{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74239/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74239","id":"gutenberg_74239","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74239","summary":null,"tags":["Astronomy","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy"],"text":"DREAMS OF AN\n                              ASTRONOMER\n\n\n\n\n                             DREAMS OF AN\n                              ASTRONOMER\n\n                        _By_ CAMILLE FLAMMARION\n\n                 _Translated from the French by_ E. E.\n                            FOURNIER D\u2019ALBE\n\n                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY\n\n                           NEW YORK MCMXXIII\n\n\n\n\n                          PUBLISHED, 1923, BY\n\n                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n CHAPTER                                                            PAGE\n\n I. A VOYAGE IN THE SKY                                                9\n\n (1) TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND\n MILES FROM THE EARTH                                                 12\n\n (2) THIRTY-SEVEN MILLION MILES\n FROM THE EARTH                                                       15\n\n (3) AT SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY\n MILLION MILES                                                        18\n\n (4) TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED MILLION MILES FROM THE SUN             20\n\n (5) AT TWENTY-FIVE BILLION MILES                                     36\n\n (6) AT SIXTY THOUSAND BILLION\n MILES                                                                44\n\n (7) IN INFINITE SPACE                                                49\n\n II. THE WORLD OF LONG AGO                                            65\n\n III. THE WORLD TO COME                                               79\n\n IV. VENUS THE BEAUTIFUL                                              95\n\n V. THE PLANET MARS                                                  111\n\n VI. THE GIANT WORLD OF JUPITER                                      123\n\n VII. HEARTBEATS ACROSS SPACE                                        131\n\n VIII. IDEAS CONCERNING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN\n THE WORLDS                                                          141\n\n IX. STABS AND ATOMS                                                 157\n\n X. ARE OTHER PLANETS INHABITED? (A DISCUSSION\n OF SCHEINER\u2019S ARGUMENTS)                                            179\n\n GENERAL REMARKS                                                     182\n\n HISTORICAL                                                          184\n\n THE ORIGIN OF LIFE                                                  193\n\n THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE                                              196\n\n THE PLANETS OF OUR SYSTEM                                           201\n\n THE POSSIBLE EXISTENCE OF BEINGS\n OF DIFFERENT CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION                                  210\n\n REMARKS                                                             215\n\n INDEX                                                               223\n\n\n\n\n                              I. A VOYAGE\n                              IN THE SKY\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n                          A VOYAGE IN THE SKY\n\n                             INTRODUCTION\n\n\nIT WAS at Venice. The lofty windows of the ancient Ducal Palace of the\nSperanzi opened upon the Grand Canal. The orb of night was mirrored in\nthe waters by a furrow of silver spangles, and the immensity of the sky\nstretched over the towers and cupolas.\n\nWhen the musicians borne by the gondolas had turned the corner of\nthe canal to glide towards the Bridge of Sighs, their last choruses\nvanished in the night, and Venice seemed to go to sleep in that\nprofound silence known to no hive of humanity but the Queen of the\nAdriatic. This Venetian silence was untroubled save by the cadenced\nbeats of the old clock, and perhaps I should not have appreciated the\nwhole depth of the universal muteness but for the regular oscillation\nof that apparatus designed for measuring time. The continuous\n\u201ctick-tock\u201d marked out the silence, and, curiously enough, seemed to\nintensify it.\n\nSeated in the embrasure of the high window, I contemplated the shining\ndisc of the Moon enthroned in an azure sky filled entirely with its\nlight, and I remembered that this luminary of the night, so tranquil\nand calm in appearance, moved a thousand yards in space at each beat of\nthe clock. This fact struck me for the first time with a certain force,\nperhaps on account of the enveloping solitude.\n\nGazing upon the lunar globe, in which I could distinguish with the\nnaked eye the ancient seas and geographical outlines, I bethought\nmyself that it was still perhaps inhabited by beings organised\ndifferently from ourselves who can live in an extremely rarefied\natmosphere; but what struck me even more forcibly was its rapid\nrevolution round the Earth, at the rate of 1,000 yards at each beat of\nthe clock, making 38 miles a minute, 2,280 an hour, 53,800 a day, or\n1,500,000 miles for each lunar month.\n\nI saw in my mind the Moon revolving round us from west to east in less\nthan a month, and at the same time I felt, so to speak, the daily\nmovement of the Earth about its axis, also from west to east, which\nmakes the sky appear to move in the opposite direction. While I was\nstill reflecting, indeed, the Moon had actually shifted and descended\nin the west towards the steeple of the Chiesa. These terrestrial and\ncelestial movements, softer than those of the gondolas gliding on the\nlimpid waters, bear us along through reality as through a dream. They\nmeasure the days and the years as we pass, like fleeting shadows,\nwhile they endure for ever. The silent Moon, sphinx of the sky, shone\nalready on the waters silvered by her splendour millions of years ago,\nwhile terrestrial humanity was still awaiting its slow unfolding in\nthe limbo of future possibilities. Strange animals peopled the forests\nwhich covered the continents, fantastic fishes pursued each other\nin the floods, vampires clove the air, and two-footed crocodiles,\nwhich seem to be the ancestors of those of Egyptian mythology, showed\nthemselves in the clearings on the banks of the rivers. Later the same\nMoon shone on the birth of the flowers, on the nests of the first\nbirds. But how many nights had she not illuminated with pale beams\nbefore the first glance from a human eye fell upon her, before the\nfirst human thought ascended towards her! To-night she shines upon a\npopulous and active humanity, flourishing cities, marble palaces, built\namid the clouds. Just now, at my feet, in a gondola a pair of lovers\ncalled upon her to witness their eternal vows, forgetting that her\nrapid phases are the symbol of our changefulness and our shortness of\nlife. Yes, she has been the confidante of many mysteries, and for a\nlong time yet will radiant youth sing under her sky its eternal song\nof love. But one day, a poor, enfeebled lamp, she will only shine upon\na cemetery of ice; there will be no more clocks for measuring hours\nnor human beings to count them. Thus I mused, in the bright moonlight\nwhich seemed to intensify all the shadows and to deepen all the abysses\nbetween the palaces plunging into the black water. This neighbouring\nworld exists at a distance of 240,000 miles from us. Our thoughts fly\nthither in a flash. With the speed of light, the distance is covered in\n1\u2153 second. In imagination I took flight up to the distant luminary. I\nforgot Venice, the Adriatic, and the Earth, and I felt myself carried\nbeyond the confines of the terrestrial atmosphere.\n\n\n               (1) TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND MILES\n                            FROM THE EARTH\n\n\nI seemed to approach the pale Ph\u0153be and to arrive suddenly above the\nimmense chain of the lunar Apennines, which separate the \u201cSea of\nVapour\u201d from the \u201cSea of Rain,\u201d not far from the central meridian. I\nrecognised, just as I had so often observed them in the telescope, the\namphitheatres and craters of Archimedes, Autolycus, and Aristillus, and\nI hovered for some time over the steep cliffs of the \u201cSea of Serenity.\u201d\nI saw the traces of old submersions and I distinguished several craters\nalmost obliterated by formidable land-slides. I got accustomed to this\nview the more rapidly for the fact that astronomical instruments have\nlong familiarised us with this neighbouring world, and that certain\ndetails of lunar geography are better known than are many points of\nterrestrial geography. Those immense amphitheatres, those yawning\ncraters, those steep-walled mountains, those deep valleys, those\nnumerous cracks in the soil--we have studied them all and we know\nthem. We find there the geographical result of considerable volcanic\nactivity, craters 2 miles in depth and 60, 100, or 150 miles wide,\nmountain peaks 4 or 5 miles high, plains and valleys where the traces\nof successive selenological epochs are traceable. In the lower depths I\nobserved the effects of a sensible atmosphere, surface changes produced\nover immense stretches of ground by the action of the Sun\u2019s rays during\ndays fifteen times as long as ours, changes of aspect due to the frost\nof the long lunar night and the thaw under the midday Sun, long white\nstreaks traversing the circular plains; something like geysers in\nactivity; short-lived plants without any terrestrial analogy--a whole\nworld still alive, apparently in its last death-struggle. My thought\nand my gaze rested on the pale figure of the Earth\u2019s satellite, and\nI asked myself whether there was not alive at that moment, in some\nancient city at the bottom of a crater or a valley, some thinking\nbeing, with its eyes raised to the sky, contemplating the Earth where\nwe are and asking the same question: whether any intelligent beings\nlived on the surface of that immense globe throning for ever over\ntheir heads, and presenting to their minds the same riddle which their\nabode presents to us.\n\nWhile I thus reflected about our neighbour in space, the orb of night\nhad sunk in the west, and I saw at some distance from it on the left\na star shining with a reddish glow, shedding rays of fire over the\nheavenly vault. I was not long in recognising in this ardent star\nour neighbour the planet Mars, and I forgot the moon over this other\ncelestial island, the sister of our own, which has so many analogies\nwith our planet.\n\nHere, said I to myself, is the planet of greatest interest to\nourselves, the one we know best. It gravitates round the sun along an\norbit traced at a mean distance of 143 million miles from the central\nluminary. Our Earth passes through its annual revolution at a distance\nof 92 million miles. There are, therefore, on an average, 51 million\nmiles between the two orbits. On the night of my vigil, Mars happened\nto be at its minimum distance from the Earth. Fortunately, as the\ntwo orbits are neither circular nor parallel, the real distance is\nsometimes reduced to 37 million miles. Light, which takes 1\u2153 second\nto traverse the distance between the Earth and the Moon, takes 200\nseconds, or 3 minutes 20 seconds, to cross the celestial abyss which\nseparates Mars from the Earth, It seemed to me that I really spent\nthose 3 minutes in flying the distance, and I entirely forgot the high\nwindow of my Venetian palace over the aspect of the new world to which\nthe flight of my thought had brought me.\n\n\n             (2) THIRTY-SEVEN MILLION MILES PROM THE EARTH\n\n\nIt is not very far, astronomically speaking. It is, in fact, quite\nnear, a few paces away. The world of Mars is the first station of the\nsolar system, the first planet we meet on leaving the Earth to visit\nthe remote regions of the heavens. The farther we move away from the\nEarth, the smaller grows the apparent size of our own world. Seen from\nthe Moon, our planet hangs in the sky like an enormous moon, four times\nthe size of our own satellite, and sixteen times as luminous, for it\nis isolated in space and reflects the light received from the Sun,\nas is done by the Moon and the various planets of the solar system.\nFrom about 250,000 miles, therefore, the Earth still appears of a\nconsiderable size, being about four times the size of the full Moon. At\n2\u00bd million miles it appears ten times smaller in diameter, but still\nshows a perceptible disc. At the distance of the orbit of Mars, at the\ntime when the planets are in greatest proximity (37 million miles),\nthe Earth no longer shows a sensible disc, but is still the biggest\nand brightest star in the entire heavens. The inhabitants of Mars,\ntherefore, admire us as a brilliant star in the sky, showing aspects\nsimilar to those which Venus shows to us. We are their morning and\nevening star, and no doubt their mythology has erected altars to us.\n\nWhen I arrived on that planet, it was about midday on its central\nmeridian. I noticed two small moons revolving rapidly in their sky,\nand I alighted on the slope of a mountain overlooking a distant sea.\nThe sea was shallow and full of water-plants. The panorama reminded\nme of that which one sees from the terrace of the Nice Observatory,\nand I seemed to see a Mediterranean of calm water, of a rather dark\nbluish-green colour. But it was a different element, and I saw that\nthe plants were of a species unknown on Earth. Airy navies consisting\nof a sort of bird-fishes glided through the atmosphere, and I soon\nfound that the inhabitants of this celestial territory have received\nby natural evolution the enviable privilege of flying through the\nair, and that their method of locomotion is particularly aviation.\nGravity is feeble on the surface of the planet, and hence the density\nof beings and objects on that planet is much less than it is with us.\nEngineering science has for many centuries reached a high degree of\nperfection. They have carried out immense works, incomparably superior\nto those achieved on our planet during the last century, and they\nhave transformed their globe by gigantic operations which earthly\nastronomers are just beginning to appreciate by means of the telescope.\nOne may easily understand, indeed, that that world should be more\nadvanced than ours, because it is more ancient chronologically, and\nbecause, being smaller than our globe, it has cooled down more rapidly\nand has run through the phases of organic evolution at a greater rate.\nIts years are nearly twice as long as ours, in the proportion of 365\ndays to 687. While we count 37 years on Earth, the Martian only counts\n20, and a man of 79 years on Earth is only 40 Martian years old.\nThis is an advantage of 88 per cent. Its condition of habitability,\nits climate and meteorology, its days and its nights, are analogous\nto ours. Even from where we are we can observe its continents, its\npolar snows which melt in the spring, its canals which also change\nwith the seasons, its humid plains periodically varied by vegetation,\nits clouds, generally very light, but dense enough towards the polar\nregions, its mists in the mornings and especially in the evening, above\nall, the perpetual changes, incomparably more intense than those of\nthe Earths surface--in a word, all those manifestations of an activity\ngreater than that of our own home of the present day.\n\nI only delayed on Mars for the time necessary to form a general idea of\nthe life which animates our neighbouring globe and to make sure that it\nis more active than that of terrestrial humanity, and I found myself,\nsome moments later, transported to the annular world of Saturn.\n\n\n             (3) AT SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION MILES\n\n\nThe conception of time, the appreciation of duration, are essentially\nrelative to the state of our mind. If we sleep profoundly for seven or\neight hours, that time will have made a gap in our life of no greater\nlength than that produced by ten minutes of sleep. The miners who by\nthe collapse of a shaft are entombed for five or six days before being\nrescued, always believe that they have not been cut off for more than\ntwenty hours. Buried on a Tuesday, for instance, they will not believe\nthat they have had to wait till Sunday. On the other hand, one may\nseem to pass several hours, very slowly, in a dream of a few seconds.\nA friend of mine told me that one day, as he was riding through a\nwood, his horse bolted and threw him into a ravine. He said his fall\nhad certainly not taken more than three seconds, but that during those\nthree seconds he had passed in review at least ten years of his life\nin all their successive details and without any apparent hurrying of\nevents. Then, again, who has not observed how long the minutes may seem\nduring some hours of waiting?\n\nThe orbit of the Earth round the Sun being 92 million miles, and that\nof Saturn 888 million, there are 796 million miles between the two\norbits. Light traverses this gap in 70 minutes. My fancy flew this\ndistance with the speed of light, and I was aware of these 2,240\nseconds required to cover the distance at the rate of 186,000 miles a\nsecond. Yet I am sure that I did not spend all that time in traversing\nthe distance to Saturn, nor even the lesser time corresponding to the\ndistance between Mars and the ringed planet, for the first stroke\nof ten had sounded on the old clock when I forgot Mars and fixed my\nattention on Saturn, and I arrived at my destination before the hour\nhad finished striking.\n\nI alighted on the tenth satellite, whence one can easily appreciate\nthe grandeur of the Saturnian system. The enormous planet of, a\ndiameter more than 9\u00bd times that of our globe, with a surface 90\ntimes that of the Earth, and a bulk 745 times that of our floating\nhome, is surrounded by gigantic rings measuring 178,000 miles across.\nGirt by this multiple ring, the planet presides over a retinue of\nten satellites revolving round it in a system having a radius of 8\nmillion miles, a system which in itself constitutes a universe larger\nthan that known to the ancients. Until the age of truth inaugurated\nby the conquests of modern astronomy, nobody on our planet, no poet,\nno philosopher, no thinker, had guessed the real grandeur of the\nproportions on which the universe is constructed. How small our Earth\nappears seen from the Saturnian system! It is barely seen, once in six\nmonths, as a small luminous dot near the sun, shining for a few minutes\nin the evening after sunset, or a few minutes in the morning before\nsunrise.\n\n\n                 (4) TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED MILLION\n                          MILES FROM THE SUN\n\n\nIn the depths of space, at a distance from the sun more than 30 times\nour own, under a glow of light and heat 900 times feebler than that\nwhich we enjoy, there roams the world of Neptune, among conditions\nof life quite different from those which obtain on Earth. Those\nshort-sighted naturalists who affirmed even quite recently, with\nprofessorial emphasis, that the abysses of the ocean are condemned to\nan eternal sterility, because the conditions of light and pressure\nare absolutely different from the conditions near the surface, have\nreceived from Nature herself the rudest contradiction which can be\ninflicted upon the pedantic science of pretenders to infallibility.\nThis contradiction, however direct and absolute, has not discouraged\nthem all, for there are still some who declare that life can only exist\non worlds having conditions identical with ours. Always the reasonings\nof the fish who affirms--quite sincerely--that it is impossible to live\noutside water! Let us leave these teachers to their illusions and\ncontinue our ascent. Astronomy must be the great teacher of philosophy.\n\nThe distant world of Neptune, on which every year equals nearly 165 of\nour years, and where ten years represent the whole historical interval\nwhich separates us from the Romans (we must remember than 1,650 years\nago the Romans reigned at Paris and in Gaul, and neither France nor\nany of the present-day nations were thought of), this neighbouring\nworld, I say, is well fitted to teach us to enlarge our narrow and\npersonal conceptions, especially as regards the measurement of time.\nThe calendar of that planet is just as exact, just as precise, as\nours, and a Neptunian year is not longer to those slow and reflective\nbeings who inhabit the place than is a terrestrial year to those\nhurrying and agitated persons who swarm in our turbulent cities. Yet a\nNeptunian adolescent of 20 has really lived nearly 3,300 terrestrial\nyears, without knowing that such a time is called \u201cvery long\u201d by the\ninhabitants of our planet, whom such a life would carry back to the\nepoch of Homer and ancient Greece.\n\nIt would be impossible even with the most careful examination to\ndiscover any point of comparison between the beings which live on\nthe Neptunian world and those which we know on Earth. None of our\nclassifications, whether of the animal kingdom, vast and diversified\nthough it be, or of the vegetable kingdom, highly complex in itself,\ncould be applied to them. It is another world, absolutely different\nfrom this one. Spectrum analysis indeed establishes the fact that its\nchemical composition is quite other than that of our terrestrial home.\nThe organisms which live on the surface of the different planets are\nthe resultant of the forces acting upon them. The origin of the human\nform lies in the ancestral forms of the long animal series whence it\nhas gradually emerged, and of which it is the highest perfection,\nand these primitive animal forms go back in an unbroken chain to the\nrudimentary organisms unprovided with the senses which are the glory\nof man, organisms which inaugurated the manifestations of life, but\nwhich can hardly be described as living. They are neither animals nor\nplants. They appear to be organised substances, already distinct from\nthe inorganic kingdom, but as yet only simple chemical combinations\nendowed with a sort of diffused vitality, an elementary protoplasm,\nthe germ of all developments of terrestrial life, both animal and\nvegetable. The first organised beings were formed in the bosom of the\nwarm waters of the oceans which covered the entire surface of the earth\nat the time when the geological periods began. Their intrinsic nature,\ntheir properties, their faculties, were already the resultant of the\nchemical composition of those waters, of the density and temperature\nof the surrounding medium; the variation of this medium and of the\ncondition of existence have brought about corresponding changes in the\ndevelopment of this genealogical tree, and, according to the habitat\nof the organisms, whether in the deep, middle, or upper regions of the\nwaters, on the sea-shore, in the low-lying plains, on sunny slopes\nor mountain-tops, the genealogical tree gave rise to more and more\ndiversified organisms. Present-day terrestrial humanity is the last\nflower, the last fruit of this tree. But all this life is terrestrial\nfrom root to summit, and on every planet the tree is different. Life is\nNeptunian on Neptune, Uranian on Uranus, Saturnian on Saturn, Sirian\non the system of Sirius, Arcturian on that of Arcturus, appropriate to\nevery medium, or rather, more strictly speaking, produced and developed\nby each world according to its physical state and in harmony with that\nprimeval law which all nature obeys: the law of progress.\n\nThis immense symphony of life, adapted to every world according to\nconditions of space and time, develops like a universal choir, the\nparts of which are separated from each other by deserts of space and\nby eternities of time. It appears to us discontinuous because we can\nonly hear one note at a time. But in reality there is no absolute\nseparation either in space or time. Jupiter will not be inhabited by\nthinking beings for millions of years to come; from the point of view\nof the Absolute, the interval is not greater than that which separates\nyesterday from to-day.\n\nAll this happens and accomplishes itself naturally, and as if God\ndid not exist. And indeed the being whom the inhabitants of the\nEarth have hitherto defined as God does not exist. The Buddha of the\nChinese, the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Jehovah of the Hebrews,\nthe Ormuzd and Ahriman of the Persians, the Teutates of the Gauls,\nthe Jupiter of the Greeks, \u201cGod the Father\u201d or \u201cGod the Son\u201d of the\nChristians, or the great Allah of the Mussulman, are human conceptions,\npersonifications invented by man in which he has embodied not only his\nhighest aspirations and his sublimest virtues, but also his grossest\nprevarications and ugliest vices.\n\nMan has conceived as God in his own likeness. It is in the name of\nthis pretended God that monarchs and pontiffs have in all the ages and\nunder cover of all religions bound humanity in a slavery from which it\nhas not yet freed itself. It is in the name of this God who \u201cprotects\nGermany,\u201d \u201cprotects England,\u201d \u201cprotects France,\u201d \u201cprotects Italy,\u201d\n\u201cprotects Russia,\u201d \u201cprotects Turkey,\u201d protects all the divisions and\nall the barbarities, that even in our own day the so-called civilised\npeople of our planet have been armed in war against each other and,\nlike mad dogs, have hurled themselves upon one another in a conflict\nover which falsehood and hypocrisy, seated on the steps of the thrones,\nfigure a \u201cGod of Armies\u201d as presiding, a God who blesses the daggers\nand plunges his hands in the smoking blood of victims to mark the\nforeheads of kings. It is to this God that altars are raised and Te\nDeums are chanted. It is in the names of the Gods of Olympus that the\nGreeks condemned Socrates to drink the hemlock; it is in the name of\nJehovah that the high-priests and Pharisees crucified Jesus. It is in\nthe name of Jesus, himself become God, that fanaticism ignominiously\ncondemned to the stake men like Giordano Bruno, Vanini, \u00c9tienne Dolet,\nJohn Huss, Savonarola, and so many other heroic victims; that the\nInquisition ordered Galileo to belie his conscience; that thousands\nand thousands of unfortunates accused of witchcraft were burnt alive\nin popular ceremonies; that Ravaillac stabbed Henry the Fourth. It\nwas with the express benediction of Pope Gregory the Thirteenth that\nthe butchery of St. Bartholomew drenched Paris in blood and the free\nthinkers of the reformation were chased out of France; it is for the\nextermination of supposed heresies that many thousands of brave people\nhave been burnt alive; it was with cross in hand that the peaceful\nnatives of America were savagely massacred by the Spaniards; it was in\nthe names of the gods worshipped in Rome that the Christian martyrs\nsuffered the most awful tortures; it was in the name of the Christian\nGod that the fanatics, led by Bishop St. Cyril, stoned the beautiful\nand learned Hypatia, and that in later times the Bishop of Beauvais\nled the virgin of Domremy to the stake; it was in the name of the\nBible that the kings of God\u2019s \u201cchosen people\u201d savagely exterminated\ntheir neighbours; it was in the name of Allah that the standards of\nMahomet covered Europe with armies of assassins and that even now\nmillions of fanatics are ready to rise against the Europeans on the\ncry of a \u201cHoly War,\u201d that Mahomet the Second painted the walls of St.\nSophia with the blood of his steed, that Genghis Khan and Tamerlane\nmarked their paths of conquest with pyramids of severed heads; it is\nto the glory of these imaginary deities that even now so many and\nuseless souls condemn themselves to strange penances in the convents,\nthat the Russian stropzi mutilate themselves, that the howling and\ndancing Dervishes writhe in mad contortions, that certain sects kill\ntheir babies and drink their blood. Religious wars have been the most\nhorrible and odious of all, and the most insensate. People have killed\neach other for the sake of a word or its interpretation, for the sake\nof an adjective, for the \u201cconsubstantiality\u201d of the Father and the Son\nof the Trinity, for \u201chomoousios\u201d against \u201chomoiousios,\u201d for a thousand\nother crotchets placed above the most elementary reason and proclaimed\narticles of faith in the name of a God! This symbol of the oppressions\nof peoples, of murder and robbery, this infamous being, does not exist,\nand has never existed.\n\nIn making a god in their likeness, as miserable as themselves, men\nresemble monkeys, who, raising themselves to the idea of God, would\nfigure him as a Grand Ape, dogs who would make him a Grand Dog, fleas\nwho would represent him in the shape of a Grand Flea. But it does\nnot follow that, because this inferior god does not exist, therefore\nthe universe goes on without thought, without a destiny, and without\nlaws. If the believers of all religions are in error, those who deny\nthe existence of any intellectual principle in the world are equally\nmistaken. Yes, the evolution of nature takes place without the acts of\nan anthropomorphic deity, without malice and without miracles. The only\nname which would fit God would be the Unknowable. God remains hidden by\nthe very perfection of nature\u2019s mechanism. In a healthy body we do not\nfeel the passage of the blood through the heart, nor the circulation\nof blood in the brain, nor that of the air in the lungs, nor the\nliver, nor the kidneys, nor the stomach, nor the bowels. The attention\nis not directed to those organs unless they work badly. The world is\nso arranged that they appear to work by themselves, and that is its\ndivine quality. Everything functions regularly by means of a perfect\nconstruction, the gearing of which is invisible and silent, but which\nwe can only judge by the infinitesimal fraction of which we form a\npart, and the author of which is a transcendental thought, impenetrable\nto mankind. Force governs matter; _mens agitat molem_; but Thought\nguides nature.\n\nYes, the supreme being is unknowable. The human mind cannot comprehend\nthe infinite, eternal, immutable spirit, the organising power of that\nAll of which the Earth and Man are but particles as imperfect as they\nare mediocre. This Infinite is to the infantile deity imagined by man\nas the midday sun is to the muddy obscurity of a mole-burrow under\nthe roots of meadow grass. His existence is proved by the universal\norganisation. Everything is organised, from the humblest leaf to the\nworld system. An invisible, immaterial element of a spiritual nature,\nas yet imperfectly revealed by our means of investigation, manifests\nitself within us and around us. This spiritual principle should be\nrevered as enveloping the world and enfolding us. But the clergy of all\nreligions, of all times and of all countries, have always monopolised\nthe idea of God and appropriated it to their exclusive and intolerant\npurpose of domination. When they speak of God, they mean their own\nGod. The free spirits who do not acknowledge their figure-head are\ntreated as atheists and hated and persecuted as such. They will not\nadmit that one may be a Deist and yet anticlerical. But they are not\ntoo unintelligent to know that it is an injustice, a stupidity, and a\nlie to treat as atheists those thinkers who deny the divinity of Jesus.\nThe people who dare to reduce God to their size and even to put Him in\ntheir pocket are the greatest blasphemers.\n\nIt is strange that Man, still in a coarse, savage, and barbarous state,\nhardly emerged from the primitive shell of ignorance, incapable of\nknowing even his own body, hardly able to spell the great book of the\nuniverse, should have considered himself capable of describing God. He\ndoes not know his own little ant-heap and he pretends to discover the\nunknowable. At a time when nothing was known, when astronomy, physics,\nchemistry, natural history, and anthropology were as yet unborn, when\nthe feeble and meandering human mind was still surrounded by illusions\nand errors, human audacity conceived the so-called religions and the\ngods placed at their heads.\n\nThat Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, or Mahomet should\nhave striven to give to mankind a code of morals destined to deliver\nthem from barbarism and to teach them the idea of good, such efforts\nand achievements cannot but receive the homage and admiration of all\nwho value the intellectual and moral progress of humanity. That\nthe founders and organisers of religious rites should place at the\nhead of every cult an ideal, an inviolable being in whose name they\npretend to govern, even that can be recognised as a work of social\nutility, of a value not rising above the worldly standard, and having\nno object beyond the general good of man and societies. But that\nthose gods invented by man should be considered as really existing,\nand in an absolutely imaginary heaven which perished in the first\nconquests of astronomy, that they should have been, and are still,\nadored by a certain portion of the human race, and that even in our\ntime legislators of all nations dare to base their politics on divine\nright, to show the \u201cfinger of God\u201d in the most monstrous plagues of the\nsocial body, and decorate their battle-flags with a local providence,\nas in the time of Joan of Arc, of Constantine, or of David--that is\nthe shocking anachronism, a mixture of imposture and credulity, of\nhypocrisy and stupidity unworthy of the era of sincere and positive\nresearch in which we live, and which should load the functionaries\nwho live at the expense of such a system with the contempt of every\nindependent man.