Inexorably, with a fatality no power could arrest, like a projectile
speeding from the mouth of a cannon toward the target, the comet
continued to advance, following its appointed path, and hurrying, with
an ever-increasing velocity, toward the point in space at which the
earth would be found on the night of July 14–15. The final calculations
were absolutely without error. These two heavenly bodies—the earth and
the comet—were to meet like two trains, rushing headlong upon each
other, with resistless momentum, as if impelled to mutual destruction by
an insatiable rage. But in the present instance the velocity of shock
would be 865 times that of two express trains having each a speed of one
hundred kilometers per hour.
During the night of July 13–14, the comet spread over nearly the entire
sky, and whirlwinds of fire could be seen by the naked eye, eddying
about an axis oblique to the zenith. The appearance was that of an army
of flaming meteors, in whose midst the flashing lightning produced the
effect of a furious combat. The burning star had a revolution of its
own, and seemed to be convulsed with pain, like a living thing. Immense
jets of flame issued from various centers, some of a greenish hue,
others red as blood, while the most brilliant were of a dazzling
whiteness. It was evident that the sun was acting powerfully upon this
whirlpool of gases, decomposing certain of them, forming detonating
compounds, electrifying the nearer portions, and repelling the smoke
from about the immense nucleus which was bearing down upon the world.
The comet itself emitted a light far different from the sunlight
reflected by the enveloping vapors; and its flames, shooting forth in
ever-increasing volume, gave it the appearance of a monster,
precipitating itself upon the earth to devour it. Perhaps the most
striking feature of this spectacle was the absence of all sound. At
Paris, as elsewhere, during that eventful night, the crowd instinctively
maintained silence, spellbound by an indescribable fascination,
endeavoring to catch some echo of the celestial thunder—but not a sound
was heard.
The moon rose full, showing green upon the fiery background of the sky,
but without brilliancy and casting no shadows. The night was no more
night, for the stars had disappeared, and the sky glowed with an intense
light.
The comet was approaching the earth with a velocity of 41,000 meters per
second, or 2460 kilometers per minute, that is, 147,600 kilometers per
hour; and the earth was itself travelling through space, from west to
east, at the rate of 29,000 meters per second, 1740 kilometers per
minute, or 104,400 kilometers per hour, in a direction oblique to the
orbit of the comet, which for any meridian appeared at midnight in the
northeast. Thus, in virtue of their velocities, these two celestial
bodies were nearing each other at the rate of 173,000 kilometers per
hour. When observation, which was in entire accord with the computations
previously made, established the fact that the nucleus of the comet was
at a distance no greater than that of the moon, everyone knew that two
hours later the first phenomena of the coming shock would begin.
Contrary to all expectation, Friday and Saturday, the 13th and 14th of
July were, like the preceding days, wonderfully beautiful; the sun shone
in a cloudless sky, the air was tranquil, the temperature rather high,
but cooled by a light, refreshing breeze. Nature was in a joyous mood,
the country was luxuriant with beauty, the streams murmured in the
valleys, the birds sang in the woods; but the dwelling places of man
were heartrendingly sad. Humanity was prostrated with terror, and the
impassible calm of nature stood over against the agonizing fear of the
human heart in painful and harrowing contrast.
[Illustration:
PEOPLE LEAVING PARIS.
]
Two millions of people had fled to Australia from Paris, London, Vienna,
Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rome and Madrid. As the day of collision
approached, the Trans-Atlantic Navigation company had been obliged to
increase threefold, fourfold, and even tenfold, the number of air-ships,
which settled like flocks of birds upon San Francisco, Honolulu, Noumea,
and the Australian cities of Melbourne, Sidney and Pax. But this exodus
of millions represented only the fortunate minority, and their absence
was scarcely noticed in the towns and villages, swarming with restless
and anxious life.
Haunted by the fear of unknown perils, for several nights no one had
been able to close their eyes, or even dared to go to bed. To do so,
seemed to court the last sleep and to abandon all hope of awakening
again. Every face was livid with terror, every eye was sunken; the hair
was dishevelled, the countenance haggard and stamped with the impress of
the most frightful anguish which had ever preyed upon the human soul.
The atmosphere was growing drier and warmer. Since the evening before,
no one had bethought himself of food, and the stomach, usually so
imperious in its demands, craved for nothing. A burning thirst was the
first physiological effect of the dryness of the atmosphere, and the
most self-restrained sought, in every possible way, to quench it, though
without success. Physical pain had begun its work, and was soon to
dominate mental suffering. Hour by hour, respiration became more
difficult, more exhausting and more painful. Little children, in the
presence of this new suffering, appealed in tears to their mothers.
At Paris, London, Rome and St. Petersburg, in every capital, in every
city, in every village, the terrified population wandered about
distractedly, like ants when their habitations are disturbed. All the
business of ordinary life was neglected, abandoned, forgotten; every
project was set aside. No one cared any longer for anything, for his
house, his family, his life. There existed a moral prostration and
dejection, more complete than even that which is produced by
sea-sickness. Some few, abandoning themselves to the exaltation of love,
seemed to live only for each other, strangers to the universal panic.
[Illustration:
“STRANGERS TO THE UNIVERSAL PANIC.”
]
Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, Greek chapels,
Mohammedan mosques and Buddhist temples, the sanctuaries of the new
Gallican religion—in short, the places of assembly of every sect into
which the idiosyncrasies of belief had divided mankind, were thronged by
the faithful on that memorable day of Friday, July 13th; and even at
Paris the crowds besieging the portals were such that no one could get
near the churches, within which were to be seen vast multitudes, all
prostrate upon the ground. Prayers were muttered in low tones, but no
chant, no organ, no bell was to be heard. The confessionals were
surrounded by penitents, waiting their turn, as in those early days of
sincere and naïve faith described by the historians of the middle ages.
Everywhere on the streets and on the boulevards the same silence
reigned; not a sound disturbed the hush, nothing was sold, no paper was
printed; aviators, aeroplanes, dirigible balloons were no more to be
seen; the only vehicles passing were the hearses bearing to the
crematories the first victims of the comet, already numerous. The days
of July 13th and 14th had passed without incident, but with what anxiety
the fateful night was awaited! Never, perhaps, had there been so
magnificent a sunset, never a sky so pure! The orb of day seemed to go
down in a sea of gold and purple; its red disc disappeared below the
horizon, but the stars did not rise—and night did not come! To the
daylight succeeded a day of cometary and lunar splendor, illuminated by
a dazzling light, recalling that of the aurora borealis, but more
intense, emanating from an immense blazing focus, which had not been
visible during the day because it had been below the horizon, but which
would certainly have rivalled the sun in brilliancy. Amid the universal
plaint of nature, this luminous center rose in the west almost at the
same time with the full moon, which climbed the sky with it like a
sacrificial victim ascending the funeral pyre. The moon paled as it
mounted higher, but the comet increased in brightness as the sun sank
below the western horizon, and now, when the hour of night had come, it
reigned supreme, a vaporous, scarlet sun, with flames of yellow and
green, like immense extended wings. To the terrified spectator it seemed
some enormous giant, taking sovereign possession of earth and sky.
Already the cometary fringes had invaded the lunar orbit. At any moment
they would reach the rarer limits of the earth’s atmosphere, only two
hundred kilometers away.
Then everyone beheld, as it were, a vast conflagration, kindled over the
whole extent of the horizon, throwing skyward little violet flames, and
almost immediately the brilliancy of the comet diminished, doubtless
because just before touching the earth it had entered into the shadow of
the planet and had lost that part of its light which came from the sun.
