learned, may be substituted for it. But there will remain, we may hope,
the synthesis which we have established from all the facts of the
physical and moral order which we have collected together, the links
by which we attach all the beings of creation one to another, which
comprehends both the moral and organic attributes of these beings;--a
vast ladder of nature, on whose steps we place everything that has
life; the endless circle, in which we link all the rings of the chain
of living beings. The theoretic explanation of all these facts, thus
grouped, may not perhaps be accepted, but we believe that they are
correctly placed in juxtaposition, and that any theory which pretends
to explain the universe must be established upon the basis of that
grouping. If our explanation be contested, we hope that our synthesis
of facts will remain.
Besides it is only thus, _i.e._, by creating a system, that the
sciences, exact as well as moral, are made to progress. Chemistry was
not, as some have pretended, created by Lavoisier; it was founded by
Stahl, it was not the pneumatic theory of Lavoisier, but really the
_system of phlogiston_ devised by Stahl, which instituted chemistry
in the last century. Stahl, it is well known, had the immense merit
of collecting all the facts known up to his time, into a general
theoretical explanation of composing a summary of them, and of creating
the _system of phlogiston_. This system was, undeniably, incorrect,
but the facts which had been collected towards its construction had
been perfectly well selected, and included every useful element of
information or research. Thus, when ten years later than Stahl,
came Lavoisier, he had only, so to speak, to turn the system of his
predecessor inside out, as one turns a coat. For phlogiston Lavoisier
substituted oxygen; he preserved all the facts, and changed only the
explanation. Thus chemistry was founded.
A well constructed synthesis must necessarily precede every theory
of nature. Descartes, when working out his system of whirlwinds,
formulated a conception which was certainly very inexact; but the facts
upon which this theory rested were so well selected, they responded
so exactly to the requirements of science, that when Newton came,
with his _system of attraction_, it only remained to apply the new
hypothesis to the facts collected by Descartes for his _whirlwinds_,
and there was real astronomy, the true physics. When Linnæus created
his _system of botany_, he made an undeniably artificial distribution
of the vegetables, and Linnæus himself perfectly understood the defects
of his system. But, owing to this artificial method, he succeeded in
grouping all the plants into a methodical catalogue. If the principle
of classification was bad, the service rendered to botany by this
catalogue was immense. It was not, in fact, until after Linnæus' time
that the immense mass of facts which he collected could be put in
order, and the study of the vegetable world made to progress from those
data. Botany dates from the publication of the _systema naturæ_ of the
immortal botanist of Upsal.
We do not pretend to put forward an irreproachable theory of the
universe in this work, but simply to collect together and methodically
group the facts upon which such a theory ought to rest, facts physical,
metaphysical, and moral.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] "_La Pluralité des existences de l'âme_," Paris, p. 450.
[19] "_La Religion des Hindous selon les Védas_," par Lanjuinais,
Paris, p. 286.
[20] "_La Religion des Hindous selon les Védas_," pp. 324, 325.
[21] "_Histoires_," Vol. II. ch. cxxiii. (translated by M. Larcher.)
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
SEQUEL TO OBJECTIONS.--IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE HOW THE RAYS OF THE
SUN, BEING MATERIAL SUBSTANCES, CAN BE THE GERMS OF SOULS, WHICH ARE
IMMATERIAL SUBSTANCES.
OUR system of nature may be met with the following final objection.
It will be said, how can the rays of the sun, being material bodies,
convey animated germs which are immaterial substances? These terms
exclude each other.
We find, in the Scriptures, a magnificent comparison, of which we shall
avail ourselves in order to answer this objection, or rather, this
question.
Saint Matthew speaks of a grain of mustard seed, that is to say, of a
tree germ, which, cast into the earth, produces a herbaceous plant,
then a tree with majestic branches, and he is astonished to behold the
imposing lord of the forests, which, laden with flowers and fruit,
towers aloft in majestic beauty, and gives shelter under its shadow
to the weary birds, springing from a humble little seed. Not only,
says the evangelist, is there no resemblance between the tree and its
original seed, but there does not exist in the tree a single atom of
the matter of which the seed was primarily composed.
