URANIA
URANIA
BY
CAMILLE FLAMMARION
_ILLUSTRATED BY_
DE BIELER, MYRBACH, AND GAMBARD
_TRANSLATED BY_
AUGUSTA RICE STETSON
BOSTON
ESTES AND LAURIAT
Publishers
_Copyright, 1890_,
BY ESTES & LAURIAT.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS.
Part First.
THE HEAVENLY MUSE.
PAGE
I. A DREAM OF YOUTH 9
II. UNKNOWN HUMANITIES 18
III. THE INFINITE VARIETY OF BEINGS 35
IV. ETERNITY AND THE INFINITE 44
V. THE LIGHT OF THE PAST 57
Part Second.
GEORGE SPERO.
I. LIFE 71
II. THE APPARITION 86
III. "TO BE, OR NOT TO BE?" 101
IV. AMOR 122
V. THE AURORA BOREALIS 141
VI. ETERNAL PROGRESS 152
Part Third.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
I. TELEPATHY 161
II. ITER EXTATICUM COELESTE 207
III. THE PLANET MARS 227
IV. THE FIXED POINT IN THE UNIVERSE 257
V. AD VERITATEM PER SCIENTIAM 302
Part First.
THE HEAVENLY MUSE.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
I.
A DREAM OF YOUTH.
I was seventeen years old; her name was Urania.
Was Urania a fair, blue-eyed maiden, a dream of spring, an innocent but
inquisitive daughter of Eve? No; she was simply, as in days of yore,
that one of the nine Muses who presided over astronomy, and whose
celestial glance inspired and directed the chorus of the spheres; she
was the angelic idea which soars above terrestrial dulness. She had not
the disturbing flesh, nor the heart whose palpitations are communicated
at a distance, nor the gentle ardor of human life; but she existed
nevertheless in a sort of ideal world,--lofty and always pure,--and yet
she was human enough in name and form to produce a strong and deep
impression upon an adolescent soul, to arouse in that soul an
indefinite, indefinable feeling of admiration,--almost of love.
In his hours of solitude, and even through the intellectual labors with
which the education of the day overloads his brain, a young man whose
hand has never plucked the divine fruit from the tree of Paradise, whose
lips are still untouched, whose heart has not yet spoken, whose senses
are beginning to awaken amid vague new aspirations, thrills with a
presentiment of the divinity to which he is soon to sacrifice, and
personifies beforehand in ever-varying forms the unknown being who
floats through the airy fabric of his dreams. He wishes, longs to reach
this unknown being, but dares not yet, perhaps may never dare, in the
purity of his admiration, unless some helping hand come to his aid. If
Chloe is not well informed, indiscreet and talkative Lycinion must take
it upon herself to instruct Daphnis.
Whatever tells us of the yet unknown attraction can charm, interest,
delight, and captivate us. A cold engraving, showing the oval of a pure
face, even an old-fashioned painting, a sculpture,--a sculpture
especially,--awakens a new feeling in our hearts; the blood flows
faster, or seems to stop; the idea crosses our reddening brow like a
flash, and remains floating in our pensive mind. It is the beginning of
desires, the beginning of life, the dawn of a beautiful summer day,
harbinger of the sunrise.
As for me, my first love, my adolescent passion, had, not for its object
assuredly, but as a determining cause--a clock! It is rather odd, but so
it is! Humdrum calculations used up all my afternoons from two until
four; it was merely correcting observations, made the night before, of
stars or planets by applying the reductions arising from atmospheric
refraction, which itself depends on the height of the barometer and the
temperature. These calculations are as simple as they are tiresome;
they are made mechanically, by the help of prepared tables, while
thinking of something else.
The illustrious Le Verrier was then director of the Paris Observatory.