This apparent decrease in brilliancy was chiefly due to contrast, for
when the eye, less dazzled, had become accustomed to this new light, it
seemed almost as intense as the former, but of a sickly, lurid,
sepulchral hue. Never before had the earth been bathed in such a light,
which at first seemed to be colorless, emitting lightning flashes from
its pale and wan depths. The dryness of the air, hot as the breath of a
furnace, became intolerable, and a horrible odor of sulphur, probably
due to the super-electrified ozone, poisoned the atmosphere. Everyone
believed his last hour was at hand. A terrible cry dominated every other
sound. The earth is on fire! The earth is on fire! Indeed, the entire
horizon was now illuminated by a ring of bluish flame, surrounding the
earth like the flames of a funeral pile. This, as had been predicted,
was the carbonic-oxide, whose combustion in the air produced
carbonic-anhydride.
Suddenly, as the terrified spectator gazed silent and awestruck, holding
his very breath in a stupor of fear, the vault of heaven seemed rent
asunder from zenith to horizon, and from this yawning chasm, as from an
enormous mouth, was vomited forth jets of dazzling greenish flame,
enveloping the earth in a glare so blinding, that all who had not
already sought shelter, men and women, the old and the young, the bold
as well as the timid, all rushed with the impetuosity of an avalanche to
the cellarways, already choked with people. Many were crushed to death,
or succumbed to apoplexy, aneurismal ruptures, and wild delirium
resulting in brain fever.
On the terraces and in the observatories, however, the astronomers had
remained at their posts, and several had succeeded in taking an
uninterrupted series of photographs of the sky changes; and from this
time, but for a very brief interval, with the exception of a few
courageous spirits, who dared to gaze upon the awful spectacle from
behind the windows of some upper apartment, they were the sole witnesses
of the collision.
[Illustration:
“A FIERY RAIN FELL FROM EVERY QUARTER OF THE SKY.”
]
Computation had indicated that the earth would penetrate the heart of
the comet as a bullet would penetrate a cloud, and that the transit,
reckoning from the first instant of contact of the outer zones of the
comet’s atmosphere with those of the earth, would consume four and
one-half hours,—a fact easily established, inasmuch as the comet, having
a diameter about sixty-five times that of the earth, would be traversed,
not centrally, but at one-quarter of the distance from the center, with
a velocity of about 173,000 kilometers per hour. Nearly forty minutes
after the first instant of contact, the heat of this incandescent
furnace, and the horrible odor of sulphur, became so suffocating that a
few moments more of such torture would have sufficed to destroy every
vestige of life. Even the astronomers crept painfully from room to room
within the observatories which they had endeavored to close
hermetically, and sought shelter in the cellars; and the young computor,
whose acquaintance we have already made, was the last to remain on the
terrace, at Paris,—a few seconds only, but long enough to witness the
explosion of a formidable bolide, which was rushing southward with the
velocity of lightning. But strength was lacking for further
observations. One could breathe no longer. Besides the heat and the
dryness, so destructive to every vital function, there was the
carbonic-oxide which was already beginning to poison the atmosphere. The
ears were filled with a dull, roaring sound, the heart beat ever more
and more violently; and still this choking odor of sulphur! At the same
time a fiery rain fell from every quarter of the sky, a rain of shooting
stars, the immense majority of which did not reach the earth, although
many fell upon the roofs, and the fires which they kindled could be seen
in every direction. To these fires from heaven the fires of earth now
made answer, and the world was surrounded with electric flashes, as by
an army. Everyone, without thinking for an instant of flight, had
abandoned all hope, expecting every moment to be buried in the ruins of
the world, and those who still clung to each other, and whose only
consolation was that of dying together, clung closer, in a last embrace.
But the main body of the celestial army had passed, and a sort of
rarefaction, of vacuum, was produced in the atmosphere, perhaps as the
result of meteoric explosions; for suddenly the windows were shattered,
blown outwards, and the doors opened of themselves. A violent wind
arose, adding fury to the conflagration. Then the rain fell in torrents,
but reanimating at the same time the extinguished hope of life, and
waking mankind from its nightmare.
“_The XXVth Century! Death of the Pope and all the bishops! Fall of the
comet at Rome! Paper, sir?_”
Scarcely a half hour had passed before people began to issue from their
cellars, feeling again the joy of living, and recovering gradually from
their apathy. Even before one had really begun to take any account of
the fires which were still raging, notwithstanding the deluge or rain,
the scream of the newsboy was heard in the hardly awakened streets.
Everywhere, at Paris, Marseilles, Brussels, London, Vienna, Turin and
Madrid, the same news was being shouted, and before caring for the fires
which were spreading on every side, everyone bought the popular one-cent
sheet, with its sixteen illustrated pages fresh from the press.
“_The Pope and the cardinals crushed to death! The sacred college
destroyed by the comet! Extra! Extra!_”
The newsboys drove a busy trade, for everyone was anxious to know the
truth of these announcements, and eagerly bought the great popular
socialistic paper.
[Illustration:
“EXTRA!”
]
This is what had taken place. The American Hebrew, to whom we have
already referred, and who, on the preceding Tuesday, had managed to make
several millions by the reopening of the Paris and Chicago exchanges,
had not for a moment yielded to despair, and, as in other days, the
monasteries had accepted bequests made in view of the end of the world,
so our indefatigable speculator had thought best to remain at his
telephone, which he had caused to be taken down for the nonce into a
vast subterranean gallery, hermetically closed. Controlling special
wires uniting Paris with the principal cities of the world, he was in
constant communication with them. The nucleus of the comet had contained
within its mass of incandescent gas a certain number of solid
uranolites, some of which measured several kilometers in diameter. One
of these masses had struck the earth not far from Rome, and the Roman
correspondent had sent the following news by phonogram:
“All the cardinals and prelates of the council were assembled in solemn
fête under the dome of St. Peter. In this grandest temple of
Christendom, splendidly illuminated at the solemn hour of midnight, amid
the pious invocations of the chanting brotherhoods, the altars smoking
with the perfumed incense, and the organs filling the recesses of the
immense church with their tones of thunder, the Pope, seated upon his
throne, saw prostrate at his feet his faithful people from every quarter
of the world; but as he rose to pronounce the final benediction a mass
of iron, half as large as the city itself, falling from the sky with the
rapidity of lightning, crushed the assembled multitudes, precipitating
them into an abyss of unknown depth, a veritable pit of hell. All Italy
was shaken, and the roar of the thunder was heard at Marseilles.”
The bolide had been seen in every city throughout Italy, through the
showers of meteorites and the burning atmosphere. It had illumined the
earth like a new sun with a brilliant red light, and a terrible rending
had followed its fall, as if the sky had really been split from top to
bottom. (This was the bolide which the young calculator of the
observatory of Paris had observed when, in spite of her zeal, the
suffocating fumes had driven her from the terrace.)
Seated at his telephone, our speculator received his despatches and gave
his orders, dictating sensational news to his journal, which was printed
simultaneously in all the principal cities of the world. A quarter of an
hour later these despatches appeared on the first page of the XXVth
Century, in New York, St. Petersburg and Melbourne, as also in the
capitals nearer Paris; an hour after the first edition a second was
announced.
“_Paris in flames! The cities of Europe destroyed! Rome in ashes! Here’s
your XXVth Century, second edition!_”
And in this new edition there was a very closely written article, from
the pen of an accomplished correspondent, dealing with the consequences
of the destruction of the sacred college.