\n\nDefinitions are misleading. Were pagans like Socrates, Plato,\nAristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus, not more spiritual than Pope\nAlexander the Sixth or Cardinal Dubois, who were true atheists?\n\nThe search for the nature of the First Cause--I do not say the\n\u201cknowledge of God,\u201d which would be an expression worthy of a\n\u201ctheologian\u201d and absurd in itself--but simply the search for the\nAbsolute Being, for the origin of the energy which sustains, animates,\nand governs the universe, for the intelligent force which acts\neverywhere and perpetually through infinity and eternity and gives\nrise to the appearances which strike our eyes and are studied by our\nscience--this _search_, I say, could not be undertaken nor even\nproperly conceived before the first discoveries of astronomy and modern\nphysics, that is to say, before the investigations of Galileo, Kepler,\nand Newton. It is only two centuries ago that the purely religious\nidea, free from idolatries, from all sorts of mythologies, of errors\nand superstitions produced by primitive ignorance--it is only during\nthe last two centuries that it was possible for this idea to arise\nout of modern scientific evolution. All the religions existing at the\npresent day have been founded during ages of ignorance, when we knew\nnothing about the earth or the heavens. True religion, i.e. the union\nof free spirits in the search for truth, can only be the work of an\nepoch like ours, in which some courageous and disinterested spirits\nfree from the hypocrisy of false doctrines, yet without falling into\nthe puerile atheism of superficial minds which only see the outer\nshell, will sincerely and freely apply all branches of science to the\nsearch for the intimate constitution of the universe and of the human\nbeing. The future will teach us. To-day we know but little; we are\nonly beginning to learn. The unknown God conceived by the thinkers,\nby Socrates, by Plato, by Marcus Aurelius, by Voltaire (as ardent a\nDeist as he was a violent anticlerical), by Newton, by Descartes, by\nLinn\u00e9, by Euler, by Spinoza, by Kant, by all pure Deists, surpasses\nin his grand immensity all the poor inventions of the clergy of all\ndenominations. One cannot see the creator of the hundred million\nsuns of the Milky Way looking down upon a small village in Judea and\ninspiring Judith to seduce Holophernes with the object of cutting off\nhis head after betraying him with her caresses; or conferring on Joshua\nthe power of arresting the movement of the solar system to give him\ntime to exterminate the besiegers of Gibeon! What sort of opinion had\nsuch writers of the Supreme Being? And what opinion of him is still\nheld by those preachers who continue to teach this \u201cHoly Scripture\u201d?\n\nThe Infinite cannot be comprehended by the Finite.\n\nHe who has made the tour of the world, who has visited Europe, Asia,\nAfrica, and the Americas, reasons in a manner wider beyond comparison\nwith the state of humanity than he who has never left his country.\nBetween the narrow, incomplete, and false ideas of the latter and the\njudicious, exact, and just appreciations of the former there is the\ndifference of night and day.\n\nUnfortunately we preach to the deaf. For one man who reasons there\nare a hundred who do not. The struggle against the domination of the\nspiritual directors is very platonic and the clergy despise it. The\nChurch has organised marriage, birth, and death into ceremonies which\nseduce the imagination and please the women. Compare the civil marriage\nand the religious marriage; the former cold, dull, insipid; the latter\nimpressive and attractive with the altar garlanded with flowers, and\nthe enchantment of the music which makes the creator descend into\nthe bosom of the spouse, \u201c_Veni, Creator Spiritus_.\u201d It will be\ncenturies before the religious form of marriage is entirely replaced\nby the civil. A certain free-thinking father refrained from having his\nfour boys baptized so as to leave them entire liberty of conscience.\nAll four got baptized on the eve of their marriage as their brides\nwished to be married in church. Faith or convention, that is how the\nworld goes--and the priests smile at the simplicity of the layman.\n\nWhat is Sunday for most Christians but a day for fine clothes?\n\nTradition has created a distinguished society often permeated\nwith hypocrisy, but to belong to which is \u201cgood form.\u201d Ancient\nerrors are preserved without being credited. Convention governs the\n\u201cwell-disposed\u201d people.\n\nIndependence of spirit is the rarest of phenomena. All religions are\nsacred and respectable if they raise our thoughts to a higher ideal,\nwhen they console the afflicted and relieve misery. But let them not\nbe exploited, and let there be no killing in their name! Ideal and\nsentiment are part of the domain of thought, with as much right as\nReason. It is a mistaken policy to suppress them, and it plays into\nthe hands of reactionaries, who profit by the errors. To claim that\nscience demonstrates the non-existence of God and of the soul is an\nunscientific argument. An education without ideals or responsibility,\nwhich neglects conscience and proclaims rights without duties, is as\nfalse as that of the Catechism which teaches the creation of Adam\nand Eve, the temptation of the serpent, the universal deluge, the\nincarnation of God, the Virgin Birth, the resurrection and ascension of\nJesus to the right hand of God the Father, or the resurrection of our\nbodies (articles of faith which cannot, without heresy, be interpreted\nas symbols, but must be taken literally), and it is socially more\ndangerous, as we see by its fruits for the last thirty years, the\ngradual increase of crime and the rule of the Apaches and anarchists\nof all sorts. Why not follow the way of enlightened wisdom? If the\nsocialists were permeated with spiritual truth, they would hold the\nworld; they would continue the work of their predecessor, Jesus Christ,\nin the light and with the positive methods of modern science. The false\ngods invented by man, the legends, the superstitions, the errors, lies,\nand hypocrisies, are not necessary to secure a place in the educational\nsystem for the sense of honour, of duty, of justice, and of personal\nconscience; and this is often forgotten by modern educators who have\nsuppressed everything without putting anything in its place.\n\nLet us have no sectaries of any kind!\n\nHumanity grows up. We are no longer children.\n\n\nAt the distance from the Earth which suggested such reflections,\nthe distance of the planet Neptune, the farthest limit of the solar\nsystem known at present to astronomy, our judgment on the works of\nman is quite different from that which satisfied us before we left\nour country. We contemplate the solar system in all its grandeur, we\nrecognise the smallness of our own little planet compared with the vast\nspace in which it moves, and the short time of its revolution round the\nSun, and we feel that our ordinary terrestrial estimates have hitherto\nbeen based upon those narrow and limited sentiments circumscribed by\nthe horizon of the church tower. We free ourselves from them and find\nourselves in a position to judge the immensity of creation with greater\nliberty, independence, and integrity. But far as Neptune is from our\nterrestrial home, it still forms, like ourselves, part of the solar\nfamily. Other planets still unknown to terrestrial astronomy gravitate\nbeyond Neptune, the first of them probably at a distance 48 times as\ngreat as the distance between the Earth and the Sun, that is to say, at\n7,500 million miles, in an immense orbit which it takes at least 330\nyears to accomplish. The celestial voyage which I have begun takes me\nbeyond the outermost regions of the solar system. Flinging myself into\nthe infinite heavens, I arrived at another system by penetrating into\nthe cosmic domain of a star.\n\n\n                   (5) AT TWENTY-FIVE BILLION MILES\n\n\nEvery star is a sun shining by its own light. The Sun which illuminates\nus has 1,300,000 times the volume of the Earth and weighs 333,000 times\nas much. The dimensions and the masses of the stars are of the same\norder. A large number of them are much more voluminous and their masses\nare still more considerable.\n\nWhatever star we approach, we find in it a sun like a blinding\nfurnace. These innumerable centres of light, heat, electricity, and\ngravitational attraction only appear to us as small luminous points\non account of the immense abysses which separate us from them. The\nnearest sun, our nearest star in space, burns at 276,000 times the\ndistance which separates us from the Sun, i.e. 25 billion miles from\nhere.\n\nTravelling with the speed of an express train flung into space at 40\nmiles an hour towards the nearest star without any stoppage or any\nslowing down, we should not arrive at our destination until after an\nuninterrupted flight of 75 million years.\n\nTravelling with the speed of the swiftest projectile which the most\ningenious man-killers have yet constructed, a speed which we can reckon\nas double that of sound, or 2,200 feet per second, we should yet\nrequire a million and a half years to cover that distance.\n\nIf that star were to burst with a terrific explosion, and if the noise\nof the catastrophe could be transmitted to us at the ordinary speed of\nsound in air, we should not hear that explosion until three million\nyears had elapsed after its occurrence.\n\nWe should see the star shining steadily in the sky for four years after\nthe catastrophe which had destroyed it, because light travels through\nspace with a speed of 186,000 miles a second, and it would have to\ntravel with this constant velocity more than four years before reaching\nus.\n\nSeen from that distance, our brilliant Sun is reduced to the rank of\na simple star. The planets which gravitate around it, the Earth,\nVenus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and their brothers of the solar family,\nare crowded up against it by the perspective of the distance and are\ninvisibly lost in its rays.\n\nConsidered at that distance in the sidereal universe, these provinces\nof the solar empire are recognised as insignificant even by the most\noptimistic spirit. Even if they did not exist at all, the suns of\ninfinite space would none the less shed their rays of life and light\nall around. Our planet, which to us seems so important, becomes a\nmicroscopic point impossible to discover by means of senses such as\nours, and its history told at that distance becomes like the flight of\na dragon-fly or even less, since we should never suspect its existence\nif we did not know it. It is at such moments especially that the\npretensions of Pontiffs and the dogmatic assurance of their adepts show\nforth in all their absurdity.\n\nI felt transported into the system of that star, the nearest of all\nthose whose distances have been measured, a star belonging to the\nconstellation of the Centaur; it is the Alpha of that constellation.\nThis system is curious and more interesting than ours. Instead of a\nsingle sun corresponding to that which shines upon us, two twin suns\ngravitate one round the other in a time equalling 81 of our years,\nand separated from each other by a distance of 2,000 million miles.\nThese twin suns are both of considerable brightness (first and second\nmagnitude, seen from here), and greatly superior to the central hearth\nof our own system. Planets circulate around each of these luminaries\nunder their protecting wings, and receive from their radiation the\nsources of their fertility and their life. They are illuminated by two\ndifferent suns, sometimes united in the same sky, sometimes separated\nand alternating, differing in magnitude and brightness according to the\nvariation of the distances in consequence of the revolutions of these\nworlds round their respective centres.\n\nThese are very different conditions of existence from those which\ngovern the destinies of the Earth and of the planets of our group. Two\nsuns! What curious alternations of seasons! What variations in the\nclimates! What transformations in the doubtlessly very rapid changes\nof their vitality! What complications of their calendars, in the\nsuccession of their years, their summers and winters, their days and\nnights! The sole fact of the existence of such a system, relatively\nnear to us and already well-known to terrestrial astronomers, testifies\nto the infinite variety disseminated in the starry depths of the cosmos.\n\n\nWhat multiplicity of manifestations of the diverse forces\nof nature must have been produced in this wealth of solar\ndevelopment--manifestations strange to the phenomena studied on\nour planet, and which are doubtlessly felt and appreciated by means\nof senses differing absolutely from those existing in terrestrial\norganisms, senses awakened, determined, and developed in those distant\nworlds by their own natural forces.\n\nOn worlds illuminated, heated, and regulated by two suns life can only\nhave appeared and organised itself in forms very different from those\non Earth, having no doubt an alternating double life, served by other\nmodes of perception, other organs, and other senses. The thinker, the\nastronomer, the physiologist, can no longer regard terrestrial life as\nthe type of all life. All we could learn, study, or know on Earth will\nnever be more than an infinitesimal and absolutely insufficient part\nof the immense reality embodied in the innumerable creations of the\nInfinite.\n\nYet it is a point which must be insisted upon before pursuing our\nterrestrial investigations further, that whatever may be the variety\nof stellar systems, the differences of volume, temperature, density,\nillumination, electrification, movement, chemical constitution, etc.,\nof the various globes which people the immensity of the universe, all\nthese worlds are linked amongst themselves by the same invisible and\nimponderable Power which combines them all in a network of extreme\nsensitiveness. The prodigious extent of the distances which separate\nthese systems one from the other does not prevent their being\nconnected together by some sort of maternal link. The distance from\nthe Earth to the Moon is 240,000 miles. The Moon acts constantly upon\nall the molecules of our globe and upon the entire Earth, and every\none of us weighs a little less when that body shines over our heads\nthan when it is on the horizon. The distance from the Sun to the\nEarth is 92 million miles; the Sun makes our planet move with a speed\ncorresponding to that distance, and the Earth in its turn displaces\nthe Sun in the heavens. The distance from the Sun to Neptune is over\n2,500 million miles. The central globe acts upon that distant world and\nmakes it revolve round it, and on the other hand Neptune makes the Sun\nrevolve round their common centre of gravity, which is at a distance\nof 144,000 miles from the centre of the Sun. Jupiter displaces the\nSun by 460,000 miles, and Saturn by 25,000 miles. The Moon disturbs\nthe Earth to the extent of 2,900 miles. At the same time Jupiter acts\nupon the Earth, the Earth upon Venus, and so on. On account of this\nreciprocal influence of all the heavenly bodies upon each other, not\na single point can remain in repose for an instant, and no heavenly\nbody can ever come back to the place it previously occupied. All that\nwe call matter is in perpetual motion under the irresistible power of\ninvisible, intangible, and imponderable force.\n\nWe have here a fact of capital importance, the consideration of which\nmust always be associated with the conception we can form of the real\nnature of the universe. We have seen just now that the distance which\nseparates our Sun from the star Alpha Centauri is 25 billion miles. But\nthis distance is traversed by gravitational attraction. In reality the\ntwo suns are not absolutely separated.\n\nThey know each other, they feel each other\u2019s attraction, and they feel\nthe attraction of all the other suns of infinite space. They both roam\nabout, our own Sun with a speed calculated at about 200 million miles\nper annum and Alpha Centauri with a speed of approximately 400 million.\nThe other suns of which we know the distance and the movement rush\non with similar speeds. Some of them fly with incomparably greater\nvelocities, which attain 200 miles a second, 11,000 miles per minute,\n600,000 miles an hour, 15 million per day, and 5 or 6 thousand million\nmiles per annum, veritable starry projectiles of the heavenly fields.\n\nBut our whole sidereal universe itself is moving with its hundred\nmillion stars through the immensity of infinite space. The movements\nwhich we measure are relative and not absolute.\n\nOur sun and its companions are driven through space by some initial\nforce and by the combined attraction of the innumerable stars of our\nvisible universe. Whether this force of attraction is a property\ninherent in every atom of matter, whether these theoretical atoms\nby which we explain the appearance of matter in order to account\nfor observed phenomena are centres of force, mathematical points of\nconcentration, or nodes and crossings of ethereal vibrations and\nundulations, the fact which dominates our analytical contemplation\nof the universe is that the innumerable worlds which people space\nare not isolated from each other, but are united by a perpetual and\nindestructible link.\n\nHere we have a new and important conception of the unity of nature. And\nwhat is equally worthy of attention is that this sort of communication\nbetween the worlds cannot be defined better than by the word\n\u201cattraction.\u201d\n\nAttraction is therefore the supreme law among the worlds, among atoms,\nand among beings. The stars which gravitate in the depth of space, the\nEarth which revolves in the solar rays, the Moon which raises the tides\non the surface of the ocean, the molecules of stone or iron which cling\ntogether by molecular attraction, the plant which pushes its roots into\nthe nourishing soil or raises its stem in response to light, the flower\nwhich turns towards the Sun, the bird which flies from branch to branch\nseeking a place for its nest, the nightingale which with incomparable\nsong charms the sweet mistress of the night, the man whose heart is\ntroubled at the appearance of a beloved being, the sound of a beloved\nvoice, or a fond memory--all these beings, all these things obey the\nsame law, that of universal attraction which in diverse forms governs\nall nature and guides it--whither? Towards yet another attraction, to\nthe attraction of the unknown!\n\nAmid the ignorance of the Absolute which surrounds us in spite of the\nmanifold, courageous, and persevering efforts of science, the fact\nof the existence of such a force uniting all worlds together must be\nappreciated at its proper value. It would be impossible to exaggerate\nits importance. Let us then not forget it: the worlds are in mutual\ncommunication by means of attraction.\n\n\n                  (6) AT SIXTY THOUSAND BILLION MILES\n\n\nContinuing my celestial voyage, I left the system of Alpha Centauri to\npenetrate into the starry depths of the Southern Cross. I traversed\nsunny shores and deserts of night, passing from sun to sun, from system\nto system, flying past stars which blinded me one moment and then were\nengulfed by the infinite night. The normal state of the universe is\nnight and silence. There is no light except round the suns and planets;\nthere is no sound but in their immediate neighbourhood, in their\natmosphere. In skirting stellar groups, I noticed enormous globes\nrolling in a strange light, and I often seemed to feel electric shocks,\nmagnetic disturbances, certain indefinable sensations which warned me,\nby a sort of malaise, that such spheres are unsuitable for our mode of\nexistence, and that they are inhabited by beings whose perceptions,\nfeelings, and thoughts differ from ours. I remember particularly having\nseen in the course of my flight a group of many-hued worlds illuminated\nby three suns, one a ruby red, one an emerald green, and a third a\nsapphire blue, and so singularly illuminated by this false light--false\nto us, but natural to them--that I asked myself whether I was not the\nvictim of an illusion and whether such creations really exist, though,\nindeed, having observed those well-known associations of coloured suns\nhundred of times in the telescope, I ought not to have been in doubt\nfor an instant. I stopped and approached one of those worlds and saw\nthat it was inhabited by beings who seemed to be woven out of light. To\ntheir eyes, certainly, the inhabitants of our planet would appear so\nsombre, heavy, and coarse that they might legitimately ask whether we\nwere alive and whether we felt ourselves to be alive.\n\nThose are worlds peopled by aerial organisms whose brightness surpasses\nthe tint of the freshest roses and purest lilies. These beings live on\nthe very atmosphere which they breathe, without being condemned, like\nthe inhabitants of our planet, to be constantly killing innumerable\nanimals with which to fill their bodies.\n\nTheir beauty, delicacy, and brightness reminded me by contrast of the\nconditions imposed by terrestrial life. I remembered that brute force\nreigns supreme here, that millions of beings are killed every day to\nassure the existence of the rest, that war is a natural law amongst\nanimals, and that humanity is so little freed from animal barbarism\nthat nearly all people continue to accept, as in primitive times,\nslavery and servitude. Being so far from the Earth, I judged of the\ncolossal stupidity of the inhabitants of our planet. But if, down to\nour own times, the nations have made their greatest glory consist of\ninternational butcheries, that state is transitory. Every tree bears\nfruit after its kind. Tortoises and bears cannot aspire to the wings\nof the swallow or the song of the thrush. The military glories of\nAlexander, C\u00e6sar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, or Bismarck, being of the\norder of carnivorous animal instincts, last no longer than the brutal\nrepast itself, and a few centuries suffice to efface them from the\nhistory of the planet.\n\nEndeavouring to estimate the real importance of this history and of\nour planet itself, I searched space, not only for the Earth which had\nbecome invisible long ago, but even the Sun; but I could neither find\nthe Sun nor any of its brightest neighbours such as Alpha Centauri or\nSirius, nor any of the stars which one sees from the Earth. The whole\nregion of space where our floating island gravitates had disappeared\nlong ago as an insignificant point in the depths of space. Austerlitz,\nWaterloo, Sevastopol, Magenta, Sadowa, Keichshofen, Sedan, were but\nmicroscopic agitations in a Lilliputian ant-heap, amusement of infants\ndelighting in muscular exercises involving blood and smoke. Why blame\nthem? Why pity them? They do what pleases them and nobody forces them\nto do it. Why should astronomy use a magnifying-glass to study the\nmicrobes on a planet T The system of many-coloured suns, the blinding\norganic wealth of which had inspired me to return to the earthly\ntwilight, revolves at a distance of 60,000 billion miles. Light takes\nmore than ten years to traverse this distance. Yet this is nothing\nextraordinary in the way of astronomical distance.\n\nSirius, the most brilliant star of our sky, transported to that\ndistance, would be 3,500 times farther away than it is in reality,\nand it would send us 12 million times less light. It would be a small\npoint, still within the range of the new photographic processes. It\nwould be a telescopic star of the 18th magnitude.\n\nThis sidereal milestone would be far from marking the limit of the\nspace accessible to telescopic investigation, which includes stars of\nthe 20th magnitude, and which, according to ingenious calculations, is\noccupied by about 100 million suns. And indeed, as I advanced in my\ncelestial voyage, I crossed new abysses and discovered far ahead and\nabove me new stars which became suns, shone in the night and appeared\nsingle, double, treble, quadruple, even quintuple, radiating a silver\nor golden light, or emitting the most vivid and various colours; and I\nguessed in passing at celestial earths peopled by unknown humanities\nfloating in these rays, before these worlds in turn rolled away and\ndisappeared beneath me in the night. They rushed with different speeds\nin every direction through space, like luminous globes in the bouquets\nof fireworks, and seemed to fly away in a starry rain.\n\nWhen I reached the confines of our sidereal universe, the suns and\nsystems became sparser, and as I continued my ascent I found myself\nengulfed in a black and desert void whence I could see the outer form\nof our universe, resembling one of those many star clusters which are\nseen in every telescopic field. This cluster became smaller and smaller\nas I flew on into the outer darkness.\n\nThen, in the infinite night I perceived above me another universe\nwhich appeared in space as a pale and distant nebula, and I understood\nthat all we can see with our eyes in the clearest night and all that\ntelescopic vision has yet allowed us to discover represent nothing\nbut a local region in an animated immensity, and that there are other\nuniverses besides that of which our Sun forms a star.\n\n\n                        (7) IN INFINITE SPACE\n\n\nI approached this second universe, which became larger and larger like\nan archipelago of stars, and I soon arrived at its outskirts. As I\ntraversed it from end to end I saw that it also was composed of several\nmillion suns separated from each other by thousands of millions of\nmiles. Then I found beyond it another dark abyss resembling that which\nI had crossed to reach the second universe.\n\nContinuing my flight, I saw a third, and I crossed it. A fourth\napproached, then another, and yet another. And as I crossed those\ndeserts which separated them, in whatever direction my gaze endeavoured\nto pierce the void, everywhere it discovered new universes in the\ndistance.\n\nThe splendid spiral nebul\u00e6 are not balls of gas but agglomerations of\nsuns, Milky Ways situated outside our sidereal universe.\n\nThen I understood that all the stars which have ever been observed in\nthe sky, the millions of luminous points which constitute the Milky\nWay, the innumerable celestial bodies, suns of every magnitude and of\nevery degree of brightness, solar systems, planets, and satellites,\nwhich by millions and hundreds of millions succeed each other in the\nvoid around us, that whatever human tongues have designated by the name\nof universe, do not in the infinite represent more than an archipelago\nof celestial islands and not more than a city in the grand total of\npopulation, a town of greater or lesser importance.\n\nIn this city of the limitless empire, in this town of a land without\nfrontiers, our Sun and its system represent a single point, a single\nhouse among millions of other habitations. Is our solar system a palace\nor a hovel in this great city? Probably a hovel.\n\nAnd the Earth? The Earth is a room in the solar mansion--a small\ndwelling, miserably small.\n\nThus in the general economy of nature our planet has no more importance\nthan a poor little room in a considerable house. That house in turn is\nlost in the middle of an immense town. And that immense town, which to\nus represents the entire universe, is in fact nothing but a universe\nbeyond which in every direction there exist other universes.\n\nHow far is this reality from human pretensions, both ancient and\nmodern, which imagine that our world represents the infinite, that God\nstops the Sun to illuminate one of Joshua\u2019s battles--a miracle renewed,\nsays history, for Charlemagne and Charles V--and that the great Sower\nof stars took upon himself a human shape to dwell among us!\n\nWhat simplicity among sincere theologians! What imposture among the\nchiefs of states who still dare to invest themselves with titles of\ndivine mandatories to enslave the people! Are not the real atheists\nthose either ignorant or insincere people who make the sublimest idea\nthe accomplice of all their mediocrities, and are not the real Deists\nthe independent searchers whose sole ambition is laboriously to look\nfor the causes and gradually to work up to truth?\n\nWith what strange religious systems has humanity up to now enveloped\nits barren imagination! The Israelite who believes he is agreeable to\nGod in practising circumcision or in buying a new knife to be sure\nthat it has not touched pig\u2019s fat; the Christian who imagines he can\nmake God descend upon a table and who is told by his preachers that\nprayers and fasts have an influence upon the weather and agriculture;\nthe Mahommedan who sees the gate of Mahomet\u2019s paradise opening before\nhim as he stabs a missionary; the fanatic who casts himself under the\nwheels of the Juggernaut; the Buddhist who remains fascinated in the\nbeatific contemplation of his navel, or works a prayer-mill for the\nremission of sins--these surely form the most ridiculous and infantile\nideas of the unknown and unknowable Being.\n\nAll these littlenesses are related to the primitive illusion of the\nsmallness of the universe, which was considered as a sort of screen\nstudded with golden nails and enclosing the earth in its centre.\nCertainly if astronomy had had no other result than to enlarge our\ngeneral conceptions and show us the relativity of terrestrial things\nin the bosom of the absolute, to deliver us from this ancient slavery\nof thought and make us free citizens of the infinite, it would deserve\nour veneration and our gratitude, for without it we should still be\nincapable of forming true conceptions.\n\nSome conservatives will perhaps object that there are even in French\nobservatories astronomers who go to Communion, tell their beads, and\ncarry candles in the churches, and that the same mentality can be\nfound in certain English, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, and other\nobservatories. Yes, without a doubt, the fact is undeniable. Such a\npsychological phenomenon has two explanations. Either these hybrid\nbeings are sincere or they are not. If they are believers, they are\nillogical and in perpetual conflict with their scientific reason,\nand we must not be astonished at the strange arrangement which their\nconscience is capable of constructing between two conceptions of nature\nwhich directly contradict each other. While incapable of explanation,\nsuch sincerity can be respected, like that of the innocent infant who\nbelieves all one tells him.\n\nIn the second, case it is hypocrisy, falsehood, rascality, personal\ninterest; and this sort of conscience is suitably judged by every\nhonest man.\n\nThese anomalies and limitations have not hindered astronomy from\nbringing light and independence to spirits who can understand it and\nwho have the courage and the freedom of their opinions.\n\nBut in telling of my Venetian dream I did not want to indulge in\nirritating polemics, and my only object was to show to some open eyes\nthe horizons of astronomical philosophy, and I hasten to return to my\nsidereal voyage and to describe its last phase. I shall, however, add\nanother word concerning our tiny planet, remarking that its inhabitants\nare as a rule so unintelligent and so incapable of judgment that they\nimagine that all have an equal intellectual and moral value and that\nin the most civilised country of this globe the vote of an imbecile\nor a drunkard has the same weight as that of an educated thinker, so\nthat the legislative chamber entrusted with the fate of the country\nis an incoherent mass of persons incompetent to deal with any of\nthe questions likely to arise. Half of them are ignorant and are\npreoccupied with their private concerns. In this system of pretended\nequality, Judas is the same as Jesus, Philip II equals Marcus Aurelius.\nTorquemada is the same as St. Vincent de Paul, Fouquier-Tinville the\nsame as Mirabeau, and the wine-merchant at the corner is the equal of\nArchimedes and Pythagoras. There is no reasoning. Our little planet\nis as insignificant morally as it is physically. Among terrestrial\nhumanity only one man in a hundred is intelligent. Humanity is\npractically no older than four or five years as regards intelligence\ncompared with what it ought to be normally.\n\nI had traversed several universes analogous to our galactic system,\nuniverses separated from each other by abysses of nothingness, and\nwhat had struck me most in this general survey was meeting a number\nof humanities foreign to our own living in various regions of space,\nliving their own lives and carried along to their destiny in the\nwhirlpool of their personal affairs. While the inhabitants of the Earth\nreduce creation to their own size, thousands, millions, billions, of\nother humanities live in every degree of intellectual advancement on\nsolar systems which to them are the very centre of observation and from\nwhich our terrestrial home appears lost in the infinite distance.