Transcriber's Note.
A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.
Mark-up: _italic_
=bold=
THE DAY AFTER DEATH
[Illustration]
THE
DAY AFTER DEATH
OR
Our Future Life according to Science
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
LOUIS FIGUIER
_ILLUSTRATED BY TEN ASTRONOMICAL PLATES_
A NEW EDITION
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1904
_Formerly published by Richard Bentley & Son.
Reprinted 1904._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
MAN IS THE RESULT OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE OF THE BODY, THE SOUL, AND
LIFE.--OF WHAT DOES DEATH CONSIST? 6
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
WHAT BECOMES, AFTER DEATH, OF THE BODY, THE SOUL, AND LIFE? 9
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
WHERE DOES THE SUPERHUMAN BEING RESIDE? 16
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
DO ALL MEN PASS AFTER DEATH TO THE STATE OF SUPERHUMAN
BEINGS?--RE-INCARNATIONS OF PERVERSE SOULS.--RE-INCARNATION OF
CHILDREN WHO HAVE DIED IN INFANCY 24
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING? PHYSICAL SHAPE,
SENSES, DEGREE OF INTELLIGENCE.--FACULTIES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING 30
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
WHAT BECOMES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING AFTER DEATH?--DEATHS,
RESURRECTIONS, AND NEW INCARNATIONS IN THE ETHEREAL SPACES 55
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
PHYSICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SUN 61
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.
THE SUN.--DEFINITIVE SOJOURN OF SOULS ARRIVED AT THE HIGHEST DEGREE
OF THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY.--THE SUN IS THE FINAL AND COMMON SOJOURN
OF THE SOULS WHICH COME FROM THE EARTH.--PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE
SUN.--THIS HEAVENLY BODY IS A MASS OF BURNING GAS 89
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
THE INHABITANTS OF THE SUN ARE PURELY SPIRITUAL BEINGS.--THE
SOLAR RAYS ARE EMANATIONS FROM SPIRITUAL BEINGS THAT LIVE IN
THE SUN.--THESE BEINGS THUS PRODUCE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE
ON EARTH.--THE CONTINUITY OF SOLAR RADIATION, INEXPLICABLE
BY PHYSICISTS, EXPLAINED BY EMANATIONS FROM THE SOULS OF THE
INHABITANTS OF THE SUN.--THE WORSHIP OF FIRE, AND THE ADORATION OF
THE SUN IN DIFFERENT NATIONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN 104
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
WHAT ARE OUR RELATIONS WITH SUPERHUMAN BEINGS? 122
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
WHAT IS THE ANIMAL?--THE SOULS OF ANIMALS.--MIGRATIONS OF SOULS
THROUGH THE BODIES OF ANIMALS 138
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
WHAT IS THE PLANT?--THE PLANT CAN FEEL.--HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO
DISTINGUISH PLANTS FROM ANIMALS.--GENERAL CHAIN OF LIVING BEINGS 149
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
DOES MAN EXIST ELSEWHERE THAN ON THE EARTH?--DESCRIPTION OF THE
PLANETS.--PLURALITY OF THE INHABITED WORLDS 177
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
THAT WHICH TOOK PLACE ON EARTH FOR THE CREATION OF ORGANIZED BEINGS
MUST HAVE EQUALLY TAKEN PLACE IN THE OTHER PLANETS.--SUCCESSIVE ORDER
OF THE APPEARANCE OF LIVING BEINGS ON OUR GLOBE.--THE SAME SUCCESSION
MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN EACH PLANET.--THE PLANETARY MAN.--THE
PLANETARY MAN, LIKE THE TERRESTRIAL MAN, IS TRANSFORMED, AFTER DEATH,
INTO A SUPERHUMAN BEING, AND PASSES INTO THE ETHER 195
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
PROOFS OF THE PLURALITY OF HUMAN EXISTENCES, AND OF
RE-INCARNATIONS.--WITHOUT THE AID OF THIS DOCTRINE THE PRESENCE OF MAN
UPON THE EARTH IS INEXPLICABLE, LIKEWISE THE UNEQUAL CONDITIONS OF
HUMAN LIFE, AND THE FATE OF CHILDREN WHO DIE IN INFANCY 202
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.
FACULTIES PECULIAR TO CERTAIN CHILDREN, APTITUDES AND VOCATIONS
AMONG MEN, ARE ADDITIONAL PROOFS OF RE-INCARNATIONS.--EXPLANATION OF
PHRENOLOGY.--DESCARTES' INNATE IDEAS, AND DUGALD STEWART'S PRINCIPLE
OF CAUSALITY CAN ONLY BE EXPLAINED BY THE PLURALITY OF LIVES.--VAGUE
REMEMBRANCES OF OUR FORMER EXISTENCES 212
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.
