radiation, the two ends of the immense chain of organized beings whose
place and part in the vast theatre of the worlds we have attempted to
define are united. Life begins in the waters, its first appearance is
in plants and zoophytes; for these two classes of living creatures obey
the same laws, and appear to have the same origin. The sun, by sending
his vivifying rays upon the earth, produces the formation of plants
and zoophytes, which are the points of departure of organization. The
_animated germ_ deposited by the sun in plants and zoophytes grows,
passes from the zoophyte to the mollusc, or articulated animal, and
then undergoes a further development, by passing from the mollusc or
articulated animal to the fish. This germ of a soul thus becomes a
rudimentary soul, provided with certain faculties. In the zoophyte
and the mollusc it had only sensibility; in the fish, and then in the
reptile, and the bird, it has attention and judgment. The faculties
are augmented in proportion as the animal mounts higher in the
organic scale. Arrived at its summit, the human being, the soul is in
possession of all its faculties, and especially of memory, which during
the animal stages of the ascent is obscure and uncertain.
To accord sensibility to plants permits us to unite all the creatures
of the living creation, and thus to complete our general system of
terrestrial nature.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[15] "_Histoire des Plantes_," Paris, p. 111.
[16] "_Contemplation de la Nature_ (_Œuvres d'Histoire Naturelle de
Charles Bonnet._") Neuchâtel, 1781.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
DOES MAN EXIST ELSEWHERE THAN ON THE EARTH?--DESCRIPTION OF THE
PLANETS.--PLURALITY OF INHABITED WORLDS.
THROUGHOUT the preceding chapters we have reasoned as if the earth
were the whole universe. Indeed, almost all men believed that such
was the case, from the first establishment of society until the last
century. Great mathematical knowledge, profound study, and highly
perfected optical instruments are requisite to rectify the false
ideas, the errors, and the illusions which are the result of a simple
view of the earth and the sky. Great efforts of the mind, and a very
difficult struggle against the testimony of our senses are necessary to
the recognition that the earth moves, and that the sun is motionless.
In order to distinguish the place and the office of each of those
softly beaming globes, in the midst of the uniformity of aspect
presented by the stars which shine during the night, patient and severe
observations, transmitted and repeated from age are indispensable, and,
in addition, an excellent scientific method. Let us therefore not be
surprised that men have taken so much time to comprehend the ordering
of the universe, and that they had only the most childish conception
of them for thousands of years. The ancients, the Greeks, the Romans,
the Egyptians, knew nothing of the universe, except the earth (nor did
the Orientals, with the exception of some truly learned men, who had
divined the general mechanism of the universe by methods unknown to us,
but they concealed their knowledge from the profane). These ancients
could speak of only a small portion of the globe: of Europe, Asia, and
the North of Africa. The remainder was a dead letter for the peoples
of antiquity. After them, and following their example, the first
Christians reduced the universe to what they knew of it; they believed
there was but one world, because they saw only one. The earth was for
them the universe. In the stars they saw only brilliant spots, like
silver nails in the celestial vault, to enhance the azure, and charm
the eyes of men in the quiet of the night. The moon was the natural
beacon of the earth. In the sky there was a shining track followed by
the sun, and the torch of day was no larger than the beacon of night.
The celestial region which spread itself above the sun and the moon
was the Empyrean of the ancients, the Paradise of the Christians and
the Mussulmans. It was at once the sojourn of clouds and of light, the
habitation of the elect of God, of the saints and the just. Under the
earth, and in its interior, were immense abysses, gulfs, and cavities,
the dark dwellings of the damned.
This simple cosmogony, which merely translates what our eyes show
us, has been that believed by every people in their infancy. Among
the savage tribes of the two worlds, in America and in Africa, as
in the ancient East, among the Romans as among the Egyptians and the
ancient Greeks, this coarse simplicity and absolute ignorance of the
constitution of the world prevailed. On this profoundly false basis
all the ancient religions were founded. The social customs of modern
peoples are based upon the same errors. Language has consecrated them;
the earth is everywhere called the _world_, as the ancients called it
(_mundus_, κόσμος); every one says the sun _travels_, or _goes_, from
east to west, and that the stars _rise_ and _set_.