“_Twenty-fifth Century, fourth edition! New volcano in Italy! Revolution
in Naples! Paper, sir?_”
The second had been followed by the fourth edition without any regard to
a third. It told how a bolide, weighing ten thousand tons, or perhaps
more, had fallen with the velocity above stated upon the solfatara of
Pozzuoli, penetrating and breaking in the light and hollow crust of the
ancient crater. The flames below had burst forth in a new volcano,
which, with Vesuvius, illuminated the Elysian fields.
“_Twenty-fifth Century, sixth edition! New island in the Mediterranean!
Conquests of England!_”
A fragment of the head of the comet had fallen into the Mediterranean to
the west of Rome, forming an irregular island, fifteen hundred meters in
length by seven hundred in width, with an altitude of about two hundred
meters. The sea had boiled about it, and huge tidal waves had swept the
shores. But there happened to be an Englishman nearby, whose first
thought was to land in a creek of the newly formed island, and scaling a
rock, to plant the British flag upon its highest peak.
Millions of copies of the journal of the famous speculator were
distributed broadcast over the world during this night of July 14th,
with accounts of the disaster, dictated by telephone from the office of
its director, who had taken measures to monopolize every item of news.
Everywhere these editions were eagerly read, even before the necessary
precautions were taken to extinguish the conflagrations still raging.
From the outset, the rain had afforded unexpected succor, yet the
material losses were immense, notwithstanding the prevailing use of iron
in building construction.
“_Twenty-fifth Century, tenth edition! Great miracle at Rome!_”
What miracle, it was easy enough to explain. In this latest edition, the
XXVth Century announced that its correspondent at Rome had given
circulation to a rumor which proved to be without foundation; that the
bolide had not destroyed Rome at all, but had fallen quite a distance
outside the city. St. Peter and the Vatican had been miraculously
preserved. But hundreds of millions of copies were sold in every country
of the world. It was an excellent stroke of business.
The crisis had passed. Little by little, men recovered their
self-possession, rejoicing in the mere fact of living.
[Illustration:
THE COUNCIL ASSEMBLED UNDER THE DOME OF ST. PETER’S.
]
Throughout the night, the sky overhead was illuminated by the lurid
light of the comet, and by the meteorites which still fell in showers,
kindled on every side new conflagrations. When day came, about half past
three in the morning, more than three hours had passed since the head of
the comet had collided with the earth; the nucleus had passed in a
southwesterly direction, and the earth was still entirely buried in the
tail. The shock had taken place at eighteen minutes after midnight; that
is to say, fifty-eight minutes after midnight, Paris time, exactly as
predicted by the president of the Astronomical society of France, whose
statement our readers may remember.
Although, at the instant of collision, the greater part of the
hemisphere on the side of the comet had been effected by the
constricting dryness, the suffocating heat and the poisonous sulphurous
odors, as well as by deadening stupor, due to the resistance encountered
by the comet in traversing the atmosphere, the supersaturation of the
ozone with electricity, and the mixture of nitrogen protoxide with the
upper air, the other hemisphere had experienced no other disturbance
than that which followed inevitably from the destroyed atmospheric
equilibrium. Fortunately, the comet had only skimmed the earth, and the
shock had not been central. Doubtless, also, the attraction of the earth
had had much to do with the fall of the bolides in Italy and the
Mediterranean. At all events, the orbit of the comet had been entirely
altered by this perturbation, while the earth and the moon continued
tranquilly on their way about the sun, as if nothing had happened. The
orbit of the comet had been changed by the earth’s attraction from a
parabola to an ellipse, its aphelion being situated near the ecliptic.
When later statistics of the comet’s victims were obtained, it was found
that the number of the dead was one-fortieth of the population of
Europe. In Paris alone, which extended over a part of the departments
formerly known as the Seine and Seine-et-Oise, and which contained nine
million inhabitants, there was more than two hundred thousand deaths.
Prior to the fatal week, the mortality had increased threefold, and on
the 10th fourfold. This rate of increase had been arrested by the
confidence produced by the sessions of the Institute, and had even
diminished sensibly during Wednesday. Unfortunately, as the threatening
star drew near, the panic had resumed its sway. On the following
Thursday the normal mortality rate had increased fivefold, and those of
weak constitution had succumbed. On Friday, the 13th, the day before the
disaster, owing to privations of every kind, the absence of food and
sleep, the heat and feverish condition which it induced, the effect of
the excitement upon the heart and brain, the mortality at Paris had
reached the hitherto unheard of figure of ten thousand! On the eventful
night of the 14th, owing to the crowded condition of the cellars, the
vitiation of the atmosphere by the carbonic-oxide gas, and suffocation
due to the drying up of the lining membrane of the throat, pulmonary
congestion, anæsthesia, and arrest of the circulation, the victims were
more numerous than those of the battles of former times, the total for
that day reaching the enormous sum of more than one hundred thousand.
Some of those mortally effected lived until the following day, and a
certain number survived longer, but in a hopeless condition. Not until a
week had elapsed was the normal death-rate re-established. During this
disastrous month 17,500 children were born at Paris, but nearly all
died. Medical statistics, subtracting from the general total the normal
mean, based upon a death-rate of twenty for every one thousand
inhabitants, that is, 492 per day, or 15,252 for the month, which
represents the number of those who would have died independently of the
comet, ascribed to the latter the difference between these two numbers,
namely, 222,633; of these, more than one-half, or more than one hundred
thousand, died of fear, by syncope, aneurisms or cerebral congestions.
But this cataclysm did not bring about the end of the world. The losses
were made good by an apparent increase in human vitality, such as had
been observed formerly after destructive wars; the earth continued to
revolve in the light of the sun, and humanity to advance toward a still
higher destiny.
The comet had, above all, been the pretext for the discussion of every
possible phase of this great and important subject—the end of the world.
[Illustration:
GIRLS REFUSING TO MARRY.
]
SECOND PART.
CHAPTER I.
The events which we have just described, and the discussions to which
they gave rise, took place in the twenty-fifth century of the Christian
era. Humanity was not destroyed by the shock of the comet, although this
was the most memorable event in its entire history, and one never
forgotten, notwithstanding the many transformations which the race has
since undergone. The earth had continued to rotate and the sun to shine;
little children had become old men, and their places had been filled by
others in the eternal succession of generations. Centuries and ages had
succeeded each other, and humanity, slowly advancing in knowledge and
happiness, through a thousand transitory interruptions, had reached its
apogee and accomplished its destiny.
But how vast these series of transformations—physical and mental!
The population of Europe, from the year 1900 to the year 3000, had
increased from 375 to 700 millions; that of Asia, from 875 to 1000
millions; that of the Americas, from 120 to 1500 millions; that of
Africa, from 75 to 200 millions; that of Australia, from 5 to 60
millions; which, for the total population of the globe, gives an
increase of 2010 millions. And this increase had continued, with some
fluctuations.
Language had become transformed. The never-ceasing progress of science
and industry had created a large number of new words, generally of Greek
derivation. At the same time, the English language had spread over the
entire world. From the twenty-fifth to the thirtieth centuries, the
spoken language of Europe was based upon a mixture of English, of
French, and of Greek derivatives. Every effort to create artificially a
new universal language had failed.