SUMMARY OF THE SYSTEM OF PLURALITY OF EXISTENCES 226
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
ANSWERS TO SOME OBJECTIONS.--FIRST: THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, WHICH
SERVES AS THE BASIS TO THIS SYSTEM, IS NOT DEMONSTRATED.--SECOND: WE
HAVE NO REMEMBRANCE OF FORMER EXISTENCES.--THIRD: THIS SYSTEM IS ONLY
THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE ANCIENTS.--FOURTH: THIS SYSTEM IS CONFOUNDED
WITH DARWINISM 232
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
SEQUEL TO OBJECTIONS.--DIFFICULTY OF UNDERSTANDING HOW THE RAYS OF
THE SUN, MATERIAL SUBSTANCES, CAN BE THE GERMS OF SOULS, IMMATERIAL
SUBSTANCES 259
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
PRACTICAL RULES RESULTING FROM THE FACTS AND PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED
IN THIS WORK.--TO ELEVATE ONE'S SOUL BY THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUES,
AND BY TRYING TO ACQUIRE A KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE AND ITS LAWS
THROUGH SCIENCE.--TO RENDER PUBLIC WORSHIP TO THE DIVINITY.--WE
SHOULD PRESERVE THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD.--WE SHOULD NOT FEAR
DEATH.--DEATH IS BUT AN INSENSIBLE TRANSITION FROM ONE STATE TO
ANOTHER; IT IS NOT AN END, BUT A METAMORPHOSIS.--IMPRESSIONS OF THE
DYING.--THOSE WHO DIE YOUNG ARE LOVED BY THE GODS 269
EPILOGUE.
IN WHICH WE SEEK GOD, AND IN OUR SEARCH DESCRIBE THE UNIVERSE 284
[Illustration]
THE DAY AFTER DEATH.
INTRODUCTION.
READER, you must die. You may perhaps die to-morrow. What will become
of you? What shall you be, on the day after your death? I do not now
allude to your body; that is of no more importance than the clothes
which it wears, or the shroud in which it will be buried. Like these
garments, like that cerecloth, your body must be decomposed, and its
elements distributed among Nature's great reservoirs of material,
earth, air, and water. But your soul, whither shall it go? That which
was free within you, that which thought, loved, and suffered, what
shall become of it? Of course you do not believe that your soul will
be extinguished with your life on the day of your decease, and that
nothing will remain of that which has palpitated in your breast,
vibrating to the emotions of joy and sorrow, to the tender affections,
the numberless passions and disturbances of your life.
Where shall that sensible, existing soul, which must survive the tomb,
go to? What will it become, what shall you be, my reader, the day after
your death?
To the consideration of this question this book is devoted.
Almost all thinkers have declared that the problem of the future life
defies solution. They have argued that the human mind is powerless to
foresee so profound a mystery, and that therefore the only rational
course is to abstain from the endeavour. This is the reasoning of
the majority of mankind, partly from carelessness, or partly from
conviction. Besides, when we venture to look at this tremendous
question closely, we find ourselves immediately surrounded with such
thick darkness that we lack courage to pursue the investigation. And
thus we are led to turn away from all thought of the future life.
There are, nevertheless, circumstances which force us to reflect on
this dark and difficult subject. When one finds oneself in danger
of death, or when one has lost a dearly beloved object, there is no
escape from meditation upon the future life. When we have dwelt long
and earnestly upon the idea, we may be brought to acknowledge that the
problem is not, as it has so long been believed, beyond the reach of
the human mind.
During the greater portion of his life, the author of this book
believed, in common with everybody else, that the problem of the
future life is out of our reach, and that true wisdom consists in not
troubling our minds about it. But, one dreadful day, a thunderbolt fell
in his path. He lost the son in whom centred all the hope and ambition
of his life. Then, in the bitterness of his grief he reflected deeply
on the new life which must open for each of us, above the tomb. After
long dwelling on this idea in solitary meditation, he asked of the
exact sciences what positive information, on this question, they could
furnish him with, and subsequently, he interrogated ignorant and simple
people, peasants in their villages, and unlettered men in towns, an
ever precious source of aid in re-ascending towards the true principles
of nature, for it is not perverted by the progress of education, or by
the routine of a commonplace philosophy.
Thus the author of this book succeeded in constructing for himself an
entire system of ideas concerning the new life of man, which is to
follow his terrestrial existence.
But his system is all contained in nature. Each organized being is
attached to another which precedes, and another which follows it,
in the chain of the living creation. The plant and the animal, the
animal and the man, are linked, soldered to one another; the moral
and physical order meet and mingle. It results from this, that any
one who believes himself to have discovered the explanation of any
one fact concerning this organization, is speedily led to extend this
explanation to all living beings, to reconstruct, link by link, the
great chain of nature. Thus it was with the author of this book. After
having sought out the destination of man, when dismissed from his
terrestrial life, he was led to apply his views to all other living
beings, to animals, and then to plants. The power of logic forced him
to study those beings, impossible to be seen by our organs of vision,
by which he holds the planets, the suns, and all the innumerable stars
dispersed over the vast extent of the heavens, to be inhabited. So
that you will find in this book, not only an attempt at the solution of
the problem of the future life by science, but also the statement of a
complete theory of nature, of a true philosophy of the universe.
It may be that I am deceiving myself; it may be that I am taking the
dreams of my imagination for serious views; I may lose myself in that
dark region through which I am trying to grope my way; but at least I
write with absolute sincerity, and that is my excuse for writing this
book at all. I hope that others may be induced by my example to attempt
similar efforts, to apply the exact sciences to the study of the great
question of the destinies of man after this life. A series of works
undertaken in this branch of learning, would be the greatest service
which could be rendered to natural philosophy, and also to the progress
of humanity.
