LUMEN
_The One Hundred and Forty-first of the Minor Planets,
situated between Mars and Jupiter, which was discovered
at the Paris Observatory by M. Paul Henry, on the 13th
of January 1875, received the name of LUMEN in honour
of the Author of this Work._
LUMEN
BY
CAMILLE FLAMMARION
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE FRENCH
BY
A. A. M. AND R. M.
_With portions of the last chapter written specially
for the English Edition_
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1897
_Copyright, 1897,_
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.
_Fifty-two thousand copies of the French original
of this volume have been sold_
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
FIRST CONVERSATION
PAGE
RESURRECTIO PRÆTERITI 1-63
Death--The soul--The hour of death--Separation of the
soul--Sight of the soul in Heaven--The Solar System in
the heavens--The Earth as seen from the heavens--The
star Capella--Velocity of light--The terrestrial planet
seen from afar--The worlds seen from afar--Lumen--Lumen
sees again his own life.
SECOND CONVERSATION
REFLUUM TEMPORIS 64-105
Journey on a ray of light--Events
retraced--Re-ascending the Ages--Psychical
optics--Light and sound--Man organised from the
planet--The soul and destiny.
THIRD CONVERSATION
HOMO HOMUNCULUS 106-128
The sphere of human observation--Time and space--Events
in space--Time, space, and eternity.
FOURTH CONVERSATION
ANTERIORES VITÆ 129-196
Space and light--The star Gamma in Virgo--The system
of Gamma in Virgo--Former existence--The plurality
of existences--The unknown--The constellations--The
elements--Life on the earth--The process of
alimentation--Nutritive atmospheres--Poetry on the
Earth--A humanity--The organisation of beings--The
development of life--The genealogical tree of life--The
men-plants--Souls and atoms--Other senses--Atoms and
monads.
FIFTH CONVERSATION
INGENIUM AUDAX: NATURA AUDACIOR 197-224
A world in Orion--Analysis of the nervous system--The
Commune--Animated molecules--Various forms of
life--Infinite diversity on Sirius--Phosphorescent
passions--Lives too long--Infinite diversity--The
magnifying power of time--A chrono-telescope--Light.
LUMEN
FIRST CONVERSATION
RESURRECTIO PRÆTERITI
QUÆRENS. You promised, dear Lumen, to describe to me that supremest of
moments which immediately succeeds death, and to relate to me how, by
a natural law, singular though it may seem, you lived again your past
life, and penetrated a hitherto-unrevealed mystery.
LUMEN. Yes, my old friend, I will now keep my word; and I trust that,
thanks to the life-long communion of our souls, you will be able to
understand the phenomenon you deem so strange.
[Sidenote: Life and death.]
There are many conceptions which a mortal mind finds difficult to
grasp. Death, which has delivered me from the weak and easily-tired
senses of the body, has not yet touched you with its liberating hand;
you still belong to the living world, and in spite of your isolation
in this retreat of yours amid the royal towers of the Faubourg St.
Jaques, you still belong to the life of Earth, and are occupied with
its petty distinctions. You must not, therefore, be surprised if,
whilst I am explaining to you this mystery, I beg of you to isolate
yourself still further from outer things, and to give me the most
_fixed attention_ of which your mind is capable.
QUÆRENS. My one desire is to listen to your revelations; speak,
therefore, without fear and to the point, and deign to acquaint me with
those impressions, as yet to me unknown, which are experienced upon the
cessation of life.
LUMEN. From what point do you wish me to begin my recital?
QUÆRENS. If you can recall it, I shall be pleased if you will begin at
the moment when my trembling hands closed your eyes.
[Sidenote: Death.]
LUMEN. The separation of the thinking principle from the nervous system
leaves no remembrance. It is as though the impressions made upon the
brain which constitute memory were entirely effaced, to be renewed
afterwards in another form. The first sensation of identity felt
after death resembles that which is felt during life on awakening in
the morning, when still confused with the visions of the night, the
mind, wavering between the past and the future, endeavours to recover
itself, and at the same time to retain the vanishing dreams, the
pictures and events of which are still passing before it. At times when
thus absorbed in the recollection of a delightful dream, the eyelids
close, and in a half slumber the visions reappear. It is thus that our
thinking faculty is divided at death, between a reality that it does
not yet comprehend and a dream which has completely disappeared. The
most conflicting impressions mingle in and confuse the mind, and if,
overwhelmed by perishable feelings, a regret comes into the mind for
the world that has been left behind, a sense of indefinable sadness
weighs upon and darkens the imagination and hinders clearness of vision.
QUÆRENS. Did you feel these sensations immediately after death?
[Sidenote: No such thing as death.]
[Sidenote: Not death, but change.]
LUMEN. After death? There is no such thing as death. What you call
death--the separation of the body from the soul--is not, strictly
speaking, effected in a material form like the chemical separation of
a combination of elements such as one sees in the world of matter. One
is no more conscious of this final separation, which seems to you so
cruel, than the new-born babe is aware of his birth. We are born into
the heavenly life as unconsciously as we were born into the earthly;
only the soul, no longer enveloped by its bodily covering, acquires
more rapidly the consciousness of its individuality and of its powers.