\n\nI also saw dead worlds. It is a fact worthy of attention that all\nexistence tends towards death. Beings only come into existence to\ndie. The worlds only attain periods of vitality to descend again into\ndecadence and the tomb. Suns only burn to be extinguished. Death would\ntherefore be the supreme law, the final result.\n\nThe mathematician can now calculate with great accuracy the date when\nour Sun will become extinct aid when the Earth will roll on through the\neternal night like an icy cemetery. The entire history of terrestrial\nhumanity will have arrived at an absolute zero. The time will come when\neven the ruins will be destroyed.\n\nOn account of the tendency of energy to establish itself in a state of\nstable equilibrium in the universe, life will have an end on our planet\nas well as the other worlds.\n\nIf everything appears thus to tend to extinction and death, it is\nbecause we do not know the secret of the conservation of energy. An\nend such as I have indicated is really unthinkable. The terms of the\nproblem contain their own condemnation. It is admitted that force and\nmatter can be neither created nor destroyed, and have therefore existed\nand acted from all eternity. If therefore the final result of the\nradiation of suns into space is their extinction and consequently the\nextinction of life on their attendant planets, then since an eternity\nhas already elapsed during which energy has tended to equilibrium,\nthere ought to be not a single sun, star or planet in existence.\n\nNow relatively, not to an eternal duration but only to a period like\na lightning flash compared with that, say a trillion years, the\nlife of a human race, of a planet, or even of a sun, is very short.\nGeologists talk of 20 to 30 million years for the whole duration of\nthe geological eras from the origin of life on earth; physicists talk\nof 100 million for the constitution of the terrestrial globe from the\nliquid to the solid state; astronomers also assign 100 million years\nto the age of the Sun, and even less to its future duration. Even if\nwe doubled or trebled these numbers, even if we multiplied them by ten\nor even a hundred, we should not arrive at the millionth part of a\ntrillion years! Thus without going back to a previous eternity, if the\nenergy of suns had no other final result but extinction we should not\nexist now and nothing that is would be.\n\nThe universe was not made of one piece at the origin of things. This\norigin does not in fact exist. We find in space suns of every age.\nThere are old ones, there are new ones. Here are cradles, yonder are\ntombs. If the first creations formed by matter and energy had not been\nrenewed, there would no longer be a universe. All primitive energy\nwhich had animated the suns would be used up. Besides, matter and\nenergy are but one.\n\nJust as in passing through a forest we find oaks in decay, green trees,\nand new growths, thus also does the celestial traveller encounter in\nspace worlds long dead, dying worlds, worlds in full activity, and\nbudding stars.\n\nEverything dies, but everything lives again.\n\nAmong the last worlds in full vitality which I visited on my voyage\namong distant universes there was one which appeared particularly\nremarkable on account of the high state of social progress. Although\nthis world is the most distant of all those suspected to exist in the\ndepths of space, yet the human race which dwells there is not very\ndifferent from ours, physically. It is divided into two sexes, and the\norganic forms somewhat resemble those of our race. But the social state\nis distinctly superior to ours.\n\nA perpetual harmony reigns among all the members of this vast family.\nSimple and modest, each of these beings has no higher ambition than\ngradually to raise himself in the knowledge of things and in moral\nperfection.\n\nThe atmosphere is not entirely nutritious, and there, as here, one is\nobliged to eat in order to live. But they live exclusively on fruit and\nvegetables, and kill no living being.\n\nThe functions of material life only take up a very short time, and life\nis mainly intellectual. Instead of personal rivalries, great and small,\nand the various ambitions which agitate the entire lives of the men and\nwomen of our poor little world, those beings are mainly occupied in\nstudy and pleasure.\n\nThere is no money. There are no rich nor poor. The fruits necessary\nfor nourishment can be picked anywhere beyond all needs. Summer is\nperpetual and no sort of clothing has been thought of because the\nbodily forms always keep their beauty, and coquetry would have nothing\nto conceal.\n\nThere is no old age. On reaching a ripe age one goes to sleep and the\nbody dissolves like a cloud, which becomes invisible by the change of\nstate of its molecules.\n\nNo law has instituted the marriage bond. As it would be impossible to\ncontract for interest, because there are neither castes nor fortunes,\nlove alone guides the choice. On rare occasions the years reveal some\ndivergence of character sufficient to lead to a desire for another\nchoice, but when this divergence shows itself there is no chain to\nbreak. Besides, they always remain lovers and never become married. The\ndesire of change, of variety, of curiosity, hardly arises because the\npersons who have freely chosen each other love each other beyond all\nothers and have only chosen each other because they knew each other.\n\nFriendships are sure and faithful, and there is no example of treason\ndictated by the vile sentiment of jealousy.\n\nContrary to what happens on earth, every person whose life is ruled by\nthe sentiment of personal interest or ambition would be considered as a\nmonster beyond all explanation and thoroughly despised. In that world\nthey do not, as we do here, meet people who are constantly unhappy on\naccount of a desire to occupy all the best places, are never satisfied\nwith their own lot, and who, being indefatigable opportunists, grab\neverything in their insatiable egoism, and die full of honours and\nvanities.\n\nThere is no frontier. Humanity forms a single family. Communications\nare established over the whole globe by a sort of language which passes\nwith the speed of lightning. An administrative council controlled by\nuniversal suffrage directs public education, science, art, and justice;\nand this universal suffrage is enlightened, and exercises its choice\namong the best and wisest spirits. The dregs of the population are not\nrepresented; the deputies do not shine by numbers and incompetence, but\nby worth. In a country corresponding to France, their number would be\nreduced from 600 to 100, every deputy possessing a special competence\nin legislative questions. It is superfluous to add that a Ministry of\nWar has never been thought of there. The people, led by reason, do not\nfollow a fetish. Besides, no patriotic sentiment can there be exploited\nor brutally debased, since no frontier divides humanity, and patriotic\nsentiment consists solely in the recognition of intellectual worth.\n\nNo institute of so-called official science has been established there.\nNo Sorbonne has condemned the theory of the Earth\u2019s movement, no\nAcademy has disapproved of the doctrine of perpetual peace. There\nare no titles, no decorations. Nothing is appreciated but personal,\nintellectual, and moral worth.\n\nThe word \u201cinfallibility\u201d does not exist in the language of that\npeople. Only one religion reigns in their hearts: natural religion,\nfounded upon astronomy. Their faculties, more transcendent than ours,\ntheir senses, more numerous and more penetrating, their more powerful\ninstruments of observation, have long ago placed them in communication\nwith neighbouring worlds, and they have been able to utilise astral\nmagnetism for purposes of transport from one world to another.\n\nThey have discovered the mystery of the union between force and matter,\nand know that there is a fundamental identity between them. In their\nown religions, they have never given God a name, and have never dared\nto play at a cult, knowing that such puerility and such pride would\nbe unworthy of their merit. Their religion consists in a belief in\nimmortality based on the knowledge of the intimate nature of being, in\npreparations for the future life, in efforts to make themselves better\nand more perfect by a continual study of creation, and a mutual love\nbased on an enlightened sentiment of justice and equity.\n\nThey consider Reason as the highest prerogative of the human race, and\nwould consider any doctrinaire mad who would forbid the exercise of\nthat faculty for the sake of any religious system whatever.\n\nFrom that world, nobody has ever yet perceived the Earth, and nobody\nsuspects its existence.\n\nTheir senses are more perfect and more subtle. While our human race\nis less endowed than certain animals which can foresee a storm, the\nchanges of the seasons, and earthquakes, they possess the sense of\norientation, which we lack entirely, although on our own planet certain\nspecies like the dog, the cat, the pigeon, and the swallow possess it.\n\nThey seemed to me absolutely happy, though exceedingly sensitive.\nThey spent the greatest part of their existence amid the most refined\npleasures. Their world is a perpetual paradise ever born afresh.\nPerfumes arise from the bosom of splendid and varied flowers, and woods\nare balmy with intoxicating spices, and the light of day plays upon\nfairy-like scenery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen I contemplated this marvellous spectacle, I felt surrounded\nand penetrated, so to speak, with waves of sound which cradled my\nenraptured soul in the most delicious melody my ears had ever heard.\nThe sensation of a celestial attraction seemed to carry me on a cloud\nand make me slowly descend towards an island on which a palace of\nflowers appeared. I felt a sort of electric shock and--I felt myself\nin a high ogival window of Venice. A gondola filled with musicians was\nreturning from the Lido by the Grand Canal. Groups chanted harmonious\nchoruses, the sky shone with stars, the moon was setting behind the\ndomes, and Mars was descending towards the horizon.\n\nThe old clock sounded slowly the twelve strokes of midnight. \u201cWell,\u201d\nI exclaimed, \u201cI have been sleeping. Here I have been for two hours at\nthis window. Meanwhile the Moon has flown 4,850 miles in its orbit\nround the Earth, and the Earth has traversed 410,000 miles in its\nrevolution round the Sun, drawn by that wonderful attraction which\nrules the world across the voids of space; perhaps it also rules\nour souls through the voids of time. \u201cThou beautiful starry sky,\u201d I\nmurmured, \u201cwho hast taught us so much already, wilt thou not soon solve\nfor us the riddle of the great mystery? Thou art our hope, thou alone\ncanst teach us, thou alone canst open before our eyes the panoramas of\ninfinity and eternity.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                             II. THE WORLD\n                              OF LONG AGO\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II\n\n                         THE WORLD OF LONG AGO\n\n\nI HAD a dream, which yet was not a dream.\n\nI found myself as an observer of the world as it was 100 million years\nago, inhabiting a planet in attendance upon one of those distant stars\nof space, in the middle of a sidereal universe analogous to that which\nexists at present, though it was not the same, for the universe of that\ntime was destroyed long ago and the universe of to-day did not yet\nexist.\n\nAt that time, also, there were stars and constellations, but they were\nneither the same constellations nor the same stars.\n\nThere were suns, moons, inhabited earths, days, nights, seasons, years,\ncountries, beings, impressions, thoughts, facts; but they were not the\nsame as now.\n\nThe Earth which we inhabit was not yet in existence. The materials\nwhich compose it floated through space in a state of diffused\nnebulosity, gravitating about the slowly condensing solar focus.\nThere were as yet neither water, nor air, nor earth, nor heavens, nor\nplanets, nor animals, nor any one of those bodies reputed to be simple\nby chemistry, as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, lead, copper,\netc. The gas (which by its condensations and final transformations\nwas eventually to give rise to the various gaseous, liquid, and solid\nsubstances at present constituting our globe and its inhabitants) was\na single homogeneous gas, containing within it, like an unconscious\nchrysalis, the possibilities of the future. But no prophet could have\nforeseen the unknown which slumbered amid its mysteries.\n\nOur planet showed at that time the aspect of those vague gaseous nebul\u00e6\nwhich the telescope discovers on the floor of the skies and which the\nspectroscope analyses. The solar nebula in the course of condensation\nfloated among the stars. All humanity with its history, every one of\nus with all his energies, all the living beings of this Earth, were\ncontained in the germ of that nebula and its forces; but the beings and\nthe things which we know were not to come into existence until after\na long incubation of centuries. In the place of what was destined to\nbe the Earth, there was nothing but a gas floating in starry space.\nNor was it in the real \u201cspace\u201d where we are now, for the Earth, the\nplanets, and the whole solar system came from afar and flew swiftly\nacross the void.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the history of creation, 100 million years pass like a day; they\ndwindle and disappear, a fugitive dream, into the bosom of that\neternity which absorbs all.\n\nThen, although our planet did not exist, there were stars, suns, solar\nsystems, and inhabited worlds as there are now. The humanities which\npeopled those worlds lived their lives as we live ours.\n\nIt would have been a wonderful spectacle for the thinker to contemplate\nthe great work of all those beings. In passion or indifference, in\npleasure or pain, in laughter or tears, in movement or repose, they\nlived; fighting, forgiving; accusing, forgetting; loving, hating; being\nborn and dying; drawn into the fatal whirlpool; blindly succeeding each\nother through the generations and centuries, not knowing what gave\nthem birth; ignorant of the fate in store for individuals and souls;\nplaythings of that Nature which forms worlds and beings, stars and\natoms, centuries and minutes, like soap-bubbles blown by a child into\nthe air; and all plunging into the sea, like those whirls of sand which\nthe desert wind raises and blows along in the typhoon or the breeze.\nIt is the same spectacle as that which the earth offers to-day; living\nmultitudes fighting for life and knowing only death.\n\nThe thought which must strike us most in our retrospective\ncontemplation is that at that time the _Earth did not exist_.\nNot one of those human beings who live now, who will live in the\nfuture, or who have lived in the past, were then thought of. Nothing\nof all that now exists around us existed then. Yet in those ancient\nworlds which have disappeared long ago, the humanities which animated\nthem had their vivid history, with flourishing cities, fights and\nstruggles, laws and law-courts, judges of spiritual things, historians,\neconomists, politicians, theologians, literary men, who took pains\nto tell the true from the false and to write down conscientiously\nwhat they, too, called \u201cuniversal history.\u201d For them, all creation\nstopped in their era and in their place; for all of them, creation was\nfinished; the rest of the universe and of limitless eternity was lost\nin insignificance in comparison with what they called the \u201cPresent.\u201d\nThey never thought of the eternity which had already passed before\nthem, nor of the eternity which would come after them.\n\nThey lived, learned or ignorant, famous or obscure, rich or poor,\nopulent or miserable, religious or sceptical, they all lived as if\ntheir era would never come to an end. Some of them, without losing a\nminute, amassed a fortune which their heirs hastened to dissipate;\nsome spent their time in dreams and contemplations without thinking\nof the morrow. In one place there would be battalions inflaming the\npopulace with their patriotic shouts; in another loving couples united\ntheir souls in mystery. Under the pressure of what they believed to be\naffairs of imperative importance, driven by the attractions of pleasure\nor borne on the wings of ambition, the inhabitants of that ancient\nworld, like those of ours, flung themselves into the whirlpool of life.\nThey, like ourselves, had days of glory and of sorrow; they had their\n\u201989 and \u201993, their Austerlitz and Waterloo, and political drama had\nits 18th Brumaire and its 2nd of December. Thus recently on our own\nEarth shone the life of Babylon, of Thebes, of Memphis, of Nineveh,\nof Carthage, the glory of Semiramis, Sesostris, Solomon, Alexander,\nCambyses, and C\u00e6sar; and to-day the silence of funeral solitude reigns\nsupreme over the ruins of the palaces and temples, in the slumber of\nthe invading night. In the history of the universe it is not only\npeoples, kingdoms, and empires which have disappeared, but it is whole\nworlds, groups of worlds, archipelagoes of planets, visible universes!\n\nFor eternity did not _begin_, it was never begun. The forces of\nNature have never been inactive. For Nature itself, our measures of\ntime, our conceptions of duration, do not exist. She has no past and no\nfuture, but a perpetual present. She remains immutable throughout her\nincessant manifestations and transformations. We pass away; She remains.\n\nOne can hardly think without terror of the innumerable beings which\nhave lived on the worlds now lost, of all the leading spirits who\nhave thought, acted, guided humanity in the path of progress, light,\nand liberty. One cannot think of Platos, Pascals, and Newtons of the\nvanished worlds without asking what has become of them. It is easy to\nreply that that is nothing, that they died as they were born, that\nall is dust and returns to dust. It is an easy answer, but it is not\nsatisfying.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCertainly, nobody can be so foolish as to claim to have found a\nsolution of the great mystery. For treating those profound problems of\neternity and infinity, we are about in the position of ants attempting\nto gain a knowledge of the history of France. In spite of all their\nmental gifts, which have indeed been fully recognised, in spite of\ntheir goodwill, their gallant attempts and all their efforts, it is\nquite probable that they would not get beyond the history of their\nant-heap and would not arrive at any reasonable conclusions concerning\nhuman beings and their affairs. To them, naturally, the proprietors of\nthe woods and fields are the ants, and the plant-lice domesticated by\nthem. And the parasites of the Earth are those inedible insects which\ninterfere with them. Do they know that birds exist? It is doubtful.\nAs regards men, they do not know of their existence, though it may be\nthat the ants in civilised countries have in their antennal language\nan expression corresponding to the idea of \u201csugar-maker,\u201d or cook, or\nconfectioner, or for some implacable enemy such as a gardener. But even\nif they suspected our existence, they could not form any idea about the\nhuman race or its history but--the ideas of ants.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt would no doubt be as useless as it is foolish to lose ourselves in\nthe nebulosity of metaphysics to attain a solution which will escape\nus for ever. But it is no doubt a proper subject for the exercise of\nour mental faculties to think of this particular aspect of creation:\n_Time_; to think that from all eternity earths inhabited like ours\nhave floated in the light of their suns, that from all eternity there\nhave been humanities enjoying the pleasures of life, and that from\nall eternity the end of the world has sounded on the hoary timepiece\nof destiny, burying in turn the universes and their inhabitants in\nthe tomb of annihilation and oblivion. For it is impossible for us\nto conceive a commencement which was not preceded by an eternity of\ninaction, and as far as the observational sciences can take us, they\nshow us forces in perpetual activity.\n\nIf infinite space dazzles us by its limitless immensity, an eternity\nwithout a beginning and without end arises, still more formidable\nperhaps, before our terrified gaze. The voices of the past speak to us\nfrom the abyss: they speak of the future.\n\nThe past of extinct worlds is the _future_ of the earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn 100 million years, the earth where we live will no longer exist,\nor if any wreck of it remains, it will only be a funereal desert. The\nvarious worlds of our system will have achieved their circle of life,\nthe histories of its human race will long ago have been finished, our\nown Sun, no doubt, will have lost its light and will roll along a dark\nstar, through the realms of night. It may be that, thrown back by\ndestiny into the melting-pot of perpetual change, united in a supreme\nclimax with some old dead sun traversing the same abyss, it will arise\nlike a ph\u0153nix from its ashes by the conversion of motion into heat.\n\nBut, then as now, the nebul\u00e6 will have given birth to suns, then as\nnow, endless space will be filled with stars without number gravitating\nin the harmony of their mutual attraction, the planets will swing in\nthe rays of their suns, mornings and evenings will follow each other,\nblue sky will spread overhead, clouds will float in the twilight\nmysteries, perfumed breezes will blow through the woods and valleys,\nmysterious sounds will stop the songs of the birds, and eternal\nlove will sway a later youth with the divine rapture of insatiable\naspirations. Marvellous ascension of life! Nature will chant, as it\ndoes to-day, the hymn of youth and happiness, and an imperishable\nspring will bloom for ever in this immense universe where the historian\nof the past sees nothing but tombs!\n\nIf there are no limits to space, if, whatever part of the sky our\nthought may essay, it can always pass on without being stopped by\nanything, however swift or prolonged its flight, if, in a word, space\nis infinite in every sense, it is the same with eternity: there is\nno possible limit to it, and whatever end we may imagine, whatever\nhour or minute fixed for its end, our thought immediately leaps the\nobstacle and continues on its way. Infinity even now is filled with\nbudding worlds, worlds reaching maturity, decadent worlds, dead worlds,\ndisseminated in all regions of an unlimited space, gaseous nebul\u00e6,\nhydrogen suns, oxidised stars, planets in the course of formation,\ncongealed satellites, disintegrated comets--the forces of Nature are\neverywhere active, the energy of creation remains constant, neither\nincreasing nor diminishing, and all the scientists agree in testifying\nthat what we call destruction and annihilation is only transformation.\nAstronomy reveals to us Time as it has revealed Space. It shows that\nthere is nothing peculiar about our present epoch in the history of\nNature, nor about our present position in space, and it combines Time\nand Space, the two forms of reality, in the same synthesis as the two\ngrand aspects of the development of the universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo, this dream was no dream. For to the human race which lived on the\ndifferent worlds of space during the ages preceding the formation of\nour solar system, the Earth with all its history was only a possibility\nof what the future might bring forth. It might never have existed at\nall. The writers of history of terrestrial peoples, Moses, Herodotus,\nManetho, Ma-Tuan-Lin, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Gregory of Tours, Bossuet,\nall those who have attempted to write universal histories, the great\nLeibnitz himself, who placed the commencement of the history of a\nsmall German duchy at the time of creation of the world, and even the\ndelightful author of the Metamorphoses, who tells of the history of the\nbirth of the Earth and Heaven--the astronomer smiles at their annals,\nas he has smiled at the genealogies of the kings and the conquests of\nthe C\u00e6sars--\n\n    \u201cBattles of ants in microscopic space.\u201d\n\nSimple illusions of infants who fondle their dolls!\n\nLet them invent new microscopes for distinguishing Charlemagne and\nNapoleon in the ant-heap of Lilliput; we cannot find them! And the\nwhole Earth, where is it? By an abstraction of thought, we manage to\nlive before it and after it; its whole history has disappeared like a\nlightning flash which passes in the calm of a long summer day.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs I contemplated those panoramas of time and space, as the bygone ages\npassed slowly across my view, with their long trails of past glories,\nand as the races which peopled the worlds arose from the depths of\nspace, shedding their winding-sheets and walking again in the flowery\npaths of life, all this prodigious secular past became present, and the\nmillions of suns extinguished through the ages lighted up and shone\nagain. The sky was bright with innumerable stars which our eyes had\nnever seen, and the light of life shed its rays on celestial shores\nstretching away to infinity!\n\nSuddenly, an immense black veil fell from the skies and hid the view,\nand I saw no more. In front of this veil, our planet flew along with\nits speed of 62 thousand miles an hour.\n\nI found myself again in the ordinary condition of an Earth-dweller, who\nsees nothing beyond the horizon, and who imagines that, in time as in\nspace, our mediocre humanity exists alone on the world.\n\n\n\n\n                            III. THE WORLD\n                                TO COME\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n                           THE WORLD TO COME\n\n The future is as real as the past. The world to come is in the mind\u2019s\n eye as substantial as the world of long ago.\n\n\nONCE upon a time, in a solar system belonging to the constellation\nAndromeda, a planet a million times the size of our Earth bore on\nits surface a very advanced human race. The eyes of its inhabitants\nwere constructed differently from ours and received radiations which\nare dark to us. Also, instead of five senses those human organisms\npossessed twelve. Their subtle and far-seeing industry had invented\ninstruments of great space-penetrating power, and they had succeeded\nin determining at immense distances the volumes, masses, densities,\nphysical and chemical constitutions, the movements, and the intrinsic\nnature of worlds at present quite indiscernible to us.\n\nAmidst the glories of a sumptuous civilisation, those human beings,\nwhose form did not at all resemble ours, thought, in spite of their\nprogress in astronomy, that they were the centre, the final goal, and\nthe justification for the existence of the universe. Some of their\nphilosophers had indeed put forward the idea of a probability of\ninhabited worlds, but this idea, received with scepticism by most of\nthe learned men and resolutely rejected by the theologians, was only\naccepted by the most liberal spirits with a reservation concerning the\nintellectual superiority of their race, considered as the necessary and\nnormal type of all humanity. To them it seemed impossible that Nature\nshould create anything other or better than what had been established\nin their own world; the zoology of their own planet set a standard,\nand living beings, they thought, could not be organised otherwise\nthan as they knew them. To their minds, the area accessible to their\nobservation included all the possible manifestations of the forces\nacting throughout the cosmos. It was only possible to have twelve\nsenses, neither more nor less.\n\nThere came a time when some transcending genius discovered among the\nstars of the constellation which terrestrial astronomers call Centaurus\nthe star which we call the Sun and around which we gravitate. He\nnoticed round this star nine principal spheres circulating round it,\nand, by some secret sympathy, he directed his attraction chiefly to the\nglobe which we now inhabit.\n\nThe star--our own Sun--and the nine planets we have just mentioned\nwere invisible in our sense of the word. They only emitted dark rays,\nblack light. For a long time already, in fact, the Sun had been\nextinct, and the humanities who had lived on the surface of the Earth,\nof Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, of the\ntrans-Neptunian planet and its sisters, had died in turn and had been\ngradually erased from the great book of universal life.\n\nBut by means of the superior methods of investigation which this\nAndromedic astronomer had at his disposal, he succeeded, after a\nlaborious study which it took him 250 years of continuous work to\ncomplete, in reconstructing the history of the terrestrial globe, which\ninterested him specially, and in discovering that it had been formerly\ninhabited by animals of different species, and in particular by certain\nbipeds endowed with relative intelligence.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis obscure globe, a black bullet revolving round another black\nbullet, had a whole history of its own. It had contained in former\ntimes an intense and luxuriant life. The springs and summers had\nbrought forth a profusion of flowers and fruit in the sunlit fields,\nthe land had unfolded its golden carpet of corn, springs had murmured\namong the hills, birds had sung in the trees, the perfumed breezes\nof meadows and woods had been wafted through the valleys, rivers\nhad rolled through the vast plains, villages and towns had grown\nup along their banks, human communities had gradually peopled the\nworld, inventing fruitful industries, delightful arts, brilliant\nsciences; prodigious cities had, in different ages, raised palaces\nfor kings and temples for gods; Memphis had succeeded Babylon, Athens\nhad followed Memphis, Rome had cast Athens into oblivion, Paris had\neclipsed Rome, and had vanished in its turn; hundreds of millions\nof brains had thought, hundreds of millions of hearts had beaten,\neternal loves had been sworn, divine embraces had united loving souls,\ninnocent children, charged by the light of day, had held out their\narms for the kisses of their mothers, and life in all its forms had\nsparkled for millions of years in sheaves of light ever renewed like\nuniversal and inextinguishable fireworks. Struggles, miseries, lies,\nrivalries, ambitions, battles, despairs, tears, mournings, had too\noften disfigured with black tempests the sky whose clearness had, in\nthe springtime of life, seemed unchangeable.\n\nWhat had dominated everything was a wise and impenetrable trickery\nby which Nature persuaded all young girls to become women, to adorn\nthemselves with irresistible allurements, and to open their arms to\nmen in order to assure the continuity of life, hiding from their\ntruthful eyes the dangers and sufferings to which she condemns them\nby surrounding them with flowers. And thus humanity had continued\nwithout a stop, believing that its destiny was to enjoy without end\nand progress without a limit; and thus it had finally reached the\nannihilation of the race and the planet, without leaving anything\nbehind of its splendours and its conquests. What is past is past.\nNeither terrestrial humanity nor its abode remained. All had\ndisappeared, all had been suppressed, except the spirit. The universal\nspirit still reigned. But the metamorphoses of matter had transformed\neverything. The entire history of our globe had been wiped off the\nslate by the sponge of Time; and the sidereal universe went on as if\nthat history had never been written.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor several millions of centuries, the Sun had been a globe of gas,\nshedding light and heat around it. After being a brilliant white it\nhad become yellow and then red, passing, in the course of its cooling\nprocess, through the successive stages of white, yellow, orange,\nand red suns like Sirius, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, and Antares. As it\nhad grown cooler, terrestrial life had become attenuated. The Sun\nhad finally been covered with a solid crust, often pierced by the\npressure of the incandescent lava within, and giving rise to prodigious\nvolcanoes. With the failure of light and heat, the joys and pains\nof terrestrial life had come to an end. And the radiant day-star\nof former days had become an obscure globe covered with oceans and\nclouds, without a new sun to illuminate it, without day or twilight,\ncareering through space in the eternal night, and gradually enveloped\nin a winding sheet of ice and snow consisting of carbonic acid. All the\nnations of the Earth had gone to rest in as many cemeteries. The dying\nSun had recapitulated in its evolution the phases of its ancestors.\nIn infinite space, the extinct suns are much more numerous than the\nluminous suns, and the stars revived by collision with another are\nthe exception. Temporary stars, which only shine a short time, are\nexceptional occurrences.\n\nThus our extinct Sun still roamed through the void, carrying along its\nretinue of defunct planets and travelling with great speed through\nempty and unconcerned space.\n\nAnd at the time of which we are speaking, the stars still shone in\nthe sky, the worlds still gravitated around the suns in space; but\nthey were no longer the same stars, nor the same suns, planets, or\nhumanities; it was neither the Earth nor its contemporaries. Life\ncontinued to blossom; but it was not our life.