After the terrible misfortunes of 1870 and 1871, there is not a family
in France which has not had to mourn a kinsman or a friend. I found,
not indeed consolation for my grief, but tranquillity for my mind,
in the composition of this work; and I have therefore hoped that, in
reading its pages, they who suffer and they who grieve might find some
of the same hope and assurance which have lifted up my stricken heart.
Society is in our day the prey of a deadly disease, of a moral canker,
which threatens it with destruction. This disease is materialism.
Materialism, which was preached first in Germany, in the universities,
and in books of philosophy, and the natural sciences, afterwards spread
rapidly in France. With brief delay, it came down from the level of
the _savans_ to that of the educated classes, and thence it penetrated
the ranks of the people; and the people have undertaken to teach us
the practical consequences of materialism. Little by little they have
flung off every bond, they have discarded all respect of persons
and principles; they no longer value religion or its ministers; the
social hierarchy, their country, or liberty. That this must lead to
some terrible result it was easy to foresee. After a long period of
political anarchy, a body of furious madmen carried death, terror, and
fire through the capital of France.
It was not patriotism which fired the illustrious and sacred monuments
of Paris, it was materialism. Nothing can be more evident than that,
from the moment one is convinced that everything comes to an end in
this world, that there is nothing to follow this life, we have nothing
better to do, one and all of us, than to appeal to violence, to excite
disturbance, and invoke anarchy everywhere, in order to find, amid such
propitious disorder, the means of satisfying our brutal desires, our
unruly ambition, and our sensual passions. Civilization, society, and
morals, are like a string of beads, whose fastening is the belief in
the immortality of the soul. Break the fastening, and the beads are
scattered.
Materialism is the scourge of our day, the origin of all the evils of
European society. Now, materialism is fiercely fought in this book,
which might be entitled, "Spiritualism Demonstrated by Science."
Because this is its aim, and its motive, my friends have induced me to
publish it.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE FIRST.
MAN THE RESULT OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE OF THE BODY, THE SOUL, AND THE
LIFE. WHAT CONSTITUTES DEATH.
BARTHEZ, Lordat, and the Medical School of Montpellier have created the
doctrine of the _human aggregate_, which, in our opinion, affords the
only explanation of the true nature of man. This doctrine of which we
shall avail ourselves, as a guide in the earlier portions of this work,
may be defined as follows:--
There exists in man three elements:--
1. The body, or the material substance.
2. The Life, or as Barthez calls it, the _Vital Force_.
3. The Soul, or as Lordat calls it, the _Intimate Sense_.
We must not confound the soul with the life, as the materialists
and certain shallow philosophers have done. The soul and the life
are essentially distinct. The life is perishable, while the soul is
immortal; the life is a temporary condition, destined to decline and
destruction; while the soul is impervious to every ill, and escapes
from death. Life, like heat and electricity, is a force engendered
by certain causes; after having had its commencement, it has its
termination, which is altogether final. The soul, on the contrary, has
no end.
Man may be defined as _a perfected soul dwelling in a living body_.
This definition permits us to specify what it is that constitutes death.
Death is the separation of the soul and the body. This separation is
effected when the body has ceased to be animated by the life.
Plants and animals cannot live except under certain conditions: plants
in the air or in the water, animals in the air, fish in the water; and
if they are deprived of these conditions, they perish immediately.
Again, there are existences which require special conditions for their
support within the general ones.
Certain polypoid-worms can live only in carbonic acid, or azotic gas;
the germs of cryptogams produced by damp can be developed only in
aqueous infusions of vegetable matters; the fish which live in the sea,
die in fresh, or only moderately salt, water.
Every living being has then its special _habitat_. The soul does not
form an exception to this rule. The place, the _habitat_ of the soul
is a living body. The soul disappears from the body when this body
ceases to live, just as a man forsakes a house when that house has been
destroyed by fire.
Such is the doctrine of the triple alliance of the body, the soul, and
the life, as formulated by the School of Montpellier, and such, as a
consequence of this doctrine, is the mechanism of death.
It must be added that this triple alliance of the body, the soul,
and the life, is not peculiar to man; it exists also in all animals.
The animal has also a living body, and soul; but the soul in animals
is much inferior to the soul in men, in the number and extent of its
faculties. Having few wants, the animal has a very small number of
faculties, which are all in a rudimentary condition. It is only in
the very considerable development of the faculties of the soul that
man differs from the superior animals, to which he bears a strong
resemblance in his physiological functions, and his anatomical
structure.
It must be remarked that the Montpellier School does not admit this
view of the condition of animals. In another part of this work,[1] a
fuller explanation of the distinctions which divide man from animal
will be found.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ch. XV.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
WHAT BECOMES OF THE BODY, THE SOUL, AND THE LIFE, AFTER DEATH.
AFTER death, the body, whether of a man, or of an animal, being no
longer preserved from destruction by vital force, falls under the
dominion of chemical forces. If the body of a dead animal, or a human
corpse be kept in a place where the temperature is below 0°, or if
it be shut up in a space entirely air-tight, or if it be impregnated
with antiseptic substances, it will remain intact, as at the moment
at which life has abandoned it. Such is the process of embalming.