This faculty of perception varies essentially between one soul and
another. There are those who, during their earthly life, never lift
their souls toward heaven, and never feel a desire to penetrate the
laws of creation; these, being still dominated by fleshly appetites,
remain long in a troubled and semi-conscious state. There are others
whose aspirations have happily flown upwards towards the eternal
heights; to these the moment of separation comes with calmness and
peace. They know that progress is the law of being, and that the
life to come will be better than that which they have quitted. They
follow, step by step, that lethargy which reaches at last to the
heart, and when, slowly and insensibly, the last pulsation ceases,
the departed are already above the body whose falling asleep they
have been watching. Freeing themselves from the magnetic bonds, they
feel themselves swiftly borne, by an unknown force, toward the point
of creation, to which their sentiments, their aspirations, and their
hopes have drawn them.
QUÆRENS. The conversation into which I have drawn you, my dear master,
recalls to my memory the dialogues of Plato on the immortality of the
soul; and as Phædrus asked his master, Socrates, on the day he had
to drink the hemlock in obedience to the iniquitous sentence of the
Athenians, I ask you--you who have passed the dread boundary--what is
the essential difference which distinguishes the soul from the body,
since the latter dies, whilst the former cannot die?
[Sidenote: Life viewed scientifically.]
LUMEN. I shall not imitate Socrates by giving a metaphysical answer to
this question, nor shall I, with the theologians, reply in a dogmatic
way; but I will give you instead a scientific answer, for you, like
myself, accept only as of real value the results of positive knowledge.
[Sidenote: Renewal of the body.]
[Sidenote: Atoms and molecules.]
We find in the human being three principles, _different, and yet in
complete union_: 1. The body; 2. The vital energy; 3. The soul. I
name them thus in order that I may follow the _a posteriori_ method.
The body is an association of molecules which are themselves formed
of groups of atoms. The atoms are inert, passive, immutable, and
indestructible. They enter into the organism by means of respiration
and alimentation; they renew the tissues incessantly, and are
continually replaced by others, and when cast out from the body go to
form other bodies. In a few months the human body is entirely renewed,
and neither in the blood, nor in the flesh, nor in the brain, nor in
the bones, does an atom remain of those which constituted the body
a few months before. The atoms travel without ceasing from body to
body, chiefly by the grand medium of the atmosphere. The molecule of
iron is the same whether it be incorporated in the blood which throbs
in the temples of an illustrious man, or form part of a fragment of
rusty iron; the molecule of oxygen is the same in the blush raised by
a loving glance, or when in union with hydrogen it forms the flame of
one of the thousand jets of gas that illuminate Paris by night, or when
it falls from the clouds in the shape of a drop of water. The bodies
of the living are formed of the ashes of the dead, and if all the dead
were to be resuscitated, the last comers might find the material for
their bodies wanting, owing to their predecessors having appropriated
all that was available. Moreover, during life many exchanges are made
between enemies and friends, between men, animals, and plants, which
amaze the analyst who looks at them with the eyes of science. That
which you breathe, eat, and drink, has been breathed, drunk, and eaten
millions of times before. Such is the human body, an assemblage of
molecules of matter which are constantly being renewed. The principle
by which these molecules are grouped according to a certain form so as
to produce an organism, is the vital energy of life. The inert, passive
atoms, incapable of guiding themselves, are ruled by vital force, which
calls them, makes them come, takes hold of them, places and disposes of
them according to certain laws, and forms this marvellously-organised
body, which the anatomist and the physiologist contemplate with wonder.
[Sidenote: Atoms indestructible.]
[Sidenote: Vital energy or force in nature and man.]
[Sidenote: Vital force has limits.]
The atoms are indestructible; vital force is not: atoms have no age;
vital force is born, grows old, and dies. Why is an octogenarian
older than a youth of twenty, since the atoms of which his body is
composed have only belonged to his frame a few months, and since
atoms are neither old nor young? The constituent elements of his
body when analysed have no age, and what is old in him is solely his
vital energy, which is but one of the forms of the general energy of
the universe, and which in his case has become exhausted. Life is
transmitted by generation, and sustains the body instinctively, and,
as it were, unconsciously. It has a beginning and an end. It is an
unconscious physical force, which organises and maintains the body
of which it is the preserving element. The soul is an intellectual,
thinking, immaterial being. The world of ideas in which the soul lives
is not the world of matter. It has no age, it does not grow old. It is
not changed in a few months like the body; for after months, years,
dozens of years, we feel that we have preserved our identity--that
our _ego_, ourself, is always ours. On the other hand, if the soul did
not exist, and if the faculty of thinking were only a function of the
brain, we should no longer be able to say that _we have_ a body, for
it would be our body, our brain, _that would have us_. Besides, from
time to time our consciousness would change; we should no longer have
a feeling of identity, and we should no longer be responsible for the
resolutions, secreted by the molecules, which had passed through the
brain many months before. The soul is not the vital force; for that
is limited and is transmitted by generation, has no consciousness of
itself, is born, grows up, declines, and dies. All these states are
opposed to those of the soul, which is immaterial, unlimited, not
transmissible, conscious.
