you have lifted the veil which shrouded it. In order to be still more
exact, the light represents a courier who brings, not written news, but
photographs, or, strictly speaking, _the real aspect_ of the country
from whence he came. We see this living picture such as it appeared,
in all its aspects, at the moment when the luminous rays shot forth
from the distant orb. Nothing is more simple, nothing more indubitable.
When we examine the surface of a star with a telescope we see, not the
actual surface as it was at the time of our observation, but such as it
was when the light was emitted from that surface.
QUÆRENS. This being so, if a star, the light of which takes ten years
to reach us, were to be annihilated to-day, we should continue to see
it for ten years, since its last ray would not reach us before ten
years had elapsed.
[Sidenote: We see the past, not the present, aspect of the stars.]
LUMEN. It is precisely so. In short, the rays of light that proceed
from the stars do not reach us instantaneously, but occupy a certain
time in crossing the distance which separates us from them, and show us
those stars not as they are now, but such as they were at the moment
in which those rays set out to transmit the aspect of the stars to
us. Thus we behold a wondrous _transformation of the past into the
present_. In the star we observe we see the past, which has already
disappeared, while to the observer it is the present, the actual.
Strictly speaking, the past of the star is positively the present of
the observer. As the aspect of the worlds change from year to year,
almost from day to day, one can imagine these aspects emerging into
space and advancing into the infinite, and thus revealing their phases
in the sight of far-distant spectators. Each aspect or appearance is
followed by another, and so on in endless sequence. Thus a series of
undulations bears from afar the past history of the worlds which the
observer sees in its various phases as they successively reach him.
The events which we see in the stars at present are already past, and
that which is actually happening there we cannot as yet see. Realise
to yourself, my friend, this presentation of an actual fact, for it
is of importance to you to comprehend the precession of the waves of
light and to understand the essential nature of this undoubted truth.
The appearance of things, borne to us by light, shows us those things
not as they are at present, but as they were in that period of the past
which preceded the interval of time needed for the light to traverse
the distance which separates us from those events.
We do not see any of the stars such as they are, but such as they were
when the luminous rays that reach us left them.
[Sidenote: The planet Earth as seen from afar.]
_It is not the actual condition of the heavens that is visible, but
their past history._ Moreover, there are distant stars which have been
extinct for ten thousand years, but which we can see still, because
the rays of light from them had set out before they were extinguished.
Some of the double stars, the nature and movements of which we seek
with care and toil, ceased to exist long before astronomers began to
make observations. If the visible heavens were to be annihilated to-day
we should still see stars to-morrow, even next year, and for a hundred
years, a thousand years, and even for fifty and a hundred thousand
years, or more, with the exception only of the nearest stars, which
would disappear successively as the time needed for their luminous rays
to reach us expired. Alpha of Centaur would go out first, in four
years, Sirius in ten years, and so on.
Now, my friend, you can easily apply a scientific theory in explanation
of these strange facts of which I was witness. If from the Earth one
sees the star Capella, not as it is at the moment of observation, but
as it was seventy-two years before, in the same way from Capella one
would see the Earth as it was seventy-two years earlier, for light
takes the same time to traverse the distance either way.
QUÆRENS. Master, I have followed your explanation attentively. But, I
ask you, does the Earth shine like a star? Surely she is not luminous?
[Sidenote: The other planets seen from afar.]
LUMEN. She reflects in space the light of the Sun; the greater the
distance the more our planet resembles a star. All the light that
radiates from the Sun on its surface is condensed into a disc that
becomes smaller and smaller. Seen from the Moon our Earth appears
fourteen times more luminous than the full Moon, because she is
fourteen times larger than the Moon. Seen from the planet Venus the
Earth appears as bright as Jupiter appears to us. From the planet
Mars the Earth is the morning and the evening star, presenting phases
like those of Venus to us. Thus, although our Earth is not luminous
herself, she shines afar like the Moon and the planets, by the light
that she receives from the Sun, and reflects into space.
Now the events taking place on Neptune, if seen from the Earth, would
have a delay of four hours; in like manner the view of life on the
Earth could only reach Neptune in the same time; nearly seventy-two
years, therefore, separate Capella and the Earth.