The effect of the various chemical substances with which a corpse is
impregnated, is to coagulate the albumen of the tissues, and thus to
preserve the animal substance from putrefaction. A similar result will
be obtained if the corpse be placed between two layers of ice, or in
a coffin entirely surrounded with ice constantly renewed. If kept at
a temperature of 0°, the body will not be subject to decomposition,
because putrid fermentation cannot take place at so low a temperature.
This was the process by which the entire carcasses of the mammoths,
or extinct elephants, which belonged to the quaternity period, were
preserved. In 1802 a perfectly preserved carcass of this gigantic
pachyderm was found on the bank of the Lena, a river which runs into
the Arctic Sea, after traversing a portion of the Asiatic continent
in the vicinity of the North Pole. The frozen earth and the ice which
covers the banks of the river into which the mammoth had plunged, had
so effectually preserved it from putrefaction, that the flesh of the
huge creature, dead for more than a hundred thousand years, made a
feast for the fishermen of that desert place. In northern countries, if
one would preserve the body of a man, it could be effectually done by
simply keeping it constantly wrapped in ice.
When the body of a man, or of an animal, is exposed to the combined
influences of air, of water, and of a moderately high temperature, it
undergoes a series of chemical decompositions, whose final term is its
transformation into carbonic acid gas, and some compounds, gaseous or
solid, which represent the less advanced products of destruction. Gases
of various kinds, carbonic acid, hydrosulphuric, and ammoniac, and the
vapour of water, spread themselves through the atmosphere, or dissolve
into the humidity of the soil. At a later stage these compounds, thus
dissolved into the water which bathes the earth, are absorbed by the
little roots of the plants which live on it, and aid in their nutrition
and development. As for the gas, it begins by spreading through the
air; and then falling to the earth again dissolved in the rainwater,
it also equally supplies the needs of vegetable life. The ammoniac and
carbonic acid in the water which penetrates the soil, is absorbed by
the roots, introduced into the tubes of the plants, and supplies them
with nourishment.
Thus, the matter which forms the bodies of men and animals is not
destroyed; it only changes its form, and under its new conditions it
aids in the composition of fresh organic substances.
In all this the human body does but obey the common laws of nature.
That which it undergoes, every organized substance, vegetable or
animal, exposed to the combined influences of air, water, and
temperature, equally undergoes. A piece of cotton or woollen stuff, a
grain of wheat, a fruit--they all ferment, and reduce themselves to
new products, exactly as our bodies do. The cere cloth which enfolds a
corpse is destroyed by precisely the same process which destroys the
corpse.
But, if the material substance which forms man's body does but
transform itself, journeying through the globe, passing from animals
to plants and from plants to animals; it is quite otherwise with life.
Life is a force. Like the other forces, heat, light, and electricity,
it is born, and it transmits itself; it has a beginning and an end.
Like light, heat, and electricity--the physical agents which make us
comprehend life, and which have certainly the same essence and the same
origin--life has its producing causes, and its causes of destruction.
It cannot rekindle itself when it has been extinguished; it cannot
re-commence its course when its fatal term has arrived. Life cannot
perpetuate itself; it is a simple condition of bodies, a fugitive and
precarious condition, subject to countless influences, accidents, and
chances.
The life is therefore greatly inferior in importance to the soul, which
is indestructible and immortal. The soul is the essential element in
all nature. It has active and positive qualities in all respects where
the two other elements, the body and the life, have only negative
qualities. Whilst the body dissociates itself and disappears, while the
life becomes annihilated, the soul can neither disappear nor become
annihilated.
We have seen what becomes of a man's body after his death, and also of
his life; let us now examine into the condition of his soul.
No philosopher, no learned man, none of those who know the immensity of
the universe and the eternity of the ages, can admit that our existence
on the earth is a definite thing,--that human life has no link with
anything above or beyond itself. Man dies at thirty, or twenty years
old; he may live only a few months, or a few minutes. The average
length of life, according to Duvilard's tables, is twenty-eight years.
At present it is thirty-three. One fourth of mankind die before their
seventh year, and one half do not outlive their seventeenth. Those who
survive this time enjoy a privilege which is denied to the rest of the
human race.[2]
What is so short an interval, compared to the general duration of
time, to the age of the earth and of the worlds? It is one minute in
eternity. Our brief life is not, cannot be anything but an accident, a
rapid and passing phenomenon, which hardly counts for anything in the
history of nature.
On the other hand, the physical conditions of terrestrial life are
detestable. Man is a martyr, exposed to every sort of suffering: owing
partly to the defective organization of his body, incessantly menaced
with danger from external causes, dreading the extremes of heat and
cold; weak and ailing, coming into the world naked, and without any
natural defence against the influence of climate. If, in one portion
of Europe, and in America, the progress of civilization has secured
comfort for the rich, what are the sufferings of the poor in those
very same countries? Life is perpetual suffering to the greater number
of the men who inhabit the insalubrious regions of Asia, Africa, and
Oceania. And then, before there was any civilization at all, during the
period of Primitive Man, a period so immense that it stretches back
to a hundred thousand years before our epoch, what was the fate of
humanity? It was a perpetual succession of suffering, danger, and pain.