[Sidenote: The soul has no limits.]
The development of the vital force may be represented geometrically
by a spindle, which swells out gradually to the middle, and decreases
again to a point. When the soul reaches the middle of life, it does
not become less, like a spindle, and dwindle down to the end, but
follows its parabolic curve into the infinite. Moreover, the mode of
existence of the soul is essentially different from that of the vital
force. It lives in a spiritual way. The conceptions of the soul, such
as the sentiments of justice or injustice, of truth or falsehood, of
good and evil, as well as knowledge, mathematics, analysis, synthesis,
contemplation, admiration, love, affection or hatred, esteem or
contempt--in a word, the occupations of the soul, whatever they may be,
are of an intellectual and moral order, which neither the atoms nor
the physical forces can apprehend, and which have as real an existence
as the physical order of things. The chemical or mechanical work of
cerebral cells, however subtle they may be, can never produce an
intellectual judgment, such, for instance, as the knowledge of the fact
that four multiplied by four is equal to sixteen, or that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.
[Sidenote: The soul survives the body.]
These three elements of the human being are reproduced in the universe
at large: 1. The atoms, the material world inert, passive; 2. The
physical forces which regulate the world, and which are continually
transformed into one another or into others; 3. God, the eternal and
infinite spirit, the _intellectual_ organiser of the _mathematical_
laws which these forces obey, the unknown being in whom reside the
supreme principles of truth, of beauty, of goodness. The soul can be
attached to the body only by means of the vital force. When life is
extinct the soul naturally separates from the organism and ceases to
have any immediate connection with time and space. After death the soul
remains in that part of the universe where the Earth happens to be at
the moment of its separation from the body. You know that the Earth is
a planet in the heavens like Venus and Jupiter. The Earth continues to
run in its orbit at the rate of 12,700 kilometres an hour, so that the
soul an hour after death is at that distance from its body because of
its immobility in space, when no longer subject to the laws of matter.
Thus we are in the heavens immediately after death, where, however, we
have also been during the whole of our lives; but we then had weight
which held us to the Earth. I must add, however, that as a rule the
soul takes some time to disengage itself from the nervous organism,
and that it occasionally remains many days, and even many months,
magnetically connected with the old body, which it is reluctant to
forsake. Moreover, it has special faculties by means of which it can
transport itself from one point of space to another.
QUÆRENS. Now for the first time I am able to understand death as a
natural process, and to comprehend the individual existence of the
soul, its independence of the body and of life, its personality, its
survival, and its obvious position in the universe. This synthetic
theory has prepared me, I hope, to understand and appreciate your
revelation. But you said that a singular event struck you on your
entrance into the eternal life; at what moment did that take place?
[Sidenote: The hour of death.]
[Sidenote: Last impressions of the parting soul.]
[Sidenote: Separation of the soul.]
LUMEN. Well, my dear friend, let me go on with my story. Midnight
had just struck, you will remember, on the sonorous bell of my old
timepiece, and the full Moon shed its pale light on my dying bed,
when my daughter, my grandson, and other friends withdrew to take
some rest. You wished to remain with me, and you promised my daughter
not to leave me till the morning. I would thank you for your warm and
tender devotion if we were not so truly brothers. We had been alone
about half-an-hour, for the star of night was declining, when I took
your hand and told you that life had already abandoned my extremities.
You assured me that it was not so; but I was calmly observing my
physiological state, and I knew that in a few moments I should cease
to breathe. You moved gently towards the room where my children were
sleeping, but concentrating my powers by an extreme effort I stopped
you. Returning with tears in your eyes, you said to me, "You are right;
you have given them your last wishes, and to-morrow morning will be
time enough to send for them." There was in these words a contradiction
that I felt without expressing it to you. Do you remember that then I
asked you to open the window. It was a beautiful night in October; more
beautiful than those of the Scottish bards sung by Ossian. Not far from
the horizon, just level with my eyes, I could distinguish the Pleiades,
veiled by mist, whilst Castor and Pollux floated triumphantly a little
higher up. Above, forming a triangle with them, shone the beautiful
star with rays of gold, which, on maps of the zodiac, is marked
"Capella." You see how clearly I remember it all. When you had opened
the window the perfume of the roses, sleeping under the wings of night,
ascended upwards to me and mingled with the silent rays of the stars.
I cannot express to you how sweet were these last impressions that I
received from the Earth; language fails me to describe what I felt. In
the hours of my sweetest happiness, of my tenderest love, I never felt
such an intensity of joy, so glorious a serenity, such real bliss, as
I experienced then in the ecstatic enjoyment of the perfumed breath
of the flowers and the tender gleam of the distant stars.... When you
bent over me I seemed to return to the outer world, and with my hands
clasped over my breast, my sight and my thoughts, united in prayer,
together took flight into space. Before my ears closed for ever I heard
the last words as they fell from my lips: "Adieu! my old friend, I feel
that death is bearing me away to those unknown regions where I trust we
shall one day meet. When the dawn effaces these stars, only my mortal
body will be here. Repeat then to my daughter my last wish: to bring up
her children in the contemplation of the eternal goodness." And whilst
you wept, as you knelt by my bed, I added, "Recite the beautiful
prayer of Jesus," and you began with trembling voice, "Our Father, ...