To our mind, this grain of mustard-seed is an image of the sun, which,
falling upon the earth, sows animated germs in its bosom, which produce
plants that afterwards give birth to animals, and later still to man,
and thus to the entire series of creatures, invisible to us, which
succeed him in the domain of the heavens.
The little cold, colourless, scentless seed is nothing to look at,
nothing distinguishes it apparently from the neighbouring dust.
Nevertheless, it contains that mysterious leaven, that sacred being,
so to speak, which we call a germ. And what wonderful things are to
be born from that sacred being! In the obscurity of the cold, damp
earth the germ transforms itself, it becomes a new body without any
resemblance to the seed which contained it. It produces a plantlet, a
subterranean, but perfectly organized creature, possessing a root which
fastens itself into the soil, and a stalk which takes the opposite
direction. Between the two portions lies the seed, split, gutted,
having allowed the germ to escape, its part in the matter ended.
The subterranean plantlet is a new being; it has no longer anything
in common with the seed from whence it came. The plantlet is dull and
colourless, but it breathes, it has channels, in which liquids and
gases are circulating.
In a little while the plantlet comes up above the earth, it greets the
daylight, it appears to our eyes, and then it is a very different being
from the subterranean creature. The new-born vegetable is no longer as
it was when in the bosom of the earth, dull and grey; it is green, it
breathes like other vegetables, producing oxygen under the influence
of life, whereas in the bosom of the earth it gave out carbonic acid.
Instead of the dull and sombre subterranean plantlet, you have a green
and tender shoot, provided with special organs. Where is the grain of
mustard seed?
Presently our shoot grows, and becomes a young plant. It is still
weak and hidden under the grass, but nevertheless the young plant has
its complete individuality. It resembles neither the shoot nor the
plantlet, its subterranean ancestor.
The shoot grows, and becomes a twig, that is to say, the adolescent
of the vegetable kingdom, with the ardour and the energy of the young
among herbaceous creatures.
In this state the plant has already renewed its substance several
times, and nothing remains of the organic and mineral elements which
existed in the different beings that have preceded it on the same
little corner of the earth which have witnessed the changing phases
of its curious metamorphoses. Wait a while, and you will see the twig
growing long and large. Its respiration becomes active, its leaves
spread out, and vigorously exhale the carbonic acid gas of the air.
The exhalation of watery vapour over all the surface takes place, and
a young and vigorous tree is there, which day by day grows more robust
and more beautiful.
During this growth, during this transition from the shrub to the young
tree, with a separate and upright stem, a new being has been formed.
Organs which it had not have come to it, and have made it a separate
individual. It has flowers, it has branches, it has new vessels for
the circulation of the sap, and the juices which were not previously
elaborated. The structure of the surface of its leaves has been
changed, so that absorption may be more successfully accomplished.
Where is the shoot, from which our vigorous young shrub sprung? What
relation, what resemblance is there between these two beings? We can
only discern differences. One individual has succeeded to another
individual. The vegetable has been renewed, not only in matter, which
is changed, but in the form of its organs. A series of new forms have
succeeded each other in the shrub, since it was a simple shoot, just
peeping above the soil.
It is still the history of change, when the young tree has become
adult, when, in the progress of years, its trunk has grown hard, and
become incrusted with layers of accumulated bark, when its branches
have multiplied, and flowering and fruitage have modified all its
internal and external parts. It is then a grand cedar tree, whose
majestic and imposing shade covers a considerable extent of the soil;
or a superb oak, whose robust and gnarled branches spread far and wide;
or a flexible chestnut, which flings about its polished and shining
arms. The organs of these luxuriant vegetables, the pride of our
forests, have no relation to those which belonged to them in the first
years of their life. Their flowery crowns in spring-tide, the fruits
which succeed to them, the seeds shut up in the protecting shelter of
those fruits, these are all peculiarities of organization, belonging to
these noble trees, without any analogy in nature.