Poetry has set its eternal seal on this vicious system, and has, so to
speak, consecrated it, by clothing it with all the _prestige_ of genius
and imagination.
Modern astronomy has caused the false skies of antiquity to vanish
away; it has dispersed the pretensions of the celestial vault, sown
with brilliant spots, and substituted a simple mass of coloured air.
It has revealed the true office of each of those stars which we see
by day or by night. It has fixed, in an indisputable manner, the real
place of the earth in the universe, and, to say the truth, that place
is singularly small.
We know now, that the earth, far from being herself the world, is
only an imperceptible point of the world. If we only compare it with
the sun, we know that our globe is one million three hundred thousand
times smaller than the sun. This takes us far away from the idea of the
ancient Greeks, who thought they ventured much in asserting that the
sun was as big as the Peloponnesus.
In addition, the earth has been dispossessed of all privileges. It was
believed formerly to be unique and unrivalled, we now know that there
are an infinity of other globes similar to the earth, so that she is no
more than one individual in a group of other individuals who resemble
her. We know that the earth figures among the planets, that she is only
a planet of our system.
What, then, is a planet? the reader will ask. An attentive gaze
directed to the stars of night will make him understand it. Let him
examine, on any fine evening, the star which is pointed out to him as
Mars or Jupiter, and to which a certain position is assigned at a given
hour. Then, a few hours later, let him come and look once more for Mars
or Jupiter, and he will perceive that the position of Mars or Jupiter,
with respect to the other stars, is changed. Or he may do better
still. Let him look at Mars or Jupiter through the telescope of an
observatory, or the glass of one of those open-air astronomers who are
to be found in the public ways in Paris and other great cities. Thus he
may see Mars or Jupiter change his place under his own eyes. While the
other stars remain motionless, Jupiter or Mars will pass away from the
field of the glass.
There are, then, fixed stars and movable stars. The movable stars are
the planets (πλανήτης, from πλάνος, wandering). The fixed stars are
what we _call_ stars. It is not difficult to distinguish the planets
from the stars with the naked eye. The stars emit sparkling light,
whence comes their name, from the Latin _stellare_, to shine, and their
light twinkles. The planets, on the contrary, shine with a steady,
mild, unvacillating light. The reason of this difference is, that
the light shed by the stars is their own. The stars are so many suns
resembling ours. They illumine worlds like our world, so prodigiously
distant that we cannot even perceive them. The planets do not shine of
themselves; they merely reflect, like gigantic mirrors, the light of
the sun which illumines them, and renders them visible to us. Thus, the
planets are stars which travel. They revolve around the sun. The earth,
being a planet, is a travelling star, which revolves around the sun.
But the earth is not the only planet of our solar system. There are
seven others, which do not differ essentially from the earth. The names
of the eight planets which compose our solar system, are as follows,
arranged according to their distance from the sun: Mercury, Venus,
the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Between Mars
and Jupiter there is a collection of small bodies, which seem to be
fragments of broken planets; they are called asteroïds. At present,
in 1871, more than a hundred are known, and it is not yet fifty years
since they were first sought for in the sky. These asteroïds may be
collected together in our fancy, and formed into a separate group,
which would be a ninth planet. Let us glance at the planets which
compose our solar system.
Plates 4 and 5, which accompany these pages, will suffice to give an
idea of the relative dimensions of the planets. In these two plates the
planets are arranged according to the order of their distance from the
sun. In plate 4, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars are represented;
in plate 5, the asteroïds Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, his distance from the central
orb being only fourteen millions of leagues, which, in astronomy, is
near neighbourhood. This planet revolves upon its axis with the same
rapidity as the earth. The day, in Mercury, is only three minutes
longer than ours (24h. 3ms.). Being closer to the sun than the earth
is, Mercury turns more quickly round the sun, so that its year is only
88 days, whereas ours is 365 days.