Forgive us ... our trespasses, ... as we ... forgive those ... that ...
trespass ... against us...." These were the last thoughts that passed
through my soul by means of the senses; my sight grew dim as I looked
at the star Capella, and immediately I became unconscious.
[Sidenote: Time does not exist outside the Earth]
Years, days, and hours are constituted by the movements of the Earth.
In space, outside these movements time _does not exist_; indeed, it is
impossible to have any notion of time. I think, however, that the event
I am now going to describe to you occurred on the very day of my death,
for, as you will see presently, my body was not yet buried when this
vision appeared to my soul.
[Sidenote: Sight of the soul in the heavens.]
As I was born in 1793, I was then, in 1864, in my seventy-second year,
so I was not a little surprised to find myself animated by a vivacity
of mind as ardent as in the prime of my life. I had no body, and yet
I was not incorporeal; I felt and saw that I was constituted of a
substance which, however, bore no analogy to the material form of
terrestrial bodies. I know not how I traversed the celestial spaces,
but by some unknown force I soon found that I was approaching a
magnificent golden sun, the splendour of which did not, however,
dazzle me. I perceived that it was surrounded by a number of worlds,
each enveloped in one or more rings. By the same unconscious force
I was driven towards one of these rings, and was a spectator of the
marvellous phenomena of light, for the starry spaces were crossed
everywhere by rainbow bridges. I lost sight of the golden sun, and
I found myself in a sort of night coloured with hues of a thousand
shades. The sight of my soul far exceeded that of my body, and, to
my surprise, this power of sight appeared to be subject to my will.
The sight of the soul is so marvellous that I must not stop to-day to
describe it. Suffice it to say that instead of seeing the stars in the
heavens as you see them on the Earth, I could distinguish clearly the
worlds revolving round each other; and strange to say, when I desired
to examine more closely these worlds, and to avoid the brilliance of
the central sun, it disappeared from my sight, and left me under the
most favourable conditions for observing any one of them I wished.[1]
Further, when my attention was concentrated on one particular world,
I could distinguish its continents and its seas, its clouds and its
rivers, although they did not appear to become larger, as objects seen
through a telescope do. I saw any special thing that I fixed my sight
upon, such as a town or a tract of country, with perfect clearness and
distinctness.
[Sidenote: The soul clothed in a new body.]
When I reached this ringed world I found myself clothed in a form like
that of its inhabitants. It appeared that my soul had attracted to
itself the constituent atoms of a new body. Living bodies on the Earth
are composed of molecules which do not touch one another, and which are
constantly renewed by respiration, by nutrition, and by assimilation.
The envelope of the soul is formed more quickly in that far-off world.
I felt myself more alive than the supernatural beings whose passions
and sorrows Dante celebrates. One of the special faculties of this new
world is that of seeing very far.
QUÆRENS. But pardon a rather simple remark. Is it not likely that
the worlds or planets that revolve round each star must mingle in a
distant view with their central sun; for instance, when you see our Sun
from afar with the planets of his system, is it possible for you to
distinguish our Earth amongst them?
[Sidenote: The soul's powers of vision.]
LUMEN. You have raised the single geometrical objection which seems
to contradict all previous experience. In point of fact, at a certain
distance the planets are absorbed in their suns, and our terrestrial
eyes would have difficulty in distinguishing them. You know that
from Saturn the Earth is invisible. But you must remember that this
discrepancy arises as much from the imperfection of our sight as from
the geometrical law of the decrease of surfaces. Now, in the world
on which I had just landed, the inhabitants are not incarnated in a
gross form, as we are here below, but are free beings, and endowed
with eminently powerful faculties of perception. They can, as I have
told you, _isolate_ the source of light from the object lighted, and,
moreover, they can perceive distinctly details which at that distance
would be absolutely hidden from the eyes of those dwelling upon this
Earth.
QUÆRENS. Do they make use, then, of instruments superior to our
telescopes?
LUMEN. Well, if, in order to realise this marvellous faculty, you find
it easier to suppose that they possess such instruments, you may do so,
in theory. Imagine a telescope which, by a succession of lenses and
an arrangement of diaphragms, brings near in succession these distant
worlds, and isolates each one in the field of view in order to study it
separately. I should also inform you that these beings are endowed with
a special sense by which they can regulate at will the powers of their
marvellous organs of sight.
And you must further understand that this power and this regulation
of vision are natural in those worlds, and not supernatural. In order
to conceive of the faculties possessed by these ultra-terrestrial
beings, reflect for a moment upon the eyes of some insects--of those,
for instance, which have the power to draw in, to lengthen out, or to
flatten the crystalline lens so as to make it magnify in different
degrees; or of those which can concentrate on the field of view a
multitude of eyes in order to bring them to bear upon the desired
object.
QUÆRENS. Yes, I can imagine it to be possible. Then you are able to see
the Earth, and to distinguish from above even the towns and villages of
our lower world?