The conditions of human existence are as evil from the moral as from
the physical point of view. It is granted that here below happiness is
impossible. The Holy Scriptures, when they tell us that the earth is
a valley of tears, do but render an incontestable truth in a poetic
form. Yes, man has no destiny here but suffering. He suffers in his
affections, and in his unfulfilled desires, in the aspirations and
impulses of his soul, continually thrust back, baffled, beaten down
by insurmountable obstacles and resistance. Happiness is a forbidden
condition. The few agreeable sensations which we experience, now and
then, are expiated by the bitterest grief. We have affections, that we
may lose and mourn their dearest objects; we have fathers, mothers,
children, that we may see them die.
It is impossible that a state so abnormal can be a definitive
condition. Order, harmony, equilibrium reign throughout the physical
world, and it must be that the same are to be found again in the moral
world. If, on looking around us, we are forced to acknowledge that
suffering is the common and constant rule, that injustice and violence
dominate, that force triumphs, that victims tremble and die under the
iron hand of cruelty and oppression; then it must be that this is only
a temporary order of things. It cannot be otherwise than a moment of
transition, an intermediary period which Providence condemns us to pass
through rapidly, on our way to a better state.
But, what is this new condition, what is this second existence which is
to succeed to our terrestrial life? In other words, what becomes of the
human soul after death has broken the bonds which held it to the body?
This is what we have to investigate.
That being, superior to man in the scale of the living creatures
which people the universe, has no name in any language. The _angel_
acknowledged by the Christian religion, and honoured by an especial
_cultus_, is the only approach we have to a realization of the idea.
Thus Jean Reynaud calls the superior creature, who is, he believes, to
succeed to man after his death, an _angel_. But we will put aside the
word altogether, and call the perfected creature who, in our belief,
comes after man in the ascending series of nature, the _superhuman
being_.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Rambosson. "The Laws of Life." _Paris_, 1871. P. 121.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
WHERE DOES THE SUPERHUMAN BEING DWELL?
WE have seen that of the three elements which compose the _human
aggregate_, one only, the soul, resists destruction. After the
dissolution of the body, after the extinction of the life, the soul,
detached from the material bonds which chained it to the earth, goes
away, to feel, to love, to conceive, to be free, in a new body, endowed
with more powerful faculties than those allotted to humanity. It goes
away to compose that which we call the superhuman being. But where does
this new creature dwell?
All students of nature know that life is spread over our globe in
prodigious proportions. We cannot take a step, our eyes cannot glance
around us, without everywhere encountering myriads of living beings.
The earth is nothing but a vast reservoir of life. Examine a blade
of grass in a field, and you will find it covered with insects, or
inferior animals. But your eyes will not suffice for this examination;
you must have recourse to the microscope. With the aid of the
magnifying glass, you will discover that this blade of grass is the
refuge of an active population, which are born, multiply, and die with
prodigious rapidity on their almost imperceptible domain.
From this blade of grass you may draw inferences and conclusions
respecting the vegetation of the entire globe.
The fresh waters which flow upon the surface of the earth are also
the receptacle of a prodigious quantity of organic existence. Without
mentioning the plants, and the animals which live in the waters of
the rivers and streams, and are visible to the naked eye, if you take
a drop of water from a pool, and place it under the microscope, you
will see that it is filled with living beings, who, though so small
that they escape our unassisted vision, are none the less active,
and all hold their appointed place in the economy of nature. We know
how thickly peopled with inhabitants is the great drop; but, without
speaking of beings visible to all, the fishes, the crustacea, and the
zoophytes, or of the marine plants, creatures, invisible except under
microscopical examination, abound to such an extent in sea water, that
one single drop of it, so examined, displays innumerable quantities of
these microscopic animals and plants.
From this drop of water you may draw inferences and conclusions
respecting the entire mass of waters which occupy the basins of the
seas, and form three-fourths of the surface of our globe.
In order that some conception may be reached of the enormous numbers
of the living beings contained in the seas now, and formerly, we may
fitly recall in this place a fact well known to geologists. It is, that
all building stone, all the calcareous earth of which chalk hills
and banks are formed, are entirely composed of the pulverized and
agglomerated remains of the shells of mollusca, visible or microscopic,
which, in the most remote ages of the existence of the globe, peopled
the basin of the seas. The whole of this formation is composed of the
accumulation of shells. If life has been lavished with such profusion
in the waters during the geological periods, it must be equally
lavished now, in almost similar ways, because the actual conditions of
nature do not differ from what they were in the primitive ages of the
globe.
The air which surrounds us is, like the earth and the seas, a vast
receptacle of living creatures. We see only a few animals cleaving the
aërial space, but the _savant_, who looks beyond the simple appearance
of things, discovers myriads of existences in the air.
The air seems to us very pure, very transparent, but only because it
is not sufficiently illumined by light to enable us to perceive the
particles, or foreign bodies, which are floating about in it. When
we allow one ray of daylight to penetrate into a closed room, one
thread of solar light, we can discern a luminous streak flung across
the chamber, while the remaining portion is still in darkness. We all
know that, thanks to the powerful light, and its contrast with the
surrounding obscurity, the luminous streak is seen to be filled with
light, slender floating bodies, rising, descending, fluttering with the
motion of the air. That which is perceptible in the atmosphere of a
brightly-lighted room is necessarily existent in the entire atmosphere
surrounding our globe, so that the air is everywhere filled with these
specks of dust.