Although in no way artistic, he had in his study a golden bronze clock
of very beautiful design, dating from the end of the First Empire,--the
work of Pradier's chisel. The pedestal of this clock represented in
bas-relief the birth of astronomy on the Egyptian plains. A massive
celestial sphere surrounded by the zodiacal circle, supported by
sphinxes, held the dial; Egyptian gods adorned the sides. But the chief
beauty of this artistic work consisted of an exquisite little statue of
Urania, lithe, elegant,--I had almost said majestic.
[Illustration]
The celestial Muse was standing. With her right hand she measured the
degrees of the starry sphere by the aid of a compass; her drooping left
hand held a small astronomical telescope. Superbly draped, she looked
down in an attitude of stately grandeur. I had never before seen so
beautiful a face as hers. With the light falling directly upon it, the
pure countenance looked grave and austere. If the light came to it
obliquely, it appeared somewhat meditative; but coming from above and
from the side, the enchanting face brightened with a mysterious smile,
her glance grew almost caressing, her exquisite serenity gave place to
an expression of joy, amiability, and happiness delightful to
contemplate. It was like a song of the soul, a poetic melody. These
changes of expression fairly made the statue alive. Muse and goddess,
she was beautiful, she was enchanting, she was adorable.
[Illustration]
Whenever I had occasion to go to the eminent mathematician it was not
his world-wide reputation which impressed me most. I forgot the formulas
of logarithms, and even the immortal discovery of the planet Neptune, to
bow beneath the charm of Pradier's work. The beautiful figure so
admirably modelled beneath its antique drapery, the graceful throat, the
expressive face, attracted my eyes and captivated my thoughts. Very
often, as we were leaving the office about four o'clock to go back to
Paris, I would peep through the half-open door to see if the director
were absent. Monday and Wednesday were the best days,--the first because
of the Institute meetings, which he seldom missed; the second on account
of the Bureau of Longitudes sessions, which he avoided with the most
profound disdain: he would even leave the observatory expressly, to make
his contempt for them more emphatic. Then I would stand before my dear
Urania and look at her to my heart's content, enraptured by her beauty
of form and face, and go away more satisfied, but not happier,--she
charmed, but filled me with regrets.
One evening--the evening on which I discovered how the light could
change her face--I found the library-door wide open. A lamp stood on the
chimney-piece shedding its rays over the Muse in one of her most
bewitching aspects. The slanting light lovingly caressed the brow,
cheeks, lips, and throat. Her expression was wonderful. I went in, and
for a while stood there in motionless contemplation. Then I tried
changing the position of the lamp, making the light play over the
shoulders, arms, neck, and hair. The statue seemed to live, to think, to
awake, and smile again! Odd, whimsical idea; strange feeling! I had
actually fallen in love! I had changed from admirer to lover! If I had
been told then that what I felt was not real love, and that this
platonism was but a childish dream, I should have been very incredulous.
The director came in, but did not seem so much surprised at my presence
as I might have feared. (The study was often used to reach the
observation rooms.) "You are late for Jupiter," he said, as I replaced
the lamp on the chimney-piece; and when I reached the threshold he
added, "Can it be possible that you are a poet?" lengthening out the
last syllable as though he had said "poët."
I might have answered him by quoting Kepler, Galileo, D'Alembert, the
two Herschels, and other famous savants who were poets and astronomers
at the same time. I could have reminded him that the first director of
this very observatory, Jean-Dominique Cassini, sang of Urania in Latin,
French, and Italian verse. But the observatory pupils were not in the
habit of answering the senator-director in any way whatever; senators
were personages of importance in those days, and the directorship of the
observatory was a life-office. Then too the great geometrician would
have looked upon the most wonderful poem by Dante, Ariosto, or Hugo with
the same profound disdain that a big Newfoundland dog would show if one
should put a glass of wine to his mouth. Besides, I was clearly in the
wrong.
How that charming figure of Urania haunted me, with all the delicious
changes of expression! Her smile was so gracious, and sometimes her
bronze eyes had such a real look. She lacked nothing but speech.
That night, just as I fell asleep, I saw the divine goddess again; and
this time she spoke.