[Sidenote: Lumen on a star world.]
LUMEN. Let me proceed with my description. I found myself then upon
the ring-shaped world, the size of which I told you is great enough
to make two hundred worlds like yours. The mountain on which I stood
was covered with trees woven into arboreal palaces. These fairy-like
chateaux seemed to me either to grow naturally, or else to be produced
by a skilful arrangement of branches and of tall flowering plants. The
town, where I entered it, was thickly peopled, and on the summit of the
mountain I noticed a group of old men, twenty or thirty in number, who
were looking with the most fixed and anxious attention at a beautiful
star in the southern constellation of the Altar on the confines of the
Milky Way. They did not observe my arrival amongst them, so absorbed
were they in observing and examining this star, or perhaps one of the
worlds belonging to its system.
[Sidenote: Lumen learns the language of spirits.]
As for myself, I became aware, on arriving in this atmosphere, that
I was clothed in a body resembling that of its inhabitants, and to
my still greater surprise I heard these old men speaking of the
Earth--yes, of the Earth in that universal spirit-language which all
beings comprehend from the seraphim to the trees of the forest. And not
only were they talking about the Earth, but about France. "What can
be the meaning of these legal massacres?" they said. "Is it possible
that brute force reigns supreme there? Will civil war decimate these
people, and will rivers of blood run in this capital, at one time so
magnificent and so gay?"
I could not follow the drift of this speech, I who had just come from
the Earth with the swiftness of thought, and who but yesterday had
breathed in the heart of this tranquil and peaceful capital. I joined
the group, fixing my eyes, as they did, on the beautiful star, and I
tried at the same time to understand what they were talking about.
Presently I saw to the left of the star a pale-blue sphere--that was
the Earth.
[Sidenote: The Solar System in the heavens.]
You are aware, my friend, that, notwithstanding the apparent paradox,
the Earth is really a star in the sky, as I reminded you just now. Seen
from one of the stars comparatively near to your system, it appears
to the spiritual sight, of which I have told you, like a family of
stars composed of eight principal worlds crowding round the Sun, which
is itself reduced to a star. Jupiter and Saturn first arrest the
attention, because of their great size; then one notices Uranus and
Neptune, and at length, quite near to the Sun-star, Mars and the Earth.
Venus is very difficult to make out. Mercury remains invisible because
of its too great proximity to the Sun. Such is the appearance of the
planetary system in the heavens.
[Sidenote: The Earth as seen from the heavens.]
My attention was fixed exclusively on the little terrestrial sphere
by the side of which I perceived the Moon. I soon remarked the white
snow of the North Pole, the yellow triangle of Africa, and the
outlines of the Ocean. Whilst my attention was concentrated on our
planet, the Sun-star became eclipsed before my eyes. Then I was able
to distinguish, in the midst of an expanse of azure, a brown cleft or
hollow, and pursuing my investigations I discovered a town in the midst
of this cleft. I had no difficulty in recognising that this continental
hollow was France, and that the town was Paris. The first sign by which
I recognised it was the silver ribbon of the Seine, that describes so
many graceful convolutions to the west of the great town. By the use of
my new optical organs I could see it in detail. At the eastern side of
the city I saw the nave and towers of Notre Dame in the form of a Latin
cross. The Boulevards wound round the north. To the south I recognised
the gardens of the Luxembourg and the Observatory. The cupola of the
Pantheon covered like a grey hood the Mount of Ste. Geneviève. To the
west the grand avenue of the Champs-Élysées formed a straight line.
Farther on I could distinguish the Bois de Boulogne, the environs of
St. Cloud, the Wood of Meudon, Sèvres, Ville d'Avray, and Montretout.
[Sidenote: Paris.]
The whole scene was lighted up by splendid sunshine; but, strange to
say, the hills were covered with snow as in the month of January,
whilst I had left it in October when the country was perfectly green.
I was fully convinced that I was looking at Paris; but as I could
not understand the exclamations of my companions, I endeavoured to
ascertain more details.
[Sidenote: Old Paris.]
[Sidenote: No Arc de Triomphe visible.]
[Sidenote: No Column Vendôme.]
[Sidenote: No obelisk in the Place de la Concorde.]
My eyes were fixed with most interest upon the Observatory. It was my
favourite quarter, and for forty years I had scarcely left it for more
than a few months. Judge, therefore, of my surprise when I came to look
more closely at it to find that the magnificent avenue of chestnuts
between the Luxembourg and the Observatory was nowhere to be seen,
that in its place were the gardens of convents. My indignation as an
artist was aroused against these municipal misdeeds, but it was quickly
suspended by still stranger feelings. I beheld a monastery in the midst
of our beautiful orchard. The Boulevard St. Michel did not exist, nor
did the Rue de Medici; instead I saw a confused mass of little streets,
and I seemed to recognise the former Rue de l'Est and the Place St.