Long before the twenty-fifth century, war had disappeared, and it became
difficult to conceive how a race which pretended to knowledge and reason
could have endured so long the yoke of clever rascals who lived at its
expense. In vain had later sovereigns proclaimed, in high-sounding
words, that war was a divine institution; that it was the natural result
of the struggle for existence; that it constituted the noblest of
professions; that patriotism was the chief of virtues. In vain were
battle-fields called fields of honor; in vain were the statues of the
victors erected in the most populous cities. It was, at last, observed
that, with the exception of certain ants, no animal species had set an
example of such boundless folly as the human race; that the struggle for
life did not consist in slaughtering one another, but in the conquest of
nature; that all the resources of humanity were absolutely wasted in the
bottomless gulf of standing armies; and that the mere obligation of
military service, as formulated by law, was an encroachment upon human
liberty, so serious that, under the guise of honor, slavery had been
re-established.
Men perceived that the military system meant the maintenance of an army
of parasites and idlers, yielding a passive obedience to the orders of
diplomats, who were simply speculating upon human credulity. In early
times, war had been carried on between villages, for the advantage and
glory of chieftains, and this kind of petty warfare still prevailed in
the nineteenth century, between the villages of central Africa, where
even young men and women, persuaded of their slavery, were seen, at
certain times, to present themselves voluntarily at the places where
they were to be sacrificed. Reason having, at last, begun to prevail,
men had then formed themselves into provinces, and a warfare between
provinces arose—Athens contending with Sparta, Rome with Carthage, Paris
with Dijon; and history had celebrated the glorious wars of the Duke of
Burgundy against the king of France, of the Normans against the
Parisians, of the Belgians against the Flemish, of the Saxons against
the Bavarians, of the Venetians against the Florentines, etc., etc.
Later, nations had been formed, thus doing away with provincial flags
and boundaries; but men continued to teach their children to hate their
neighbors, and citizens were accoutred for the sole purpose of mutual
extermination. Interminable wars arose, wars ceaselessly renewed,
between France, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Russia, Turkey,
etc. The development of weapons of destruction had kept pace with the
progress of chemistry, mechanics, aeronautics, and most of the other
sciences, and theorists were to be found, especially among statesmen,
who declared that war was the necessary condition of progress,
forgetting that it was only the sorry heritage of barbarism, and that
the majority of those who have contributed to the progress of science
and industry, electricity, physics, mechanics, etc., have all been the
most pacific of men. Statistics had proved that war regularly claimed
forty million victims per century, 1100 per day, without truce or
intermission, and had made 1200 million corpses in three thousand years.
It was not surprising that nations had been exhausted and ruined, since
in the nineteenth century alone they had expended, to this end, the sum
of 700,000 million francs. These divisions, appealing to patriotic
sentiments skillfully kept alive by politicians who lived upon them,
long prevented Europe from imitating the example of America in the
suppression of its armies, which consumed all its vital forces and
wasted yearly more than ten thousand million francs of the resources
acquired at such sacrifice by the laborer, and from forming a United
States of Europe. But though man could not make up his mind to do away
with the tinsel of national vanity, woman came to his rescue.
Under the inspiration of a woman of spirit, a league was formed of the
mothers of Europe, for the purpose of educating their children,
especially their daughters, to a horror of the barbarities of war. The
folly of men, the frivolity of the pretexts which arrayed nations
against each other, the knavery of statesmen who moved heaven and earth
to excite patriotism and blind the eyes of peoples; the absolute
uselessness of the wars of the past and of that European equilibrium
which was always disturbed and never established; the ruin of nations;
fields of battle strewn with the dead and the mangled, who, an hour
before, lived joyously in the bountiful sun of nature; widows and
orphans—in short, all the misery of war was forced upon the mind, by
conversation, recital and reading. In a single generation, this rational
education had freed the young from this remnant of animalism, and
inculcated a sentiment of profound horror for all which recalled the
barbarism of other days. Still, governments refused to disarm, and the
war budget was voted from year to year. It was then that the young girls
resolved never to marry a man who had borne arms; and they kept their
vow.
The early years of this league were trying ones, even for the young
girls: for the choice of more than one fell upon some fine-looking
officer, and, but for the universal reprobation, her heart might have
yielded. There were, it is true, some desertions; but, as those who
formed these marriages were, from the outset, despised and ostracized by
society, they were not numerous. Public opinion was formed, and it was
impossible to stem the tide.
For about five years there was scarcely a single marriage or union.
Every citizen was a soldier, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain,
in every nation of Europe—all ready for a confederation of States, but
never recoiling before questions represented by the national flag. The
women held their ground; they felt that truth was on their side, but
their firmness would deliver humanity from the slavery which oppressed
it, and that they could not fail of victory. To the passionate
objurgations of certain men, they replied: “No; we will have nothing
more to do with fools;” and, if this state of affairs continued, they
had decided to keep their vow, or to emigrate to America, where,
centuries before, the military system had disappeared.
The most eloquent appeals for disarmament were made at every session to
the committee of administrators of the state, formerly called deputies
or senators. Finally, after a lapse of five years, face to face with
this wall of feminine opposition, which, day by day, grew stronger and
more impregnable, the deputies of every country, as if animated by a
common motive, eloquently advocated the cause of women, and that very
week disarmament was voted in Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Spain.
[Illustration]
It was spring-time. There was no disorder. Innumerable marriages
followed. Russia and England had held aloof from the movement, the
suffrage of women in these countries not having been unanimous. But as
all the states of Europe were formed into a republic the ensuing year,
uniting in a single confederated state, on the invitation of the
government of the United States of Europe, these two great nations also
decreed a gradual disarmament. Long before this time, India had been
lost to England, and the latter had become a republic. As for Russia,
the monarchical form of government still existed. It was then the middle
of the twenty-fourth century, and from that epoch the narrow sentiment
of patriotism was replaced by the general one of humanity.
Delivery from the ball and chain of military slavery, Europe had
immediately gotten rid of the bureaucracy which had also exhausted
nations, condemned to perish, as it were, by plethora. But for this a
radical revolution was necessary. From that time on, Europe had advanced
as by magic in a marvellous progress—social, scientific, artistic and
industrial. Taxation, diminished by nine-tenths, served only for the
maintenance of internal order, the security of life and property, the
support of schools, and the encouragement of new researches. But
individual initiative was far more effective than the old-time official
centralization which for so many years had stifled individual effort,
and bureaucracy was dead and buried.
At last one breathed freely, one lived. In order to pay 700,000
millions every century to citizens withdrawn from all productive work,
and to maintain the bureaucracy, governments had been obliged to
increase taxation to a fearful degree. The result was that everything
was taxed; the air one breathes, the water one drinks, the light and
heat of the sun, bread, wine and every article of food, clothing,
houses, the streets of cities, the country roads, animals, horses,
oxen, dogs, cats, hens, rabbits, birds in cages, plants, flowers,
musical instruments, pianos, organs, violins, zithers, flutes,
trumpets, trades and professions, the married and the unmarried,
children, furniture—everything, absolutely everything; and this
taxation had grown until it equalled the net product of all human
labor, with the single exception of the “daily bread.” Then, all work
had ceased. It seemed thenceforth impossible to live. It was this
state of affairs which led to the great social revolution of the
international socialists, of which mention was made at the beginning
of this book, and to others which followed it. But these upheavals had
not definitely liberated Europe from the barbarism of bygone days, and
it was to the young women’s league that humanity owes its deliverance.