\n\nJust as, before the birth of the Earth, other worlds had flourished in\nspace, so also after the death of our planet will the universe continue\nto exist, as it existed during the human era. And in the world of which\nwe speak, a new and flourishing humanity shone in the joy of another\nsun. What had happened was in direct opposition to what terrestrial\ntheologians had taught us concerning the end of the world. For them the\nend of the world was to have meant the end of the living universe and\nthe establishment of a celestial and infernal world. For every one of\nthe mortals inhabiting the future globe of which we speak, life passed\nwith the fugitive and inexorable speed of the river which flows from\nits source to the sea, day by day, month by month, year by year, so\nswiftly that at the end of its course all the moments of that life seem\nto touch.\n\nThe inhabitants of the world of Andromeda lived on their immense globe\nand occupied themselves with their personal affairs as if our Earth\nhad never existed and without suspecting that long before them, in the\npast, our human race had played the game of destiny, cradled in the\nillusion that they existed alone in the world. Nobody thought, amid the\ncommon people, that worlds succeeded each other in time as well as in\nspace. Only the thinkers standing on the heights from which the whole\nof things and events can be surveyed, realised that important truth,\nthat the doctrine of the plurality of worlds applies to eternity as\nwell as to infinity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn our attempts to arrive at an idea of the constitution of the\nuniverse, two questions constantly and inevitably present themselves\nto our minds: the questions of Space and Time. They are correlative,\nbut their interpretations are far from being identical, as is often\nsupposed.\n\nSpace does not exist by itself, nor does time.\n\nIt is impossible to imagine the suppression of space. It is asserted\nin vain that space is the interval which separates two objects, and\nthat if the objects are suppressed, space vanishes also. That is a pure\nscholastic sophism. The definition is not exact. One can safely say\nthat it is impossible to suppress by a thought the place where objects\ncould be. The place, the locality, that void, if you like, by whatever\nnoun it is designated, is there quite ready to receive any object which\nour imagination can suppose to be there. Even though the universe did\nnot exist, if nothing, absolutely nothing, existed, that nothing would\nstill be space, empty space ready to receive an object. We are then\nforced to conclude that space exists by itself, even if it cannot be\nmeasured in any way.\n\nIt is not the same with time.\n\nTime is created by the movements of the heavenly bodies. If the earth\ndid not turn, nor the stars, if there were no succession of periods,\ntime would not exist. It is astronomy which has created time.\n\nIf you suppress the universe, space continues to exist, but time\nceases, vanishes, disappears.\n\nWe measure the duration of a second, of an hour, of a day, of a\nyear, because the heavenly bodies are there as points of reference\nbetween which we can count. Besides, it is all relative. If the Earth\nmoved twice as slowly, the days would be twice as long, but would be\napparently the same. If our calendar were different, it would still be\nour measure of time, and we should be none the wiser.\n\nOne may put all the clocks forward or backward by one hour, and all the\ncalendars by one day, one month, or one year, change the reckoning of\nthe centuries, or modify the time system in any way one pleases, but it\nwould not change the real course of nature.\n\nThe terrestrial days and years do not count in the heavens. The time\nwhich can be measured in our own system on the nearest planets, Mars,\nJupiter, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, although simultaneous with that which\nwe measure here, is not relative to ours. Time is essentially local. If\nwe did not exist there might be other measures of time, but it would\nnot be time according to our conception. In fact our impressions are\nrelative, there is nothing absolute in time. If we suppress life, the\nsensation of time disappears, time itself ceases to exist. In empty\nspace, a thousand centuries are no longer than one minute, because they\ndo not exist.\n\nIt is we who say \u201cyesterday\u201d and \u201cto-morrow.\u201d To nature, everything is\n\u201cto-day.\u201d Besides, every one of us has had the opportunity of proving\nfor himself that time does not exist when we sleep. To sleep one hour\nor five hours is the same to us as regards the appreciation of time.\nTime being purely relative, a sleep of a decillion years would be the\nsame as the sleep of an hour.\n\nRenan the philosopher, who expressed this truth, added: \u201cHeaven\ndoes not exist; in a decillion years it may possibly exist. Those\nwhom a tardy justice places there will believe that they have died\nthe previous evening. To have been, means to be. Succession is the\nabsolute condition of our mind; but in a material object, succession\nand simultaneity are confounded. When in the presence of death, we ask\nwhether the night will be long, we are as simple as the child who asks\nthe same question in going to bed, because he loves the daylight in\nwhich he plays.\u201d\n\nIf our thinking monads are associated with these worlds to come,\neternity is their empire.\n\nSpeaking in the absolute, time does not exist. But space exists.\n\nIt might be objected that space itself is a measure, and when we cannot\nmeasure it we cannot know it. No doubt if the terrestrial globe were\n100 times smaller, 8 feet would barely be as long as one inch, and the\nman measuring \u201c6 feet\u201d from head to foot would really only be \u00be inch\nhigh. But nothing would appear smaller, because the metre would still\nbe the ten-millionth part of the quarter circumference of the Earth,\nand everything would be reduced in the same proportion. As in the case\nof time, measurement is essentially relative and has nothing absolute\nabout it. But this does not alter the fact that time only exists by the\nsuccession of events, whereas space exists absolutely.\n\nEmpty space, which is nothing to our senses unless we measure it by\nsome length, cannot be suppressed. Whether we measure it or not this\nis nothing to do with its existence by itself. These measures of space\nwhich we take have no common measure with infinity, nor with absolute\nspace; yet they are taken in absolute space, and depend upon our means\nof observation. In the infinite void we can imagine several measures\nof space, all very different: for example, a fourth dimension which\nfor us has no dimensions at all, and in which modes of investigation\nunknown to us can discover other dimensions which we cannot even guess\nat, since for us three dimensions exhaust all possible measurements of\nspace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe past which is no longer in existence, the future which is not yet,\nis contained as a germ in the present. To the universal eye, everything\nis in the present. In transporting ourselves, as we have done, into\nfuture times, we observe the events of those future times as if they\nwere already present and already past. We are ephemeral atoms floating\nin the bosom of eternity, seen for an instant in a beam of light. We\nregard our epoch as a permanent reality--the illusion of a grain of\ndust which appears and disappears in the beam.\n\nHe who contemplates nature must live in those ages as yet uncreated as\nwell as in those which have passed away. And the future as well as the\npast are even more real than the present, which does not exist, since\nfrom one second to another time climbs up into the future only to fall\nLack into the pit of the past. Shall we say that the \u201cpresent\u201d is the\npresent hour? No, for an hour is long. The present minute? No, for the\nminute is long to the observing astronomer or physicist. The present\nsecond! No, for it is exceedingly long to electrify. Shall we reduce\nthe \u201cpresent\u201d to the tenth of a second? Yes, if you like, but it is\nstill relative to our sensations. Still, let us agree to that. Here,\nthen, is the present--a tenth of a second! All the rest is past or\nfuture, and eternity is the only permanent reality.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus, from that point of space and time where we were placed in that\ncelestial region of the constellation of Andromeda, we have seen arise\nbefore us, like a mummy awakening from a long sleep, the history of\nthe dead Earth, while we saw life shaping itself in a world which, in\nour twentieth century, was not yet in existence. Thence, reascending\nthrough the ages, we watched the slow secular evolution of our\nhumanity, until sunlit days became night and we lived in a new present\nwhich, in its turn, seemed unique and eternal.\n\nThe world to come is there, in the future eternity, just as the world\nof long ago is there, in the eternity of the past, and all is present\nin the Absolute.\n\nGod does not look either forward or backward. He does not remember,\nhe does not foresee: he sees. We can write our verbs in the different\ntimes, past, present, and future. In transporting ourselves by means\nof thought beyond even the distant era of which we have sketched an\nepisode, we could describe even this episode as an ancient event.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe history which we have written took place--a hundred million years\nafter to-day!\n\n\n\n\n                             IV. VENUS THE\n                               BEAUTIFUL\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV\n\n                          VENUS THE BEAUTIFUL\n\n             E\u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u03c2 \u043a\u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd \u03bf\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03c9 \u03b9\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f01\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1.\n            (Hesperus, most beautiful of stars in the sky.)\n\n                                                        HOMER, _Iliad_.\n\n\nIT was Homer who, 3,000 years ago, saluted Venus as the most beautiful\nof stars. Who has not been struck with her wonderful brilliance? Who\ncan refrain, when she shines so marvellously in the heavens, from\ngreeting her as the brightest of the stars and asking what mysteries\nare hidden in that light?\n\nThis radiant star of eve has been the first to be noticed since the\nearliest ages; it is the only planet mentioned by Homer; Isaiah\ncelebrated her splendour under the name of Lucifer; at the time of\nthe pyramids the Egyptians called her \u201cthe celestial bird of morn and\neventide;\u201d thirty-five centuries ago the Babylonians observed one of\nits transits across the sun; the Indians called her \u201cthe brilliant,\u201d\nand the Arabs \u201cZorah, the splendour of the sky.\u201d From the earliest days\nof the world she was the goddess of beauty and love. Let us raise our\neyes to the heavens to-night: there is the star chanted by Homer and\nVirgil.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow many events have happened since those far-off days! Nations,\nlanguages, religions, all have changed. Where are the eyes which looked\nupon Venus 3,000 years ago? Where are the hearts which confided to\nher their vows of love for all eternity? And who will be _our_\nsuccessors when, 3,000 years hence, the Parisians of the fiftieth\ncentury admire, as we do now, the star of the Iliad twinkling in their\nsky? The history of man passes quickly, the waves succeed each other\nand disappear in the ocean of the ages; the heavens remain, and the\nastronomer smiles at great ambition and puny achievements.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nVenus passes every eighth year through the period of greatest\nbrilliance (1889-1897-1905-1913-1921-1929). She is then so bright that\nshe casts a shadow like a small moon. This is easily seen either in\na dark room or when walking past a wall in the country. She can be\nseen in daylight with the naked eye, not only before sunset, but at\nmidday if one knows where she is. No star or planet attains anything\ncomparable to such brightness.\n\nThis visibility of Venus in daylight has been noticed for a long time;\nsometimes it becomes a public event, as in the spring of 1905. That\nyear among others our beautiful neighbour was under exceptionally\nfavourable conditions of observation. Everyone could see the radiant\nplanet flaming in the west in the spring; in February, March, and\nApril, the proximity of Jupiter, and sometimes of the Moon showed to\nall eyes a most charming spectacle. The astronomical ignorance of the\ninhabitants of the Earth is so universal that a free rein was given to\nfancy, and in France one could read in the papers, under the title:\n\u201cThe Luminous Phenomenon of Cherbourg,\u201d a series of the oddest and\nmost contradictory descriptions. They spoke of an oval disc describing\ncurves in the sky; the appearance of an electric meteor; a halo due to\nthe deviation of the sun; of an illuminated captive balloon, of a new\nkind of maritime signals, of an unknown star, of a comet, even of a\n\u201cconstellation\u201d!\n\nAnd there was more to come. On the eleventh day of observation, April\n11 (the strange apparition had commenced on April 1, and mariners might\nhave thought of an April hoax), the maritime prefect of Cherbourg\nordered the commander of the _Chasseloup-Laubat_ to study the\nluminous phenomenon, A vessel was sent to look for Venus! The naval\nofficers could not explain the mystery; one of them, however, wrote\nthat it might be the planet Jupiter!\n\nOther commanders, having heard of the comet discovered at the Nice\nObservatory by M. Giacobini, announced that the \u201cunexplained light\u201d\nmight well be that comet! They did not know that that comet was a\ntelescopic one, invisible to the naked eye.\n\nIn the night of April 10-11 a meteorite was seen at Tunis. The question\narose whether it was not this meteorite which had first been seen every\nevening at Cherbourg!\n\nThe phenomenon was signalled from Perpignan, Montauban, Nantes, le\nH\u00e2vre, La R\u00e9ole, Am\u00e9lie-les-Bains, etc.\n\nAnd so on. Every sort of stupidity was given out on the subject.\n\nWell, a star resplendent with light shone every evening in the western\nsky. It was Venus, the famous Shepherds\u2019 Star. It was seen from every\npoint of France, from Europe, Asia, the United States--and from\nCherbourg as well. For three months it reigned on high every evening.\nIt was also at its maximum brilliancy, and so bright that it cast a\nshadow, as we have said. And nobody at Cherbourg spoke of Venus, nobody\ncompared with Venus the new star situated in the same region of the\nsky, nobody thought that this mysterious heavenly body might be none\nother than the radiant planet. Nobody seemed to know that Venus was\nthere![1]\n\nThe story repeated itself from December 1912 to March 1913. Venus\nqueened it over the first hours of the night, moving ever nearer to us\nand remaining a little longer every evening above the horizon.\n\nOn the very rare date recorded by the postmarks as 12-12-12 (12\nDec., 1912), the conjunction of Venus and the Moon attracted general\nattention, especially as the weather was fine. It was the same at the\nother conjunctions, January 1912, February 11, and March 11.\n\nThis association of radiant Venus with the lunar crescent in the\nevening sky offers to the eyes the most inspiring of spectacles.\n\nThe sensation caused at Cherbourg in the spring of 1905 by the\nbrilliant star of the evening shining upon the sea and taken for a\nmysterious instrument of espionage was renewed in 1913, especially in\nEngland. Those who saw it, blinded by its radiant beauty, were led to\nconfound the Shepherds\u2019 Star with German airships, and accused them of\nespionage.\n\nOne could read, in fact, in the paper, that the authorities on the\nother side of the Channel were greatly alarmed by the nocturnal flight\nof mysterious dirigibles which came under cover of the shades of the\nevening and hovered over British ports. The cars and the balloons\nthemselves were, so it was said, invisible on account of the darkness,\nbut the powerful searchlights thrown upon the earth revealed the\nunusual presence of the aerial intruder!\n\nAt the same time we received from Russia similar stories of the fear\ninspired by Venus among the people, who professed to recognise in its\nbright light the fires of Austrian aeroplanes spying out the upper\natmosphere.\n\nIn Roumania, Venus was taken for a Russian aeroplane; and in Bessarabia\n(Russia), rifle-shots were fired at the beautiful planet, in the belief\nthat it was a Roumanian dirigible.\n\nYet it would be sufficient to use quite a small telescope or even a\ngood opera-glass to correct this error, for Venus showed phases which\nwould have immediately completed the identification, and certainly not\nallowed it to be confused with aerial vehicles.\n\nSuch popular emotions caused by the appearance of Venus are not\nconfined to our own times. In December 1797 the young General\nBonaparte, after his wonderful conquest of Italy, returned to Paris to\nreceive from the Directory the honours which presaged the consulate.\nAttended by a brilliant staff, he was going on horseback to the\npalace of the Luxembourg, where the Directory awaited him, when he\nwas surprised to see, in the Rue de Tournon, all the people who stood\nready to greet him turn round and look at a point in the sky instead\nof looking at him. His aide-de-camp told him that a star shone in the\nsky and that the French saw in it the star of the conqueror of Italy.\nIt was Venus, then at its maximum brightness. Political conditions have\nchanged, but the star remains.\n\nIt was there in mythological times:\n\n    Venus Astarte, daughter of the sea,\n    Shook off her mother\u2019s tears amid her fond caresses\n    And fertilised the earth in wringing out her tresses.\n\nShe was there, receiving the lovers\u2019 holocausts within the temples\nconsecrated to her in Greece, Egypt, India, all over the world, for it\nwas from her brilliant or mysterious aspects of the morning and evening\nthat the cult of her charming personality was derived. Even nowadays\nmany an observer sees in her only a radiant beauty in an ethereal\ndwelling-place, and does not remember that science has explained the\nidol and transfigured the star.\n\nFrom its greatest easterly elongation to its greatest westerly\nelongation the brightness of the planet is such that when it is\nnot quite close to the sun it is usually seen with the naked eye\nin daylight. Its phases are always curious and interesting. Their\ndiscovery by Galileo was of great importance to the beginning of modern\nastronomy in proving that the planets are globes without light of their\nown, similar to the globe which we inhabit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nVenus is no longer for us an allegorical symbol lost in the incense of\nthe clouds and reigning over enslaved hearts; the Earth is no longer\nan inferior abode controlled by celestial influence; the horizon\nis grown wider, our planet has been liberated in unlimited space;\nVenus has become a celestial Earth, our sister and neighbour, and the\nbetter-informed eyes which contemplate it to-day see in her, not,\nlike Homer and Manilius, a luminous point shining above our heads\nand controlling the feelings of our hearts and the movement of our\nblood, but a world corresponding to the world we ourselves inhabit,\ngravitating like us round the same sun, living on the same light and\nheat, and fit like ours to bear a thinking race for whom the Earth we\ninhabit is itself a star in the sky.\n\nVenus, the brightest star which ever shines in the limpid glory of the\nwestern sky, is not a star, strictly speaking; it is a planet, a world\nlike ours, and of the same size, which only shines by reflecting the\nSun\u2019s light into space. When one remembers that it is the same with us,\nand that, seen from the distance of some ten million miles, our Earth\nshines with a similar lustre, one is forced to admit that we are much\nmore beautiful from afar than we are close by.\n\nThere is indeed no possible comparison between the two aspects. Seen\nclose at hand, we are agitation, the struggle for existence, fight,\nbattle, envy, jealousy, drama, hunger, often misery; seen from\nafar, we are calm, serenity, pure nobility, celestial light, almost\nan image of God! It is probably the same with Venus, so white and\nso radiant seen from here; possibly if we could go close to her, we\nshould hear the cries of wild beasts in the forests, the battles of men\ndevouring each other in so-called civilised lands, and we might witness\ngeological and human revolutions, more formidable on account of the\nfact that Venus, younger than ourselves, is less advanced in evolution.\n\nBeing nearer the Sun than we and enveloped in a very dense atmosphere,\nVenus must have a higher temperature than the Earth. Its atmosphere is\nheavily charged with hot vapours. Its sky is always overcast; thunder\nand lightning must be never-ending. Electricity plays no doubt a\nprominent part. But, although many things are imperfect, there is good\neverywhere.\n\nIt is one of the charms of astronomy that it enables us to see through\ntime as well as through space. Those who remain in ignorance of the\nelements of this science do not even know that they are depriving\nthemselves of the most agreeable satisfactions of the mind. They are\nlike travellers who pass through a wonderful landscape without even\nasking where they are. This planet consecrated to Venus, the goddess\nof beauty and love, who, in the days of ancient Greece, was said to\nhave emerged from the waves to charm gods and men, and whose mythical\nhistory brings us such eloquent evidence of the influence of celestial\naspects upon the origin of religions--this planet, we say, owes its\nterrestrial glory to its situation between the Earth and the Sun. While\nour globe gravitates round the Sun at the distance of 92 million miles,\nin a year of 365 days, Venus passes along the orbit contained within\nour own, at the distance of 65 million miles from the Sun, in a year\nnumbering 225 days.\n\nIt follows that from time to time it passes between the Sun and\nourselves, approaching to within 25 million miles or even less, since\nthe two orbits are not circular, but elliptical.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne of the finest achievements of astronomy is having made man a\ncitizen of the heavens. The planet which we inhabit is a heavenly body,\njust as is Venus, Mars, or Jupiter, and far from occupying the centre\nof creation, it lies in the depths of infinite space as do the most\ndistant stars of the Milky Way. Venus possesses no more light of her\nown than does the Earth; she simply receives the rays of the Sun and\nsheds them into space as the Moon does. Take, for instance, a small\nfinder telescope and direct it towards Venus; you will see the form\nof a crescent. It is no longer Venus, but Diana. Take a rather more\npowerful telescope, and you will see that the border of this crescent\nis not regular, and the southern pole is blunted and rounded, while the\nnorthern pole is pointed. On increasing the power of your instrument\nyou will perceive the atmosphere by the gradual transition between the\nilluminated hemisphere and the dark hemisphere, or by the blinding\nclouds and light shadows which fleck its disc.\n\nIf you go still farther and give yourself the pains and the pleasure\nof doing a few astronomical calculations, you will see that the\ndiameter of its globe is just the same as that of the Earth--within one\nthousandth part!--but that Venus is a little lighter than the Earth,\nits density being only four-fifths of ours, whence it results that\nobjects weigh a little less on its surface than they would on ours:\n1,000 grammes transported on Venus would only weigh 880 grammes; on\nMars they would weigh even less, viz. 376 grammes; and even less on the\nMoon, viz. 165 grammes. We are very heavy down here.\n\nAstronomy alone teaches us that this young sister of ours is in\ncommunication with us, not only by means of light, but also by\nattraction, and that space, so far from being a separation between\nworlds, is a real link, an invisible hyphen. For example, when the\ndistance between us and Venus is 25 million miles, light only takes 2\u00bd\nminutes to cross that distance. Is that a serious separation? Even in\nFrance a telegram, in spite of its name, takes more than an hour to be\ndelivered a few hundred miles away, on account of intermediate links.\nIf astronomers ever succeeded in establishing celestial telegraphy,\ncommunication would be much more rapid between one world and another\nthan between one part of modern Babylon and another. An interplanetary\ntelephone would be almost instantaneous.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the luminous beams from Venus to the Earth only take two or three\nminutes to reach us, according to its proximity, the attraction between\nthe two planets is transmitted still more rapidly, for it does not\neven take a whole second. And just think! At the distance of millions\nof miles we feel the mysterious influence of Venus, we abandon for a\nmoment the regular course of our orbit round the Sun to follow in her\npath. Celestial mechanics calculates this displacement and accounts for\nit in its determinations.\n\nIf the Sun were not the strongest, the two sister-planets, Earth and\nVenus, would gradually approach each other and would graze one another\nlike two dragon-flies roaming together through the fields of the sky.\nBut fortunately for us, the omnipotent Sun soon resumes its rights, and\neverything is restored back to order.\n\nThe years of Venus are shorter than ours. Their precise duration\nis 224 days 16 hours 49 minutes 8 seconds. We do not yet know the\ndiurnal rotation, i.e. the length of its days. According to certain\nobservations, this appears to be about 24 hours, while others indicate\nthat this planet does not turn upon its axis at all, or rather, that\nits rotation is equal to its revolution and that it always turns the\nsame side towards the Sun.\n\nIt is extremely difficult to determine its rotation, for two reasons.\nFirstly, because its atmosphere is very dense and always full of\nclouds, so that it is impossible to make out its geography and to\nfollow in the telescope the displacement of its surface details; this\nis so easily done in the case of Mars, whose atmosphere is always\nclear, and whose rotation is known with perfect accuracy, its period\nbeing 24 hours 37 minutes 22\u00bd seconds. The second reason is the\ndifficulty presented by the phases of Venus. The closer the planet\napproaches us in its orbit round the Sun, the more does its disc\napparently grow in size and the less we see of its surface, because it\nat the same time passes between the Sun and us, so that its illuminated\nhemisphere, being naturally turned towards the Sun which illuminates\nit, is hidden from us.\n\nMy personal observations lead me to believe that the period of rotation\nis about 24 hours. At the Juvisy observatory we have often observed\nand photographed snowy patches in the north and south, probably\nmarking the extremes of an axis and therefore a rotation.\n\nThis special point is not yet decided. It is quite possible that the\ndays are very long there, or rather, that they last for ever--perpetual\nday on one side and perpetual night on the other side. That would make\nit a very singular world. On one side light, heat, and life; on the\nother, the icy coldness of death. Some might choose for their abode\nperpetual sunlight; others might prefer a night illuminated perhaps by\nelectric light; yet others might prefer to dwell in the dawn or the\ntwilight. Beautiful Venus would then have one hemisphere in perpetual\nnight and one in perpetual day. How strange! How our worlds must differ\nin the form of their organisms and the nature of their inhabitants!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe science of the stars opens unexpected outlooks on extra-terrestrial\nlife. We know already that Venus, the Earth, and Mars are three\nfloating homes controlled by the same forces, governed by the same\nattraction and cradled in the fluctuation of the same magnetism.\nRegarded from this point of view, Venus is more interesting to us than\nshe ever was in mythological times. Is not the knowledge of those\ncelestial sympathies a first stage of the road leading to the conquests\nof other worlds?\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The astronomical annuals had announced the brilliant\nappearance of Venus. But who reads the _Nautical Almanac_? People\nprefer to read the almanacs which falsely predict rain and fine weather\nand guess at the political events of the year. Humanity prefers its\nignorance and its illusions.]\n\n\n\n\n                                V. THE\n                              PLANET MARS\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\n                            THE PLANET MARS\n\n\nTHE inhabitants of the Earth are at last beginning to take some\ninterest in the sky. Tired of living as blind strangers to their\nown country, they are beginning to know that the world on which\nthey move about is a planet gravitating round the Sun, and that\nother sister-planets swing round at the same time in the harmony of\nthe solar system. Mars is now spoken of in public as one speaks of\npolitics and of socialism. In America as well as in Europe, at Buenos\nAyres, Mexico, or Caracas, as well as at Paris, Milan, Petrograd,\nBudapest, and Stockholm, the latest telescopic results are discussed.\nIt is known that this neighbouring planet sometimes approaches the\nEarth within 37\u00bd or even 35 million miles; that astronomers have\ntheir eyes on the planet and that they have observed luminous flashes\non it, the explanation of which is puzzling them. People remember\nthat in a certain year, 1877, the planet being in its greatest\nproximity, straight lines resembling canals were discovered, and\nthat the question of possible inhabitants of this new country and\nfuture communication with them has been raised. Questions are put and\nanswers are given, discussions give rise to curious confusions and\nexaggerations, but the net result is that an interest is created in\nthese high questions which raise us above the vulgarities of ordinary\nlife, and a general knowledge of the universe is advanced. That is the\nmain thing.\n\nThe last occasions on which Mars was in close proximity to us were\n1897, 1899, and 1909.\n\nThis remarkable development of public curiosity is easily explained\nby the marvellous achievements of contemporary astronomy and the\nadmirable precision of certain results obtained. Unless one has a stone\ninstead of a heart and a lump of fat in the place of a brain, it is\ndifficult not to feel some emotion over the achievements of science. If\nwe declare, for instance, that we know the general geography of Mars\nbetter than we do that of our own planet, the listener or reader is at\nfirst inclined to be somewhat sceptical. But if we show him, either in\na telescope or in a diagram, the snows of the north or south poles of\nMars, he will admit that nobody has as yet had a complete view of these\nregions on the Earth, in spite of the discoveries of polar explorers,\nand he will be convinced that we do know those Martian regions better\nthan our own poles. That is already a fact of some interest; but we\ncan go farther than that.\n\nIt is not only the pole, but the whole surrounding country that is\nbetter known on Mars than on the Earth, not only from the geographical,\nbut also from the meteorological point of view. Thus, for instance,\nwe can almost constantly measure the extent of the polar snows, and\nwe find that it varies with the seasons. We see with our own eyes the\nmelting of these snows taking place very rapidly under the light and\nheat of the Sun, night after night, so to speak, during a summer which\nis twice as long as ours. The snows disappear almost entirely, and only\na little ice remains on a region which we know, and which represents\nthe pole of extreme cold, situated 212 miles from the geographical\npole. In spite of the perseverance and heroism of arctic explorers,\nnone of these climatological facts have been witnessed on Earth. It\nis possible that the Martians are ignorant of their own phenomena if\nthey have been unable to reach their poles. Still, since their poles\nare free at the end of the summer, they are much better able than\nwe to explore their polar regions. We may say that in general the\nmeteorology and climatology of Mars are better known than those of\nthe Earth. At the time when you read these lines you do not know, and\nnobody can tell you, what sort of weather you will have to-morrow.