QUÆRENS. Although these views are new and strange to me, I now
understand perfectly how, since the light was nearly seventy-two
years in traversing the abyss which separates the Earth from Capella,
you beheld not the Earth as it was in October 1864, the date of your
death, but as it appeared in January 1793. And I comprehend quite as
clearly that what you saw was neither a phenomenon of memory, nor a
supernatural experience, but an actual, positive, and incontestable
fact, and that in very truth what had long passed away on the Earth was
only then present to an observer at that distance. But permit me to ask
you an incidental question. In coming from the Earth to Capella did you
cross that distance even more quickly than light?
[Sidenote: Thought swifter than light.]
LUMEN. Have I not already anticipated your question in telling you
that I crossed this distance with the swiftness of thought. On the very
day of my death I found myself on this star, which I had admired and
loved so much all my life on the terrestrial globe.
QUÆRENS. Ah, Master, although everything is thus explained, your vision
is not the less wonderful. Truly it is an astonishing phenomenon that
of seeing thus at once the _past in the present_ in this extraordinary
manner. Not less marvellous is the thought of seeing the stars, not
such as they are when one makes the observation, nor as they have been
simultaneously, but as they have been at different epochs according
to their distances, and the time that the light of each has taken in
coming to the Earth!
[Sidenote: Light.]
LUMEN. I venture to say that the natural astonishment that you feel
in contemplating this truth is only the prelude to the things which I
have now to unfold to you. Undoubtedly, it appears at first sight very
extraordinary, that by removing to a distance in space, one can become
a witness of long past events, and remount as it were the stream of
time. But this is not more strange than what I have yet to communicate
to you, and which will appear to you still more imaginary if you can
listen a little longer to the narrative of that day which followed my
death.
QUÆRENS. Go on, I beg of you, I am eager to hear you.
III
[Sidenote: Lumen sees his own life on Earth.]
LUMEN. On turning away from the sanguinary scenes of the Place de la
Révolution, my eyes were attracted towards a habitation of somewhat
an antique style, situated in front of Notre Dame, and occupying
the place of the present square in front of the cathedral. I saw
a group of five persons before the entrance of the cathedral, who
were reclining on wooden benches in the sunshine, with their heads
uncovered. When they rose and crossed the square, I perceived that one
was my father, younger than I could remember him, another my mother,
still younger, and a third a cousin of mine who died the same year as
my father, now nearly forty years ago. I found it difficult at first
to recognise these persons, for instead of facing them, I saw them
only from on high above their heads. I was not a little surprised at
this unlooked-for meeting, but then I remembered that I had heard that
my parents lived in the Place Notre Dame before my birth. I cannot
tell you how profoundly I was affected by this sight; my perception
seemed to fail me, and a cloud appeared to obscure Paris from my view.
I felt as though I had been carried off by a whirlwind; for, as you
are aware, I had lost all sense of time. When I began again to see
objects distinctly, I noticed a troop of children running across the
Place de Panthéon. They looked like school children coming out of
class; for they had their portfolios and books in their hands, and were
apparently going to their homes, gambolling and gesticulating. Two of
them attracted me especially, for I saw they were quarrelling and just
preparing to fight, and another little fellow was advancing to separate
them when he received a blow on the shoulder and was thrown down. In an
instant a woman ran to help him; this was my own mother. Words fail me
to tell my amazement when I perceived that the child to whose rescue my
mother came was _my own self_. Never in my seventy-two years of earthly
life, with all the unlooked-for changes and strange events with which
it was crowded, never in all its surprises and chances have I felt such
emotion as this sight caused me; I was completely overcome when in this
child I recognised--_myself!_
QUÆRENS. You saw yourself?
LUMEN. Yes, myself, with the blond curls of six years of age, with
my little collar embroidered by my mother's hands, my little blouse
of light blue colour, and the cuffs always rumpled. There I was, the
very same as you have seen in the half-effaced miniature that stood on
my mantelpiece. My mother came over to me, and sharply reproving the
other boys, took me up in her arms, and then led me by the hand into
the house, which was close to the Rue d'Ulm. There I saw that, after
passing through the house, we reappeared in the garden in the midst of
a numerous company.