The unification of nations, of ideas, of languages, had brought about
also that of weights and measures. No nation had resisted the universal
adoption of the metric system, based upon the dimensions of the planet
itself. A single kind of money was in circulation. One initial meridian
ruled in geography. This meridian passed through the observatory of
Greenwich, and at its antipode the day changed its name at noon.
[Illustration:
“VOYAGES WERE MADE PREFERABLY BY AIR-SHIPS.”
]
Nations which we call modern had vanished like those of the past. France
had disappeared in the twenty-eighth century, after an existence of
about two thousand years. Germany disappeared in the thirty-second;
Italy in the twenty-ninth; England had spread over the surface of the
ocean.
Meteorology had attained the precision of astronomy, and about the
thirtieth century the weather could be predicted without error.
The forests, sacrificed to agriculture and the manufacture of paper, had
entirely disappeared.
The legal rate of interest had fallen to one-half of one per cent.
Electricity had taken the place of steam. Railroads and pneumatic tubes
were still in use, but only for the transportation of freight. Voyages
were made preferably by dirigible balloons, aeroplanes and air-ships,
especially in the daytime.
This very fact of aerial navigation would have done away with frontiers
if the progress of reason had not already abolished them. Constant
intercourse between all parts of the globe had brought about
internationalism, and the absolutely free exchange of goods and ideas.
Custom-houses had been suppressed.
The telephonoscope disseminated immediately the most important and
interesting news. A comedy played at Chicago or Paris could be heard and
seen in every city of the world.
Astronomy had attained its end: the knowledge of the life of other
worlds and the establishment of communication with them. All philosophy,
all religion, was founded upon the progress of astronomy.
Marvellous instruments in optics and physics had been invented. A new
substance took the place of glass, and had yielded the most unexpected
results to science. New natural forces had been conquered.
Social progress had been no less great than that of science. Machines
driven by electricity had gradually taken the place of manual labor. At
the same time the production of food had become entirely revolutionized.
Chemical synthesis had succeeded in producing sugar, albumen, the amides
and fats, from the air, water and vegetables, and, by skillfully varying
the proportions, in forming the most advantageous combinations of
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, so that sumptuous repasts no
longer consisted of the smoking remains of slaughtered animals—beef,
veal, lamb, pork, chicken, fish and birds,—but were served amid the
harmonies of music in rooms adorned with plants ever green and flowers
ever in bloom, in an atmosphere laden with perfumes. Freed from the
vulgar necessity of masticating meats, the mouth absorbed the principles
necessary for the repair of organic tissues in exquisite drinks, fruits,
cakes and pills.
About the thirtieth century, especially, the nervous system began to
grow more delicate, and developed in unexpected ways. Woman was still
somewhat more narrow-minded than man, and her mental operations differed
from his as before (her exquisite sensibility responding to sentimental
considerations before reason could act in the lower cells), and her head
had remained smaller, her forehead narrower; but the former was so
elegantly placed upon a neck of such supple grace, and rose so nobly
from the shoulders and the bust, that it compelled more than ever the
admiration of man, not only as a whole, but also by the penetrating
sweetness and beauty of the mouth and the light curls of its luxuriant
hair. Although comparatively smaller than that of man, the head of woman
had nevertheless increased in size with the exercise of the intellectual
faculties; but the cerebral circonvolutions had experienced the most
change, having become more numerous and more pronounced in both sexes.
In short, the head had grown, the body had diminished in size. Giants
were no longer to be seen.
Four permanent causes had modified insensibly the human form; the
development of the intellectual faculties and of the brain, the decrease
in manual labor and bodily exercise, the transformation of food, and the
marriage system. The first had increased the size of the cranium as
compared with the rest of the body; the second had decreased the
strength of the limbs; the third had diminished the size of the abdomen
and made the teeth finer and smaller; the tendency of the fourth had
been rather to perpetuate the classic forms of human beauty: masculine
beauty, the nobility of an uplifted countenance, and the graceful
outlines of womanhood. About the two hundredth century of our era, a
single race existed, rather small in stature, light colored, in which
anthropologists might, perhaps, have discovered some form of Anglo-Saxon
and Chinese descent.
Humanity had tended towards unity, one race, one language, one general
government, one religion. There were no more state religions; only the
voice of an enlightened conscience, and in this unity former
anthropological differences had disappeared.
In former ages poets had prophesied that in the marvellous progress of
things man would finally acquire wings, and fly through the air by his
muscular force alone; but they had not studied the origin of
anthropomorphic structure and had forgotten that for a man to have at
the same time arms and wings, he must belong to a zoölogical order of
sextupeds which does not exist on our planet; for man belongs to the
quadrupeds, a type which has been gradually modified. But though he had
not acquired new natural organs, he had acquired artificial ones, to say
nothing of his physical transformation. He had conquered the region of
the air and could soar in the sky by light apparatus, whose motor power
was electricity, and the atmosphere had become his domain as it had been
that of the birds. It is very probable that if in the course of ages a
winged race could have acquired, by the development of its faculties of
observation, a brain analogous to that of even the most primitive man,
it would have soon dominated the human species and replaced it by a new
one,—a winged race of the same zoölogical type as the quadrupeds and
bipeds. But the force of gravity is an obstacle to any such organic
development of the winged species, and humanity, grown more perfect, had
remained master of the world.
At the same time, in the lapse of ages, the animal population of the
globe had completely changed. The wild species, lions, tigers, hyenas,
panthers, elephants, giraffes, kangaroos, as also whales and seals, had
become extinct.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
[Illustration]
About the one hundredth century of the Christian era all resemblance
between the human race and monkeys had disappeared.
The nervous sensibility of man had become intensified to a marvellous
degree. The sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, of touch, and of
taste, had gradually acquired a delicacy far exceeding that of their
earlier and grosser manifestations. Through the study of the electrical
properties of living organisms, a seventh sense, the electric sense, was
created outright, so to speak; and everyone possessed the power of
attracting and repelling both living and inert matter, to a degree
depending upon the temperament of the individual. But by far the most
important of all the senses, the one which played the greatest role in
men’s relation to each other, was the eighth, the psychic sense, by
which communication at a distance became possible.
A glimpse has been had of two other senses also, but their development
had been arrested from the very outset. The first had to do with the
visibility of the ultra violet rays, so sensitive to chemical tests, but
wholly invisible to the human eye. Experiments made in this direction
has resulted in the acquisition of no new power, and had considerably
impaired those previously enjoyed. The second was the sense of
orientation; but every effort made to develop it had proved a failure,
notwithstanding the attempt to make use of the results of researches in
terrestrial magnetism.
For some time past, the offspring of the once titled and aristocratic
classes of society had formed a sickly and feeble race, and the
governing body was recruited from among the more virile members of the
lower class, who, however, were in their turn soon enervated by a
worldly life. Subsequently, marriages were regulated on established
principles of selection and heredity.
The development of man’s intellectual faculties, and the cultivation of
psychical science, had wrought great changes in humanity. Latent
faculties of the soul had been discovered, faculties which had remained
dormant for perhaps a million years, during the earlier reign of the
grosser instincts, and, in proportion as food based upon chemical
principles was substituted for the coarse nourishment which had
prevailed for so long a time, these faculties came to light and
underwent a brilliant development. As a mental operation, thought became
a different thing from what it now is. Mind acted readily upon mind at a
distance, by virtue of a transcendental magnetism, of which even
children knew how to avail themselves.
[Illustration:
“EVEN CHILDREN KNEW HOW TO AVAIL THEMSELVES OF IT.”