\nBut we do know almost certainly what the weather will be to-morrow,\nnext week, next month, on such and such a region on Mars: if we do not\nwait till the winter comes, we know that it will be fine. Hardly do\nwe see a cloud between the vernal equinox and the autumnal equinox,\nneither in the equatorial nor the temperate regions, and hardly even\nin the circumpolar regions. If we are unable to make a drawing of the\ntelescopic image of the planet, the difficulty hardly ever arises\nfrom the Martian atmosphere, but from our own, which is so often\novercast or turbid. All the geographical configurations, seas, rivers,\nplains, covered with vegetation according to the moisture available,\nwater-courses varying with the seasons, canals and oases, are mapped\nout with precision; we know in advance which country will pass across\nthe field of our telescope; and the period of rotation, as already\nmentioned, is known to the 100th of a second. It is 24 hours 37 minutes\n22.58 seconds. We also know that the Martian year contains 59,355,041\nseconds, i.e. 686 terrestrial days 23 hours 30 minutes 41 seconds.\nBut since that planet turns on its axis a little more slowly than the\nEarth, there are only 668 Martian days in the Martian year. In fact\nthe Martian calendar is composed of two successive years of 668 days\nand a leap year of 669 days. As in our case, there is no exact number\nof days in the Martian year. Perhaps their calendar has also been\nreformed several times without being made perfect. But let us hope\nthat they are not as stupid as we, with our months of 28, 29, 30, and\n31 days, and calling the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth month the\nseventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth respectively; with our disagreement\nabout dates, Russia only arriving at the 1st of January when the rest\nof the civilised world has reached the 14th; with our three kinds of\ndays: the civil day which commences at midnight, the astronomical day\nwhich commences the next midday, and the naval day which commences the\nprevious midday; we who waited thousands of years before we could fix\nan exact hour, because we counted from conventional meridians, and\nthe various countries could not agree upon the single meridian. Being\nprobably more advanced than ourselves in its planetary age, Martian\nhumanity is most likely more reasonable and is not mixed up with the\nlittleness of frontiers, dialects, customs, national rivalries, etc.\nFor a long time already, no doubt they form a simple unit. One may\nalso suppose that they do not celebrate their new-year festival and\nits rejoicings amid the winter frosts, but in the hopeful days of the\nequinox.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne of the most curious observations which have been made on this\nneighbouring planet, or rather which have, apart from the canals,\nattracted the greatest attention, is that of the luminous flashes. It\nhas been said that these flashes are all seen at the edge of the disc,\nor beyond it. This is not correct; they show themselves on the line\nwhich separates the hemisphere illuminated by the Sun from the dark\nhemisphere--the line called the \u201cterminator.\u201d They are only seen when\nthe globe of Mars offers a sensible phase, and only along the line of\nthat terminator.\n\nThe phenomenon is a slight projection, swelling, or puffing-up of\nthe terminator. It is not a more extraordinary observation than that\nof the irregularities in the lunar diameter at certain phases: the\nSun illuminates, either before its rising or before its setting, the\nsummits of mountains whose bases are still in darkness, and such\nsummits sometimes appear on the Moon as luminous points detached from\nthe disc. Some fertile imaginations have interpreted these flashes as\nforests on fire or as signals sent out by the Martians. This is going\ntoo far. But the possibility of the population of Mars by a human\nspecies more intelligent than ours is quite a natural conclusion from\nthe observations. One may also guess without scientific heresy that\nthe canals of Mars are rivers straightened with a deliberate intention\nof distributing water which has become a rarity over that planet. The\nastronomers who deny these possibilities show a very poor spirit. But,\non the other hand, there is no reason to see nothing on that world\nbut human activity. Among several explanations of observed phenomena\none must always prefer the simplest. In the case of luminous dashes on\nthe terminator, the illumination of mountain-tops or clouds by the Sun\nsuffices to account for them.\n\nDoubts were raised concerning this explanation by the height of 200,000\nfeet found by an astronomer for the elevation of these mountains. I\nwent over the calculation and found only 15,000 feet. These mountains\nwould not therefore be higher than Mont Blanc, and perhaps less. We\nshould also remember that those luminous projections appear every time\nthat the planet returns to the same condition of illumination with\nregard to the Earth. They were observed in 1890, 1892, 1894, 1899,\n1907, 1909, 1911, 1913, etc. The regions where they appear are a sort\nof island called Noachis, another called Hesperia, and a third called\nTempe. According to all appearances, we have to do with high mountains\ncovered with snow and with still higher clouds.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe epoch at which the inhabitants of Mars can communicate with us\nhas not yet arrived, or perhaps it has already passed away. All\ncosmological studies agree in presenting this planet as older than\nours, since it is farther from the Sun, and as having passed through\nits phases of astral life more rapidly than we, on account of its\nsmallness and lightness. We cannot pretend to know the forms which\nliving beings may have assumed there; but we cannot imagine, on the\nother hand, that the forces of nature, being the same as here and\nexercised under almost identical conditions (atmosphere, climate,\nseasons, water, vapours, etc.), have been sterilised by a perpetual\nmiracle of annihilation while on Earth the cup of life overflows all\nround and the generative force of living beings everywhere surpasses\ncontinual and permanent production. But whatever may be the forms of\nMartian humanity, they must be superior to us, for several reasons. The\nfirst of these is that it would be difficult for a human species to be\nless intelligent than ours, because we do not know how to behave and\nthree-quarters of our resources are employed for feeding soldiers.\n\nThe second reason is that progress is an absolute law which nothing can\nresist. If therefore the inhabitants of Mars have passed their infancy,\nthe centuries have brought them to an age of reason, and their present\nstate represents what our race will be in several million years.\n\nA third circumstance is that they are better situated than ourselves\nfor escaping from the heaviness of matter. A given bulk of water,\nearth, or other substance is only seven-tenths of the weight it is\nhere; 1,000 grammes taken to Mars would only weigh 376 grammes there;\nand the woman weighing 8 stone would only weigh 3 stone there.\n\nAnd, finally, the climatic conditions appear to be much more agreeable\nthere.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose are all advantages in favour of the Martians. If, therefore, the\nidea has occurred to them to make signals to us, it is probably not at\nthe present time. There is no reason that they should think of it at\nthe same time as we and should wait for us. Perhaps they tried 200,000\nor 300,000 years ago, before the appearance of man, at the time of the\ncave-bear or the mammoth. Perhaps they addressed themselves to our\nplanet at the time of the Iguanodon and the Dinosaurus. Perhaps they\ntried again 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. Never having seen any sign of\nlife, they will have concluded that either there are no inhabitants on\nthe Earth, or that they are busy with other things besides the study\nof the universe and eternal truths. That was true yesterday--and it is\ntrue to-day.\n\n\n\n\n\n                          VI. THE GIANT WORLD\n                              OF JUPITER\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI\n\n                      THE GIANT WORLD OF JUPITER\n\n\nEVERYBODY notices, year by year, in a southerly direction, a bright\nstar which half the spectators believe to be the evening star, but\nwhich so far from being Venus, is its very antithesis.\n\nTo mistake Jupiter for Venus is a sufficiently gross error. But even\nthis error is preferable to nothing. It is better to be mistaken than\nnot to see anything. A large portion of the human race sees nothing\nat all, thinks nothing, and passes its whole life in the stupidity of\nplants and slugs.\n\nTo notice the star in the sky, even to give it a wrong name, is\nsomething, at all events. It shows that one does not go about with eyes\ncast on the ground or occupied with worldly affairs and with the spirit\nabsorbed by material interests.\n\nVenus, the Shepherds\u2019 Star, the morning and evening star, is never far\nfrom the sun. It is never in the south, neither in the evening nor at\nmidnight. Its orbit round the Sun lies within our own. Jupiter, on\nthe contrary, revolves round the same Sun along an orbit outside our\nown, five times as far as the central luminary, at 485 million miles\ninstead of 92 million miles. The distance between us and Jupiter is\ntherefore always greater than 393 million miles except when the Earth\nreaches the extremity of its elliptical orbit (\u201caphelion\u201d) at a time\nwhen Jupiter is in \u201copposition\u201d to the Sun. We often see it at a medium\ndistance of 450 million miles. If the atmosphere extended over all that\ndistance, an aeroplane flying without a stop at 62 miles an hour, and\ntherefore covering 1,500 miles a day, would take no less than 300,000\ndays or 812 years to complete the voyage. It would be wise to take some\nprovisions with us!\n\nBut on what sort of a world should we arrive?\n\nA giant world, an immense world, a strange world. It is only a thousand\ntimes smaller than the Sun--that is to say, 1,000 times larger than the\nEarth, or even more. Jupiter is eleven times larger in diameter than\nour globe, i.e. 1,300 times larger in volume. Gravitation is enormous\nat its surface, 2\u00bd times what it is here. A man weighing 10 stone\nhere would weigh 25 stone there. But its density is very low, being\none-quarter of that of the earth. It is a world of water and more or\nless dense gas.\n\nAstronomers observe it with great interest since they see it furrowed\nwith various currents and enveloped in clouds and vapours. The currents\nat the surface revolve with different speeds, so that it is difficult\nto know what is the rotation of the planet itself. At the equator, this\nrotation is accomplished in 9 hours 50 minutes 30 seconds; not far from\nthe equator, in the subtropical regions, it takes 9 hours 55 minutes 41\nseconds. Since Jupiter\u2019s year is twelve times as long as ours, there\nare more than 10,000 days per annum.\n\nHere is a curious circumstance: on account of the difference of\nrotation, the Jovian year comprises 87 more (Jovian) days at the\nequator than it does in the subtropical zone. If it were the same on\nour globe, the inhabitants of the Congo, Colombia, Borneo, and Sumatra\nwould have a day more in their year (and even five in four years) than\nthose of Senegal, the Antilles, Siam, or India, a difference of 125\ndays per century! It would be difficult to keep their calendars in\nagreement.\n\nThere are seven or eight kinds of currents between the equator and the\npoles, so that one can say of Jupiter, as of the Sun, that it does not\nturn in one piece.\n\nAnd those speeds themselves vary with the years. In the southern\ntropical zone there is a curious spot which has been followed with\nsome interest for fifty years. Although it is much larger than the\nEarth, it seems to float in the current. Constant observation shows its\nperiod of rotation to have been 9 hours 55 minutes 41 seconds in 1900\nand 9 hours 55 minutes 39 seconds in 1906, and its period returned in\n1913 to the figure of 1900. What is the nature of this floating spot?\nIn 1890 its colour was red. It then gradually got paler, and then\npink once more. Its shape was that of a long oval, measuring 26,000\nmiles in length, or more than three times the diameter of our globe.\nThe current in which it floats has not the same period of rotation\nas the spot itself. The spot is pushed from west to east, and it has\nshifted 57 degrees in two years. Now, a degree on the globe of Jupiter\nin that latitude represents 720 miles. This Jovian formation has,\ntherefore, been displaced 41,000 miles, or a distance more than five\ntimes the diameter of our planet. It is as if Australia were to detach\nitself from the bottom of the sea and float about on the surface of\nthe Pacific Ocean! Does this oscillation, which we only see in plan,\nand not in elevation, indicate the formation of a satellite trying to\ndisengage itself from its parent planet and not succeeding? It looks\nas if there were on this giant world of Jupiter no surface at all,\nbut irregular aerial layers one over the other, and full of clouds.\nThe temperature must be very high, and enormous masses of vapour\nare formed, to wrestle in prodigious storms. Though mythology is of\nno importance here, it is evident that Jupiter is indeed the god of\nthunder-storms. Jupiter is a world in the making, a sun which has lost\nits light, but not its heat. Its density, nearly equal to that of the\nSun, is barely greater than that of water. A globe of vapour varied by\nmountains of clouds, impalpable Himalayas, aerial Alps in convulsions,\nfluid and constantly agitated Pyrenees! Its colossal bulk has prevented\nits cooling as fast as our Earth, and it will no doubt take tens of\nhundreds of millions of years to arrive at a temperature fit for\ninhabitants. In all probability there is nobody yet on Jupiter, neither\nmen nor animals nor plants. This immense world is in its primordial\nstate and prepares itself for the future.\n\nSpectrum analysis shows that the substances which abound there are\ndifferent from terrestrial substances. Any living beings who may\ndevelop there will probably be chemically different from terrestrial\nbeings, and consist not of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, or nitrogen,\nbut of combinations of other substances. It will be a differently\nconstituted world.\n\nOur interest in observing it is not lessened by that consideration.\nThe thinking mind knows that our present era is of no particular\nimportance. It has been preceded by other eras and will be succeeded by\nother cycles. It is not because we live at this particular moment that\nour time can be said to be of any special value. The years contemporary\nwith Jesus Christ or with the Pharaohs who built the pyramids had just\nas much value as ours, and when we shall no longer be there, the Earth\nwill continue to revolve and measure out their days to our successors\nindefinitely. Whether Jupiter is inhabited this year or in 500,000\nyears or in 10,000,000 years is the same to the philosopher. Everything\nto him is present, both the future and the past ... this great subject\nhas already been dealt with, and there is no need to refer to it again.\n\nLet us greet Jupiter as the symbol of the future. Behind him, among the\nconstellation, there are stars whose light, starting at the time of\nthe siege of Troy, has only arrived to-day. Thus in the same celestial\nrecord the past and the future are thrown together, and they tell us\nthat if there is anything interesting in human life it is Thought, the\nmind which contemplates the universe, which lives intelligently, and\nwithout which all Nature would be but the play of an automaton.\n\n\n\n\n                            VII. HEARTBEATS\n                             ACROSS SPACE\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n\n                        HEARTBEATS ACROSS SPACE\n\n\nACROSS 92 million miles of space the magnetic pulses of the solar heart\nare transmitted to the earth, and they make the small and light compass\nneedle, ever trembling and seeking its pole, vibrate on its pivot.\n\nThis magnetic needle does not remain fixed in the magnetic meridian,\nbut oscillates every day to the right and left of the line, i.e. to\nthe east and west. The greatest deviation is produced at about 8 a.m.\nThe needle stops and returns to the magnetic meridian of the time (it\nvaries from year to year), crosses it a little after 10 a.m., and\ncontinues to deviate towards the west, reaching its greatest deviation\nabout 1.15 p.m. It then returns to the meridian, which it reaches about\n6 p.m. and crosses to the east. It moves very slowly, with a slight\noscillation between 8 and 10 p.m. to the east, attaining at 8 a.m. the\ngreatest easterly deviation with which we began.\n\nSuch is the daily oscillation of the needle, a process expressive of\nthe unknown and mysterious vital current which traverses our planet and\nmanifests, so to speak, the soul of the earth.\n\nThis phenomenon is absolutely general and is observed on the entire\nglobe, from the equator to the poles, in the same manner; the amplitude\nof the oscillation increases with the latitude but not proportionately;\nit only amounts to 1 or 2 minutes of arc in the tropics, to 9 minutes\nin France, and 7 minutes in Norway. This variation corresponds sensibly\nto the variation of temperature, the amplitude of which increases\nfrom the tropics to the poles. Heat, electricity, water-vapour, and\nbarometric pressure are all associated with it.\n\nThere are certain perturbations, to be mentioned presently, to which\nsome human beings are sometimes a little too sensive. We live enveloped\nin an invisible world.\n\nThe amplitude of this daily oscillation varies from day to day,\nfrom month to month, from year to year. If we take the mean of the\nobservations of a whole year, we find that from one year to another\nit changes from a certain amount to double that amount and that this\nannual variation is regulated by a law. It is periodic, and the average\nperiod is eleven or twelve years.\n\nFor instance, in 1870 the oscillation was twelve minutes of arc and in\n1878 it was six minutes. I take the figures for London, Prague, Munich,\nRome, and Milan--not those for France, for no observations were made in\nthat terrible year, or they were made badly, and I made many enemies\nby insisting upon them.\n\nThat year, 1870, was a maximum. There were other maxima, but not quite\nso great, in 1883, 1893, 1905, and in 1916. The cycle varies from ten\nto thirteen years.\n\nNow, this behaviour of the magnetic needle corresponds exactly to the\nstate of health of the Sun, i.e. its activity or the number of sunspots\nor whirlpools which indicate it as well as its gigantic flames,\nprotuberances, facul\u00e6, and the various manifestations of its radiating\npower.\n\nThere was a very considerable maximum of sunspots in 1870. Another\nmaximum occurred in 1883 and another in 1905, but the latter were less\nmarked than that of 1870. In 1918 another very well defined maximum\noccurred.\n\nMinima of sunspots, protuberances, and facul\u00e6 were observed in 1878,\n1889, 1901, and 1913. Now, these maxima and minima correspond exactly\nwith the variation of the compass needle, as is shown in the tables and\ncurves published in my _Astronomie Populaire_.\n\nIf curves are traced for solar activity on the one hand and magnetic\noscillation on the other hand, it is found that the two curves are\nabsolutely parallel. Science has been able to trace this parallelism\nvery far, as far back indeed as the eighteenth century, and it is\nfound to include the aurora borealis, which is a magnetic phenomenon.\nThe concordance is evident and absolutely incontestable.\n\nThus there constantly emanates from the Sun a force different from\nlight and heat, a force we do not perceive with our senses and which\nplaces our small and mobile planet in constant communication with our\ncentral star, which is more than a million times greater in volume.\n\nThe Sun sometimes experiences violent expansions, perturbations,\ntempests, and magnetic storms. The smallest disturbances which happen\nin our formidable star are transmitted to us.\n\nFor instance: the years 1904 to 1908 were very strange so far as the\nSun was concerned. Instead of the single maximum which is usually\nobserved, there were two maxima, one in 1905 and another in 1907, 1906\nbeing less active. The curve traced to represent the number of sunspots\nshows two peaks, in 1905 and 1907 respectively, with a depression in\n1906. It is the same with terrestrial magnetism: maxima in 1905 and\n1907, with a slight weakening in 1906.\n\nWhen I discovered this unexpected coincidence for 1906, several\nsceptics were greatly surprised. Yet it is true.\n\nIt was the same when I accused the Sun of being the author of the\ninterruption of telephonic and telegraphic communication on September\n25, 1909, which took place over the whole of France, in all Europe,\nand throughout the world. The telephone girls were unjustly blamed and\nthe telegraph engineers were equally innocent. Why had no newspaper\nthought of it? Perhaps because politics are cultivated more than\nscience in the papers of our unbalanced days. I do not accuse our\ncountry more than another, the English, German, American, Australian,\nand other editors having been equally astray concerning the cause of\nthe perturbation.\n\nOn that day the intensity of the earth-currents which produced the\nbreakdown was 50 million amperes, whereas the instruments work\nregularly with 10 to 12 milliamperes. The whole terrestrial globe\nhad been plunged into a magnetic field of great intensity, into a\nveritable dynamic ocean originating in a solar torrent. A large group\nof sunspots surrounded by facul\u00e6 had arrived on the eastern limb of\nthe solar globe on September 17, and had gradually advanced towards\nthe central meridian of the solar hemisphere turned towards us by\nthe Sun\u2019s rotation. On the 19th, this group had become much larger.\nThe spectroscope had indicated violent eruptions. The enormous group\nof sunspots was visible to the naked eye and numerous photographs of\nit had been taken at the Juvisy Observatory. It passed the central\nmeridian of the Sun on the morning of September 24 and continued its\ncourse towards the western limb, disappearing from sight on October\n1. The magnetic perturbation which struck our planet arrived 30 hours\nafter the passage of this group of sunspots across the central meridian\nof the solar hemisphere facing us.\n\nWe had already, on October 31, 1903, observed a similar cosmic\nphenomenon, and previously on November 18, 1882, and August 3, 1872.\nEven before that date a similar event took place on September 1,\n1859. But memory is short, and in any case astronomical ignorance is\nuniversal.\n\nThe magnetic link, invisible but powerful, joins our Earth to the\ncentral body of the solar system. P\u0153ebus Apollo holds us in the hollow\nof his hand at a distance of 92 million miles, and we feel his pulse\nas he feels our feeble heart-beats. It is not only gravitation, nor\nonly light, nor yet only heat, which throws a celestial bridge from\nthe Sun to the Earth; it is also electricity; it is also magnetism;\nit is a force still unknown and unexplained which no doubt maintains\ncommunication between all the worlds. For the ethereal wave touches\nMercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune as it\ntouches us, and if we could utilise it we could communicate with our\nneighbours in the heavens.\n\nInterstellar magnetism! At each stage in the advance of science new\nhorizons open out, unexpected perspectives reveal themselves, enlarging\nthe field of our conquest over nature, but what we do know already is\na mere nothing in comparison with what we are yet to know.\n\nWhat is the nature of the wave or substance which leaves the Sun and\nreaches the Earth to produce those agitations of the magnetic needle,\nthose magnetic storms and auror\u00e6 boreales?\n\nContemporary physics has been busy for twenty years about ions,\nelectrons, and electric particles. The great perturbations described\nabove are supposed to be due to the arrival in the upper atmosphere\nof torrents of electrons projected by the Sun and impinging upon the\nEarth with a speed of several thousand miles per second. The phenomenon\nis most intense when these emanations from the day-star hit the Earth\ndirectly. When they pass on one side, nothing out of the way happens.\nIt may be that the torrent projected in a certain direction by the Sun\non September 24 filled space in the direction of projection, and that\nour globe, travelling along its orbit at 67,000 miles an hour, only\npassed through that region on the following day.\n\nIons and electrons, those convenient goblins of present-day physics, do\nthey exist? Nobody has ever seen them. Perhaps they are only ingenious\ninterpretations. What does certainly exist is electric force. We may\nalso think of the repelling force exerted by the Sun, which blows\nso strongly upon the nuclei of comets and produces tails several\nmillion miles long and always in the direction opposed to the Sun.\nElectricity plays a great part in the appearance, the illumination,\nand the dislocation of comets\u2019 tails, as we see nearly every year in\nthe photographs taken at the Juvisy Observatory and which make such\npicturesque and suggestive revelations (it even plays a part in organic\ncells and among microbes).\n\nWhatever may be the real nature of the force in action, it is certain\nthat the magnetic link differs from universal gravitation, but it is no\nless intimate and all-pervading. The twin forces of gravitational and\nmagnetic attraction between worlds can only be likened to the universal\nforce of love, which attracts souls towards each other.\n\n\n\n\n                        VIII. IDEAS CONCERNING\n                         COMMUNICATION BETWEEN\n                              THE WORLDS\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VIII\n\n           IDEAS CONCERNING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE WORLDS\n\n\nTHAT in a future, which is perhaps not very far distant, say in a\ncentury or two, the inhabitants of our planet might enter into optical,\nelectrical, or telepathic communication with those of another planet of\nthe solar system is an event which we have some right to expect, though\nit is not a matter of to-morrow.\n\nAbout the year 1840 the astronomer von Littrow, Director of the\nVienna Observatory, put forward the idea of attempting an optical\ncommunication with the Moon. A triangle traced upon the soil of the\nMoon by three luminous lines each from 7 to 9 miles long would be\nvisible from here by means of our telescopes. We even observe much\nsmaller detail, such as the singular topographical designs noticed in\nthe lunar circle which goes by the name of Plato. Thus a triangle, a\nsquare, or circle of that size, constructed by us on a vast plain by\nmeans of luminous points, either during the day by the reflection of\nsunlight, or during the night by means of electric light, would be\nvisible to the astronomers of the Moon, if such astronomers exist and\nif they have optical instruments equivalent to ours.\n\nThe rest of the argument is of the simplest. If we observed on the\nMoon a correctly constructed triangle, we should be considerably\ninterested. We should ask ourselves whether we had observed wrongly or\nwhether an accidental geographical movement might have given rise to a\nregular figure. We should no doubt end by admitting that exceptional\npossibility. But if we suddenly saw that triangle change into a square,\nand some months later be replaced by a circle, we should then admit\nlogically that an intelligent effect proves an intelligent cause, and\nwe should think with some reason that such figures undoubtedly reveal\nthe presence of geometers on the neighbouring world.\n\nFrom that position to a search for the reason for the formations on\nthe Moon\u2019s surface and to the question why and with what object those\nunknown comrades drew those figures would be a short step quickly\ntaken. Would it be with the idea of entering into communication with\nus? The hypothesis would not be absurd. It would be put forward, it\nwould be discussed, it would be rejected as far-fetched and defended\nas ingenious. And after all, why not? Why should the inhabitants of\nthe Moon not be more curious than we, more intelligent, of higher\naspirations, less stuck in the bog of material necessities? Why should\nthey not suppose that the Earth can be inhabited as well as their own\nworld, and why should these geometrical appeals not be made with the\nobject of asking us whether we exist? Besides, it is not difficult\nto reply. We are shown a triangle, we reproduce it here. A circle is\ntraced, we imitate it. And so communication is established between the\nHeavens and the Earth for the first time since the beginning of the\nworld.\n\nGeometry being the same for all the inhabitants of the universe, and\ntwice two making four in all the regions of infinite space, and the\nthree angles of a triangle always being equivalent to two right angles,\nsignals thus exchanged between the Earth and the Moon would not even\nhave the obscurity of the hieroglyphics deciphered by Champollion,\nand the communication, once established, would become regular and\nfertile. Besides, the Moon is close by. Its distance of 240 thousand\nmiles is only thirty times the diameter of the earth, and many a rural\npostman has covered that amount of ground on foot during the course\nof his life. A telegram would arrive there in a second and a quarter,\nand light takes the same time to cover that distance. The Moon is a\ncelestial province joined to our destiny by Nature herself.\n\nUp to now we have noticed nothing on the Moon which might lead us\nto suspect the existence of a thinking humanity inhabiting that\nsmall celestial island. Tet the astronomers who specially observe\nour satellite and who study its singular aspects with attention and\nperseverance are generally of opinion that that heavenly body is not\nas dead as it seems. We must not forget that in the present state of\noptical science it is difficult in practice to apply to the study of\nthe Moon a magnification greater than a thousand times. To see our\nsatellite a thousand times closer than it really is still leaves it\nat a distance of 240 miles. Now, what can be distinguished at such a\ndistance?\n\nIt is certain that mysterious variations actually occur on the surface,\nnotably in the arena of the amphitheatre of Plato as mentioned above.\nWhat is also certain is that the lunar globe, 49 times smaller than\nthe earth and 91 times lighter, exerts on its surface a gravitational\nattraction six times less than that which exists at the surface of our\nown planet, so that an atmosphere analogous to the air we breathe would\nbe more rarefied and difficult to perceive from here. It is therefore\nnot surprising that this neighbouring world is so different from ours.\nBesides, seen from a balloon 3 or 4 miles above ground, the Earth\nappears deserted, uninhabited, as silent as an immense cemetery, and\nwhoever arrived from the Moon in a balloon could ask himself even at\nthat small distance whether there were any people in France or any\nsound in Paris. Such at least is the impression conveyed to me by my\naerial voyages.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe cold and deathly aspect of our pale satellite was not encouraging\nfor the realisation of the original project of the astronomer J. von\nLittrow, and soon afterwards, forgetting our nearest neighbour, the\nimagination of some physicists was bold enough to consider the planet\nMars, which is never nearer than 35 million miles, but is the best\nknown of all the countries of the sky and which offers so many points\nof resemblance with our world that we should hardly feel exiled if we\nwere to transport our household gods thither. The aspect of Mars indeed\ntends to comfort us after that of the Moon. One could imagine oneself\nin some terrestrial region. The seasons, summer and winter, autumn and\nspring, days and night, mornings and evenings, waters, clouds, snows,\natmospheric variations, plains adorned with various vegetations--all\nthese things present many resemblances to our own world. The years are\nlonger there since they last 687 days, but the extreme variations of\nthe seasons are about the same as with us since the inclination of the\naxis is about the same. The days are also a little longer, since the\ndiurnal rotation is 24 hours 37 minutes 23 seconds, but the difference\nis not great. And you will notice that this is all known with great\nprecision, that diurnal rotation, for example, is known to within\none-tenth of a second, or we might even say one-hundredth of a second.\n\nWhen, on a fine starry night, we examine this world through the\ntelescope, when we see the polar snows which melt in the spring, the\nfinely marked continents, the mediterraneans with long gulfs, the\neloquent and varied geographical configuration, one cannot help asking\nwhether the Sun which illuminates that world as it does ours shines on\nnothing living, whether those rains fertilise anything, whether that\natmosphere is breathed by any living being, and whether that world\nof Mars which rolls swiftly through space resembles a railway train\ntravelling empty without either goods or passengers. The idea that the\nEarth where we are could swing round the Sun as it does without being\ninhabited by any creature whatever appears so absurd as to be hardly\nworth thinking about. By what permanent miracle of sterilisation would\nthe forces of nature which act there as they do here have remained\neternally inactive and barren?