QUÆRENS. Master, pardon me a criticism. I confess to you that it
appears to me impossible that you could see yourself; you could not be
two persons; and since you were seventy-two years old, your infancy was
passed, and had totally disappeared. You could not see a thing that no
longer existed. I cannot comprehend how when an old man you could see
yourself as an infant.
LUMEN. Why cannot you admit this point on the same grounds as the
preceding ones?
QUÆRENS. Because you cannot see yourself double, an infant and an old
man, at the same time.
[Sidenote: A logical inference.]
LUMEN. Look at the matter more closely, my friend. You admit the
general fact, but you do not sufficiently observe, that this last
particular is logically inferred from that fact. You admit that the
view I had of the Earth was seventy-two years in coming to me, do you
not? that events reached me only at that interval of time after they
had taken place? in short, that I saw the world as it was at that
epoch? You admit, likewise, that as I saw the streets of that time I
saw also the children running in those streets? You admit all this?
QUÆRENS. Yes, decidedly.
LUMEN. Well, then, since I saw this troop of children, and myself
amongst them, why do you say I could not see myself as well as the
others?
QUÆRENS. But you were no longer there amongst them!
LUMEN. Again, I repeat, this whole troop of children has ceased to
exist. But I saw them such as they were at the moment the ray of light
left the Earth, which only reached me at the present time. And as I
could distinguish the fifteen to eighteen children in the group, there
was no reason why I should disappear from amongst them because I myself
was the distant spectator. Since any other observer could see me in
company with my comrades, why should I form an exception? I saw them
all, and I saw myself amongst them.
QUÆRENS. I had not fully taken in the idea. It is evident, in short,
that seeing a troop of children, of whom you were one, you could not
fail to see yourself as well as you saw the others.
[Sidenote: Lumen sees himself a child.]
LUMEN. Now you can understand into what a state of surprise I was
thrown. This child was really myself, flesh and bones, as the vulgar
expression has it--myself, at the age of six years. I saw myself as
well as the company in the garden who were playing with me saw me. It
was no mirage, no vision, no spectre, no reminiscence, no image; it
was reality, positively myself, my thought and my body. I was there
before my eyes. If my other senses had the perfection of my sight, it
seemed as though I should have been able to touch and hear myself. I
jumped about the garden and ran round the pond, which had a balustrade
around it. Some time after my grandfather took me on his knees and
made me read in a big book. It is not possible for me to describe my
astonishment. I must leave you to imagine what it was to me, and to
realise the fact, now that you understand upon what it was based.
Suffice it to say, that I had never received such a surprise in my
life. One reflection especially puzzled me. I said to myself, this
child is really me, he is alive, he will grow up, and he ought to live
sixty-six years longer. It is undoubtedly myself. And on the other
hand, here I am, having lived seventy-two years of the terrestrial
life. I who now think and see these things, I am still myself, and
this child is me also. _Am I then two beings_, one there below, on
the Earth, and the other here in space--two complete persons and yet
quite distinct? An observer, placed where I am, could see this child in
the garden, as I see him, and at the same time see me here. I must be
two--it is incontestable. My soul is in this child; it is no less here.
It is the same soul, my own soul. How can it animate two beings? What
a strange reality! For I cannot say that I delude myself, or that what
I see is an optical illusion, for both according to nature, and by the
laws of science, I see at once a child and an old man--the one there
beyond, the other here where I am, the former joyous and free-hearted,
the other pensive and agitated.
QUÆRENS. In truth it is strange!
[Sidenote: Lumen sees himself a young man.]
[Sidenote: Lumen witnesses the events of the Hundred Days.]
