great anatomist. The anatomist, when dissecting a human body, looks for the soul, and, as he does not find it under his scalpel as lie finds a nerve or see it evaporate as does a gas, he concludes that it does not exist, because he reasons from an exclusively material point of view; but it by no means follows that he is right, and that the opinion of the rest of the world is wrong. We see, therefore, that the task of deciding as to the truth or falsity of Spiritism does not fall within the scope of physical science. When spiritist beliefs shall have become generalised, when they shall have been accepted by the masses (and, if we may judge by the rapidity with which they are being propagated, that time can hardly be very distant), it will be with those beliefs as with all new ideas that have encountered opposition; and scientific men will end by