Oh, she was really living now! And what a pretty mouth! I could have
kissed each word. "Come," she said, "come up into the sky. Far away from
the earth, you shall look down upon this lower world, you shall
contemplate the great universe in its grandeur. Come and see."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II.
UNKNOWN HUMANITIES.
Then I saw the Earth sinking down into the yawning depths of immensity;
the cupolas of the observatory, Paris with its lights, were rapidly
fading away. Although feeling as if I were motionless, I had the same
sensation which one experiences on rising in a balloon and seeing the
earth descend. I went up, up, in a magic flight toward the inaccessible
zenith. Urania was with me, a little higher up, looking at me kindly and
pointing out the kingdoms below. Day had come again. I recognized
France, the Rhine, Germany, Austria, Italy, the Mediterranean, Spain,
the Atlantic Ocean, the Channel, England. But all this liliputian
geography soon shrank away. Speedily the terrestrial globe was reduced
to the dimensions of the moon in its last quarter; then to a little full
moon.
"There," said she, "is the famous terrestrial globe on which so many
passions stir, within whose narrow limits the thought of so many
millions of human beings is confined, whose sight cannot extend beyond
it. See how its apparent size diminishes as our horizon develops. We can
no longer distinguish Europe from Asia; and there is North America. How
very small it all is!"
As we passed through the Moon's neighborhood I had noticed our
satellite's hilly landscapes, the mountain crests radiant with light,
deep valleys filled with shadows, and I should have liked to stop for a
nearer study of the surroundings; but Urania did not deign to bestow so
much as a passing glance at it, and drew me on in a rapid flight toward
the sidereal regions.
We were still ascending. The Earth grew smaller and smaller as we
receded from it, until it looked like a simple star shining from solar
illumination on the bosom of dark and empty space. We turned toward the
Sun, which shone in space, but without filling it with light, so that we
could see stars and planets at the same time, no longer obscured by its
rays, because it could not illumine empty space. The angelic goddess
showed me Mercury, in close neighborhood to the Sun, Venus, shining on
the other side, the Earth, equalling Venus in appearance and brilliancy,
Mars, whose inland seas and canals I recognized, Jupiter, with its four
enormous moons, Saturn, Uranus. "All these worlds," said she, "are
upheld in vacancy by the attraction of the Sun, around which they
revolve with great speed. It is an harmonious choir gravitating about
its centre. The Earth is but a floating island, a little hamlet of this
great solar country; and the solar empire itself is but a little
province on the breast of sidereal vastness."
We rose still higher. The Sun and its system were rapidly passing. The
Earth was but a little spot now; Jupiter himself, that colossal world,
had melted away, like Mars and Venus, to a tiny little dot scarcely
larger than the Earth. We passed within sight of Saturn, surrounded by
his gigantic rings, whose study alone would be sufficient to prove the
immense and unimaginable variety reigning in the universe. Saturn is a
whole system in itself, with its rings composed of particles torn from
it in its dizzy revolution, and with its eight satellites accompanying
it like a celestial retinue.
[Illustration]
As we soared aloft, our Sun decreased in grandeur. Soon it had descended
to the rank of a planet, then lost all majesty, all superiority over the
sidereal population, and was nothing more than a star, scarcely more
brilliant than the others. I looked about me at all this vast extent,
on whose spangled bosom we were still going upward, and tried to
recognize the constellations; but their forms were beginning to change
perceptibly, from the lengthening perspective caused by my journey. I
thought I could see that our Sun had insensibly dwindled to a tiny star
and joined the constellation of the Centaur; while a new light, pale,
bluish, and very strange, seemed to greet me from the direction toward
which Urania was bearing me. This new brightness had nothing terrestrial
about it, and reminded me of no effect that I had ever seen on the Earth
among the changing tints of the sunset after a storm, or in the
undefined mists of morning, or during the calm and silent moonlight
hours on the mirror of the sea. This last effect is nearer its
appearance; but the strange light was, and became more and more, of a
real blue,--blue, not like a reflection of celestial azure, nor like a
contrast analogous to that produced by an electric light compared with
gas, but blue, as if the Sun itself were blue.