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is therefore conceivable that one might apply to Mars the plan\noriginally proposed for the Moon. The distance of that planet is such\nthat although it is much larger than the Moon in volume, it appears 63\ntimes smaller when it is nearest to us. Yet one may understand that\na telescope which magnifies 63 times enlarges Mars to the size of the\nMoon as seen with the naked eye, and that a magnification of 630 gives\nit a diameter ten times larger than that of our satellite.\n\nYet if ever the attempt is made to put any sort of project of\ncommunication between us and Mars into practice, the signals would have\nto be carried out on a much vaster scale. It would not be triangles,\nsquares, circles, of several miles which would have to be constructed,\nbut figures of 70 miles or more, always supposing (1) that Mars is\ninhabited, (2) that these inhabitants occupy themselves with astronomy,\n(3) that they have optical instruments analogous to ours, and (4) that\nthey carefully observe our planet, which to them is a brilliant star\nof the first magnitude, the morning and evening star, and in fact the\nbrightest heavenly body.\n\nIs this fourfold hypothesis acceptable! If that question were put to\nthe vote of the citizens of the Earth, without asking the opinion of\nthe Central African savages or the South Sea Islanders, but only the\nnumerical majority of the European population, one may safely wager\nthat they would not even understand the question, for the majority of\nmankind does not know that the Earth is a planet and that the other\nplanets are Earths.\n\nAnd then there is sound common sense which reasons so justly on\naccount of the excellence of its education. \u201cWe are,\u201d it says, \u201cwithout\ndoubt the most intelligent beings of creation. Why should other planets\nhave the honour of being enriched by intellectual excellence such as\nours? Can we even admit the existence of beings similar to ourselves?\u201d\nNo doubt one could perhaps remark that the most gifted nations of the\nEarth do not know how to conduct themselves, that their intelligence is\nchiefly exercised in devouring each other and in ruining themselves,\nthat they mortgage the future like blind fools, that thieves are not\nuncommon, nor even murderers. But apart from that we are obviously very\nsuperior beings, and it is hardly likely that on any of the myriads of\nworlds which gravitate in the immensity of space nature should have\ngiven birth to intelligences of our calibre.\n\nWhy therefore should we attempt an optical correspondence with the\nplanet Mars? If it is inhabited, the inhabitants have not our powers,\nand our trouble would be thrown away. Even should they see our signals,\nthey would never think that they were meant for them.\n\nAlso, we shall never attempt it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut is it possible that the inhabitants of Mars have already commenced\nand that it is we who do not understand?\n\nAccording to geological computations, the minimum age of the Earth\nas a habitable sphere since the formation of the first dry land is\n20 million years: 10 million 700 thousand for the primordial age, 2\nmillion 300 thousand years for the secondary age, 460 thousand years\nfor the tertiary age, and 100 thousand for the quaternary age. Man has\nexisted on Earth since the end of the tertiary age, that is over 100\nthousand years. Astronomical instruments were only invented in 1609,\nand Mars was not observed nor recognised in its principal geographical\ndetails until 1858. Complete observations of Martian geography only\ndate back to 1862. The first detailed triangulation of the planet, the\nfirst map comprising the smallest objects visible in the telescope\nand measured by micrometer was only commenced in 1877, continued in\n1879, and completed in 1882. It is therefore only a few years since\nMars entered into the sphere of our practical observations. I may\nadd that only very few of the Earth\u2019s inhabitants have seen it in\nall its details, one of the foremost of these being the astronomer\nSchiaparelli, the Director of the Milan Observatory.\n\nAccording to the most probable cosmogonic theory, Mars is older than\nour planet by several million years and much more advanced along\nits path of destiny than ours. The inhabitants of Mars may have\nbeen signalling to us for 100 thousand years. Nobody on our planet\nwould have suspected it. It is only since the seventeenth century\nthat astronomers may have thought, not of discovering such signals,\nfor their instruments were not sufficiently powerful, but of the\npossibility of some day seeing a little more of what happens on that\nneighbouring world. In fact it is only a few years that we have had any\nhope of distinguishing these minute details, not to speak of explaining\nthem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, this is what happened. The map of the planet Mars was made with\ninfinite care by the able astronomer of Milan. One sees on this chart\nin several regions certain points where the observer has found the\npresence of luminous patches shining like snow illuminated by the sun.\nThat these luminous patches are due to snow is not likely, because\nsome are seen near the equator in the tropics as well as at higher\nlatitudes. Nor does it seem likely that they are the tops of mountains,\nfor they are close to the seas and arranged symmetrically to certain\nstraight canals. Besides, several of them seem to trace out meridians\nand parallels of latitude, and on seeing them one involuntarily thinks\nof Geodesic signals. One sees triangles, squares, and rectangles.\n\nThat these luminous points should have been established by engineers\nor astronomers on Mars is not my idea. That the 60 great rectilinear\nparallel canals which we admire on that planet and which establish\ncommunication between the Martian seas should be the work of the\ninhabitants of this neighbouring planet would be presumptuous to\nimagine. That is not the conclusion I would arrive at. Nature is so\nrich in procedure, so varied in its manifestations, so multiple and so\ncomplex in its effects, and often so strange and original in its play,\nthat we have no right to limit its mode of action.\n\nBut it is none the less true that if the inhabitants of Mars wished\nto send us any signals, that method of procedure would be one of the\nsimplest and it is in fact the only one which has been devised among\nourselves. They could not do better than thus dispose luminous points\nat certain distances according to geometrical figures. For instance,\none finds the intersection of the 267th meridian with the 14th degree\nof northern latitude a region limited by points situated at distances\nfrom each other corresponding to Amiens, Orleans, and Le Mans. If the\ninhabitants of Mars wished to send us signals they could not have\nchosen better places for their luminous stations.\n\nI am far from saying that this is so and that there is any intention\nin this arrangement. Yet if it were so, it would be we who did not\nunderstand.\n\nAnd there is nothing surprising in this. The inhabitants of the\nEarth take no interest in the Heavens. Ninety-nine per cent, of them\namong the 1,500 million Earth-dwellers do not know what they walk\non and have no conception of the reality. They are busy with eating,\ndrinking, and reproducing themselves, with amassing various objects,\nwith patriotically devouring each other, and with dying. But as regards\nasking where they are or what is the universe, that is no concern of\ntheirs. Their native ignorance suffices them. They live in the middle\nof the Heavens without knowing it and without the slightest enjoyment\nof intellectual happiness which some select spirits find in the\nrecognition of truth.\n\nThe inhabitants of Mars, on the other hand, being more ancient than\nourselves, can be much more advanced in the way of progress and can\nlive an enlightened and intellectual spiritual life. We are safe in\nsupposing that they know our world much better than we know theirs, and\nthat our astronomical science is only child\u2019s place beside theirs. If,\ntherefore, the people of Mars, living perhaps for a long time already\nin the harmony of a peaceful and intelligent life, had thought of\nattempting to send signals to the Earth, with the idea that perhaps our\nplanet is also inhabited by an intellectual race, then since they have\nnever received any answer from us they will have concluded that we are\nnot on their level, that we do not busy ourselves with the matters of\nthe sky, that astronomy and optics are not very advanced among us, and\nthat in all probability we have not yet emerged from clumsy material\ninstincts. Is their conclusion very far from the truth?\n\nPerhaps also the Martian academies declare the Earth uninhabitable and\nuninhabited: (1) because it is not absolutely identical with their\nplanet, (2) because we have only one Moon whereas they have two, (3)\nbecause our years are too short, (4) because our sky is very often\novercast, whereas theirs is almost always clear, (5 and 6) for a\nthousand other reasons, each as cogent as the rest.\n\nAs we have seen above in the chapter on Mars, one often notices besides\nthe luminous points we have mentioned certain more extensive brilliant\nprojections which appear on the terminator and which must be caused by\nthe reflection of the rising or setting sun on snowy peaks or on clouds\nwhich are certainly not signals. However this may be, of all the bodies\nwhich blaze in the skies on a clear night, and particularly of all\nthose bodies which gravitate with us round the Sun, there is one which\nengages with a captivating interest the attention of astronomers. It is\nthe singular little world of Mars. But it is not so easy to communicate\nwith it as was supposed by that good lady of Pau, Madame Guzman, who\nleft a legacy to the Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences in the shape of a prize of\n100,000 francs to be given to the first person who should discover a\nmeans of communicating between the Earth and another world--with the\nexception of the planet Mars, because it would be too easy! So true it\nis that on our planet the best intentions are often mixed up with a few\ngrains of folly.\n\nAfter steam, the electric light and the telegraph and the telephone,\nthe discovery of unmistakable signs of the existence of humanity\ninhabiting another region of our solar archipelago, would that not\nbe the most marvellous apotheosis of the scientific glory of the\ntwentieth century? And cannot wireless telegraphy be some day applied\nto this problem? Electro-magnetism is an immense invisible world still\ninsufficiently explored. Let us wait, observe, and study.\n\n\n\n\n                               IX. STARS\n                               AND ATOMS\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX\n\n                            STARS AND ATOMS\n\n\nLAST night in the calm silence of midnight, while all nature slept, I\nobserved in the telescope a small fixed star lost in the multitude of\nthe heavenly host, a pale star of the seventh magnitude separated from\nus by an almost immeasurable distance.\n\nIn my thoughts I travelled up to it. I remembered that this star is\nnot visible to the naked eye; that there are 19 stars of the first\nmagnitude, 60 of the second, 182 of the third, 530 of the fourth, 1,600\nof the fifth, and 4,800 of the sixth magnitude (which gives a total\nof about 7,000 stars visible to the naked eye in the case of persons\ngifted with acute vision); bub that the stars of the seventh magnitude,\none of which I was observing, are 13,000 in number, and those of the\neighth magnitude 40,000; that the number grows progressively as we\nascend beyond natural vision. I remember that the sum of the stars of\nthe first ten magnitudes amounts to 560,000, that of the first twelve\nmagnitudes to 4 million, and that we reach more than 40 millions in\ntaking the first fifteen magnitudes.\n\nWithout losing myself in the profundity of infinite perspectives, I\nconcentrated my thought as I had already concentrated my gaze upon this\nsimple seventh-magnitude star of the constellation of the Great Bear,\nwhich never descends below the horizon of Paris, so that we can observe\nit almost any night in the year, and I remembered that it shines 200\nbillion miles from here--a distance which an express train rushing\nalong at 75 miles an hour would take no less than 325 million years to\ntraverse.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTransported to such a distance, the glorious sun which illuminates\nus would lose its splendour and its glory. Not only would it be\ninvisible to the naked eye, not only would it fail to contribute to the\nbrightness of the midnight sky, but it would fall considerably below\nthe star of the seventh magnitude above mentioned and would only be\ndiscoverable by the most careful telescopic search. That small star,\ntherefore, which is only a small brilliant point in the starry heavens,\nis in reality an immense sun of giant size, greatly in excess of that\non which our planet depends for its light. The latter is already\n333,000 times heavier than the Earth and 1,300,000 times more bulky. In\nclaiming for that small star a weight more than a million times that\nof our globe and a volume equalling that of several million Earths we\nshould be well within the region of possibility.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese views in connection with a simple star almost forgotten among the\nmultitude of its sisters bring us face to face with the most formidable\nrealities of the constitution of the universe. But they do not yet\nrepresent the most interesting aspect of our contemplation. It is a\nsingular fact, quite unexpected by the ancient philosophers, fantastic\nand hardly conceivable to the seeker after truth who endeavours to\ncomprehend its real value: It is that these suns of the infinite,\nfar from being fixed as they seem to be on account of their immense\ndistance, are travelling through space with tremendous speed. The star\nin question[2] runs, flies, hurls itself across the immensity with a\nspeed of about 20 million miles per day!\n\nThere are no fixed stars.\n\nYes, 6,800 million miles per annum! And yet, in ten years, in fifty\nyears, in one hundred years, this star will be barely displaced in the\nsky! The speed of a bullet or a shell fired by one of our most powerful\nguns being only 2,340 feet per second and that of this star being a\nmillion feet per second, we see that the speed of the star surpasses\nthat of the shell in the proportion of 457 to 1! Can the most daring\nimagination picture such a flight!\n\nIn five days and some hours the star would cover the 92 million miles\nwhich separate us from the Sun, a distance which a gunshot would take\nseven years to cover. It is clear that such a speed is marvellous, yet\nit exists, and has been measured by delicate and precise operations. It\ncannot in any case be less than the figure we have indicated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis speed is a symbol, and it is as such that I wish to present it\nhere. All the stars are endowed with such movements more or less rapid,\nand not only all the stars--each of them a sun and most of them the\ncentres of planetary systems, dispensers of light, heat, and harmony,\naround which gravitate habitable earths, the present, past, or future\nabodes of various beings and terrestrial things--not only, I say, are\nall the stars thus driven through the void, but all the planets, all\nthe satellites, all the worlds and systems, all creation.\n\nThe Earth swings round the Sun carried along with a speed of 1,600,000\nmiles per day, meanwhile rotating on its axis, animated by a dozen\ndifferent sorts of movements, lighter and more mobile than a child\u2019s\nballoon floating in the air, solicited by the attractions of various\nneighbouring bodies, a veritable plaything of cosmic forces which\ncarry us along in an immense whirlpool. The Moon revolves round the\nEarth, constantly deranging us in our progress and subjecting us to\nperpetual undulations. The Sun carries us along with all its cort\u00e8ge\ntowards the constellation Hercules, so that since its very origin our\nEarth has never passed through the same place twice, but describes in\nspace, not closed ellipses, but spirals which roll on without end. The\nsuns adjoining ours move with their systems in various directions.\nThe constellations are dislocated from one century to another, each\nstar being animated by a proper movement which produces a constant\nmodification of the figures in the sky. In addition to all this, our\nwhole sidereal system is carried along in space by a joint movement.\nAnd thus everything moves, everything circulates, everything rushes,\nwith breathless speed, towards a goal which is unknown and which is\nnever reached.\n\nThis is not a romance, a dream of pure contemplation, an outside view\nof ourselves: it is our own history, fatal and inevitable. Since an\nhour ago, every one of us, reader or writer, rich or poor, wise or\nignorant, infant or greybeard, whether we are active or asleep--since\nan hour ago every one of us has described in the sky an invisible track\nof more than 60,000 miles, for our planet traces out 580 million miles\nper annum merely by its revolution round the Sun, and a centenarian\nlives to mark out a distance of 58,000 million miles. Now, it is found\nthat these speeds are the very condition of the stability of the\nuniverse: the heavenly bodies, the Earth, planets, satellites, suns,\nstellar systems, star clusters, galaxies, and remote universes, are\nmutually sustained by the equilibrium of their attractions. They are\nall suspended in the void and maintain themselves in their ideal orbits\nsimply because they turn quickly enough to create a centrifugal force\nequal and opposite to the attraction exerted upon them, so that they\nremain in an unstable but perpetual equilibrium.\n\nOur Sun carries us along towards the constellation of Hercules:\nthis has been known for a hundred years; but we know now that the\nconstellation of Hercules forms part of our sidereal universe and that\nthat universe is travelling in a certain direction. We therefore only\nperceive relative movements. Whither are we going? Vain question. We\nare going--into infinite space.\n\nFormerly people were troubled, not without reason, concerning the\nsolidity of the foundations of the world, for before the isolation\nof our planet in space and its movement round the Sun had been\ndemonstrated it seemed indispensable to give to the Earth an unshakable\nfoundation and an unlimited route. But since the heavenly bodies rise\nand set and pass under our feet this foundation had to be given up,\napart from the fact that it did not satisfy the most far-seeing minds.\nIt is quite impossible for us to conceive a material pile, however\nsolid or thick, even as thick as the Earth\u2019s diameter and rooted in\ninfinite space, just as one cannot imagine the real existence of a\nstick which has only one end. However far the mind can descend towards\nthe base of that material pillar, the end must come at last, since\nonly empty space can be without end, and then that terrestrial pillar\nserves no purpose at all since it is itself without a support. Besides,\ntravellers succeeded one day in voyaging all round the globe, and\nnowhere was this imaginary pillar discovered.\n\nThe modern conception of force in contrast with the ancient idea of\nmatter has a philosophical import without precedent in the whole\nhistory of the science. It teaches, proves to us, and convinces us that\nthe visible, palpable, material universe rests on the invisible and the\nimmaterial, on imponderable force.\n\nThat is a fact against which the misleading testimony of the senses\ncan no longer prevail. The Earth, which was believed to be the stable\nbasis of creation, is itself not sustained by anything material, but by\ninvisible force. The void extends above and below, right and left, and\nto infinity in every direction. It is sustained by solar attraction and\nby its own movement. The same applies to all worlds, to all heavenly\nbodies, to everything which composes the universe, to the intimate\nconstitution of bodies as well as the sidereal total. The Earth, the\nplanets, the suns, the stars, the stellar systems, are the mobile atoms\nof the grand organism of the universe. The Milky Way is a dust in which\nevery grain is a sun.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFrom the infinitely great, let us now descend to the infinitely small\n\nThe substances which appear to us most solid and hard are composed of\nmolecules which do not touch each other. Every one of these molecules\nis invisible to the naked eye and is itself made up of still smaller\natoms which do not touch either.\n\nA bar of iron, for example, is composed of molecules which do not\ntouch, which are in perpetual vibration, which separate under the\ninfluence of heat and close up under the influence of cold. Exposed\nto the Sun, the temperature of that bar reaches about 60 degrees\ncentigrade; cooled by the ice of winter, it descends a few degrees\nbelow zero. Now, the length of that bar varies between the first\ncondition and the second, and its molecules can be further separated by\nheating them to a higher temperature: they can thus be so far separated\nfrom each other that they exercise no further mutual attraction. When\nthat happens, the bar melts and forms first a liquid and then a gas.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Eiffel Tower is a little higher in summer than in winter and in the\nafternoon than the morning, on account of the variation produced by\nsolar heat. The difference in height can attain 6 inches.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe smallness of molecules surpasses anything one can imagine. In\nthe gold-beating industry gold-leaf has been obtained so thin that a\nquarter of a million leaves go to the inch. Each gold-leaf, therefore,\nhas only a thickness of a 1/10,000 of a millimetre. Now, it is composed\nof molecules a considerable number of which is required to fill up that\nthickness. Two hundred of them arranged in a line and separated by\nintervals equal to their own diameters would just fill up the thickness\nof a gold-leaf.\n\nIn experiments made on the action of oil upon the surface of water for\ncalming the waves, it has been found possible to cover 400 square yards\non the Lake of Geneva with 20 c.cm. of oil, which reduces the layer\nof oil also to 1/200,000 of a millimetre. Supposing that under these\nconditions the molecules of oil are in contact and in a single layer,\nthey would at the most have that diameter.\n\nBy mechanical means a millimetre has been divided on a plate of\nglass into a thousand equal parts. There are animalcul\u00e6 so small\nthat their whole body placed between two of these divisions does not\ntouch them. These living beings then measure at the most 1/1,000 of a\nmillimetre, or what is nowadays called a micron. They have members,\norgans, muscles, nerves, etc. These organs are composed of cells and\nthe cells of molecules. If the latter were only a hundredth part of\nthe dimensions of the body (they are probably much smaller), these\nmolecules would measure, if separated by intervals equal to their own\nsize, 1/200,000 of a millimetre as before.\n\nMolecules or atoms, whatever may be the name applied to the ultimate\nparticles of matter, are declared by present-day science to be equal to\nstellar systems or microcosms.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis modern teaching of microscopy was anticipated for a long time by\nthinkers.\n\nIn his _Commercium Philosophicum_, published in 1745, Bernoulli\nwrote to Leibnitz concerning the imaginary inhabitants of a grain of\npepper.\n\n\u201cIf these animalcul\u00e6 had an intelligent mind and were capable of\nreasoning, they could flatter themselves that they and the drop of\nliquid which they inhabit constituted the entire universe. Imagine that\na small grain of pepper in which under the power of the microscope\nwe discover a million animalcul\u00e6 had all its parts proportional to\nthe corresponding parts of our world, that is to say, its sun, its\nfixed stars, its planets with their satellites, its earth, and its\nmountains, its fields, its forests, its rocks, its rivers, its lakes,\nits seas, and its diverse animals, can one suppose that the inhabitants\nof the grain of pepper, these _pipericols_, who would perceive\nall objects under the same visual angle and consequently in the same\nsize as we do, would not believe that outside their grain nothing\nexists, and would have the same right to believe it as we believe that\nour world includes everything? For, I ask you, what reason or what\nexperience would they have which would convince them of the contrary\nor would show to these poor little animals that there is another world\nincomparably greater than their own with inhabitants incomparably\ngreater than themselves?\u201d\n\nTherefore, concludes Bernoulli, if these _pipericols_ cannot know\nthat, who is there among us who knows that this whole visible world\nis not perhaps a grain in comparison with another world incomparably\ngreater?\n\nThe learned geometrician of Basle summarises his idea as follows: \u201cI\nbelieve that there can exist in nature other animals who are in size\nas far above us and ordinary animals as we and our animals are above\nmicroscopic animalcul\u00e6, and who observe us in our world with their\nmicroscopes as we observe that infinite multitude of animalcul\u00e6 with\nours. I go further and maintain that there might be beings incomparably\nlarger again, and I suppose as many degrees upward as are found in\ngoing downwards, for I do not see why we should constitute the highest\ndegree.\u201d\n\nLeibnitz replied to Bernoulli: \u201cI am not afraid of advancing the\nopinion that there are in the universe animals that are as much our\nsuperiors in size as we are above the animalcul\u00e6 which we only\ndiscover by means of a microscope, for nature knows no limits. On the\nother hand, it may be and it must be that there are in the small grains\nof dust and in the smallest atoms worlds which are not inferior to ours\nin beauty and variety.\u201d\n\nThe exceedingly small microscopic organisms discovered and studied by\nEhrenberg at the beginning of the nineteenth century seemed to place\nthis population in evidence.\n\nPascal had written, as early as 1660, or perhaps even in 1654, in his\n_Pens\u00e9es_:\n\n\u201cWhat is man in the infinite? Let a flesh-worm offer him in the\nsmallness of its body parts which are yet smaller. Legs with joints,\nveins in those legs, blood in those veins, humours in that blood, drops\nin those humours, vapours in those drops. Suppose that in dividing\nup these last things he should spend his forces of imagination and\nthat the last object at which he could arrive be the subject of our\npresent discussion. He will perhaps think that that is the extreme of\nsmallness in Nature. But I shall open for him a new abyss. I shall not\nonly paint for him the visible universe but the immensity of nature\nwhich one can conceive within the range of this small atom. Let him\nsee in it an infinity of worlds, every one with its firmament, its\nplanets, its earths, in the same proportion as the visible world, on\nthat earth animals and finally flesh-worms in which he will find again\nwhat the first flesh-worms presented to him. Let him go on finding the\nsame thing without end and without rest. Let him lose himself in those\nmarvels as astonishing in their smallness as the others are in their\nsize, for who would not be astonished that our body, hardly perceptible\nin the universe which itself would be imperceptible in the grand\ntotality, should now be a colossus, a world or rather a universe in\ncomparison with the nothingness which we can never arrive at.\n\n\u201cWhoever follows these thoughts will be afraid of himself and,\nconsidering himself sustained by the weight which nature has given him,\nbetween those two abysses of the infinite and nothing, he will tremble\nin face of those marvels, and I believe that as his curiosity changes\nto admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence\nthan to seek them with presumption.\n\n\u201cFor indeed what is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the\ninfinite, a universe in comparison with nothing, a mean between nothing\nand all. Infinitely removed as he is from comprehending the extremes,\nthe goal and principle of things are invincibly concealed from him\nin an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing that\nnothingness whence he sprang or that infinite which swallows him up.\u201d\n\nMore than one of our contemporary savants has republished this\nconception of \u201cthe atom as a world system,\u201d imagining that it is new\nand without appearing to recollect either Bernoulli or Pascal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs we have seen before, the invisible world is the basis of creation\nand the visible universe is composed of invisible bodies. What we see\nis made up of things which we do not see.\n\nIn the sky every star of the Milky Way being below the seventh\nmagnitude is quite invisible to our eye. Yet we see the Milky Way.\n\nOn the Earth we see and touch crowds of molecules every particle of\nwhich could be neither seen with our eyes nor felt with our touch\nnor perceived with any of our senses. And yet one meets very often\nso-called scientific men in the world who say peremptorily: \u201cI only\nbelieve what I see.\u201d\n\nA large number of different measurements of the speed of light agree in\nproving that this speed is 186,000 miles a second. That is a fact of\nobservation absolutely proved by astronomy and by physics.\n\nThese 186,000 miles amount to 982 million feet or 11,785 million inches.\n\nNow, certain measurements of the same degree of precision show that in\na ray of red light there are 42,300 waves to the inch or 1,666 to the\nmillimetre.\n\nEach of these waves therefore measures 6/10,000 of a millimetre. Those\nof the extreme red measure 7/10,000; beyond the red, wave-lengths of\n8 or 9/10,000 are found; the blue waves measure 4 to 5/10,000 and the\nviolet 4/10,000.\n\nExpressed in millionths of a millimetre, as is usual in spectroscopy,\nthese wave-lengths are the following:\u2014\n\n                         WAVE-LENGTHS OF LIGHT\n\n                  Infra-red               900 or more\n                  Extreme-red (A)         760\n                  Red (B)                 687\n                  Orange (C)              666\n                  Yellow (D)              689\n                  Green (E)               617\n                  Blue (F)                486\n                  Indigo (Q)              431\n                  Violet (H)              897\n                  Ultra violet            380 and less\n\n(These figures are those of the solar spectrum, measured for the first\ntime by Frauenhofer a century ago.)\n\nThose are waves in the ether, which is in perpetual movement.\n\nIf we multiply 300,000 million millimetres by 1,666, we find the number\n500 billion. That is the number of waves which enter our eye in one\nsecond when we look at red light.\n\nIt requires 2,230 waves of violet light to fill up a millimetre and 700\nbillion shocks per second to give the sensation of that colour.\n\nBetween the red and the violet all the other colours range themselves.\nThe vibrations which give the impression of red are the slowest and\ntheir waves are the longest.\n\nThis subtle substance, ether, penetrates all the bodies; it surrounds\nthe most minute atoms of objects and beings, solids and liquids.\n\nStudies in molecular physics have led to this conclusion, that in a\ncubic centimetre of air the molecules which compose it only occupy a\nthird of a cubic millimetre, that is to say, the 3/1,000 part of the\ntotal volume. It is like a cathedral in which children\u2019s balloons might\nfloat, the remaining space being empty.\n\nAll these molecules, all these systems of atoms, are in perpetual\nmotion like the worlds in space, and the structure of bodies is\norganised by invisible force. In hydrogen, at ordinary temperature\nand pressure, every molecule is endowed with a speed of translation,\nvibration, and circulation, of more than a mile per second.\n\nEvery body, organic or inorganic, air, water, plant, animal, man, is\nthus formed of molecules in movement.\n\nThe analysis of bodies, both organic and inorganic, therefore brings\nus into the presence of movements of atoms controlled by forces, and\nthe infinitely small speaks to us the same language as the infinitely\ngreat.\n\nThe powerful microscopes of to-day and instruments of projection show\nin these microbian movements in these cells a fantastic life such as\nthat of organisms which circulate by the thousand million in our own\nblood.\n\nThe molecule, intangible and invisible, and hardly imaginable by our\nminds accustomed to superficial judgments, constitutes the only true\nmatter, and what we call matter is, singularly enough, the effect\nproduced upon our senses by the movements of molecules, constituting as\nit were an incessant possibility of sensation.\n\nIt follows that matter, like the manifestations of energy, is only a\nmode of motion. At the temperature of absolute zero, matter, as we know\nit, would cease to exist.