LUMEN. Yes, but no less true. You may search through all creation and
not find such a paradox. Well, to proceed with my history, I saw
myself grow up in this vast city of Paris, I saw myself enter college
in 1804, and perform my first military exercises when the First Consul
was crowned Emperor. One day as I passed by the Carrousel I got a
glimpse of the domineering and thoughtful face of Napoleon. I could
not remember having seen him in my life, and it was interesting to see
him thus pass across my field of view. In 1810 I saw myself promoted
to the Polytechnic School, and there I was talking of the course of
studies with François Arago, the best of comrades. He already belonged
to the institute, and had replaced Monge at the school, because the
Emperor had complained of the Jesuitism of Binet. I saw myself, in like
manner, all through the brilliant years of my youth, full of projects
of travels for scientific exploration, in company with Arago and
Humboldt, travels which only the latter decided to undertake. Later on
I saw myself during the Hundred Days, crossing quickly the little wood
of the old Luxembourg, and then the Rue de l'Est and the avenue of the
garden of the Rue St. Jaques, and hastening to meet my beloved under
the lilac-trees. Sweet meetings all to ourselves, the confidences of
our hearts, the silences of our souls, the transports of our evening
conversations, were all presented to my astonished sight, no longer
veiled by distance, but actually before my eyes. I was present again
at the combat with the Allies on the Hill of Montmartre, and saw their
descent into the capital, and the fall of the statue in the Place
Vendôme, when it was drawn through the streets with cries of joy. I saw
the camp of the English and the Prussians in the Champs-Élysées, the
destruction of the Louvre, the journey to Ghent, the entrance of Louis
XVIII.
[Sidenote: Napoleon at St. Helena.]
The flag of the island of Elba floated before my eyes, and later on
I sought out the far Atlantic isle where the eagle, with his wings
broken, was chained. The rotation of the Earth soon brought before
my eyes the Emperor in St. Helena sadly musing at the foot of a
sycamore-tree.
[Sidenote: Historical events appear in succession.]
Thus the events of the years as they passed were revealed to me in
following my own career--my marriage, my various enterprises, my
connections, my travels, my studies, and so on. I witnessed at the
same time the development of contemporary history. To the restoration
of Louis XVIII. succeeded the brief reign of Charles X. I saw the
barricades of the days of July 1830, and not far from the throne of
the Duke of Orleans I saw the Column of the Bastile arise. Passing
rapidly over eighteen years, I perceived myself at the Luxembourg at
the time when that magnificent avenue was opened, that avenue I loved
so much, and which has been threatened by a recent decree. I saw Arago
again, this time at the Observatory, and I beheld the crowd before the
door of the new amphitheatre. I recognised the Sorbonne of Cousin and
of Guizot. Then I shuddered as I saw my mother's funeral pass. She was
a stern woman, and perhaps a little too severe in her judgments, but
I loved her dearly, as you know. The singular and brief revolution of
1848 surprised me as much as when I first witnessed it. On the Place
de la Bourse I saw Lamoricière, who was buried last year, and in the
Champs-Élysées, Cavaignac, who has been dead five or six years. The 2nd
of December found me an observer on my solitary tower, and from thence
I witnessed many striking events which passed before me, and many
others which were unknown to me.
QUÆRENS. Did the event pass rapidly before you?
LUMEN. I had no perception of time; but the whole retrospective
panorama appeared to me in successive scenes--in less than a day,
perhaps in a few hours.
QUÆRENS. Then I do not understand you at all. Pardon your old friend
this interruption, a little too abrupt perhaps. As I took it, you saw
the real events of your life, not merely images of them. But, in view
of the time necessary for the passage of light, these events appeared
to you after they had happened. If, then, seventy-two terrestrial years
had passed before your eyes, they should have taken seventy-two years
to appear to you, and not a few hours. If the year 1793 appeared to you
only in 1864, the year 1864, consequently, should only in 1936 appear
to you.
[Sidenote: The anachronism explained.]
LUMEN. You have grounds for your fresh objection, and this proves to
me that you have perfectly comprehended the theory of this fact. I
fully appreciate your belief in me; indeed its consciousness helps me
in my explanations. Thus it is not necessary that seventy-two years
should be needed in which to review my life, for under the impulse of
an involuntary force all its events passed before me in less than a
day. Continuing to follow the course of my existence, I reached its
later years, rendered memorable by the striking changes which had
come over Paris. I saw our old friends, and you yourself; my daughter
and her charming children; my family, and circle of acquaintances; and
last of all I saw myself lying dead upon my bed, and I was present at
the final scene. Yes; I tell you I had returned to the Earth. Drawn by
the contemplation which absorbed my soul, I had quickly forgotten the
mountain, the old men, and Capella. Even as a dream all faded from my
mind.