Michel, where an ancient fountain used to supply water to the people
of the faubourg, and I made out a number of narrow lanes which existed
long ago. The cupolas and the two side wings of the Observatory had
disappeared. By degrees, as I continued my observations, I discovered
that Paris was indeed much changed. The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile,
and all the brilliant avenues that meet there, had disappeared. There
was no Boulevard de Sébastopol, no Station de l'Est, nor any other
station, and no railway. The tower of St. Jaques was enclosed in a
court of old houses, and the Column of Victory was reached that way.
The Column of the Bastile was also absent, for I should easily have
recognised the figure upon it. An equestrian statue filled the place
of the Vendôme Column. The Rue Castiglione was an old green convent.
The Rue de Rivoli had disappeared. The Louvre was either unfinished or
partly pulled down. Between the Court of Francis I. and the Tuileries
there were tumble-down old hovels. There was no obelisk in the Place
de la Concorde; but I saw a moving crowd, though I was unable at first
to distinguish the figures. The Madeleine and the Rue Royal were
invisible. Behind the Isle of St. Louis I saw a small island. Instead
of the outer Boulevards there was only an old wall, and the whole was
enclosed by fortifications. In short, although I recognised the capital
of France by some familiar buildings, I was aware of a marvellous
metamorphosis, which had completely changed its aspect.
[Sidenote: Time merely relative.]
At first I fancied that, in place of having just come from the Earth,
I must have been many years _en route_. As the notion of time is
essentially relative, and there is nothing real or absolute in the
measure of duration, having once left the Earth, I had lost all
standard of measure, and I said to myself that years, centuries indeed,
might have passed over my head without my perceiving it, and that
the time had seemed short to me because of the great interest I had
taken in my aerial voyage--a commonplace idea which shows how merely
relative is our notion of time. Not having any means of assuring myself
of the facts of the case, I should undoubtedly have concluded that I
was separated by many centuries from the terrestrial life which was
now going on before my eyes in Paris, and I imagined that I saw the
period of the twentieth or twenty-first century until I penetrated
more deeply into the details of the life picture and examined all its
features. Eventually I succeeded in identifying the aspect of the town,
and I gradually recognised the sites of the streets and of the public
buildings which I had known in my early youth. The Hôtel de Ville
appeared to be decorated with flags, and I could distinguish the square
central dome of the Tuileries.
[Sidenote: Lumen sees a scene in his past life.]
A little further examination recalled everything to me; and then I saw,
in an old convent garden, a summer-house which made me tremble with
joy. It was in that spot that I met in my youth the woman who loved me
so deeply, my Sylvia, so tender and so devoted, who gave up everything
to unite her life to mine. I saw the little cupola of the terrace where
we loved to saunter in the evenings and to study the constellations.
Oh, with what joy I greeted those promenades where we had walked,
keeping step with one another, those avenues where we took refuge from
the curious eyes of intruders! You can fancy how, as I looked at this
summer-house, the sight of it alone was enough to assure me, absolutely
and convincingly, that I had before my eyes not, as it was natural to
suppose, the Paris of long _after my death_, but in reality the Paris
_of the past_, old Paris of the beginning of this century or of the
end of last century. But, in spite of all, you can easily imagine that
I could scarcely believe my eyes. It seemed so much more natural to
think that Paris had grown old and had suffered these transformations
since my departure from the Earth--an interval of time absolutely
unknown to me. It was so much easier to think that I beheld the city
of the future. I continued my observations carefully, in order to
ascertain if it was really the old Paris, now partly demolished, that
I was looking at, or if, by a phenomenon still more incredible, it was
another Paris, another France, another world.
II
[Sidenote: In the star Capella.]
QUÆRENS. What an extraordinary discovery for an analytical mind like
yours, dear Lumen! By what means did you satisfy yourself that your
conclusions were correct?
[Sidenote: The French Terror visible in Capella.]
[Sidenote: Old men in Capella watch the doings on the Earth.]
LUMEN. While I was gradually arriving at the conviction of which I
have told you, the old men around me on the mountain continued their
conversation. Suddenly the oldest of them, a venerable Nestor whose
aspect commanded both admiration and respect, called out, in a loud
and mournful voice "On your knees, my brethren; let us pray for
forbearance to the universal God. That world, that nation, that city
continues to revel in blood. A fresh head, that of a king this time,
is about to fall." His companions seemed to understand, for they
knelt down on the mountain, and prostrated their white faces to the
ground. For myself, I had not yet succeeded in distinguishing men in
the streets and squares of Paris, and not being able to verify the
observations of these old men, I remained standing, but I pursued
my examination of the scene before me carefully. "Stranger," said
the old man to me, "do you blame the action of your brothers since
you do not join your prayers to theirs?" "Senator," I replied, "I
neither approve nor blame what I do not comprehend. Having only just
arrived on this mountain, I do not know the cause of your righteous
indignation." I then drew near the old man, and while his companions
were rising and entering into conversation in groups, I asked him
to describe the situation to me. He informed me that the order of
spirits inhabiting this world are gifted by intuition with the power
of seeing and apprehending events in the neighbouring worlds, and
that they each possess a sort of magnetic relation with the stars and
systems around them. These neighbour-worlds, or stars, are twelve or
fifteen in number. Outside that limit the perceptions become confused.