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe name of materialist, still borne to-day by certain people who see\nno farther than the ordinary appearances of things, could only be\nconsidered by the thinker as an outworn expression without meaning. The\nvisible universe is not at all what it appears to be to our senses: it\nis the invisible universe which constitutes the essence and basis of\ncreation. In fact, this visible universe is composed of invisible atoms\nwhich are not in contact; it hangs in the void, and the forces which\ncontrol it are themselves invisible and immaterial. You may look for\nmatter, but you will not find it; it is a mirage which recedes as we\nadvance towards it; it is a spectre which disappears whenever we seem\nto seize it. It is not the same with force, the dynamic element; it is\ninvisible and imponderable force that we find in the last analysis and\nwhich represents the basis, the support, and the very essence of the\nuniverse.\n\nIn the deep and silent night everything moves driven by the breath of\nGod. In these hours of calm reflection, do we not hear the voices of\nthe infinite? Night is the normal condition of empty space, and we\nonly have day during a half-rotation of the Earth because we dwell in\nthe immediate neighbourhood of a star. Night fills all; but it is not\ndarkness; it is the soft light shed by millions of stars. We can thus\nbetter appreciate how everything is in vibration. The movements of\nevery atom on earth and in the heavens are the mathematical result of\nall the ethereal undulations which arrive in time from the abysses of\ninfinite space. The moon attracts the Earth, the Earth attracts her\nsister-planets, these beckon and call her, the stars attract the Sun;\nand, like those motes of dust which one sees oscillating and vibrating\nin a beam of light, so also glide, turn, circulate, fly, vibrate, and\npalpitate all the worlds and all the universes, out to infinity, amidst\nlimitless and bottomless space.\n\nA geometrician has dared to say that by stretching out his hand he\ncould disturb the Moon in its course. This is a vivid expression of\nthe extreme mobility of things intended to show that the feeblest\ndisplacement of the centre of gravity has a far-reaching effect. When\nthe Moon passes over our heads it raises the whole Earth, displaces the\nwaters of the ocean, and makes every one of us weigh 18 milligrammes\nless than when it is on the horizon. When Venus passes at 25 million\nmiles from here or when Jupiter passes at 375 million miles, both\ndisplace our whole planet from its normal position.\n\nHave you ever brought a bit of iron near a freely suspended magnetic\nneedle? What a marvellous spectacle is offered by the mobility, the\noscillations, the mad rushes of the needle under the influence of an\nobject apparently inert which acts upon it at a distance. We observe\na compass needle at the bottom of an hermetically sealed vessel: a\nregiment passes on a neighbouring road and the needle becomes agitated,\ninfluenced at a distance by the steel bayonets. An aurora borealis\nappears in Sweden, the compass feels it in Paris; nay, we have seen\nabove that the fluctuations of the magnetic needle are in relation with\nthe spots and eruptions on the Sun. The new physics is the proclamation\nof the invisible universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is under this aspect which it appeared to me interesting here to\ncontemplate the visible universe, inviting to this contemplation those\namong my readers who wish sometimes to think of profounder truths.\nStars and atoms bring us face to face with an immense symphony. Those\nwho only see the orchestra without hearing anything are the deaf.\nBehind the visible world, our minds must feel the presence of the\ninvisible world upon which we are based. All that we see is appearance:\nthe real is the invisible, the force, the energy, which moves all and\ncarries all through infinity and eternity.\n\nAnd indeed we are really in the infinite and the eternal. The little\nstar of which we spoke before, an enormous sun a million times the size\nof the Earth moves at such a distance that the fastest express train\nwould take at least 325 million years to reach it. Yet it is one of our\nneighbouring stars. One can go still farther and farther and proceed\nwith any speed through any number of centuries in any direction of\nspace without ever coming to an end, without ever advancing a single\npace, since the centre is everywhere, the circumference is nowhere, and\neternity itself does not suffice to vanquish infinity.\n\n\n[Footnote 2: This star is called \u201cNo. 1830 Groombridge.\u201d]\n\n\n\n\n                         X. ARE OTHER PLANETS\n                              INHABITED?\n\n\n\n\n                               CHAPTER X\n\n                     ARE OTHER PLANETS INHABITED?\n\n\nWE have a tendency to remain geometric and anthropocentric and to\nbelieve that everything is created on the terrestrial model. Not long\nago, at one of the scientific soir\u00e9es of the Solar Festival which I\nfounded in 1904, and which is almost always illustrated by a conference\nof learned men of philosophical attainments, I requested my eminent\nfriend Edmond Perrier, Member of the Institut and Director of the Paris\nMuseum, to discuss the question of the population of the planets in\nthe light of the latest achievements of science, in which he is past\nmaster. His reasoning was, that the same matter, the same forces, the\nsame laws, exist on the Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, etc., and that\ntherefore the evolution of life is everywhere the same, arrested in\none place and developed in another according to the conditions and\ncircumstances, and that all organisms on all the planets can only have\nterrestrial forms. Our pal\u00e6ontology would be repeated everywhere.\n\nIt seems to me that this idea, shared, by the way, by other learned\nnaturalists, is really too \u201cnaturalist,\u201d too terrestrial, too\nclassical, too professional, too narrow, too little in harmony with\nthe grandeur of the universe, with the immensity of its energy and\nthe variety of vital manifestations found on our small planet. On\nthe contrary, the diversity of beings, already so prodigious on our\nlittle globe, must be, so to speak, infinite, and the extra-terrestrial\nliving forms cannot be cast in the same mould. There is no reason, for\ninstance, why all the beings of the universe should be limited to our\nfive senses. There are inevitable differences: gravitation, density,\nfood-supply, atmosphere, temperature, light, the years, seasons and\ndays, etc., etc.--causes so different cannot fail to produce absolutely\ndifferent effects.\n\nA savant is a man accustomed to discussions and delighted to provoke\nthem, because he knows that they contribute to the advancement of\nscience; the naturalists whose views I dispute will not bear me any\nill-will, and this is not the first time that they will pardon me for\nbeing a recalcitrant microbe.\n\nThe philosophers who teach that the universe is both infinite and\nhomogeneous resemble microbes who think that their cell is the\nuniverse. Let us imagine the microbes in a particle of rust attempting\nto reason on the life of iron according to their own observations. For\nthem, the world is a bit of iron attacked by oxygen. There is nothing\nelse in nature. All their science leads them to conclude that the\nuniverse is made of iron. If they could have any vague notion about\nthe existence of grass, insects, men, the sun, Jupiter or Sirius, they\nwould be firmly convinced that they were all made of iron. If, in\ntheir particle of rust, they had observed the movements of translation\nand rotation in the constituent atoms of iron and could have risen\nto astronomical notions beyond their sphere, they would conclude\nthat the other planetary systems are also made of iron and that none\nbut iron-dwellers can exist. If we suppose that not only our own\nsolar system but our visible universe and the other universes which\nsucceed each other without end in the depths of infinite space are all\nconstructed on the same zoological plan, we reason like these microbes.\n\nSince the publication, a long time ago (1862), of my first work,\nentitled _The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds_, in which I expounded\nand discussed the conditions of habitability of the planets of our\nsystem as known, to science at the time of publication, several\nastronomers and philosophers have taken up the same question of the\ndifferent aspects. Among these studies there is one which seems\nparticularly worthy of attention, recently written by Professor\nScheiner, Director of the Potsdam Observatory. I here offer my readers\na condensed translation, asking them to excuse the Germanisms which\nrender the style a little rough. But however bitter the rind, the\nfruit is good.\n\n\n                            GENERAL REMARKS\n\n\n\u201cThe aspect of the starry heavens during a clear and calm night gives\na joy which only superior souls can feel. In the bosom of the general\nsilence of nature and in the calm of all our senses our immortal soul\nwhispers an undefinable language and forms conceptions which are\ndifficult to express. If among the thinking beings of our planet there\nare vulgar spirits which remain slaves to vanity, this globe is to\nbe pitied for having given birth to such creatures, but its value is\nenhanced by bearing on its surface intelligences capable of rising to\nthe highest contemplations of the spectacle of nature.\u201d\n\nIt is with these words that Kant in his _Natural History of\nthe Heavens_ terminates the last chapter, which treats of the\nhabitability of the planets. They come from the soul of every thinking\nman who has preserved the spark of the ideal. The aspect of the starry\nsky awakens all those who are not among these vulgar spirits the same\nsensations which manifest themselves in various ways according to the\neducation of him who experiences them and according to his momentary\ndisposition. The astronomer also is delighted by this spectacle in\nspite of his regular observation of the sky. The astronomer sees\nfarther and clearer into the celestial spaces than the ordinary man,\nhis knowledge leads him by rapid deductions to vast considerations\nuntil he suddenly reaches a point where, for the time being at all\nevents, an insuperable barrier presents itself to the human spirit, and\nwhere an imperious halt reminds him of the truth that all science is\nincomplete. The ordinary man looks upon the sky in quite a different\nway, and so does a woman. To both, the spectacle of the starry sky\noffers an enjoyment independent of all research and all preoccupation.\nA purely \u00e6sthetic pleasure.\n\nAre these stars inhabited? Are they inhabited by thinking beings? Do\nlove and hate reign there as they do here? Such are the questions\nwhich occur at once. Afterwards, in hours when the need for hope and\nconsolation is felt, the desire arises to contemplate some day with our\nown eyes the splendours of those other worlds and to be able to soar\nup to them. The most brilliant stars are the special objects of such\nwishes, and if they could be fulfilled a population of loving souls\nwould reside on these same stars: Sirius, Vega, Venus, and Jupiter.\n\nThe question of the population of the celestial bodies is as ancient\nas the discovery of the individual existence. It has always occupied\nthinking humanity, and many have sought to raise the veil which\nhides the answer. We, also, should like to take a step towards this\nsolution, and it is with that object that we propose to quote here\nthe actual facts bearing upon the conditions of habitability of the\ncelestial bodies and to draw the most probable conclusions. We can\ncombine the astronomical data with the most recent use of physics, and,\nthanks to the progress recorded by these two sciences in the last ten\nyears, we may be able to draw some new conclusions.\n\n(Here the author passes in review the older writers, Huygens, Kircher,\nand Fontenelle, which I have summarised in my two books called _The\nPlurality of Inhabited Worlds and Imaginary Worlds_. He arrives\neventually at the nineteenth century and at Gruithuisen, whom my\nreaders know less.)\n\n\n                              HISTORICAL\n\n\nHuygens, the most celebrated mathematician and physicist of his epoch\n(1629-95), takes it for granted that all the planets are inhabited (he\ndoes not speak of the Sun or stars), and that consequently all of them\noffer the conditions vital and essential to us, that is to say air and\nwater. He easily refutes the objections based upon the distance of the\nplanets from the Sun. He supposes that the water on the other planets\nwill have quite other qualities than ours; on Mercury, for instance,\nit would only boil at a very high temperature, and on Saturn--at his\ntime the outermost planet known--it would not freeze at the lowest\ntemperature then conceivable. The mass of Jupiter compared with that\nof our own globe would suggest that its air must be very dense and\nthat its inhabitants could swim in it; but the Jovians would easily\naccommodate themselves to this state of things. He supposed that the\nmind of the inhabitants of the other planets was about the same as\nours and that their organism was analogous to our own; for what would\nbe the object of the Sun illuminating those other planets if their\ninhabitants had no eyes? One might indeed think that different species\nof reasonable beings might exist, but not on the same planet, for they\nwould be in mutual conflict, would struggle for supremacy, and do each\nother every kind of harm.\n\nHe gives a very na\u00efve refutation of an opinion given before him that\nthe height of the inhabitants would have to be inversely as the volume\nof the planet and consequently the men on Jupiter would not be bigger\nthan the mice on the earth. This, he says, is not possible, because\nsuch small beings would not, as astronomers, be capable of using large\ntelescopes.\n\nAn important question, according to Huygens, is whether the\nintelligence of the inhabitants has any relation to their distance\nfrom the Sun. He inclines to believe that the inhabitants of Mercury\nare much more intelligent than we on account of the greater force and\nvitality of their spirit due to the greater heat of the Sun, but this\nis not confirmed by what happens on our own globe. The same reason\nwould lead one to believe that the inhabitants of Jupiter are much less\nintelligent than ourselves, although its four satellites would offer to\nthe mind material for profitable astronomical studies.\n\nWhat is also evident is the small value of a purely logical and\nphilosophical reasoning based on insufficient premises. We see how a\nman of sense and judicious spirit can be led to absurd conclusions when\nhe is burdened with preconceived ideas and incomplete knowledge. We\nshall have several more occasions to bring out this fact, and that is\nwhy we have avoided pretending to resolve the question we have put. The\ndeductions which we formulate to-day may be reversed to-morrow by new\ndiscoveries furnished either by experience or by theory.\n\nApart from his decided opinion concerning the habitability of all the\nplanets, Huygens draws his conclusions logically enough, inasmuch as he\nbases his affirmations on the knowledge of his time.\n\nAn entirely opposite method is used by the Jesuit Father Kircher.\n\nHe starts from the point of view that the principal object of nature\nis man and that all the rest is created for him. The planets are\nuninhabited because, apart from man, there could be no reasonable\nbeings. But since they have upon man an influence determined by their\nastrological value, he finds the planets to be such as astrology\nrepresents them to be in their action upon us without considering their\nposition with regard to the Sun.\n\nOn Mercury, everything takes place gaily and joyously, since all\nthose who are born under its influence are inclined to lightness and\nmischief. On Venus, everything is even better--or worse: he finds\neverything gracious and charming; a soft rosy light is spread over the\nplanet, perfumes are wafted about everywhere, zephyrs mingle their\nmurmurings with those of the brooks, and gold and precious stones\nsparkle everywhere. Jupiter having, like Venus, a beneficent influence\nupon man, everything there is perfect: the air is pure and wholesome,\nthe waters crystal-clear, and the soil itself as bright as silver.\nOn Mars, on the other hand, everything is of a warlike roughness,\nforbidding and terrible, rivers of boiling pitch overflow their banks\nand envelop the country in thick and suffocating smoke. Saturn, as a\nplanet, is particularly accursed; everything looks like a deserted\ngrave. The planets are not inhabited by human beings, but by angels or\ngenii who rule them.\n\n(All these arguments of Kircher are not less infantile than those\nof Huygens, but they have left distinct traces in astrological\nliterature, and even Victor Hugo reflects them eloquently.)\n\nA contemporary of the two authors we have just mentioned is the\nNestor of French writers, Fontenelle, who lived from 1657 to 1757,\nexactly a century. He described with much detail the inhabitants of\nthe planets, and, like Huygens, he starts from the basis that they\nare all inhabited, and inhabited by beings formed according to the\ncircumstances. On Mercury, according to him, the heat is so great\nthat the rivers contain fused metals instead of water, particularly\ngold and silver; the inhabitants of this planet can therefore not\nimagine that there are worlds like the Earth, where gold and silver are\nsolid and serve as money. Besides, the inhabitants of Mercury could\nnot support the excessive heat if their planet was not animated by a\nmovement of rotation so rapid that they are only exposed for a short\ntime to the rays of the Sun. They are all inclined to be hot-heads and,\nlike fools and infants, live without reflection and enjoy themselves\nin anticipation of the coolness of the night. Littrow remarks on\nthis subject that Bode, the translator of Fontenelle and at one time\nDirector of the Berlin Observatory, is seriously astonished by this\nopinion of Fontenelle and exclaims: \u201cVery strange! for with us in\nBerlin we find that a great heat makes people lazy and sleepy instead\nof lively and active.\u201d\n\nThe inhabitants of Venus only render homage to the goddess of love.\nThey are not interested in philosophy or mathematics, read no books\nor journals, pass the whole day in their flirtations, and practise in\na superior manner the arts which appertain to them, music, poetry,\ndance, etc., but they are not adept at cookery, for they live almost\nentirely on air. They are not beautiful, but their amorous character\nprevents them being influenced by their ugliness; they are Celadons and\nSylvanders. Wieland certainly did not know the works of Fontenelle, or\nhe would probably have located one of his romances or his love-stories\non Venus as depicted by that author.\n\nFontenelle\u2019s procedure with regard to Mars is rather singular. He\ndeclares that that planet does not merit any attention. Our imaginative\nsavant hardly wants to say anything about Jupiter either. He gives a\ndescription of the aspect offered by the whole solar system as seen\nfrom that planet. He explains how Venus and Mercury are invisible there\nwithout the aid of a telescope, and that the Earth only appears as a\npoint. The volume of Jupiter causes him some embarrassment, for whereas\nthe inhabitants of Mercury on account of the small dimensions of that\nplanet nearly all know each other, those of Jupiter cannot possibly do\nso.\n\nOn account of the extreme cold, the life on Saturn is still more\ndisagreeable than that on Jupiter. If the Saturnians were brought\nto the Earth they would certainly die of heat even in Lapland. If\nthe water on Saturn is of the same nature as ours, it must look like\nour polished stones, and spirits of wine must resemble diamond.\nIn consequence the inhabitants of Saturn cannot but be slow and\nphlegmatic; they know no gaiety and remain like oysters in the place\nthey were born in.\n\nFontenelle continues in this way without attaining any depth, under the\nimpression that our planet is the type of the universe. Let us now pass\nto the nineteenth century.\n\nGraithuisen, the Director of the Munich Observatory, published his\nchief works in the first thirty years of this century. His researches\nrelative to the habitability of the planets were, therefore, made at\nan epoch when we already possessed important data on their physical\nconstitution, an epoch when, thanks to the work of Bessel, the golden\nperiod of astronomy had already begun. One may therefore take it that\nthe work of Graithuisen marks a real progress beyond his predecessors,\nas indeed he says himself without ceremony. But as a matter of fact\nhe is rather fruitless, as is shown by the strange manner in which he\ndeals with the earth-light on Venus.\n\nHe already knew of the phenomenon, which is insufficiently explained\neven in our day, that during the phases of greatest visibility of\nVenus the dark side appears to have a faint luminosity. \u201cThe simplest\nexplanation to give of this,\u201d he says, \u201cis that at the epochs when this\nfaint light on Venus is visible, the inhabitants of the planet organise\nfestivals and general illuminations, which are the easier to arrange on\naccount of the vegetations of Venus being incomparably more luxuriant\nthan even the virgin forests of Brazil. These festivals are probably\ncelebrated on the occasion of political changes or according to\nreligious periods. Now, the principal observations of the ashen light\non Venus are those of Mayer in 1759 and of Harding in 1806.\u201d Whence he\ndraws the following conclusion: \u201cBetween the observation of Mayer and\nthat of Harding 76 years of Venus and 47 Earth years have elapsed. If\nthis period has a religious character, we cannot see a justification\nfor that number of years, but it becomes more comprehensible if we\nassume that some Alexander or Napoleon then attained universal power.\nIf we assume that the ordinary life of an inhabitant of Venus lasts 130\nyears of Venus, which amount to 80 terrestrial years, the reign of such\nan autocrat could easily last 76 years as reckoned on Venus. I have\nno intention to press this opinion and do not claim its credibility,\neven should it appeal to the reader\u2019s imagination; but if my hypothesis\nis correct, we at least receive direct testimony to the existence of\ninhabitants on Venus. Even if the period were shorter, the phenomenon\nmight still be due to some other observance. One could celebrate all\nthe great festivals by similar illuminations which would sometimes\nfollow close upon one another. The fires would serve another purpose,\ninasmuch as they would thin out the forests and provide fresh arable\nground for an increasing population. Large migrations of people would\nbe prevented, and the consequent wars would be avoided and the race\nwould remain united.\u201d\n\nOne must acknowledge that these ideas of Gruithuisen are most\nfantastic. I have frequently observed this unilluminated hemisphere of\nVenus, notably in September 1895 and in April 1897: it appeared to me\nof a violet colour, and the idea of illuminations by the inhabitants is\npure romance.\n\nHe also then passes in review the ideas of Kant which one finds\nexpounded in the two works cited above and which therefore I need not\nquote. We know that for the Philosopher of K\u00f6nigsberg the intelligence\nand the degree of perfection of the inhabitants of the planets is in\nproportion to their distance from the sun.\n\nWe may add to the remarks of M. Scheiner that the writers who have\ndealt with the question of the plurality of worlds have nearly all\njudged the planets from the appearances they present to us from our\npoint of observation, and have assumed the harmony of nature according\nto the manner of Bernardin de St. Pierre. For this occasion I have\nre-read his hook with some interest. To this very simple member of the\nInstitut, Venus is a bright world peopled by amorous natives \u201cwho give\nthemselves up to dance, festivals, and songs, or compete for swimming\nprizes, like the happy islands of Tahiti\u201d; the inhabitants of Mars are\nwarlike, \u201cresembling the northern Germans, their forests and hills,\ntheir atmosphere resounding to the warlike sound of their horns and\nthat of drums and trumpets which announce the spilling of blood\u201d; on\nJupiter \u201cthey resemble the Dutch, being industrious, patient, wise,\nreflective, and tending their numerous herds in their vast fields,\u201d\netc., etc.\n\nThe author of _Paul et Virginie_ remains purely terrestrial in\nthese descriptions, which he believes to be astronomical.\n\nBut let us return to the dissertation of M. Scheiner. He passes on to\nthe purely scientific aspect of the question, which is the only one\nwhich interests us here.\n\n\n                          THE ORIGIN OF LIFE\n\n\nThe problem of knowing if worlds other than the Earth, being habitable,\nare really inhabited, depends really upon this question: How did life\nappear on this Earth?\n\nIt is irrefutable that there was a time when the Earth was not\nhabitable in the usual sense. Therefore life necessarily had a\ncommencement. \u201cThis can have taken place in three different ways,\neither by a special act of creation, in which case it is of little\nimportance to our problem to know whether this act was accomplished\nin a complete manner as taught by the Bible or whether it was limited\nto the creation of the inferior forms of life; or by spontaneous\ngeneration; or, lastly, by the importation from space, in which we can\njust as well imagine germs of life as gases and inorganic substances.\n\n\u201cFrom the philosophical point of view, these three hypotheses are\nequally well-founded, for none is more easily conceived than the other\nand observation has not yet confirmed any of them.\n\n\u201cIf we admit the first hypothesis, a creative act, such a manifestation\nof the will of a Supreme and Impenetrable Being is beyond the laws of\nnature. In this case we have no means of reasoning on the purpose of\nthe Divine Will. We do not know if the creative act has been exercised\nduly once in favour of the Earth, or whether it is renewed on various\noccasions, or whether it takes place in the same manner every time\na heavenly body becomes fit to act as an abode of living beings. We\ncannot express any opinion on that and therefore our initial question\nremains open. In the narrow Biblical sense the Earth and mankind must\nbe considered the last word in creation and the idea that other\nreasonable beings might exist is necessarily eliminated.\u201d It seems to\nme that in our times none of the readers of this book need consider the\nfirst hypothesis as admissible. Everything shows us that living beings\nhave not been directly created by a Supernatural Will, but that they\nhave slowly and gradually evolved during the geological periods which\nare known to us. Scheiner then passes on to the second hypothesis. \u201cBy\nspontaneous generation,\u201d he says, \u201cis meant the formation by material\nmolecules of an organism of the most rudimentary species, which\ninvolves our attributing to an inorganic substance properties which end\nin the production of life.\n\n\u201cThe adoption of these properties is possible in two ways: by a sudden\ncoincidence of favourable circumstances, or by a continuous process\nwhich, thanks to a gradual development, fills up the gap of continuity\nwhich at present appears to exist between inert matter and living\nmatter.\n\n\u201cIf circumstances on our earth have favoured spontaneous generation,\nthere is no reason why they should not have done the same on other\ncelestial bodies having a similar constitution, and one may deduce with\ncertainty that all the heavenly bodies which are in this condition are\nprovided with similar organisms.\u201d The author then examines the third\nhypothesis.\n\nSpace can be filled with organised matter or matter capable of life\ndistributed almost uniformly, without being specially destined for any\nparticular body, since we must assume a commencement for each. The\nsurface of the heavenly bodies receives the organisable matter which,\nwhen its finds the necessary conditions, develops and forms living\nbeings. It is clear that in this case the presence of organised beings\non all the heavenly bodies capable of entertaining life is not merely a\nprobability but a certainty.\n\nScheiner considers the three hypotheses as equally acceptable. The\nfirst, he says, is a matter of sentiment. It does not solve the\nquestion, since it would involve a Divine Will. Out of the three\nhypotheses the last two would solve our problem in an absolutely\naffirmative manner, whereas the first leaves it undecided.\n\n\u201cWe only wish to prove one thing by our argument, and that is that the\nopinion that habitable heavenly bodies are really inhabited is much\nmore probable than the contrary opinion, and this authorises us to\ncontinue to develop our thesis.\u201d\n\n\n                        THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE\n\n\nThe author here puts a fundamental question. What is life and what is\nliving matter! Libraries have been written on this subject but all to\nno purpose, for we are as unable to seize the essence of life and of\nliving matter as that of gravitation, for instance, though the latter\nappears to us infinitely simpler in its manifestations than what has\nbeen called vital force.\n\nWe only know that on our Earth vital force is united to a special\nform of matter called organised matter, and that when this organised\nmatter disappears it ceases to exist as vital force and transforms\nitself--since energy is indestructible--into other forms of energy.\nIt is not of material importance whether vital force is regarded as\na special force or a special aspect of a known force, _e.g._\nelectricity. It follows from this intimate association of vital force\nwith living matter that the vital manifestations (nutrition, growth,\nreproduction, etc.) can only take place under conditions in which\nliving matter can exist; in all other cases the manifestations of\nlife cease and death ensues, or the vital force becomes latent until\nfavourable conditions return.\n\nOur problem of the habitability of heavenly bodies is therefore limited\nto the question of celestial bodies on which conditions are such that\nliving matter can exist in a permanent form. We must therefore enquire\nfirst of all what those conditions are, after which we shall be able\nto use our astronomical resources to find whether these conditions\nare represented on the other centres of condensation of matter in the\nuniverse.\n\nThe conditions necessary to life are the more numerous the more\ncomplicated the structure of organic matter. The maximum of\nrequirements is therefore attained in the higher animals and in man.\n\nThe simpler the organism, the simpler are its conditions of existence\nand the greater are in general the possibilities of supporting\nunfavourable conditions.\n\nAnimals and plants living in caves or at great depths under water are\ndeprived of light; they have accommodated themselves to that privation\nand do not suffer by it. Animals require oxygen in air and in water;\nplants also require a small quantity of carbonic acid for building\nup their tissues. There are even animalcule in existence for whom\noxygen is a poison. As a general rule, temperatures above 50 degrees\ncentigrade are insupportable.\n\nThis is due to the fact that at that temperature albumen, one of the\nmost important substances in the animal organism, coagulates. Inferior\nbeings can resist higher temperatures and even for a short time 100\ndegrees centigrade, which is the boiling-point of water, but they could\nnot live long. In its liquid form water is indispensable to organic\nlife; life of any duration below zero is impossible because the water\ncontained in every organism would solidify and the parts composing\nthe organism would lose their mobility. Lack of water does, however,\nnot inevitably imply death, and plants particularly can preserve\nfor a long time a latent vitality while deprived of water. Cereals\nfurnish a striking example, for when dried they can preserve their\ngerminating power for years. Although living matter can preserve its\nvitality so long, it is none the less true that during that period\nall manifestations of life cease. If therefore the lack of water is\nperpetual, life must be considered as really suppressed.\n\nEven for the lowest forms of life three conditions must be regarded as\nessential: water, an atmosphere containing oxygen and carbonic acid,\nand a temperature between the limits indicated above.\n\nIt is therefore really from these three points of view that we must\nstudy the heavenly bodies in order to be in a position to judge whether\norganic life as we know it is possible on them or not. As regards\nknowing whether that life presents itself under forms comparable to\nthose which we see here, whether there are, for instance, beings\nanalogous to humanity, that is quite another question.\n\nThe means at the disposal of astronomy for determining the constitution\nof the heavenly bodies are of various kinds. We can take into account\nphenomena which at first sight do not seem adapted to that end.