We know that the sole cause of the inequality of the seasons, as well
as of day and night in the planets, is the inclination of the star on
its axis of rotation. If the planets, while revolving round the sun,
retained the verticality of the axis which joins these north and south
poles, there would be perfect equality in the distribution of the solar
light and heat over the same latitudes; along each parallel there would
be a complete regularity in the lighting and warming of the planet; the
differences of heat and cold would not depend on anything but their
greater or less distance from the sun. But this verticality only exists
for two or three planets of our system. The others, and among them
Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars, are strongly inclined on their
axis of rotation.
They revolve in a bent position, as if they had received a great blow
on the shoulder, which had caused them to deviate from their primitive
and regular situation. From this there results a very variable
disposition of the duration of the light, and consequently of the
heat, which these inclined planets receive from the horizontal rays
of the solar star. Thus the inequality in the length of the days and
nights, and the diversity of the four seasons on the same parallel, are
accounted for.[17]
[Illustration:
Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Sun.
Fig. 4.--Comparative Size of the Planets Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and
Mars.]
The inclination of the axis of the terrestrial sphere is 23° which
is a considerable deviation, and occasions great differences in the
duration of days and of seasons on different points of our globe.
The inclination of the axis of the planet Mercury is enormous: it is
70°. This planet bends over itself as if about to fall. Hence results
prodigious variation of light and heat on the same parallel, and
seasons whose abrupt changes must be painful and hard to bear by the
inhabitants of this planet, if such inhabitants exist.
Mercury is five times less than the Earth, as is shown in plate 4.
Venus comes after Mercury, according to distance from the Sun.
Venus, which is 27,000,000 of leagues from the Sun, receives twice
as much light and heat as our globe. Its days are of nearly the same
length as ours (23 hours, 21 minutes), but its year, necessarily
shorter than that of the Earth, since it is nearer to the Sun, lasts
only 224 days. Its seasons last two months each. Its globe is nearly of
the same bulk as that of the Earth. Venus is almost always wrapped in
clouds, which must fall in rain, forming rivers and seas. These waters
refresh the plains, which must be scorched by the heat of the burning
sun. The seasons are still shorter and more unequal in Venus than in
Mercury; its axis is, in fact, inclined at 75°.
After Venus comes the Earth, which is almost of the same bulk, but
28,000,000 of leagues from the Sun. Its diameter is nearly 3000
leagues. It accomplishes its revolution on its axis in 24 hours (23
hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds), and in 365 days, 5 hours its revolution
around the sun.
The inclination of the Earth's axis is 23°, which produces the
differences of days and nights, and the inequality of the seasons,
according to latitude. The Earth possesses a privilege denied to
the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars; she has a secondary star, or
satellite, called the Moon. Placed at a distance of only 90,000 leagues
from the Earth, the Moon accomplishes her revolution around it in 27
days. It is not the object of this work to give any description of our
globe. We will suppose our readers to be sufficiently acquainted with
it, and pass on to the planet which comes next to it in the scale of
distance from the Sun. This is the planet Mars.
An extraordinary resemblance exists between Mars and the Earth.
Physical, geographical, and climatological conditions, days and nights,
seasons, celestial perspectives, all are alike in these two planets,
with the sole difference that the globe of Mars is half as small again
as that of the Earth; so that, if a man were transported to Mars, he
might believe himself to be, not in a strange planet, but in a little
known corner of the Earth, such as Australia or Polynesia.
As we pursue our journey through the heavens, ever increasing our
distance from the Sun, we shall find, after Mars, the group of the
Asteroïds. We shall not linger before this cluster of small stars,
which is no doubt nothing but a collection of the dismembered fragments
of a planet, which formerly existed in this particular point of space,
and was dashed to pieces by some formidable accident in the universe.
These little stars, like the important planets, have each their names,
such as _Vesta_, _Pallas_, _Circe_, &c., &c. _Maximiliana_, and
_Feronia_ are placed at the two extremities, with respect to distance
from the Sun. These remains of a broken star continue to circulate
around the Sun, like the planet which they formerly composed.
After the Asteroïds comes great Jupiter.