Where is the grain of mustard seed which formerly sucked the juice of
the earth in darkness? Everything is changed; the place of habitation,
which is no longer the earth, but the air; the form, and the
physiological functions. Not only has all this changed, but it has
changed a great number of times. Not only does nothing remain of the
matter of which the tree was composed in the earlier stages of its
life, but nothing has been retained of the organic forms which were
proper to the infancy of the vegetable.
Nevertheless, O great mystery of Nature, in the midst of all these
changes, notwithstanding this continual succession of beings, which
mutually replace each other, there is something which remains
immovable, which has never changed, which has preserved a constant
individuality,--it is the secret force which produced all these
changes, which presided over all these organic mutations. In our
belief, this force is the animated germ which the young plant has
received from the seed, whence it has proceeded. In the midst of all
the transformations which the vegetable creature has undergone, in
spite of the numerous phases through which it has passed, and which
have produced a series of different beings succeeding each other in its
material substance, the spiritual principle, cause and agent of all
this long activity, has remained the same. This animated germ which now
exists in the adult vegetable is the same which was there during its
growth, the same which was there when it was a shoot, the same which
slept in the seed which was thrown into the bosom of the cold and humid
earth. In that majestic tree which, coming forth from an imperceptibly
minute seed, has had a whole genealogy of successive beings, replacing
each other, differing in form and size, and has preserved, throughout
its incessant development, the sole and immutable principle of
its activity, we behold the faithful image of the persistent,
indestructible soul, in the midst of the beings or different bodies
which it has animated in succession. Issuing from a germ, it has never
ceased to grow, to develop, to become amplified, still remaining itself.
The grain of mustard seed, or the seed of the tree, is according to
us, the plant or inferior animal into which the sun has thrown the
animated germ. The subterranean plantlet corresponds to the animal
whose mission it is to perfect the germ transmitted by the plant, and
which develops and amplifies this germ; for example, to the fish or the
reptile, perfecting the spiritual principle which they have received
from the zoophyte or the mollusc. The shoot which, having burst out
of the earth, grows in the shade of the grass, and tries its air
organs, corresponds to the animal somewhat more elevated in the organic
scale, such as the bird, in which the animating principle--derived
from the reptile or the fish--increases in intellectual power. The
young vegetable, arrived at the condition of the twig, which lives a
completely aërial life, corresponds to the mammifer. The tree, grown
tall, and pushing out its young boughs, corresponds to man, perfecting
the soul which he has received from a mammifer. Finally, the powerful
and vigorous forest lord, over-topping all the neighbouring trees in
size and majesty, with mighty girth of stem, and noble crest, with
wide-spreading branches and splendid flowers, this grand creature
corresponds to the superhuman being who lives in the bosom of the
ethereal fluid, and who is himself destined to be replaced by a series
of superior creatures, who shall climb from stage to stage, from
height to height, even to the radiant kingdom of the sun, where those
absolutely spiritual beings, whose essence is entire and perfect
immateriality are enthroned.
Thus, the animating principle remains immutable and identical with
itself, during all the transformations undergone by the beings who
are successively charged to receive this precious deposit. From the
vegetable, in which it had its first domicile as a germ, and through
the whole series of living creatures, from the plant and the zoophyte
to the man and the superhuman being, the same spiritual principle is
preserved in its identity, perfecting and amplifying itself without
cessation.
Let us complete the comparison. When the forest tree has ripened its
fruits, the fruits burst open, the seeds escape from it, and fall into
the soil, or are dispersed by the caprice of the winds. If the seeds
fall into damp earth, they germinate, and, according to the laws of
nature, young vegetables are produced, as we have previously explained.
Multitudes of similar vegetables are produced by a single oak, a single
cedar, a single chestnut tree. Just as the majestic adult tree lets
fall from its thousand branches upon the soil the countless seeds
which are to germinate there, so the spiritualized beings who dwell in
the sun shed their emanations, their _animated germs_, upon all the
planets. These germs, carried to the earth by the sunbeams, and falling
upon our globe, produce the vegetables which afterwards give birth to
the various animals, by the effect of the successive transmigrations of
the same soul into the bodies of these creatures.
