335. We have seen the importance of uniformity of sentiment for obtaining good results ; the greater the number, the more difficult, necessarily, will it be to obtain this uniformity. In small committees they know each other better, and are more sure of the ele ments introduced ; silence and concentration are more easy, and all are like one family. Large assemblies exclude intimacy by the variety of the elements of which* they are composed ; they require special loca tions, pecuniary resources, and an administrative ma chinery useless in small groups : diversity of character, of ideas, of opinions, is better displayed, and offers to the meddling spirits greater facility for sowing discord. The more numerous, the more difficult to satisfy every one ; each one wants the work directed according to his liking, that the society should prefer those subjects most interesting to him : some think that their mem bership gives them the right to have everything their own way ; thence disagreements, a sensation of unea siness, which, sooner or later, leads to disunion, then dissolution — the fate of all societies, whatever their object. Small committees are not subject to the same fluctuations ; the fall of a large society would be an apparent check to the cause of Spiritism, and its ene mies would not fail to take advantage of it ; the disso lution of a small group would pass unnoticed ; and then, if one is dispersed, twenty more would be formed beside it : also, twenty groups, of from fifteen to twen ty, will obtain more and do more for propagation than an assembly of three or four hundred persons.
It will, doubtless, be said that the members of a society who would act in such a manner would not be real spiritists, since the first duty the doctrine imposes is charity and benevolence. That is perfectly true ; those who do this are spiritists in name rather than in fact ; they do not assuredly belong to the third category (see No. 28) ; but who can say they are not in some sense spiritists ? This consideration is not without gravity.