[Illustration]
Imagine my amazement when I discovered that we were approaching the
influence of an absolutely blue sun, like a shining disk, which might
have been cut from one of our most beautiful terrestrial skies, standing
out luminously upon a perfectly black background all thickly studded
with stars. This sapphire sun was the centre of a planetary system
lighted by its rays. We were to pass quite near one of the planets. The
blue sun increased perceptibly in size; but--another phenomenon as
singular as the first--the light it threw upon this planet seemed to be
tinged on one side with green. I looked into the sky again, and saw a
second sun,--this one a beautiful emerald green. I could not believe my
eyes!
Urania said: "We are crossing the solar system of Gamma Andromedæ, of
which you see but one part as yet; for it is made up, not of these two
suns, but in reality of three,--one blue, one green, and one orange
yellow. The blue sun, which is the smallest, turns around the green sun;
and the latter gravitates with its companion around the great orange
sun, which you will perceive in an instant."
Sure enough! A second later I saw a third sun, colored with a glowing
radiancy, whose contrast with its two companions produced a most
dazzling illumination. I knew about this interesting sidereal system
from having observed it more than once through the telescope; but
I had never suspected its real splendor. What fiery depths! what
scintillations! what brilliancy of color in that strange source of blue
light in the second sun's green illumination and the tawny, golden
effulgence of the third!
[Illustration]
But, as I have said, we were approaching one of the worlds belonging to
the system of the sapphire sun. Everything was blue,--landscapes, water,
plants, rocks,--slightly greenish on the side lighted by the second
sun, and hardly touched by the rays of the orange sun, which was rising
on the distant horizon. As we floated into the atmosphere of this world
a soft, delicious music was wafted into the air like a perfume, a dream.
Never had I heard anything like it. The sweet, deep, distant melody
seemed to come from a choir of harps and violins, strengthened by an
accompaniment of organs. It was an exquisite anthem, which charmed at
once; it needed no analyzing to be understood; it filled the soul with
ecstasy. It seemed to me that I could have lingered there listening for
an eternity. I was so fearful of losing a single note that I dared not
speak to my guide. Urania noticed it; stretching out her hand toward a
lake, she pointed to a group of winged beings who were hovering over the
blue waters.
They had not the earthly human form. They were beings who had evidently
been created to live in air. They seemed woven out of light. At a
distance I thought they were dragon-flies; they had their slender,
graceful shape, the same wide wings, quickness, and lightness. But on
examining them more closely I noticed their height, which was not
inferior to our own, and realized from the expression of their eyes that
they were not animals. Their heads were very like that of the
dragon-fly, and like those aerial creatures they had no legs. The
delicious music to which I had been listening was but the noise of their
flight. They were very numerous,--perhaps many thousands.
From the mountain-tops could be seen plants which were neither trees
nor flowers, whose slender stalks rose to an enormous height; the
branched stems bearing, as though with outstretched arms, great
tulip-shaped cups. These plants were alive, or as much so as our
sensitive growths, perhaps more, and like the _desmodium_, with its
moving leaves, showed their internal impressions by their motions. These
groves formed actual vegetable cities. The inhabitants of this world had
no other dwellings, but reposed among the fragrant sensitive-plants when
not floating in the air.
[Illustration]
"This seems a very strange world to you," said Urania; "you are
wondering what kinds of ideas, habits, or history these people could
have,--what kinds of arts, literature, and sciences. It would take a
long time to answer all the questions you might ask. Know only that
their eyes are superior to your finest telescopes; that their nervous
system vibrates at the passing of a comet, and discovers by an electric
sense facts which you on the Earth will never know. The organs which you
see under their wings serve as hands, more skilful than yours. Instead
of printing, they take the direct photography of events and the phonetic
impression of words. They care very little for anything but scientific
research; that is to say, the study of Nature. The three passions which
absorb the greater part of earthly life--eager greed for fortune,
political ambition, and love--are unknown to them, because they require
nothing to live on, there are no international divisions nor government,
except a council of administration, and because they are androgynous."