Jupiter is the largest planetary sphere in our solar system, being 1400
times greater than the Earth. Its distance from the Sun is 200,000,000
miles. In consequence of this distance, its year is as long as twelve
of our years. Notwithstanding its colossal dimensions, Jupiter turns
with such rapidity upon its axis, that it accomplishes an entire
revolution in twelve hours, so that its day and night are respectively
only ten hours long. The shortness of Jupiter's nights are compensated
by the existence of four moons, or satellites, which revolve around
this planet, and give it permanent light. This illumination by
reflection, added to very long twilights, must make Jupiter's nights
nearly equal to the day in brightness.
Though Jupiter suffers under the disadvantage of very short days, it
has on the other hand the inappreciable advantage of perfect equality
in the length of its days and nights, and of that of the four seasons
over all its parallels. The axis of Jupiter is hardly at all oblique,
and therefore Jupiter, like the planet Saturn, enjoys a sort of
perpetual spring, that is to say, an equable distribution of solar
heat and light along the same degrees of latitude. Jupiter, unlike
Mars and Venus, has no vicissitudes of seasons, no sudden and painful
transitions from cold to heat in the same place. The climates are
invariable in each latitude, and the seasons are hardly discernible.
The globe of Saturn is 734 times larger than that of the Earth, and is
364,000,000 leagues from the Sun. It takes thirty years to perform its
revolution around the central star, and its year is therefore thirty
times as long as ours.
Saturn, like Jupiter, has very short days. It revolves on its axis in
ten hours, so that its day and night respectively are but five hours.
But it has eight moons, or satellites, which accompany it, and give it
light, thus, as in the case of Jupiter, supplementing the shortness of
its days. There is hardly any obliquity of the axis of Saturn, so that
its days and nights are always equal. There is a perpetual _equinox_,
and the climates are invariable, while variation of seasons hardly
exists. In Saturn, as in Jupiter, perpetual spring reigns. Saturn has
one peculiarity which does not belong to any other body in our solar
system. It is placed in the centre of a ring, of the same nature as its
own, and which surrounds it on every side. This ring (see plate 5),
is surrounded by a second, and the second by a third, and the whole
are called the rings of Saturn. This circular envelope is exceedingly
thin--only ten leagues in thickness--but very wide; its width is 12,000
leagues. It is not motionless, but it revolves with the globe which it
surrounds.
The strange disposition of the rings of Saturn affords a proof of the
inexhaustible riches of nature, and the variety of forms which the
Creator has called into being in the vast universe. It ought to guard
us against our constant tendency to model all the worlds which we do
not know, upon the type of the earth.
Hardly anything is known about the peculiarities of Uranus, a planet
which is only eighty-two times larger than the earth, but which is
732,000,000 of miles from the sun, and takes eighty-four years to
accomplish its revolution around the central star.
Plate 5 shows the relative proportions of Uranus and the earth. The
prodigious distance of Uranus from our globe, added to its small size,
renders it almost inaccessible to observation.
For the same reason, nothing can be ascertained respecting the
physical and geographical conditions of Neptune, the last planet of
our solar system, which was discovered in our time by M. Le Verrier,
thanks to the simple force of calculation, thereby affording the most
brilliant proof ever given of the utility of the mathematical sciences.
Neptune is so small and so far from us, that it is probable mere
observation of the heavens would never have detected its existence. In
this case mathematical analysis was more powerful than the telescope.
It would be impossible to give particulars analogous to those which we
have supplied concerning the foregoing planets, in reference to a star
only 105 times larger than the earth, which revolves at the distance of
_one milliard 150 millions of leagues_ from the sun, and the duration
of whose year is 164 times that of the terrestrial year, so that if
the ages of the Christian era were counted according to the Neptunian
chronology, instead of being in the 19th century, we should be in the
12th year of that era. All we can say about Neptune, therefore, is that
it forms the boundary of the domain of our visible world.