They have therefore a vague but distinct knowledge of the state of
humanity in the planets of our Sun, and of the relative elevation in
the intellectual and moral order of their inhabitants. Moreover, when
a great disturbance takes place, either in the physical or the moral
realm, they feel a sort of inner agitation, like that of a musical
chord which vibrates in unison with another chord at a distance.
For a year (a year of this world is equal to ten of our years) they had
felt themselves drawn by special attraction towards the terrestrial
planet, and had observed with unusual interest and anxiety the march
of events in that world. They had beheld the end of a reign and the
dawn of glorious liberty, the conquest of the rights of man and the
assertion of the great principles of human dignity. Then they had seen
the cause sacred to liberty placed in peril by those who should have
been the first to defend it, and brute force substituted for reason and
justice.
I saw that he was describing the great Revolution of 1789, and the fall
of the old political world before the new régime. Very mournfully
they had followed the events of the Reign of Terror and the tyranny of
that bloody time. They trembled for the future of the Earth, and felt
doubtful of the progress of a humanity which, when emancipated, so soon
lost the treasure it had just acquired. I took care not to let the
senator know that I had just arrived from the Earth myself, and that I
had lived there seventy-two years. I do not know whether he was aware
of this, but I was so much surprised by this vision before me that it
completely absorbed my mind and I did not think of myself.
[Sidenote: Lumen witnesses the scenes of the French Revolution.]
At last my sight was fully developed, and I perceived the spectacle
in all its details. I could distinguish, in the midst of the Place
de la Concorde, a scaffold, surrounded by a formidable array of war,
drums, cannon, and a motley crowd armed with pikes. A cart, led by
a man in red, bore the remains of Louis XVI. in the direction of
the Faubourg St. Honoré. An intoxicated mob lifted their fists to
heaven. Some horsemen, sabre in hand, mournfully followed. Towards the
Champs-Élysées there were ditches into which the curious stumbled. But
the agitation was concentrated in this region. It did not extend into
the town, which appeared dead and deserted; the terror had thrown it
into a state of lethargy.
I was not present during the events of 1793, since that was the year of
my birth, and I felt an inexpressible interest in being thus a witness
of these scenes of which I had read in history. I have often discussed
and debated the vote of the Convention, but I confess to you I see no
excuse of state in the execution of such men as Lavoisier, the creator
of chemistry, Bailly, the historian of astronomy, André Chenier, the
sweet poet, or the condemnation of Condorcet, the philosopher. These
have roused my indignation much more than the punishment of Louis XVI.
I was intensely interested at being thus a witness of this vanished
epoch. But you may imagine how much greater was my surprise, and how
much more I was astonished, _that I beheld in_ 1864 _events actually
present before me which had taken place at the end of the last century_.
QUÆRENS. In truth, it seems to me that this feeling of its
impossibility ought to have awakened doubt in you. Visions are
essentially illusory. We cannot admit their reality even though we see
them.
LUMEN. Yes, my friend, it was as you say, impossible! Now can you
understand my experience in seeing with my own eyes this paradox
realised? The common saying is, "One cannot believe one's own eyes."
That was just my position. It was impossible to deny what I saw, and
equally impossible to admit it.
QUÆRENS. But was it not a conception of your own mind, a creation of
your imagination, or perhaps a reminiscence of your memory? Are you
sure it was a reality, not a strange reflection from your memory?
[Sidenote: Not a paradox.]
LUMEN. That was my first idea; but it was so obvious that I saw before
me the Paris of '93, and the events of January 21, that I could
no longer be in any doubt about it. Besides, this explanation was
anticipated by the fact that the old men of the mountain had preceded
me in observing these phenomena, and they had seen, and analysed, and
conversed on them as actual facts without knowing anything of the
history of our world, and were quite unaware of my knowledge of that
history. Further, we had before our eyes _a present fact_, not a past
event.
QUÆRENS. But, on the other hand, if the past can be thus merged into
the present, if reality and vision can be allied in this way, if
persons long since dead can be seen again acting on the scene of life,
if new structures and metamorphoses in a city like Paris can disappear
and give place to the aspect of the city as it was formerly--in short,
if the present can vanish and the past be re-created, what certainty
can we have of anything? What becomes of the science of observation?
What becomes of deductions and theories? On what solid foundation
can we base our knowledge? If these things are true, ought we not
henceforth to doubt everything, or else to believe everything?
[Sidenote: A reality.]
LUMEN. Yes, my friend, these considerations and many others occupied
my mind and tormented me, but they did not do away with the reality
which I was observing. When I had assured myself that we had _present_
before our eyes the events of the year 1793, it immediately occurred
to me that science, instead of conflicting with these facts, ought to
furnish an explanation of them, for two truths can never be opposed to
one another. I investigated the physical laws, and I discovered the
solution of the mystery.
QUÆRENS. What! the facts were real?
[Sidenote: Explanation of the apparent paradox.]
[Sidenote: Lumen ascertains the place where he was in space.]
LUMEN. They were not only real, but comprehensible and capable of
demonstration. You shall have an astronomical explanation of them.