"Androgynous!" I repeated; and ventured to add, "Is that best?"
"It is _different_. It is a great deal of trouble saved to a humanity."
"To be in a condition to understand the infinite diversity displayed in
the different phases of creation," she continued, "it is necessary to
cast aside all terrestrial feelings and ideas. Just as the species of
your planet have changed in succeeding ages from the uncouth creatures
of the first geological periods to the appearance of man, and as even
now the animal and vegetable population of the Earth is still composed
of the most widely varying forms, from man to the coral, from bird to
fish, from an elephant to a butterfly, so on an incomparably vaster
scale the forces of Nature have given birth to an infinite diversity of
beings and things throughout the innumerable worlds of heaven. The form
of its occupant is the result in each world of some element peculiar to
that globe,--substance, heat, light, electricity, density, weight.
Shape, functions, the number of the senses,--you have but five, and they
are rather poor ones,--depend on the vital conditions of each sphere.
Life is earthly on the Earth, Martial on Mars, Saturnian on Saturn,
Neptunian on Neptune,--that is to say, appropriate to each habitation;
or, to express it better, more strictly speaking, produced and
developed by each world according to its organic condition, and
following a primordial law which all Nature obeys,--the law of
progress."
[Illustration]
While she was speaking I had watched the flight of the aerial creatures
toward the city of flowers, and saw with astonishment that the plants
were moving, raising or lowering themselves to receive them. The green
sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the yellow sun had risen in the
sky; the landscape was suffused with a fairy-like tinge, over which hung
an enormous half-green, half-orange moon. Then the infinite melody which
had been filling the air died away, and amid a profound silence I heard
a song arise from so pure a voice that no human tones could be compared
with it.
"What a marvellous system!" I cried,--"a world illumined by such
glowing lights! It is having a close view of double, triple, and
multiple stars."
[Illustration]
"Splendid suns those stars," she answered, "gracefully united in the
bonds of a mutual attraction; from the Earth you see them cradled two
and two on the bosom of the sky, always beautiful, pure, and luminous.
Hanging in the infinite, they lean to each other, but never touch, as
though their union, more moral than material, were ordered by an
invisible and superior power, and following harmonious curves, they
gravitate in cadence around each other,--celestial couples which
blossomed at the spring-time of creation in the constellated meadows of
infinity. While simple suns like yours shine in the deserts of space
solitary, fixed, and undisturbed, double and multiple suns seem to
enliven the silent regions of the eternal void by their motion, color,
and life. These sidereal time-keepers mark the centuries and eras of
other worlds for you.
"But," she added, "let us continue our journey; we are but a few
trillion leagues from the Earth."
"A few _trillion_?"
"Yes. If we could hear the sounds of your planet from here,--its
volcanoes, cannonadings, and thunders, or the wild vociferations of its
crowds in times of revolution, or the hymns which rise to heaven from
the churches,--the distance is so great that, even admitting that the
noises could surmount it with the speed of sound in the air, it would
require not less than fifteen million years to reach here. We could
hear to-day only what took place on Earth fifteen million years ago. And
yet, compared with the immensity of the universe, we are still very near
your home.
"You can still distinguish your Sun yonder,--that tiny little star. We
have not been out of the universe to which it, with its system of
planets, belongs. That universe is composed of several thousand
milliards of suns, separated from each other by trillions of leagues.
Its extent is so vast that it would take a flash of lightning fifteen
thousand years to cross it, travelling at the rate of three hundred
thousand kilometres a second.