We cannot, however, state positively that our solar world terminates
at this limit. No doubt the range of our astronomical glasses goes no
farther, but assuredly they do not sweep the boundaries of the empire
of the sun. It is known, in fact, that comets return to us after having
(as indicated by their geometrical curve), swept over the depths of
space to a distance of thirty-two _milliards of leagues_. Thus the
distance of one milliard 150 millions of leagues, which is that of
Neptune from the sun, by no means represents the confines of our solar
world, but simply defines the limits of the range of our telescopes.
[Illustration: Asteroids. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune.
Fig. 5.--Size of the Planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
compared with the Earth.]
This rapid glance at our solar system in its entirety, proves that the
earth is not in possession of any privilege. The part which she plays
in the economy of the universe is equally fulfilled by other stars, and
there is nothing to justify the pre-eminence assigned to her by the
ancients. She is not the largest, the warmest, or the brightest of the
planets. She simply forms a portion of a group of stars, and is but one
individual of that group.
These considerations tend to lead us to a very important deduction.
Since the earth is in no way distinguished from the other planets of
our solar system, there must exist in other planets the things which
are found on our globe; air, water, a hard soil, rivers and seas,
mountains and valleys. Even vegetation and forests ought to be there,
regions covered with verdure and with shade. So there surely ought
to exist in the other planets, animals, and even men, or at least
creatures superior to animals, corresponding to our human type.
But is this possible? is it true? are the planets which, like the
earth, and together with it, turn round the sun, constituted physically
as the earth is? Are they covered with vegetable growth? are they
tenanted by animals and by beings belonging to the human type?
This grave question has been profoundly discussed by M. Camille
Flammarion, in a work entitled _Pluralité des Mondes Habités_, and in
a later publication, _Les Mondes Imaginaires et les Mondes Réels_. It
would be outside the province of this book to follow the author through
the various scientific considerations, from which he reasons that
the planets which form a portion of our solar system, are, like the
earth, the scene of life, organization, thought, and feeling. In the
17th century, Fontenelle and Huygens had successfully approached this
successful problem, which M. Camille Flammarion has lately treated with
especial care and development, invoking the lessons of contemporaneous
astronomy and physics, which refer to the subject. We therefore refer
the reader, who wishes to be instructed upon the question of the
possibility of the planets being inhabited, to M. Flammarion's works.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Milton, in his _Paradise Lost_, says that before the fall of
our first parents, perpetual spring reigned upon the Earth, but that
as soon as Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, angels, with
flaming swords, were sent from Heaven to incline the poles of the
Earth more than 20 degrees. It is well for us that the angels did not
cause them to incline farther, or our seasons would have been still
shorter and more defective. Fourier pretends that it would be possible
for humanity to produce an effect sufficiently great to set the globe
straight upon its axis, and thus restore the equality of the seasons,
and perpetual spring. This philosopher forgot to indicate one thing
only, the mechanical means by which man is to produce this effect. This
theory reminds us of the drowning man who fancied he could save himself
by catching hold of his own hair, while he was struggling in the water.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
THAT WHICH HAS TAKEN PLACE UPON THE EARTH WITH REGARD TO THE CREATION
OF ORGANIZED BEINGS HAS PROBABLY ALSO TAKEN PLACE IN THE OTHER
PLANETS.--THE SUCCESSIVE ORDER OF THE APPEARANCE OF LIVING BEINGS ON
OUR GLOBE.--THIS SAME SUCCESSION HAS PROBABLY TAKEN PLACE IN EACH OF
THE PLANETS.--PLANETARY MAN.--THE PLANETARY, LIKE THE TERRESTRIAL MAN,
IS TRANSFORMED, AFTER DEATH, INTO A SUPERHUMAN BEING, AND PASSES INTO
THE ETHER.
WE believe, with M. Camille Flammarion, that organized beings exist in
all the planets. But are these beings who live in the distant worlds
accompanied, like terrestrial man, by a superior type? This is the
subject which we now propose to examine. In the absence of observation
analogy is our only means of investigation, and, guided by analogy, we
must admit that the processes which have taken place upon the earth,
since the epoch of its formation, must have similarly taken place upon
all the other planets, the earth's congeners.