In the first place, I examined the position of the Earth in the
constellation of the Altar as I have told you; I took the bearings of
my position relatively to the Polar star and to the Zodiac. I remarked
that the constellations were not very different from those we see from
the Earth, and that except in the case of a few particular stars,
their positions were evidently the same. Orion still reigned in the
ultra-equatorial region, the Great Bear pursuing his circular course
still pointing to the north. In comparing the apparent movements, and
co-ordinating them scientifically, I calculated that the point where
I saw the group of the Sun, the Earth, and the planets, marked the
17th hour of right ascension, that is to say, about the 256th degree,
or nearly so. I had no instrument to take exact measurements. I
observed, in the second place, that it was on the 44th degree from the
South Pole. I made these observations to ascertain the star on which
I then was, and I was led to conclude that I was on a star situated
on the 76th degree of right ascension, and the 46th degree of north
declination. On the other hand, I knew from the words of the old man
that the star on which we were was not far from our Sun, since he
considered it to be one of the neighbouring stars. From these data I
had no difficulty in recalling the star that stands in the position I
had determined. One only answered to it, that of the first magnitude,
Alpha in the constellation of Auriga, named also _Capella_, or the
_Goat_.
There was no doubt about this. Thus I was certain that I was on one of
the planetary worlds of the sun Capella. From thence our Sun looks like
a simple star, and appears in perspective to be in the constellation of
the Altar, just opposite that of Auriga, as seen from the Earth.
Then I tried to remember what was the parallax of this star. I recalled
that a friend of mine, a Russian astronomer, had made a calculation,
which had been confirmed, of this parallax. It was proved to be
0,″046.--When I had thus solved the mystery my heart beat with joy.
Every geometrician knows that parallax indicates mathematically the
distance in units of the magnitude employed in the calculation. I
sought then to recall exactly the distance which separated this star
from the Earth, in order to prove the accuracy of the calculation. I
only needed to find out what number corresponded to 0,″046.[2]
[Sidenote: The velocity of light.]
Expressed in millions of leagues, this number is 170,392,000, and so,
from the star on which I was, the Earth was distant 170 billions 392
thousand millions of leagues. The principle was thus established,
and the problem was three parts solved. Now, here is the main point,
to which I call your special attention, for you will find in it an
explanation of the most marvellous realities. Light, you know, does
not cross instantaneously from one place to another, but in successive
waves. If you throw a stone into a pool of tranquil water, a series of
undulations form around the point where the stone fell. In the same
way, sound undulates in the air when passing from one point to another,
and thus, also, light travels in space--it is transmitted in successive
undulations. The light of a star takes a certain time to reach the
Earth, and this time naturally depends on the distance which separates
the star from the Earth.
[Sidenote: How the heavenly bodies are seen.]
Sound travels 340 metres in a second. A cannon shot is heard
immediately by those who fire it, a second later by persons who are
at a distance of 340 metres, in three seconds by those who are a
kilometre off, twelve seconds after the shot at four kilometres. It
takes two minutes to reach those who are ten times farther off, and
those who live at a distance of a hundred kilometres hear this human
thunder in five minutes. Light travels with much greater swiftness,
but it is not transmitted instantaneously, as the ancients supposed.
It travels at the rate of 300,000 kilometres per second, and if it
could revolve, might encircle the Earth eight times in a second. Light
occupies one second and a quarter to come from the Moon to the Earth,
eight minutes and thirteen seconds to come from the Sun, forty-two
minutes to come from Jupiter, two hours to come from Uranus, and four
hours to come from Neptune. Therefore, we see the heavenly bodies not
as they are at the moment we observe them, but as they were when the
luminous ray which reaches us left them. If a volcano were to burst
forth in eruption on one of the worlds I have named, we should not see
the flames in the Moon till a second and a quarter had elapsed, if in
Jupiter not till forty-two minutes, in Uranus two hours after, and we
should not see it in Neptune till four hours after the eruption. The
distances are incomparably more vast outside our planetary system, and
the light is still longer in reaching us. Thus, a luminous ray coming
from the star nearest to us, Alpha, in Centaurus, takes four years in
coming. A ray from Sirius is nearly ten years in crossing the abyss
which separates us from that sun. The star Capella, being the distance
above mentioned from the Earth, it is easy to calculate, at the rate
of 300,000 kilometres the second, what time is needed to cross this
distance. The calculation amounts to seventy-one years, eight months,
and twenty-four days. The luminous ray, therefore, which came from
Capella to the Earth, traversed space without interruption seventy-one
years, eight months, and twenty-four days before it was visible on the
Earth. In like manner, the ray of light which leaves the Earth can only
arrive at Capella in the same period of time.
[Sidenote: Time occupied in the transmission of light.]
QUÆRENS. If the luminous ray which comes from that star takes nearly
seventy-two years to reach us, it follows that we see the star as it
was nearly seventy-two years ago?
LUMEN. You are quite right, and this is the fact that I want you take
note of specially.
[Sidenote: A belated courier.]
QUÆRENS. In other words, the ray of light is like a courier who brings
despatches from a distant country, and having been nearly seventy-two
years on the way, his news is of events that occurred at the time of
his departure seventy-two years ago.