We can now reply to the objection which we have placed at the
beginning of this chapter: "How can the solar rays, being material
substances, convey animated germs, which are immaterial substances?"
When the physicists professed Newton's theory of the nature of light,
in the theory of _emission_, it was necessary to regard light, and,
consequently the solar rays, which produce it, as material bodies.
But science has now rejected this theory, and replaced it by the
theory of _undulation_, founded by Malus, Fresnel, Ampère, and all
the constellation of great physicists and mathematicians of the
commencement of this century. Facts, collected on every side, prove
that the solar rays are not matter which transports itself from the
sun to the earth, but that light, like heat, results from a primitive
disturbance produced by the sun upon the ether, which is spread
over all space. This disturbance communicates itself from molecule
to molecule, from the planetary ether down to us, and produces the
phenomena of light and heat. We cannot here develop at greater length,
or explain more scientifically, the theory of undulations, which will
be found sufficiently demonstrated in works on physics. We merely
desire to prove that, according to the principles of modern science,
the solar rays are not material bodies, but that they result from a
simple vibration of the planetary ether. If, then, the rays of the sun
are not material substances, there can be no difficulty in admitting
that these rays (immaterial substance) are the bearers of the animated
germs, which are immaterial substance.
If we be driven to a closer definition of the problem, if we be
asked to explain with greater precision how these immaterial germs
journey through space, we reply that we must guard against the mania
for insisting on everything being explained. Absolute explanation is
forbidden to the limit of our intelligence. We are forced to confess
our powerlessness whenever we try to explain the phenomena of nature
rigorously. What is the true cause of the fall of bodies, of the
gravitation of the stars, of electricity, of heat? What is the cause
of the circulation of our blood, of the beating of our hearts? The
deepest obscurity veils the primary causes of these phenomena, which
we all behold every day; and the more earnestly we desire to penetrate
the secret essence, the more the darkness deepens in our minds. Since
the time of Newton, the physicists have laid down a wise and excellent
principle. They have agreed to study the laws of physical phenomena
with sedulous care, to measure with exactness the effects of heat,
weight, electricity, or light, but, also, never to disquiet themselves
by researches into the causes of these phenomena. The more we learn,
the further we advance in the knowledge of the universe and its laws,
the more we become convinced that man knows absolutely nothing about
first causes, that he ought to esteem himself happy in knowing the
laws according to which the effects of these first causes manifest
themselves; that is to say, the physical and vital actions which are
visible to us, but that he ought, in the interests of his own peace of
mind, to lay down a rule that he would never seek to know the wherefore
of things. Pliny, speaking of first causes, said: "_Latent in majestate
mundi_," ("They are hidden in the majesty of the world.") The thought
is as fine as the phrase is eloquent. Let us, then, leave to nature her
secrets, and, if we are led to believe that the sun sheds animated
germs upon the earth and the planets, let us not try to penetrate
further into the essence of this mysterious phenomenon. Let us not
ask of the earth why she turns, the stone why it falls, the tree why
it grows, our hearts why they beat--nor the rays of the sun why they
produce life on earth, and immortality in the heavens.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
PRACTICAL RULES RESULTING FROM THE FACTS AND PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED IN
THIS WORK.--THE ENNOBLING OF THE SOUL BY THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE, BY
SEEKING TO KNOW, THROUGH SCIENCE, NATURE AND ITS LAWS.--THE RENDERING
OF PUBLIC WORSHIP TO THE DIVINITY.--THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD TO BE
RETAINED.--WE OUGHT NOT TO FEAR DEATH.--DEATH IS ONLY AN UNFELT
TRANSITION FROM ONE STATE TO ANOTHER, IT IS NOT A TERMINATION, BUT A
METAMORPHOSIS.--THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE DYING.--THEY WHOM THE GODS LOVE
DIE YOUNG.--REUNION WITH THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE.
WE will conclude our work by laying down certain practical rules which
result from the facts and the principles that have been explained in
its course.