Of what are these specks of dust formed? Almost entirely of living
creatures, of the germs of microscopic plants (cryptogamia), or of the
eggs of inferior animals (zoophytes). So-called spontaneous generation,
so largely discussed of late in France and other countries, is merely
due to these organic germs which fill the atmosphere, and which,
falling into the water, or into the infusions of plants, give birth to
forms of vegetation, which have been imputed to spontaneous generation;
that is to say, to a creation without a germ, a generation without a
cause, which is an error. Every living thing has parents, which are
always discoverable by science and attention.
Those animals and plants which are called parasites furnish another
example of the extraordinary profusion with which life is distributed
over the earth. Animals and plants which live on other animals or on
other plants, and which feed on the substance of their involuntary
entertainers, are called _parasites_. Each of the mammals has its
parasites, such as fleas, lice, &c., and man has the flea, the louse,
and the bug. So each vegetable has its parasite. The oak gives shelter
and food to lichens and various cryptogamia, and even on its roots we
find particular kinds of cryptogamia, such as the truffle. Thus we see
that life plants itself, grafts itself upon life.
But, more than this, these parasites in their turn have their smaller
parasites, so minute as only to be microscopically discerned. Take
a lichen off an oak and examine it with a magnifying glass, and also
examine a flea, or a nit, and you will behold the curious spectacle of
a parasite attached to another parasitical creature, and living upon
its substance. From the great vegetable the alimentary substance passes
to the visible parasite, and from that to the invisible. In this little
space life is superposed and concentrated. Such a fact proves with what
prodigious abundance life is spread over our globe.
Thus, then, we see that the surface of the globe, the fresh waters, and
the salt seas, and, finally, the atmosphere, are inhabited by immense
numbers of living beings. Life abounds on the earth, in the waters,
and in the air. Our globe is like an immense vase, in which life is
accumulated, pressed down, and running over.
But, the earth, the air, and the waters are not the only places at the
command of nature. Above the atmosphere there extends another region,
with which astronomers and physicists are acquainted, and which they
call _ether_ or _planetary ether_. The atmosphere which surrounds our
globe, and is drawn with it in its course through space, as it is
drawn with it in its rotation upon its own axis, is not very high. It
does not extend beyond thirty or forty leagues, and it diminishes in
substance in proportion to its elevation above the earth. At three
or four leagues in height the air is so rarefied that it becomes
impossible for men or animals to breathe it. In aërostatic ascents it
is impossible to go beyond seven or eight kilometres, because at that
height the air loses so much density, is so highly rarefied, that it
no longer serves for purposes of respiration, nor counterbalances the
effect of the interior pressure of the body on the exterior. After that
height, the density of the air decreases more and more, until there is
absolutely no air. At that point begins the fluid which astronomers and
physicists call _ether_.
This ether is a true fluid, a gas, analogous to the air we breathe,
but infinitely more rarefied and lighter than air. The existence of
the planetary ether cannot be disputed, since astronomers take account
of its resistance in calculating the speed of heavenly bodies, just
as they take account of the resistance of the air in calculating the
motions of bodies traversing our atmosphere.
Ether is, then, the fluid which succeeds to atmospheric air. It is
spread, not only around the earth, but around the other planets. More
than this, it exists throughout all space, it occupies the intervals
between the planets. It is, in fact, in ether that the planets, which,
with their satellites, compose our solar world, revolve. The comets,
too, in their immense journeys through space pass through ether.
The uneducated mind is disposed to believe that above the air which
surrounds the terrestrial globe, there is nothing more, that all is
void. But no void exists anywhere in nature. Space is always occupied
by something, whether it be by earth, by water, by atmospheric air, or,
finally, by _planetary ether_.
It has just been said that life abounds upon the globe, swarms upon
the earth, clusters in the air and in the waters. Is the ethereal
fluid which succeeds to our atmosphere, and which fills space, equally
inhabited by living beings? This is a question which no _savant_ has
ever yet asked himself. In our opinion, it would be very surprising
that life, which we may say overflows in the waters and in the air,
should be absolutely wanting in the fluid which is contiguous to the
air. Everything, then, indicates that the ether is inhabited. But who
are the beings who dwell in the planetary ether? We believe that they
are those _superhuman beings_, whom we consider to be resuscitated men,
endowed with every kind of moral perfection.
The chemical composition of planetary ether is not known. Astronomical
phenomena have taught us its existence, but not its components. We
believe it may safely be asserted that the ether does not contain
oxygen. In fact, oxygen is the fundamental element of atmospheric air;
and as, in proportion as they ascend into that air, the respiration
of men and animals becomes more and more difficult, it is, in our
opinion, presumable, that this difficulty is caused by the approach
of a description of gas impossible to breathe; and which, therefore,
excludes human life from the superior regions of the air. A man, rising
in a balloon towards the ether, is like a fish half drawn out of the
water, half exposed to the air. The fish is breathless and palpitating
in a place which is fatal to him; thus it is with man, when he rises by
degrees through our nether atmosphere, and draws near to the ether. It
seems to us that we may, at once, conclude, from this, that there is no
oxygen in planetary ether.
