“Such ideas are disheartening,” he remarked.
“What then do you hope for, Monsieur Goubin,” asked Nicole Langelier,
“to gratify your wishes? Do you aspire to preserve of yourself and of
the world an eternal consciousness? Why do you wish to remember for all
time that you are Monsieur Goubin? I will not conceal it from you: the
present universe, which is far from nearing its end, does not seem to
possess the property of satisfying you in this respect. Do not place
any more store in those which are to follow, for they will doubtless
be of the same kind. Do not, however, abandon all hope. It is possible
that after an indefinite succession of universes, you shall be born
anew, Monsieur Goubin, with a recollection of your previous existences.
Renan has said that it was a risk to be taken, and that at all events
it would not be long in coming. The successions of universe will take
place for us within less than a second. Time does not count for the
dead.”
“Are you cognisant,” asked Hippolyte Dufresne, “of the
astronomical dreams of Blanqui? The aged Blanqui, a prisoner in the
Mont-Saint-Michel, could get but a glimpse of the sky through his
stopped-up window, and had the stars for his only neighbours. This
made of him an astronomer, and he based on the unity of matter and
the laws ruling it a strange theory in regard to the identity of the
worlds. I have read a sixty-page pamphlet of his wherein he sets
forth that form and life are developed in exactly the same manner in
a large number of worlds. According to him, a multitude of suns, all
similar to our own, have, do, or will shed light upon planets in every
respect similar to the planets of our own system. There is, was, and
will be, _ad infinitum_, Venuses, Mars, Saturns, and Jupiters, quite
the counterpart of our Saturn, Mars, and Venus, and worlds similar to
our own. These worlds produce exactly what our world produces, and
bear fruits, animals, and men resembling in all respects terrestrial
plants, animals, and human beings. The evolution of life in them is the
same as that on our globe. Consequently, thought the aged prisoner,
there is, was and shall be throughout the infinite space myriads of
Monts-Saint-Michel, each containing a Blanqui.”
“We know but little of the worlds whose suns shine upon our nights,”
resumed Langelier. “We perceive, however, that subjected to the same
mechanical and chemical laws, they differ from our own world and among
themselves in extent and form, and that the substances burning in them
are not distributed among all of them in the same proportions. These
differences must produce an infinity of others which we do not suspect.
A pebble is sufficient to change the fate of an Empire. Who knows?
Perchance, Monsieur Goubin, many times multiplied and disseminated
through myriads of worlds, has wiped, wipes, and shall eternally wipe
clean his eye-glass.”
Joséphin Leclerc did not suffer his friends to expatiate any further on
astronomical dreams.
“I am,” he said, “like Monsieur Goubin, of the opinion that all this
would be heartrending were it not too far from us to affect us. What is
of paramount interest for us, what we are curious to know is the fate
of those who will come immediately after us in this world.”
“There is no doubt,” said Langelier, “that the succession of worlds
only fills us with sad astonishment. We should welcome with a more
fraternal and friendly eye the future of civilisation, and the
immediate destiny of our fellow men. The closer at hand the future,
the more we are concerned about it. Unfortunately, moral and political
sciences are inaccurate, and full of uncertainty. They have but an
imperfect knowledge of the so far accomplished developments of
human evolution, and can therefore not instruct us concerning the
developments which remain to be completed. Equipped with hardly any
memory, they have little or no presentiment. This is why scientific
minds feel an insurmountable repugnance to attempt investigations, the
uselessness of which they know, and they dare not even confess to a
curiosity which they entertain no hope of satisfying. Willingly would
the task be undertaken to discover what would happen, were men to
become wiser. Plato, Sir Thomas More, Campanella, Fénelon, Cabet, and
Paul Adam[A] have reconstructed their particular city in Atlantis, in
the Island of Utopia, in the Sun, at Salentinum, in Icaria, in Malaya,
and established there an abstract social administration. Others, like
the philosopher Sébastien Mercier, and the socialist-poet William
Morris, dived into a far-off future. But they took their system of
morals with them. They discovered a new Atlantis, and it is a city
of dreamland which they have harmoniously built there. Shall I also
quote Maurice Spronck?[B] He shows us the French Republic conquered by
the Moors, in the 230th year of its foundation. He argues thus, in
order to induce us to hand over the government to the Conservatives
whom alone he considers capable of warding off so great a disaster.
Meanwhile Camille Mauclair,[C] trusting in humanity to come, reads in
the future the victorious resistance, of Socialistic Europe against
Mussulman Asia. Daniel Halévy dreads not the Moors, but, with greater
show of reason, the Russians. He narrates, in his _Histoire de quatre
ans_, the foundation, in 2001, of the United States of Europe. But
he seeks to show us more especially that the moral equilibrium of
nations is unstable, and that a facility suddenly introduced into the
conditions of life may suffice to let loose on a multitude of men the
worst scourges and the most cruel sufferings.
[A] Paul Adam, journalist and playwright; contributor to the _Revue
de Paris_ and the _Nouvelle Revue_.
[B] Maurice Spronck, journalist and barrister; contributor to the
_Journal des Débats_, the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, the _Revue
bleue_, and the _Revue hebdomadaire_.
[C] Camille Faust, _dit_ Camille Mauclair, art critic and lecturer;
author of works on Greuze, Fragonard, Schumann, Rodin, and of
_De Watteau à Whistler_.
“Few are those who have sought to know the future, out of pure
curiosity, and without moral intention or optimistic designs. I
know no other than H. G. Wells who, journeying through future ages,
has discovered for humanity a fate he did not, according to every
indication, expect; for the institution of an anthropophagous
proletariat and an edible aristocracy is a cruel solution of social
questions. Yet such is the fate H. G. Wells assigns to posterity. All
the other prophets of whom I have any knowledge content themselves
with entrusting to future centuries the realisation of their dreams.
They do not unveil the future, being satisfied with conjuring it up.
“The truth is that men do not look so far ahead without fright.
Many consider that such an investigation is not only useless, but
pernicious; while those most ready to believe that future events are
discoverable are those who would most dread to discover them. This fear
is doubtless based on profound reasons. All morals, all religions,
embody a revelation of humanity’s destiny. The greater part of men,
whether they admit it to, or conceal it from, themselves, would recoil
from investigating these august revelations, to discover the emptiness
of their anticipations. They are accustomed to endure the idea of
manners totally different from their own, if once those manners are
buried in the past. Thereupon they congratulate themselves on the
progress made by morality. But, as their morality is in the main
governed by their manners, or rather by what they allow one to see of
them, they dare not confess to themselves that morality, which has
continually changed with manners, up to their own day, will undergo
a further change when they have passed out of this life, and that
future men are liable to conceive an idea entirely at variance with
their own as to what is permissible or not. It would go against the
grain with them to admit that their virtues are merely transitory,
and their gods decrepit. And, although the past is there to point out
to them ever-changing and shifting rights and duties, they would look
upon themselves as dupes were they to foresee that future humanity is
to create for itself new rights, duties and gods. Finally, they fear
disgracing themselves in the eyes of their contemporaries, in assuming
the horrible immorality which future morality stands for. Such are the
obstacles to a quest of the future. Look at Gallio and his friends;
they would not have dared to foresee the equality of classes in the
matter of marriage, the abolition of slavery, the rout of the legions,
the fall of the Empire, the end of Rome, nor even the death of those
very gods in whom they had all but ceased to believe.”
“’Tis possible,” said Joséphin Leclerc, “but it is time for us to dine.”
And, leaving the Forum bathed in the calm light of the moon, they
wended their way through the populous streets of the city towards a
famed but cheap eating-house in the Via Condotti.