]
The first interastral communication was with the planet Mars, and the
second with Venus, the latter being maintained to the end of the world;
the former was interrupted by the death of the inhabitants of Mars;
whereas intercourse with Jupiter was only just beginning as the human
race neared its own end. A rigid application of the principles of
selection in the formation of marriages had resulted in a really new
race, resembling ours in organic form, but possessing wholly different
intellectual powers. For the once barbarous and often blind methods of
medicine, and even of surgery, had been substituted by those derived
from a knowledge of hypnotic, magnetic and psychic forces, and telepathy
had become a great and fruitful science.
Simultaneously with man the planet also had been transformed. Industry
had produced mighty but ephemeral results. In the twenty-fifth century,
whose events we have just described, Paris had been for a long time a
seaport, and electric ships from the Atlantic, and from the Pacific by
the Isthmus of Panama, arrived at the quays of the abbey of Saint Denis,
beyond which the great capital extended far to the north. The passage
from the abbey of Saint Denis to the port of London was made in a few
hours, and many travellers availed themselves of this route, in
preference to the regular air route, the tunnel, and the viaduct over
the channel. Outside of Paris the same activity reigned; for, in the
twenty-fifth century also, the canal uniting the Mediterranean with the
Atlantic had been completed, and the long detour by way of the Straits
of Gibraltar had been abandoned; and on the other hand a metallic tube,
for carriages driven by compressed air, united the Iberian republic,
formerly Spain and Portugal, with western Algeria, formerly Morocco.
Paris and Chicago then had nine million inhabitants, London, ten; New
York, twelve. Paris, continuing its growth toward the west from century
to century, now extended from the confluence of the Marne beyond St.
Germain. All great cities had grown at the expense of the country.
Agricultural products were manufactured by electricity; hydrogen was
extracted from sea-water; the energy of waterfalls and tides were
utilized for lighting purposes at a distance; the solar rays, stored in
summer, were distributed in winter, and the seasons had almost
disappeared, especially since the introduction of heat wells, which
brought to the surface of the soil the seemingly inexhaustible heat of
the earth’s interior.
But what is the twenty-fifth century in comparison with the thirtieth,
the fortieth, the hundredth!
Everyone knows the legend of the Arab of Kazwani, as related by a
traveller of the thirteenth century, who at that time, moreover, had no
idea of the duration of the epochs of nature. “Passing one day,” he
said, “by a very ancient and very populous city, I asked one of its
inhabitants how long a time it had been founded. ‘Truly,’ he replied,
‘it is a powerful city, but we do not know how long it has existed, and
our ancestors are as ignorant upon this subject as we.’
[Illustration:
THE CHINESE CAPITOL.
]
“Five centuries later I passed by the same spot, and could perceive no
trace of the city. I asked a peasant who was gathering herbs on its
former site, how long it had been destroyed. ‘Of a truth,’ he replied,
‘that is a strange question. This field has always been what it now is.’
‘But was there not formerly a splendid city here?’ I asked. ‘Never,’ he
answered, ‘at least so far as we can judge from what we have seen, and
our fathers have never told us of any such thing.’
“On my return five hundred years later to the same place I found it
occupied by the sea; on the shore stood a group of fishermen, of whom I
asked at what period the land had been covered by the ocean. ‘Is that
question worthy of a man like you?’ they replied; ‘this spot has always
been such as you see it today.’
“At the end of five hundred years I returned again, and the sea had
disappeared. I inquired of a solitary man whom I encountered, when this
change had taken place; and he gave me the same reply.
“Finally, after an equal lapse of time, I returned once more, to find a
flourishing city, more populous and richer in monuments than that which
I had at first visited; and when I sought information as to its origin,
its inhabitants replied: ‘The date of its foundation is lost in
antiquity. We do not know how long it has existed, and our fathers knew
no more of this than we do.’”
How this fable illustrates the brevity of human memory and the
narrowness of our horizons in time as well as in space! We think that
the earth has always been what it now is; we conceive with difficulty of
the secular changes through which it has passed; the vastness of these
periods overwhelms us, as in astronomy we are overwhelmed by the vast
distances of space.
The time had come when Paris had ceased to be the capital of the world.
After the fusion of the United States of Europe into a single
confederation, the Russian republic from St. Petersburg to
Constantinople had formed a sort of barrier against the invasion of the
Chinese, who had already established populous cities on the shores of
the Caspian sea. The nations of the past having disappeared before the
march of progress, and the nationalities of France, England, Germany,
Italy and Spain having for the same reason passed away, communication
between the east and west, between Europe and America, had become more
and more easy; and the sea being no longer an obstacle to the march of
humanity, free now as the sun, the new territory of the vast continent
of America had been preferred by industrial enterprise to the exhausted
lands of western Europe, and already in the twenty-fifth century the
center of civilization was located on the shores of Lake Michigan in a
new Athens of nine million inhabitants, rivalling Paris. Thereafter the
elegant French capital had followed the example of its predecessors,
Rome, Athens, Memphis, Thebes, Nineveh and Babylon. The wealth, the
resources of every kind, the great attractions, were elsewhere.
In Spain, Italy and France, gradually abandoned by their inhabitants,
solitude spread slowly over the ruins of former cities. Lisbon had
disappeared, destroyed by the sea; Madrid, Rome, Naples and Florence
were in ruins. A little later, Paris, Lyons and Marseilles were
overtaken by the same fate.
Human types and languages had undergone such transformations that it
would have been impossible for an ethnologist or a linguist to discover
anything belonging to the past. For a long time neither Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, French, English nor German had been spoken. Europe
had migrated beyond the Atlantic, and Asia had invaded Europe. The
Chinese to the number of a thousand million had spread over western
Europe. Mingling with the Anglo-Saxon race, they formed in some measure
a new one. Their principal capital stretched like an endless street
along each side of the canal from Bordeaux to Toulouse and Narbonne.
The causes which led to the foundation of Lutetia on an island in the
Seine, which had raised this city of the Parisians to the zenith of its
power in the twenty-fourth century, were no longer operative, and Paris
had disappeared simultaneously with the causes to which it owed its
origin and splendor. Commerce had taken possession of the Mediterranean
and the great oceanic highways, and the Iberian canal had become the
emporium of the world.
The littoral of the south and west of ancient France had been protected
by dikes against the invasion of the sea, but, owing to the increase of
population in the south and southwest, the north and northwest had been
neglected, and the slow and continual subsidence of this region,
observed ever since the time of Cæsar, had reduced its level below that
of the sea; and as the channel was ever widening, and the cliffs between
Cape Helder and Havre were being worn away by the action of the sea, the
Dutch dikes had been abandoned to the ocean, which had invaded the
Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France, Amsterdam, Utrecht,
Rotterdam, Antwerp, Versailles, Lille, Amiens and Rouen had sunk below
the water, and ships floated above their sea-covered ruins.
[Illustration:
THE RUINS OF PARIS.