It seems not unlikely that the planetary ether may be composed of
hydrogen gas, excessively rarefied, that is to say, of an extremely
light gas, still further rarefied, and rendered infinitely more subtle
by the absence of all pressure. We are induced to conclude that
the ether in which the planets revolve is hydrogen, because, from
observations made of late years during the solar total eclipses, it has
been ascertained that the sun is surrounded by burning hydrogen gas.
In the language of every nation, the space which lies beyond our
atmosphere is called by the same name, that of _heaven_. It is, then,
in the universally recognized _heaven_ that we place our superhuman
beings. In this we are in accord with popular belief and prejudice,
and we recognize this argument with satisfaction. These prejudices,
these presentiments are frequently the outcome of the wisdom and the
observation of an infinite number of generations of men. A tradition
which has a uniform and universal existence, has all the weight of
scientific testimony.
In accordance with this phrase, and the immemorial tradition, the
most widely-spread modern religions, Christianity, Buddhism, and
Mahometanism, assign _heaven_ as the sojourn of the elect of God.
Thus, we find science, tradition, and religion at one on this point;
and that it was a scientific truth which found utterance by the lips
of the priest who said to the martyred king upon the scaffold: "Son of
Saint Louis, ascend to heaven."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
DO ALL MEN, WITHOUT DISTINCTION, PASS, AFTER DEATH, INTO THE
CONDITION OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING?--RE-INCARNATION OF IMPENITENT
SOULS.--RE-INCARNATION OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE DIED IN INFANCY.
DEATH is not a termination, it is a change. We do not die; we
experience a metamorphosis. The fall of the curtain of death is not the
catastrophe, it is only a deeply moving scene in the drama of human
destiny. The agony is not the prelude to annihilation, it is only the
obligatory suffering which, throughout all nature, accompanies every
change. Every one knows that the insect world, the cold and motionless
chrysalis, rends itself asunder that the brilliant butterfly may come
forth. If you examine the butterfly a moment after it has left its
temporary tomb, you will find it trembling and panting with the pain
of bursting through the trammels which had held it. It needs to rest,
to calm itself, and to collect its strength before it soars away into
the air which it is destined to traverse. This is a symbol of our death
agony. In order that we may cast aside the material covering which we
leave behind us here below, and rise to the unknown spheres which
await us beyond the tomb, we must suffer. We suffer, in the body,
from physical pain, and in the soul, from the anguish with which we
contemplate our approaching destiny, wrapped, as it is, in the most
appalling darkness.
But here a difficulty presents itself. Do all men, without distinction,
pass into the condition of the superhuman being? An infinite range
of qualities and of moral perversion is an attribute of humanity.
To it belong good and evil, the honest man and the criminal. Let us
inhabit whatsoever spot of earth we may, let the culture of our minds
be what it may, whether we be savages or civilized men, learned or
ignorant, whether we contemplate contemporary generations or those of
far distant times, there exists one universal morality, one law of
absolute equity. Everywhere, in all times, it has been a bad action
to kill one's neighbour, to take another's goods, to ill-treat one's
children, to be ungrateful to parents, to live on bad terms with one's
wife, to conspire against the liberty of others, to lie, and to commit
suicide. From one end of the earth to the other, these actions have
been esteemed evil.
There exists, therefore, in the sphere of nature, and in the absolute
meaning of the words, good souls and perverse souls. Must we believe
that both the good and the wicked are called, without distinction, to
undergo the change of nature which elevates us to the condition of
superhuman beings? Are both classes admitted, upon the same footing,
to the felicity of the new life, which is reserved for us beyond the
tomb? Our conscience, that exquisitely accurate sentiment which dwells
within us, and which never deceives, tells us that this could not be.
But how is the separation of the good grain from the tares to be
effected by natural forces only? How is the process of sorting, in
itself extremely difficult to explain, when one takes into account
the complication of the natural question by the mingling of moral
and physical influences, to be carried out? We can only state our
individual sentiment, not in the dogmatic sense of imposing it on any
one, but simply as a testimony to be registered.
It seems to us that the human soul, in order to rise to the ethereal
spaces, needs to have acquired that last degree of perfection which
sets it free from every besetting weight; that it must be subtle,
light, purified, beautiful, and that only under such conditions can it
quit the earth and soar towards the heavens. To our fancy, the human
soul is like a celestial aërostat, who flies towards the sublimest
heights with swift strength, because it is free from all impurity.
But the soul of a perverse, wicked, vile, gross, base, cowardly man
has not been purified, perfected, or lightened. It is weighed down by
evil passions and gross appetites, which he has not sought to repress,
but has, on the contrary, cultivated. It cannot rise to the celestial
heights, it is constrained to dwell upon our melancholy and miserable
earth.
We believe that the wicked and impenitent man is not called to the
immediate enjoyment of the blessed life of the ethereal regions. His
soul remains here below, to re-commence life a second time. Let us
remark, at once, that he re-commences this life without preserving any
recollection of his previous existence.