"And suns everywhere, on all sides! In whatever direction we look, all
about us are sources of light, heat, and life in inexhaustible
variety,--suns of every lustre, of all magnitudes, all ages, upheld in
the eternal void, in the luminous ether, by the mutual attraction of all
and the motion of each. Your Sun moves and bears you away toward the
constellation of Hercules; that one, whose system we have just crossed,
goes south toward the Pleiades; Sirius hurries away toward the Dove;
Pollux whirls swiftly toward the Milky Way. All these millions, these
thousands of millions, of suns hasten through boundless space with a
speed which attains a velocity of two, three, and even four thousand
metres a second. Motion maintains the equilibrium of the universe, and
constitutes its organization, energy, and life."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
III.
THE INFINITE VARIETY OF BEINGS.
The tricolored system had long since disappeared in our upward flight.
We were passing through the neighborhood of a great many worlds which
were very different from our Earth. Some of them appeared to be entirely
covered with water, and peopled by aquatic beings; others, occupied
entirely by plants. We stopped near several of them. What unimaginable
variety! The inhabitants of one of them seemed to me especially
beautiful. Urania apprised me of the fact that their organization was
totally different from that of the children of Earth, and that those
human beings could discern the physico-chemical operations which take
place in the maintenance of the body. In our earthly organism we do not
see, for example, how the food absorbed is assimilated,--how the blood,
tissues, and bones renew themselves; all functions are fulfilled
instinctively, without thought perceiving it. Thus man suffers from a
thousand maladies whose origin is hidden, and often undiscoverable.
There the human being feels the action of his vital nourishment as we
feel pleasure or pain. A nerve starts from every particle of his body,
so to speak, which transmits the different impressions it receives to
the brain. If terrestrial man were endowed with such a nervous system,
looking into his organism through the intermediary of the nerves, he
would see how food transforms itself into chyle, the latter into blood,
blood into flesh, muscular, nervous substance, etc.: he would see
himself! But we are very far from that, the centre of our perceptions
being obstructed by nerves, thickened by cerebral lobes and optic
thalami.
On another globe which we crossed during the night--that is to say, on
the side of its nocturnal hemisphere--human eyes are so constructed as
to be _luminous_, and shine as though some phosphorescent emanation
radiated from their strange centres. A night meeting comprising a large
number of these persons presents an extremely fantastic appearance,
because the brilliancy, as well as the color, of the eyes changes with
the different passions by which they are swayed. More than that, the
power of their glance is such that they exert an _electric_ and magnetic
influence of variable intensity, and which under certain conditions has
the effect of lightning, causing the victim upon whom the force and
energy of their will is fixed to fall dead.
A little farther away my celestial guide pointed out a world in which
organisms enjoy a precious faculty: the soul may change its body without
passing through the often disagreeable and always sad experience of
death. A savant who has labored all his life for the instruction of
mankind, and feels that his end is drawing near before he has been able
to complete his noble undertaking, can change bodies with a youth, and
begin a new life still more useful than the first. The young man's
consent and the magnetic manipulation of a competent physician are
sufficient for the transmigration. Sometimes it happens that two persons
united by the sweet, strong ties of love effect such an exchange of
bodies after a union of many years,--the husband's soul takes the wife's
body, and conversely, for the rest of their existence. The inmost
experience of life becomes incomparably more complete for each of them.
Savants and historians desirous of living two centuries instead of one,
are seen to fall into a long artificial winter's sleep, which suspends
their lives for half of each year, and even more. Some even succeed in
living three times longer than the normal life of centenarians.
A few seconds later, crossing another system, we met a kind of organism
still more different from ours, and assuredly far superior. With the
inhabitants of the planet we were then looking at,--a world lighted by a
brilliant hydrogenized sun,--thought is not obliged to pass through
speech to be understood. How many times has it not happened when a
bright or transcendent idea came into our minds, and we wanted to utter
it or write it out, that just as we were about to speak or write, we
felt that it was slipping away, flying from us, confused or
metamorphosed into something else? The inhabitants of this planet have a
sixth sense, which might be called magneto-telegraphic, by virtue of
which, when the author is not disinclined, the thought becomes outwardly
manifest, and can be read upon a feature which occupies very much the
same place as a forehead. These silent conversations are often the
deepest and most enjoyable,--always the most sincere.