I did not at first perceive the strange vision which captivated all
my faculties. I cannot tell you either by what law or by what power
souls can be transported with such rapidity from one place to another.
Suffice it to say, _I had returned to the Earth_ in less than a day,
and I had entered my chamber even at the moment of my decease. Also in
this returning voyage I had travelled faster than the rays of light,
hence the various phases of my life on Earth had unrolled themselves to
my sight in their successive stages as they occurred. When I reached
half-way I saw the rays of light arriving only thirty-six years behind
time, showing me the Earth, not as it appeared seventy-two years ago,
but thirty-six. When I had travelled three-quarters of the way I saw
things as they had been eighteen years ago; at the half of the last
quarter, as they were nine years previously; until finally the whole
acts of my life were condensed into less than one day because of the
rapid rate at which my soul had travelled, which far surpassed the
velocity of the rays of light.
QUÆRENS. Was not this a very strange phenomenon?
LUMEN. Do any other objections rise in your mind as you listen to me?
QUÆRENS. No, this is the only one; or rather, this one has puzzled and
interested me so greatly that it has absorbed all others.
LUMEN. I would remark that there is another, an astronomical one,
which I will hasten to dispel, for fear it should arise and cloud
your mind. It depends upon the Earth's movement, not only upon its
diurnal rotation, which in itself would be sufficient to prevent
my seeing the facts in succession, but this movement would also
be greatly accelerated by the rapidity of my return to the Earth.
Hence seventy-two years would pass before me in less than a day. On
reflection, I was surprised that I had not earlier perceived this;
yet as I had only seen a comparatively small number of countries,
panoramas, and facts, it is probable that in returning to our planet I
had only a fleeting glance for a few moments of the successive points
of interest. But however this may be, I can but bear evidence that I
have been witness to the rapid succession of events both throughout the
century and of my own life.
QUÆRENS. That difficulty had not escaped me; I had weighed the thought,
and had come to the conclusion that you had revolved in space, even
as a balloon is spun round by the rotation of the globe. It is true
that the inconceivable speed with which you would be whirled through
space would be likely to give you vertigo, nevertheless, after hearing
your experience, this hypothesis forces itself upon me, that spirits
rush through space with the lightness and velocity of thought; and
in remarking on the intensity of your gaze as you approached certain
parts of the Earth, may it not be admissible to infer that this very
eagerness to see certain localities, might be the reason of your being
drawn to them, and as it were fixed above their point of vision?
LUMEN. As to this I can affirm nothing, because I know nothing; but
I do not think this is the explanation. I did not see all the events
of my life, but only a few of the main ones, which, successively
unfolding, passed in review before me on the same visual ray. A
magnetism drew me imperiously as with a chain to the Earth; or, if you
prefer it, a force similar to that mysterious attraction of the stars,
by reason of which, stars of a lesser degree would inevitably fall
upon those of the first magnitude, unless retained in their orbits by
centrifugal force.
QUÆRENS. In reflecting on the effect of the concentration of thought
upon a single point, and of the attraction which consequently ensues
towards that point, I cannot but conclude that therein lies the
mainspring of the mechanism of dreams.
[Sidenote: The source of dreams.]
LUMEN. You say truly, my friend; I can confirm you in this remark,
as for many years I have made dreams the subject of a special study
and observation. When the soul, freed from the attentions, the
preoccupations, the encumbrance of the body, has a vision of the
object which charms it, and towards which it is irresistibly drawn,
all disappear except the object. That alone remains, and becomes the
centre of a world of creations; the soul possesses it entirely without
any reserve, it contemplates it, it seizes it as its own, the entire
universe is effaced from the memory in order that its domination over
the soul may be absolute. I felt thus on being drawn earthwards. I saw
but one object, around which were grouped the ideas, the images, and
the associations to which it had given birth.