]
Paris itself, finally abandoned in the sixtieth century, when the sea
had surrounded it as it now does Havre, was, in the eighty-fifth
century, covered with water to the height of the towers of Notre Dame,
and all that memorable plain, where were wrought out, during so many
years, the most brilliant of the world’s civilizations, was swept by
angry waves.[3]
Footnote 3:
In the nineteenth century, researches in natural history had revealed
the fact that secular vertical oscillations, vary with the locality,
were taking place in the earth’s crust, and had proved that, from
prehistoric times, the soil of western and southern France had been
slowly sinking and the sea slowly gaining upon the land. One after
another, the islands of Jersey, of Minquiers, of Chaussey, of Écrehou,
of Cezembre, of Mont-Saint-Michel, had been detached from the
continent by the sea; the cities of Is, Helion, Tommen, Portzmeûr,
Harbour, Saint Louis, Monny, Bourgneuf, La Feillette, Paluel and
Nazado had been buried beneath its waves, and the Armorican peninsula
had slowly retreated before the advancing waters. The hour of this
invasion by the sea had struck, from century to century, also for
Herbavilla; to the west of Nantes; for Saint-Denis-Chef-de-Caux, to
the north of Havre; for Saint-Etienne-de-Paluel and for Gardoine, to
the north of Dol; for Tolente, to the west of Brest; more than eighty
habitable cities of Holland had been submerged in the eleventh
century, etc., etc. In other regions the reverse had taken place, and
the sea had retired; but to the north and west of Paris this double
action of the subsidence of the land and the wearing away of the
shores had, in less than seven thousand years, made Paris accessible
to ships of the greatest tonnage.
As in the case of languages, ideas, customs and laws, so, also, the
manner of reckoning time had changed. It was still reckoned by years and
centuries, but the Christian era had been discarded, as also the holy
days of the calendar and the eras of the Mussulman, Jewish, Chinese and
African chronologies. There was now a single calendar for the entire
race, composed of twelve months, divided into four equal trimesters of
three months of thirty-one, thirty, and thirty days, each trimester
containing exactly thirteen weeks. New Year’s Day was a fête day, and
was not reckoned in with the year; every bisextile year there were two.
The week had been retained. Every year commenced on the same day—Monday;
and the same dates always corresponded to the same days of the week. The
year began with the vernal equinox all over the world. The era, a purely
astronomical division of time, began with the coincidence of the
December solstice with perihelion, and was renewed every 25,765 years.
This rational method had succeeded the fantastic divisions of time
formerly in use.
The geographical features of France, of Europe and of the entire world
had become modified, from century to century. Seas had replaced
continents, and new deposits at the bottom of the ocean covered the
vanished ages, forming new geological strata. Elsewhere, continents had
taken the place of seas. At the mouth of the Rhone, for example, where
the dry land had already encroached upon the sea from Arles to the
littoral, the continent gained to the south; in Italy, the deposits of
the Po had continued to gain upon the Adriatic, as those of the Nile,
the Tiber, and other rivers of later origin, had gained upon the
Mediterranean; and in other places the dunes had increased, by various
amounts, the domain of the dry land. The contours of seas and continents
had so changed that it would have been absolutely impossible to make out
the ancient geographical maps of history.
The historian of nature does not deal with periods of five centuries,
like the Arab of the thirteenth century mentioned in the legend related
a moment ago. Ten times this period would scarcely suffice to modify,
sensibly, the configuration of the land, for five thousand years are but
a ripple on the ocean of time. It is by tens of thousands of years that
one must reckon if one would see continents sink below the level of
seas, and new territories emerging into the sunlight, as the result of
the secular changes in the level of the earth’s crust, whose thickness
and density varies from place to place, and whose weight, resting upon
the still plastic and mobile interior, causes vast areas to oscillate. A
slight disturbance of the equilibrium, an insignificant dip of the
scales, a change of less than a hundred meters, often, in the length of
the earth’s diameter of twelve thousand kilometers, is sufficient to
transform the surface of the world.
And if we examine the ensemble of the history of the earth, by periods
of one hundred thousand years, for example, we see, that in ten of these
great epochs, that is, in a million years, the surface of the globe has
been many times transformed.
If we advance into the future a period of one or two million years, we
witness a vast flux and reflux of life and things. How many times in
this period of ten or twenty thousand centuries, how many times have the
waves of the sea covered the former dwelling-places of man! How many
times the earth has emerged anew, fresh and regenerated, from the
abysses of the ocean! In primitive times, when the still warm and liquid
planet was covered only by a thin shell, cooling on the surface of the
burning ocean within, these changes took place brusquely, by sudden
breaking down of natural barriers, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and
the uprising of mountain ranges. Later, as this superficial crust grew
thicker and became consolidated, these transformations were more
gradual; the slow contraction of the earth had led to the formation of
hollow spaces within the solid envelope, to the falling in of portions
of this envelope upon the liquid nucleus, and finally to oscillating
movements which had changed the profile of the continents. Later still,
insensible modifications had been produced by external agents; on the
one hand the rivers, constantly carrying to their mouths the débris of
the mountains, had filled up the depths of the sea and slowly increased
the area of the dry land, making in time inland cities of ancient
seaports; and on the other hand, the action of the waves and of storms,
constantly eating away the shores, had increased the area of the ocean
at the expense of the dry land. Ceaselessly the geographical
configuration of the shore had changed. For the historian our planet had
become another world. Everything had changed: continents, seas, shores,
races, languages, customs, body and mind, sentiments, ideas—everything.
France beneath the waves, the bottom of the Atlantic in the light of the
sun, a portion of the United States gone, a continent in the place of
Oceanica, China submerged; death where was life, and life where was
death; and everywhere sunk into eternal oblivion all which had once
constituted the glory and greatness of nations. If today one of us
should emigrate to Mars, he would find himself more at home than if,
after the lapse of these future ages, he should return to the earth.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
While these great changes in the planets were taking place, humanity had
continued to advance; for progress is the supreme law. Terrestrial life,
which began with the rudimentary protozoans, without mouths, blind,
deaf, mute and almost wholly destitute of sensation, had acquired
successively the marvellous organs of sense, and had finally reached its
climax in man, who, having also grown more perfect with the lapse of
centuries, had risen from his primitive savage condition as the slave of
nature to the position of a sovereign who ruled the world by mind, and
who had made it a paradise of happiness, of pure contemplation, of
knowledge and of pleasure.
Men had attained that degree of intelligence which enabled them to live
wisely and tranquilly. After a general disarmament had been brought
about, so rapid an increase in public riches and so great an
amelioration in the well-being of every citizen was observed, that the
efforts of intelligence and labor, no longer wasted by this intellectual
suicide, had been directed to the conquest of new forces of nature and
the constant improvement of civilization. The human body had become
insensibly transformed, or more exactly, transfigured.
Nearly all men were intelligent. They remembered with a smile the
childish ambitions of their ancestors whose aspiration was to be
some_one_ rather than some_thing_, and who had struggled so feverishly
for outward show. They had learned that happiness resides in the soul,
that contentment is found only in study, that love is the sun of the
heart, that life is short and ought not to be lived superficially; and
thus all were happy in the possession of liberty of conscience, and
careless of those things which one cannot carry away.
Woman had acquired a perfect beauty. Her form had lost the fullness of
the Greek model and had become more slender; her skin was of a
translucent whiteness; her eyes were illuminated by the light of dreams;
her long and silky hair, in whose deep chestnut were blended all the
ruddy tints of the setting sun, fell in waves of rippling light; the
heavy animal jaw had become idealized, the mouth had grown smaller, and
in the presence of its sweet smile, at the sight of its dazzling pearls
between the soft rose of the lips, one could not understand how lovers
could have pressed such fervent kisses upon the lips of women of earlier
times, specimens of whose teeth, resembling those of animals, had been
preserved in the museums of ethnography. It really seemed as if a new
race had come into existence, infinitely superior to that to which
Aristotle, Kepler, Victor Hugo, Phryne, or Diana of Poictiers had
belonged.