It will be objected to this, that to be born again without retaining
any remembrance of a past life, would be to fall into the nothingness
to which we are condemned by the materialists. In fact, it is identity
which constitutes the resurrection; and without memory there is no
identity. The individual, therefore, as an individual, would fall into
nothingness if he were born again without memory.
This remark is just. If, after our resurrection to the state of
superhuman beings, we were to lose, absolutely and irreparably, all
remembrance of our former life, we should be, indeed, the prey of
nothingness. But, let us hasten to add, that this loss of memory is
of but short duration. Oblivion of our past life is only a temporary
condition of our new existence, a sort of punishment. The remembrance
of his first terrestrial life will return to each individual, when,
by perfecting processes meet for the needs of his soul, he shall have
merited the attainment of the condition of a superhuman being. Then
he shall recall the evil actions of his first existence, or of his
numerous existences, if it has been his lot to have several probations,
and the thought of those evil deeds will still be his chastisement,
even in the blissful abode to which he shall at length have attained.
To such persons as refuse assent to these views, we would remark that
the question of rewards and punishments after death is the rock upon
which all religions and all philosophers have split. The explanation of
the punishment of the wicked which we offer, is at least preferable
to the hell of the Christian creed. A return to a second terrestrial
life is a less cruel, a more reasonable, and a more just punishment
than condemnation to eternal torment. In the one case the penalty is
in proportion to the sin. It is equitable and indulgent, like the
chastisement of a father. It is not eternal punishment for a sin of
short duration, it is a merciful form of justice, which places beside
the penalty the means of freedom from the sin. It does not shut out all
return to good by a condemnation without appeal to all eternity, it
leaves to man the possibility of retracing the road to happiness from
which his passions have led him astray, and of recovering, by deserving
them, the blessings which he has forfeited.
Thus, in our opinion, if the human soul, during its sojourn here below,
instead of perfecting, purifying, and ennobling itself, has lost its
strength, and its primitive qualities,--if, in other words, it has
been misused by a perverse, gross, uncultivated, mean, and wicked
individual,--then, in that case, it will not quit the earth. After the
death of that individual, the soul will tenant a new human body, losing
all recollection of its previous existence. In this second incarnation
the imperfect and earth-laden soul, deprived of all noble faculties and
bereft of memory, will have to re-commence its moral education. This
man, born again as an infant, will recommence his existence with the
same uncultivated and feeble soul which he possessed at the moment of
his death.
These _re-incarnations_ in a human body may be numerous. They must
repeat themselves until the faculties of the soul are sufficiently
developed, or until its instincts are sufficiently ameliorated and
perfected for the man to be raised above the general level of our
species. Then only the soul, purified and lightened of all its
imperfections, can quit the earth, and after the death of the flesh
soar into space, and pass into the new organism which succeeds that of
man in the hierarchy of nature.
We must add, here, that the fate of children who die young, either
while at the breast or only a few months old, before the soul has
undergone any development, is analogous. Their souls pass into the
bodies of other children, and re-commence a novel existence.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING?--THE PHYSICAL FORM,
SENSES, DEGREE OF INTELLIGENCE, AND FACULTIES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING.
NOTWITHSTANDING the daring of such an attempt, let us now endeavour to
form some idea of the radiant creatures which float in the mysterious
and sublime regions of that empyrean which hides them from our view.
Let us try to discern the attributes, form, and qualities of the
superhuman being.
Like the human, the superhuman being possesses the three elements of
the aggregate, the body, the soul, and the life. In order to gain some
idea of him, we must examine each of these three elements separately.
_The Body of the Superhuman Being._--We might perhaps conceive a
superhuman being without a body; we might imagine that the soul, purely
spiritual, constitutes the blessed dweller in ethereal space. But it
is not thus that we do conceive him. Absolute immateriality appears to
us to apply only to a being much more elevated in the moral hierarchy
than the superhuman one--a being of whom we shall speak hereafter. We
believe that the inhabitant of the ethereal spaces has a body; that the
soul, leaving its terrestrial dwelling, incarnates itself in a body,
as it did here below. But this body must be provided with qualities
infinitely superior to those which belong to the human body. First,
let us inquire what the form of this body may be. The painters of the
Renaissance, whom modern artists follow in this respect, give to the
angel the form of a young and handsome man, furnished with white wings,
which bear him through the air on his celestial missions. This image is
both coarse and poetic. It is poetic because it responds to the idea
which we have of the radiant creature who dwells in ethereal space;
and it is coarse, because it gives to a being far superior to man the
physical attributes of man, which is inadmissible.
Painters who, like Raphael, represent the angel by the head of a child,
with wings, give a far more profound expression to the same thought. By
suppressing the larger portion of the body, and reducing the seraphic
being to the head, the seat of intelligence, they indicate that in
the angel of the Christian belief the spiritual dominates, in immense
proportion, over the material part.
We shall not be expected to delineate the form of the dwellers in the
realms of ether. We can only say, that, as ether is an excessively
subtle and rarefied fluid, it necessarily follows that the superhuman
being who is to float and fly in its light masses, must be wonderfully
light, must be composed of extraordinary subtle substances. A slight
material tissue, animated by life, a vaporous, diaphanous drapery of
living matter, such do we represent the superhuman being to our fancy.