Since man can raise himself to the range of a superhuman being only
when his soul has acquired the necessary degree of purification in this
life, it is evidently his interest to apply himself to the culture of
his soul, to preserve it from every stain, to keep it from falling. Be
good, generous, and compassionate; grateful for benefits, accessible to
the suffering, the friend of the oppressed. Console those who suffer
and who weep. Practise every form of charity. Endeavour to raise
your thoughts above terrestrial things. Strive against those material
instincts, which are the stigmata of human existence. Aspire to the
good and the beautiful. Live in the most elevated spheres, those which
are the least bound to lower things. It is only thus that you can
elevate and ennoble your soul, and render it fit to enjoy the higher
existence which awaits it in the ethereal spheres. For, if your soul
be vicious and corrupt, if, during all your terrestrial life, you
have been sunk in material interests, exclusively given up to purely
physical occupations and enjoyments, which make you the fellow of
the animals; if your heart has been hard, your conscience dumb, your
instincts low and evil, you will be condemned to recommence a second
existence on the earth. Once, or many times again you will have to
bear the burthen of life on this disinherited globe, where physical
suffering and moral evil have taken up their abode, where happiness is
unknown, and unhappiness is the universal law.
There is another motive for our careful cultivation of the faculties of
the soul, and for our constantly purifying ourselves by the practice of
good. Noble and generous persons, elect souls, are, as we have said,
the only ones capable of communicating with the dead, with the beloved
beings whom they have lost. If, therefore, we be stained with moral
evil, we shall not receive any communication, any succour from the
beings who have left us, and whom we loved. This is a powerful motive
for our constant striving towards perfection.
One of the most effectual means of perfecting and ennobling the soul,
of raising it above terrestrial conditions, and bringing it near
the higher spheres, is science. Study, labour to learn of nature, to
comprehend the plans and the phenomena which surround you, to explain
to yourselves the universe of which you form a portion, and your soul
will grow in strength and wisdom. It is very sad to contemplate the
shameful ignorance in which almost all humanity is sunk. The population
of our globe numbers 1,300,000,000, and of all this multitude hardly
10,000,000 can be said to have studied the sciences, and really
cultivated their minds. All the rest of mankind are abandoned to an
intellectual passiveness, which almost reduces them to the level of
the animals. The earth is but a vast field of ignorance. As far as
knowledge is concerned, almost all men die as they were born, they have
not added a single idea, a single branch of knowledge to those which
their parents--themselves ignorant--have inculcated in their youth.
Nevertheless, thanks to the labours of some few men of uncommon mind
and energy, the knowledge we possess at the present time is immense, we
have made great progress in the study of nature and its laws.
We understand the mechanism and the regulation of the universe, we
have learned to reject the fallacious testimony of our senses, we have
discerned the courses of the different stars, which look so much alike,
when they shine in the firmament by night. We know that the sun is
motionless in the centre of our world, and that a company of planets,
among which the earth figures, revolve around him, in an orbit whose
mathematical curve has been precisely fixed. We know the cause of the
days and nights, as well as that of the seasons; we can predict almost
to a second the return of the stars to a certain point of their orbit,
their meetings, eclipses, and occultations. The globe which we inhabit
has been surveyed and explored with care which has hardly missed a nook
of it. We know the causes of the winds and of the rains, we can point
out the exact course of the sea-currents, and foretell the hour and
the height of the tides all over the globe. We know why glaciers exist
at the northern and southern extremities of the earth, and why other
glaciers crown the great mountain heights. The movements of the earth,
which formerly produced chains of mountains, and which at present
occasion volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, are quite comprehensible
to us. The composition of all the bodies which exist on the surface, or
are hidden in the depths of the earth, has been fixed with certainty.
We know what air contains, and what water is composed of. There is
not a mineral, not a particle of earth to which we cannot assign its
composition. More than that, we can tell what is the composition of
the soil of the planets, and of their satellites, those stars which
roll at incalculable distances above our heads, and which we can reach
only with our eyes. Science has performed this miracle, the chemical
analysis of bodies which it cannot touch, and which it can only see
across millions of miles in space.