\n\nDirect observation with the help of the telescope enables us to\ndiscover the surface details of the planets and any changes which\ntake place in them. Such changes in most cases imply the existence\nof an atmosphere. Observations of occultations of stars by the Moon\nor the planets lead to the same result. Theoretical astronomy tells\nus the distance between the planets and the Sun; physics tell us the\nquantity of light received by each planet from the Sun; and the period\nof revolution and the inclination of the planet\u2019s axis tell us about\nthe course of its seasons. Photometry gives us the amount of sunlight\nreflected by the surface of the planet, and thus furnishes indications\nconcerning certain properties of the planetary surface, properties\nwhich permit us to decide with certainty, for instance, whether light\nis reflected by a solid surface such as the ground or whether the rays\ndo not penetrate so far and are sent back in the upper parts of the\natmosphere by lays of clouds.\n\nIt is spectrum analysis which furnishes, as we know, the most important\nauxiliary information; it presents the heavenly bodies to the eye of\nthe mind as the microscope unveils to the eye of the body the marvels\nof the infinitely small. The rays of light are messengers who, having\npassed through the spectroscope, bring to us news of the most distant\nworlds and tell us of the temperature of the fixed stars, of the metals\nvolatilised in their atmospheres, of the incredibly low temperature of\nthe nebul\u00e6 and of the gases which envelop the planets.\n\nWe do not here wish to intone a hymn to spectrum analysis; we only wish\nto report briefly and simply what we know of the physical nature of the\ncelestial bodies. But we must admit that the greatest amount of that\nknowledge is due to the spectroscope.\n\n\n                       THE PLANETS OF OUR SYSTEM\n\n\n(We continue the translation of the essay of the Potsdam astronomer.)\n\nIn the light of contemporary astronomical knowledge let us make a rapid\nsurvey of the other worlds.\n\n                              _The Moon_\n\nOur lady readers will not raise any objection if we occupy ourselves\nat first with the Moon, this confidante of every heart, either happy\nor unhappy. The most important thing about her for the moment can\nbe put into one sentence: she has neither air nor water, and her\ntemperature oscillates between extremes separated by more than 200\ndegrees centigrade. None of the conditions stated above is therefore\nfulfilled, and accordingly no organic life could exist on her. It is\nalso interesting to see how the cessation on the Moon of one of these\nvital conditions has entailed the cessation of the two others. There is\nno occasion to doubt that the Moon formerly possessed an atmosphere;\nby analogy with the planets this must indeed be assumed as altogether\ncertain. The feeble mass of our satellite which, on the one hand, has\nbeen the cause of its rapid cooling, has, on the other hand, brought\nabout the dissipation into space of its atmosphere, which was probably\nalways of small density.\n\nBut the smaller the pressure of the air the more rapid is the\nevaporation of water, and this is why its disappearance coincides with\nthat of the atmosphere. Besides, the complete absence of air allows the\nrays of the Sun to penetrate without hindrance to the ground and to\nheat it to a high temperature during the 14 times 24 hours of duration\nof the lunar day. During the night, which is of equal duration, there\nis radiation of heat into celestial space, and the soil cools down to\na temperature which cannot be very different from the absolute zero of\nthe temperature of empty space.\n\n(I cannot entirely accept these allegations with regard to the\nhabitability of our satellite. The absence of air and even of water is\npot proved. The variations actually observed even prove that the moon\nis not altogether a dead world. But let the author continue.)\n\nSuch a fate is also in store for the Earth, and nothing can save\nit. Our Earth will also one day become a barren body, incapable of\nsupporting organic life, a deserted grave of the civilisation created\nby the human spirit. Just as the isolated individual disappears, so\nwill humanity one day disappear entirely. In a limited domain death\nis always finally victorious; but, on the other hand, a new life\nflourishes elsewhere, and when that new life is developed, some day\nperhaps on another planet of our system a scientific article will be\nwritten on the question whether the Earth is still habitable.\n\n                               _Mercury_\n\nOur knowledge of the physical constitution of Mercury is very slight.\nIt seems to be surrounded by a light atmosphere which contains\nwater-vapour. Since the solar heat on Mercury is about seven times\nstronger than on us, the extreme limits of temperature above indicated\nmust here be very considerably surpassed, and water can hardly exist\nexcept in the form of vapour. But the argument is entirely changed if\nwe accept the recent discovery of Schiaparelli, according to which the\nduration of rotation of Mercury would be identical with its period of\nrevolution, so that, like the Moon to the Earth, Mercury would always\nturn the same face to the Sun. On that side the temperature would\nnaturally be very high, while the most intense frost would reign on the\nother side. But between these two extremes there ought to be a mixed\nzone in which our three conditions might possibly be realised, so that\nwe may assume for Mercury a limited habitability.\n\n                                _Venus_\n\nOn Venus the Sun\u2019s heat is still very considerable, and in the torrid\nzone it would be insupportable to us. But, on the other hand, this\nplanet is surrounded by a dense atmosphere, which on account of the\npresence of water-vapour proves the existence of water on the planet.\nThe higher regions of the atmosphere are occupied by a thick layer\nof clouds which hardly ever allows our gaze to reach the ground, but\nwhich is equally opposed to the passage of the Sun\u2019s rays. Much more\nthan half the solar radiation is reflected by that layer of cloud,\nand we can suppose, on the whole, that the upper limit of a tolerable\ntemperature is not passed at the surface of this planet. And as we have\nalready said, since there is water and an atmosphere, we have no reason\nto doubt the habitability of Venus.\n\n                                _Mars_\n\nAs regards Mars, which commences the outer series of planets, we\nobtain a still more satisfactory result. We can clearly recognise the\nsubdivision of the surface into water and dry land. Its atmosphere\nhas properties which agree with those of our atmosphere. Not only\nis there certain evidence of the existence of water-vapour, but\nspectroscopic studies have proved also that the principal components of\nthe atmosphere are the same as those of the Earth\u2019s atmosphere--that\nis to say that there is oxygen and nitrogen. Sometimes the soil is\nhidden by groups of clouds, sometimes they disappear to appear again\nin other places. Its poles are encased in snow and ice, the white\narea of which varies in extent according to the seasons. Besides a\nnumber of enigmatical facts--we need only refer to the canals and\ntheir doubling--there are numerous meteorological phenomena on Mars\nwhich frequently occur in our own atmosphere. Although the temperature\nof Mars is, on account of its farther distance from the Sun,\nsensibly below that of the Earth, the difference is not sufficiently\nconsiderable to oppose a serious obstacle to the stable existence of\norganised matter in the torrid or temperate zone. The torrid zone of\nMars must correspond approximately in climate to our temperate zone.\nWe can therefore finally declare with entire conviction that the\nconditions offered by Mars are suitable for life as we know it on Earth.\n\n                _Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune_\n\nWith the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune we enter a region\nquite different from the preceding one. These bodies all possess\natmospheres of great density in which, on Jupiter for instance, we can\nobserve immense revolutions and violent cataclysms. They also contain\nwater-vapour, but besides that they contain a substance characterised\nby a strong absorption of certain red rays. This gas is found in a\nsmall quantity on Jupiter, but in much greater quantities on Saturn\nand Uranus. On the latter planet the atmosphere, apart from the\nwater-vapour contained in it, does not seem to have any analogy with\nours; strong absorption-bands show in the less refrangible portions of\nthe spectrum. As we have seen that oxygen is not absolutely necessary\nto organic life, the single fact that the outer planets have an\natmosphere may suffice to show that our first condition is fulfilled.\nThe presence of water-vapour in their atmosphere proves the existence\nof water and fulfils the second condition. As regards the third\ncondition, Jupiter also seems to satisfy that, at least in equatorial\nregions, especially if we take into account that radiation of heat\ninto space is much limited by the thick atmosphere filled with clouds.\nThe farther we go away from the Sun the more does the third condition\nbecome precarious, and while we may have some doubt concerning Saturn,\nit cannot be denied that on Uranus and Neptune the solar heat is\ninsufficient to support organised life in a durable way.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n(The atmospheres might be formed of gases which would make the\nradiation almost zero and would produce a relatively high temperature.\nThis certainly happens in the case of Mars, whose temperature is not\nlower than that of our globe, where the polar snows are less dense\nthan ours and melt more completely in the course of the summer.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut another peculiarity presents itself which may reverse all our ideas\nrelative to the planets from Jupiter outwards. Certain observations\ntend to show that Jupiter is not yet cooled down, that its real nucleus\nis still fused or perhaps even in the gaseous state, and that it has\nnot yet formed a solid crust upon which life might develop. Besides\nthe phenomena directly observed or revealed in the spectroscope,\nthe very small specific gravity of these planets also supports that\nhypothesis--the density of Saturn is about the same as that of cork. It\nis very difficult to form an exact idea of the constitution of these\nplanets. On the other hand, it is possible to believe that one of the\nextreme planets, Uranus for instance, is sufficiently cooled to possess\nat least a liquid surface which, on account of the internal heat of\nthe planet, may have preserved for a certain period a temperature\nsufficient to entertain life even after the solar heat is no longer\nsufficiently powerful But these are only hypotheses.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us summarise in a few words the results of this chapter.\n\nOn the Moon no organic matter can exist; we may suppose living beings\nto exist in a small zone of Mercury; the surface of Venus is very\nprobably habitable in most of its regions; Mars is certainly habitable\nand probably under such conditions that certain species of our plants\nand animals could, if transported to that planet, continue to live\nthere.\n\nFor the other planets the possibility of habitation cannot be entirely\ndenied, but the existence of living beings on their soil is not\nprobable. Let us add, for the sake of completeness, that on the Sun,\nwhich radiates the most intense heat, and on those innumerable other\nsuns which we call stars and which the telescope reveals to us, living\nmatter certainly does not exist.\n\nIt follows that of the millions of stars visible to us in the universe\nthere are only two or three which we could consider with any certainty\ncapable of being inhabited as we conceive it. That seems a rather\nunsatisfying result, which allows an icy sentiment of loneliness in\ninfinite space to take possession of our souls.\n\nWe have seen in the first part of our work how the speculations of\nthose who formerly discussed the habitability of the planets not only\nraised the question whether such and such a planet was inhabited, but\nalso tackled the much vaster problem of the particular characters\nof the beings which lived there. After attentively following the\ndiscussion, nobody should ask to penetrate further into this question.\nIt has indeed been a great effort to obtain a positive result at all,\neven while restricting the population of the planets to the simplest\nforms of organised matter. The number of forms under which it shows\nitself on the Earth is so considerable that we can only be dazed by its\nabundance, and this impression must be even increased if we remember\nthat the possible forms are far from being exhausted and that we only\nknow those which, satisfying terrestrial conditions, have been able\nto survive by adapting themselves to their surroundings. We do not\nexaggerate in declaring that Nature recognises no limit to the number\nof forms which can harbour life, and this observation is an argument\nin favour of those who desire to find reasonable or superior beings in\ndistant worlds. It indicates that as soon as the first germs of life\nexist, the possibility of a complete development is there, and that\nhowever different the external conditions may be, Nature is not at a\nloss for varieties of forms of life. That is why we have the right to\nhope that on Mars, for instance, there are beings who not only show\nmanifestations of animal life, but who are endowed with intellectual\nfaculties. That, however, is all we can acknowledge: the right to hope\nand not to a certainty.\n\nYet at the risk of exposing ourselves to a criticism similar to that\nwhich we have in the first part directed against other authors, we\nwould now invite the reader to follow us for a moment into the domain\nof speculation and hypothesis.\n\n\n     THE POSSIBILITY OF BEINGS OF DIFFERENT CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION\n\n\nIn this chapter Scheiner develops the idea indicated above (page 127)\non the possibility of the existence in other worlds of living beings\nentirely different from ourselves.\n\nWe have up to now (he writes) understood by organised matter something\nof which _carbon_, combined with hydrogen, nitrogen, and other\nelements, is the principal chemical component. Carbon is the essential\nconstituent; organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon. We do\nnot know any other substance which would allow of such an array of\ncombinations, but the possibility of such a body cannot be denied.\nWhile on Earth all life is bound up with carbon compounds, one may\nsuppose that in entirely different circumstances another element\nmight show itself capable of supporting the conditions of life in\ncombinations which might resist greater heat without decomposition or\ngreater cold without becoming torpid. A few years ago we seemed to be\non the track of something like that. _Silicon_ is the element\nwhich has the greatest chemical analogy to carbon, and in combination\nwith oxygen it is found in enormous quantities in the form of silica,\nand all its combinations have very characteristic properties. Just as\nin organic matter every being forms itself into cells by fission or\nconjugation, so also can we produce from combinations of silicic acid a\ncell from which under our eyes an object develops which has a vegetable\nappearance. This experiment, easy to make, is perhaps unknown to many\nof our readers, and therefore we must say a little more about it.\n\nMost combinations of silicic acid with metals are insoluble in water.\nSome, however, and especially a combination with potassium known by the\nname of water-glass, occurs in a soluble form. If into such a solution\nwe introduce a small quantity of any soluble metallic salt such as\nchloride of copper or silver nitrate, decomposition takes place and the\nchloride of copper is converted into silicate of copper and chloride of\npotash. A very curious phenomenon then takes place. At the moment when\nthe first traces of the metallic salt are dissolved, the decomposition\nmentioned above takes place and the molecule of salt is covered with\nan extremely fine skin of insoluble silicate. It is across this skin\nthat the liquids are then exchanged by a process of osmosis which, as\nwe know, plays a great part in the life of plants and animals and which\nhere takes place as follows:\n\nMore liquid enters the membrane than issues from it; consequently\nthe internal pressure increases until it is great enough to break\nthrough the membrane, somewhere allowing a drop of the liquid which\nis a solution of metallic salt to escape. On account of the chemical\ndecomposition, this drop immediately surrounds itself with a new skin,\nand the process of rupture and reformation is repeated until the\nmetallic salt inside the membrane is completely decomposed. We thus\nsee arising under our eyes in a few minutes a marvellous arborescent\nstructure which could at first sight be taken for some plant of\ninferior order. The rupture of the membrane always takes place in\nthe most recently formed portion, because there the membrane, which\nthickens gradually, has as yet the least thickness; that is generally\nthe upper portion, so that this offers another analogy to plant life.\nThe coloration of the cells differs with the nature of the metallic\nsalt, but we cannot trace any influence upon the forms obtained. By\nthrowing into the solution several different metallic salts, one can\nform a many-coloured garden in a small bottle.\n\nWe are far from seeing in this experience anything but a quite external\nresemblance to the phenomena of living matter. Yet it leads us to other\nreflections, especially as we do not yet know anything concerning the\nreal nature of living matter.\n\nAmong plants and inferior species of the animal world we cannot imagine\na life conscious of itself. But in common with our silica creature they\nshow growth and the consumption of chemical substances. In both cases\nthat growth is arrested wherever and whenever the food gives out. This\nhappens in the silica solution when the provision of metallic salt is\nexhausted; and these are not the only analogies which one can find.\n\nBut it will be said that there is in reality a capital difference: in\none case we have to do with real life for which we have no explanation;\nin the other we have to do with a simple chemico-physical phenomenon.\n\nWe reply that a few centuries ago this chemical vegetation would have\nbeen an enigma as life itself is still to us, and nobody would then\nhave doubted that he was observing the development of some strange\nplant. Would they not then have taken the silicon cell for an organic\ncell? What follows? That the idea of living nature is quite relative,\nthat it changes with our knowledge, and that an imaginative spirit is\nquite at liberty to endow the stare which we just excluded from life\nwith a life quite different from ours.\n\nApart from these possibilities, the somewhat discouraging result of\nour previous study was that of all celestial bodies visible to us only\ntwo or three could be described with any probability as fit to support\nsomething resembling our terrestrial organic life. We cannot object to\nthis conclusion so long as we take it literally, but we wish to point\nout that all depends upon the little restriction contained in the words\n\u201cvisible to us.\u201d\n\nWe must therefore include the heavenly bodies which we cannot see and\nconcerning which we know very little. But here we encounter a very\npeculiar paradox. We know nothing about these invisible stars, and yet\nas far as our interests are concerned we know more about them than\nthe others. For mathematics comes to our aid, and if we rely on the\ncalculus of probabilities we arrive, as we shall see, at very clear\nresults.\n\nOur Sun has created for itself, without counting the asteroids,\na retinue of eight planets, which on account of their respective\ndistances from the central body are placed in the most diverse\nconditions as regards temperature. Out of these eight planets one, the\nEarth, is undoubtedly inhabited, and two others, Mars and Venus, very\nprobably. From the fact that the Sun has produced not one planet but\neight, we can conclude that very probably the other suns or fixed stars\nhave also produced one or several planets, and that those which escape\nfrom that law are the exception. We must also admit that among these\nstellar planets there may be some in such a condition and at such a\ndistance from their central sun that organic life is possible on their\nsurfaces.\n\nWe shall make this calculation with figures so modest that we shall\nobtain results obviously below the truth.\n\nThe number of stars revealed by a telescope of moderate power amounts\nto 10 millions. If we suppose that every star only has on an average\none planet, we obtain already the considerable number of 10 million\nplanets. It is true that with us three planets out of eight may be\nconsidered habitable, but let us suppose the proportion in the universe\nis only one in a hundred. We shall still have no less than a hundred\nthousand habitable planets.\n\nThis number, evidently falling short of reality, makes already quite\nanother figure compared with the three habitable worlds we had before.\n\nAfter that the universe no longer appears such a desert. There is\nnothing to hinder us from giving rein to our fancy and imagining on\nthe one hand the strangest forms of life among the innumerable planets\ngravitating round the stars, and on the other hand thinking beings\nwhich surpass us considerably in intelligence and to whom our most\ndifficult problems are as transparent as self-evident truths. The\nconclusion is that in all sorts of degrees we must see Life radiating\ninto space and lighting up Infinity.\n\n\n                                REMARKS\n\n\nTo this interesting study of Monsieur Scheiner we may add in the first\ninstance that the question is still more complex, that we can consider\nthe resources of Nature as infinite, and that \u201cpositive\u201d science\nfounded only upon our senses is quite insufficient, though it may be\nthe only basis of our reasoning. It is through the eyes of the spirit\nthat we must survey the universe.\n\nAs we have seen, this new examination of the question of the\nhabitability of other worlds by thinking beings presents a new\ninterest, and the author has been able to escape the usual error\nof scientific writers, which consists in supposing that the first\ncondition of habitability of another world is that it resembles the\nEarth. That is always the reasoning of the fish, which would affirm\nwithout an absolutely logical conviction irrefutable to himself that\nit is impossible to live outside water. But it seems to us that our\nconception of the universe can be even more vast and elevated than that\nof the learned German astronomer.\n\nAs regards the planetary systems differing from ours, we are no longer\nobliged to fall back upon suppositions. We know already with certainty\nthat our Sun is no exception, as some theoreticians maintained even\nquite recently. The discovery is of considerable interest.\n\nIt is surely a rather exceptional situation that a sidereal system\nconsisting of a central sun and one or more bodies gravitating round\nit should have its system just in our line of vision so that the\nrevolution of the bodies which compose it should bring dark bodies\nbetween us and the star and produce a more or less complete eclipse.\nSince, on the other hand, such eclipses would be our only means of\nproving the existence of these unknown planets (except perturbations\nas in the case of Sirius and Procyon), it seems that it would have\nbeen absolutely daring to hope for such a circumstance to discover\nsolar systems different from ours. Yet this exceptional case occurs in\nvarious parts of the sky. Thus, for example, the variable star Algol\nowes its variation of brightness, which reduces it from the second to\nthe fourth magnitude at intervals of 69 hours, to the interposition of\na body between it and the Earth, and celestial mechanics has already\nbeen able to determine with precision the orbit of this body, its\ndimensions and its mass, and even the ellipticity of the Algol sun.\nThus we have here a system of which we know the sun and one enormous\nplanet whose revolution takes place in 69 hours with a very high\nvelocity as measured in the spectroscope, a planet still self-luminous,\nalthough less luminous than its sun, as the Earth was long ago, but\na planet in the course of cooling and approximating to the state of\nJupiter.\n\nThe star Delta Cephei is in the same case: it is an eclipsing variable\nwith a period of 129 hours, and its eclipsing planet also revolves in\nthe plane containing our line of vision. The star U Ophinchi shows a\nsimilar system, and observation has revealed several others.\n\nIf therefore chance has brought it about that a certain number of\ndifferent solar systems should have been revealed to terrestrial\nobservation by presenting side views, that is evidence of the existence\nof innumerable solar systems disseminated through the depths of space,\nand we are no longer reduced to mere conjectures.\n\nOn the other hand, the analysis of the movements of several stars,\nsuch as Sirius, Procyon, Altair, and many others, proves that these\nfar-distant suns have companion planets as yet unrevealed by the\ntelescope, and which possibly may never be discovered because they are\ndark and lost in the radiation of the star. The companion discovered\nin the neighbourhood of Sirius is not the only celestial body of that\nsystem. Scheiner speaks of about 10 million stars as constituting the\nsidereal universe. But the photographic chart of the heavens which\ncomprises stars down to the thirteenth magnitude is already expected to\ncontain 30 millions. If we go down to the lowest magnitudes we reach\nthe figure of 100 millions. It is therefore not an army of 100,000\nworlds which appears before us, but rather of several millions.\n\nNow, this is a point of the greatest importance for the exact\nappreciation of the problem.\n\nThe terrestrial organisms from the lowest up to man are the result of\nforces in action on the surface of our planet. The first organisms\nseem to have been produced by combinations of carbon with hydrogen\nand oxygen, and their life consisted, so to speak, only in a few\nrudimentary sensibilities. Sponges, corals, polypi, medus\u00e6, give\nus an idea of these primitive beings. They were formed in the warm\nwaters of the primary ages. While there were yet no continents nor\nislands emerging from the universal ocean, there were no air-breathing\norganisms. The first aquatic beings were succeeded by amphibia and\nreptiles. Afterwards came the mammalia and the birds. The constitution\nof beings stands in close relation with the substances of which they\nare composed, the medium in which they live, the temperature, the\nlight, the density, gravitation, length of day and night, seasons,\netc.--in a word, all the cosmographic elements of the planet.\n\nIf, for example, we compare two such worlds as the Earth and Neptune,\nwhich differ very much as regards distance from the Sun, we cannot\nimagine for a single instant that the organic forms should have had the\nsame development. The average temperature must be much lower on Neptune\nthan on the Earth, and so must the intensity of light. The years and\nthe seasons are 165 times longer than with us; the density of materials\nis three times less, and gravitation, on the other hand, is a little\nstronger. Under conditions so different from ours, the activities of\nNature can only have been shown in other forms. The elements also are\nnot found present in the same proportions, and spectrum analysis has\neven shown us that substances which prevail in the atmospheres of\nJupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, as well as Neptune, are different from\nthose which constitute our organisms. Lungs functioning in another\natmosphere would have to be different from ours. The same applies to\nthe stomach and the digestive organs. Chemical constitution is not even\nthe same. Instead of carbon as a fundamental element associated with\nhydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, we can imagine with Scheiner silicon\nand other bodies. We must conclude that the organs and the senses\ncannot be the same as they are here. The optic nerve, for instance,\nwhich has been formed and developed here from the rudimentary organ\nof the trilobite to the marvels of the human eye, must on Neptune be\nincomparably more sensitive than it is in our blinding sunlight and\nmust perceive radiations which we do not perceive here. It may even\nbe replaced by another organ. The bodily forms, animal and human, can\nresemble nothing on earth.\n\nCertain _savants_ object that, if the conditions are too different\nfrom terrestrial conditions, life cannot exist at all. But we have no\nright to limit the powers of Nature by the narrowness of our sphere\nof observation, or to pretend that our planet and our human race are\nthe model for all planets. That is an hypothesis as infantile as it is\nridiculous.\n\nOthers go still farther, and imagine that life only appears on Earth,\nand that we have no sufficient reason to suppose that on other globes\nit has been the result of inorganic evolution. This, as we have often\nrepeated, would be a strange interpretation of the language of Nature,\nconsidering that our small planet is too small a cup to contain the\nwhole of life, that that life abounds everywhere, fills the waters,\nswarms in the air, covers the entire surface of the globe, and that\nthe fertility of Nature is such that she multiplies parasitic life\nat the expense of life itself, rather than get tired of producing.\nAnd the spectacle is the same for all the immense duration of the\ngeological eras. Quite lately, noticing a heap of fossils of the\nsecondary era by the roadside in the country, I took a stone to put\nit into a collection, for it was entirely made up of shells petrified\nand cemented in a block. In taking it up I exposed a swarming mass\nof living beings, small snails, wood-lice, beetles; and I caught two\nlizards; while butterflies laid their eggs in the plants around. Life\nof former days, life of to-day, life everywhere. Life always!\n\nCertain minds are capable of supposing that for the whole duration of\nits existence, for millions of years, a world could come to nothing\nbut the state of dead and barren rock and that the life which swarms\non the surface of our planet is only a freak due to the fortuitous\ncombination of elements of fruitfulness, a parasitism of more or less\nlarge fleas which might never have been produced at all. But that is\na hypothesis contrary to the observation of Nature, and difficult to\nmaintain seriously except as a pure play of the imagination, which does\nnot satisfy the most elementary logic. And though our logic may not be\nthat of Nature, yet we must not stray too far away from it if we want\nto reason.\n\nBut as we have already repeated so often in this book, and what we must\nthoroughly absorb, is the importance of time as well as of space. Just\nas our world is nothing but a small island, a point in the universe, so\nalso our era is nothing but a moment in eternity. The present moment\nhas no more importance than the moments which have preceded or those\nwhich are to come. There is no reason to believe that such and such\nother worlds are inhabited at present simply because we live at present\nand can observe them. One world has been inhabited in the past, another\nwill be inhabited in the future. Let us not be personal, like infants\nor the aged, who see only their own room. Let us know how to live in\nthe infinite and in the eternal.\n\n\n\n\n                                 INDEX\n\n Alpha Centauri, 38, 42\n\n Andromeda, 70, 85\n\n Animalcul\u00e6, 165\n\n Atmospheres, planetary, 105\n\n Atoms and stars, 157\n\n Aurora Borealis, 175\n\n Bernoulli, 166\n\n Bessel, 100\n\n Bode, 188\n\n Champollion, hieroglyphics, 143\n\n Cherbourg, 97\n\n Communication, interplanetary,\n 141\n\n Earth currents, 135\n\n Eiffel Tower, 164\n\n Electrons, 137\n\n Fontenelle, 184\n\n Frauenhofer, 171\n\n Galileo, 101\n\n Giacobini, 97\n\n God, 174\n\n Gravitation, 105, 124\n\n Gruithuisen, 100\n\n Guzmann, prize, 153\n\n Habitability of planets, 170\n\n Harding, 101\n\n Hercules, 160, 162\n\n Homer, 95\n\n Huygens, 185\n\n Invisible universe, 175\n\n Jupiter, 23, 41, 123, 125, 187;\n   (red spot), 126\n\n Juvisy Observatory, 107, 135,\n 138\n\n Kant, 182\n\n Kircher, 184\n\n Leibnitz, 166\n\n Life, conditions, of, 106\n\n Littrow, J. von, 141, 145\n\n Magnetic variations, 131\n\n Magnetic storms, 134\n\n Mars, 14,105, 111, 145, 187, 204;\n   communication with, 117;\n   flashes on, 111; polar snows,\n   113; rotation, 114\n\n Materialism, 173\n\n Mayer, 101\n\n Mercury, 185, 203\n\n Milky Way, 163, 170\n\n Molecules, 164\n\n Moon, 9, 41, 105, 116, 141, 201\n\n Neptune, 20, 35, 41, 219\n\n Nice Observatory, 97\n\n Pascal, 168\n\n Renan, 88\n\n Saturn, 18, 41, 189\n\n Scheiner, 181, 192, 195, 210, 215,\n   220\n\n Silicon, 210\n\n Sirius, 47\n\n Spectrum analysis, 127, 200\n\n Stars and atoms, 157\n\n Stars, speed of, 159\n\n Sunspots, 134, 135\n\n Temperature of planets, 127, 197\n\n Venus, 95, 204; rotation, 107\n\n Wavelengths of light, 171\n\n\n\n\n                                THE END","title":"Dreams of an astronomer","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44444}