Thanks to the progress in physiology, hygiene, and antiseptic science,
as well as to the general well-being and intelligence of the race the
duration of human life had been greatly prolonged, and it was not
unusual to see persons who had attained the age of 150 years. Death had
not been conquered, but the secret of living without growing old had
been found, and the characteristics of youth were retained beyond the
age of one hundred.
But one fatherland existed on the planet, which, like a chorus heard
above the chords of some vast harmony, marched onward to its high
destiny, shining in the splendor of intellectual supremacy.
The internal heat of the globe, the light and warmth of the sun,
terrestrial magnetism, atmospheric electricity, inter-planetary
attraction, the psychic forces of the human soul, the unknown forces
which preside over destinies,—all these science had conquered and
controlled for the benefit of mankind. The only limits to its conquests
were the limitations of the human faculties themselves, which, indeed,
are feeble, especially when we compare them with those of certain
extra-terrestrial beings.
All the results of this vast progress, so slowly and gradually acquired
by the toil of centuries, must, in obedience to a law, mysterious and
inconceivable for the petty race of man, reach at last their apogee,
when further advance becomes impossible. The geometric curve which
represents this progress of the race, falls as it rises: starting from
zero, from the primitive nebulous cosmos, ascending through the ages of
planetary and human history to its lofty summit, to descend thereafter
into a night that knows no morrow.
[Illustration:
THE VILLAGE CEMETERY.
]
Yes! all this progress, all this knowledge, all this happiness and
glory, must one day be swallowed up in oblivion, and the voice of
history itself be forever silenced. Life had a beginning: it must have
an end. The sun of human hopes had risen, had ascended victoriously to
its meridian, it was now to set and to disappear in endless night. To
what end then all this glory, all this struggling, all these conquests,
all these vanities, if light and life must come to an end?
Martyrs and apostles, in every cause, have poured out blood upon the
earth, destined also in its turn to perish.
Everything is doomed to decay, and death must remain the final sovereign
of the world. Have you ever thought, in viewing a village cemetery, how
small it is, to contain the generations buried there from time
immemorable? Man existed before the last glacial epoch, which dates back
200,000 years; and the age of man extends over a period of more than
250,000 years. Written history dates from yesterday. Cut and polished
flints have been found at Paris, proving the presence of man on the
banks of the Seine long before the first historic record of the Gauls.
The Parisians of the close of the nineteenth century walk upon ground
consecrated by more than ten thousand years of ancestry. What remains of
all who have swarmed in this forum of the world? What is left of the
Romans, the Greeks, and the Asiatics, whose empires lasted for
centuries? What remains of the millions who have existed? Not even a
handful of ashes.
A human being dies every second, or about 86,000 a day, and an equal
number, or to speak more exactly, a little more than 86,000 are born
daily. This figure, true for the nineteenth century, applies to a long
period, if we increase it proportionately to the time. The population of
the globe has increased from epoch to epoch. In the time of Alexander
there were perhaps a thousand million living beings on the surface of
the earth. At the end of the nineteenth century fifteen hundred million;
in the twenty-second century two thousand million; in the twenty-ninth
three thousand million; at its maximum the population of the globe had
reached one hundred thousand million. Then it had begun to decrease.
Of the innumerable human bodies which have lived, not one remains. All
have been resolved into their elements, which have again formed new
individuals.
All that fills the passing day—labor, pleasure, grief and
happiness—vanishes with it into oblivion. Time flies, and the past
exists no longer; what has been, has disappeared in the gulf of
eternity. The visible world is vanishing every instant. Only the
invisible is real and enduring.
During the ten million years of history, the human race, surviving
generation after generation, as if it were a real thing, had been
greatly modified from both a physical and moral point of view. It had
always remained master of the world, and no new race had aspired to its
sovereignty; for races do not come down from heaven or rise from hell;
no Minerva is born full-armed, no Venus awakes full-grown in a shell of
pearl on the seashore; everything grows, and the human race, with its
long line of ancestry, was from the very beginning the natural result of
the vital evolution of the planet. Under the law of progress, it had
emerged from the limbo of animalism, and by the continued action of this
same law of progress it had become gradually perfected, modified and
refined.
But the time had come when the conditions of terrestrial life began to
fail; when humanity, instead of advancing, was itself to enter upon its
downward path.
The internal heat of the globe, still considerable in the nineteenth
century, although it had ceased to have any effect upon surface
temperature, which was maintained solely by the sun, had slowly
diminished, and the earth had, at last, become entirely cold. This had
not directly influenced the physical conditions of terrestrial life,
which continued to depend upon the atmosphere and solar heat. The
cooling of the earth cannot bring about the end of the world.
Imperceptibly, from century to century, the earth’s surface had become
levelled. The action of the rain, snow, frost and solar heat upon the
mountains, the waters of torrents, rivulets and rivers, had slowly
carried to the sea the débris of every continental elevation. The bottom
of the sea had risen, and in nine million years the mountains had almost
entirely disappeared. Meanwhile, the planet had grown old faster than
the sun; the conditions favorable to life had disappeared more rapidly
than the solar light and heat.
This conception of the planet’s future conforms to our present knowledge
of the universe. Doubtless, our logic is radically incomplete, puerile
even, in comparison with the real and eternal Truth, and might be justly
compared with that of two ants talking together about the history of
France. But, confessing the modesty which befits the finite in presence
of the infinite, and acknowledging our nothingness as compared with the
universe, we cannot avoid the necessity of appearing logical to
ourselves; we cannot assume that the abdication of reason is a better
proof of wisdom than the use of it. We believe that an intelligent order
presides over the universe and controls the destiny of worlds and their
inhabitants; that the larger members of the solar system must last
longer than the lesser ones, and, consequently, that the life of each
planet is not equally dependent upon the sun, and cannot, therefore,
continue indefinitely, any more than the sun itself. Moreover, direct
observation confirms this general conception of the universe. The earth,
an extinct sun, has cooled more rapidly than the sun. Jupiter, so
immense, is still in its youth. The moon, smaller than Mars, has reached
the more advanced stages of astral life, perhaps even has reached its
end. Mars, smaller than the earth, is more advanced than the earth and
less so than the moon. Our planet, in its turn, must die before Jupiter,
and this, also, must take place before the sun becomes extinct.
Consider, in fact, the relative sizes of the earth and the other
planets. The diameter of Jupiter is eleven times that of the earth, and
the diameter of the sun about ten times that of Jupiter. The diameter of
Saturn is nine times that of the earth. It seems to us, therefore,
natural to believe that Jupiter and Saturn will endure longer than our
planet, Venus, Mars or Mercury, those pigmies of the system!
Events justified these deductions of science. Dangers lay in wait for us
in the immensity of space; a thousand accidents might have befallen us,
in the form of comets, extinct or flaming suns, nebulæ, etc. But the
planet did not perish by an accident. Old age awaited the earth, as it
waits for all other things, and it grew old faster than the sun. It lost
the conditions necessary for life more rapidly than the central luminary
lost its heat and its light.
During the long periods of its vital splendor, when, leading the chorus
of the worlds, it bore on its surface an intelligent race, victors over
the blind forces of nature, a protecting atmosphere, beneath which went
on all the play of life and happiness, guarded its flourishing empires.
An essential element of nature, water, regulated terrestrial life; from
the very beginning this element had entered into the composition of
every substance, vegetable, animal and human. It formed the active
principle of atmospheric circulation; it was the chief agent in the
changes of climate and seasons; it was the sovereign of the terrestrial
state.