We are innocently disposed to believe that the human organism is
perfect, and leaves nothing on earth to be desired; but for all that
have we not often regretted being obliged to listen, in spite of
ourselves, to disagreeable words, absurd speeches, a sermon verbose with
emptiness, bad music, slander, or calumny? Our grammars vainly pretend
that we can "close our ears" to these speeches; unfortunately there is
no such thing. You cannot shut your ears as you can your eyes. I was
very much surprised to find a planet where Nature had not forgotten this
salutary provision. As we stopped there for an instant, Urania pointed
out ears which closed like eyelids. "There is very much less anger and
vexation here than with you," said she; "but the wranglings of
political parties are much more sharp and vociferous, adversaries
are unwilling to listen to disputes, and succeed effectually,
notwithstanding the speakers may be most loquacious."
On another world, in which phosphorus plays a large part, whose
atmosphere is constantly electrified, whose temperature is very high,
and where the inhabitants have no sufficient reason for inventing
wearing apparel, certain passions manifest themselves by the
illumination of some part of the body. It is the same thing on a large
scale that we see in our terrestrial meadows on a smaller one in mild
summer evenings when glow-worms silently manifest themselves, and then
waste away in a soft, amorous flame. It is very curious to observe the
appearance of these luminous couples in the evening in populous cities.
The color of the phosphorescence differs in the sexes, and its intensity
varies with the age and temperament. The stronger sex burns with a more
or less ardent red flame, and the gentler sex with a bluish light,
sometimes pale and diaphanous. Our glow-worms, however, give but a very
faint and rudimentary idea respecting the nature of the impressions
experienced by these peculiar beings. I could not believe my eyes when
we were passing through the atmosphere of this planet. But I was still
more surprised on arriving at the satellite of this unique world. That
was a solitary moon, lighted by a kind of twilight sun. A sombre valley
lay before us. From the trees scattered on both slopes of the valley
hung human beings enveloped in shrouds. They had tied themselves to the
branches by their hair, and were sleeping in the deepest silence. What I
had taken for grave-clothes was a covering formed from the growth of
their bleached and tangled locks. As I was wondering at this marvellous
spectacle Urania told me this was their usual mode of interment and
resurrection. Yes, on this world human beings enjoyed the organic
faculty of those insects which have the gift of going to sleep in a
chrysalis state, and metamorphosing themselves into winged butterflies.
It is like a double human race; and the beings in the first phase, even
the coarsest and most material of them, need but to die to rise again in
the most splendid of transformations. Each year in this world represents
about two hundred terrestrial years. Two thirds of the year is lived in
the lower condition, one third (winter) in the chrysalis state, and the
following spring the sleepers feel life coming back to their transformed
flesh; they stir, awaken, leave their fleecy coverings on the trees, and
freeing themselves from them, fly away, wonderful winged creatures, to
aerial regions, there to live for a new Phoenician year,--that is, for
two hundred years of our swiftly moving planet.
We crossed a great number of planets in this way, and it seemed as
though all eternity would not be long enough to admit of my enjoying
these creations unknown to earth; but my guide barely left me time to
realize this, and still new suns and new worlds were appearing. We were
very near striking against some transparent comets in our rapid flight,
that were wandering about like a breath from one system to another, and
more than once I felt myself strongly attracted toward wonderful planets
with fresh landscapes, whose occupants would have been new objects of
study. And yet the celestial Muse bore me on without fatigue still
higher, still farther away, until at last we came to what seemed to me
the confines of the universe. The suns grew more rare, less luminous,
paler; darkness was more intense between the stars; and we were soon in
the midst of an actual desert, the thousands of millions of stars which
constitute the universe visible from the Earth being far distant:
everything had faded to a little, lonely Milky Way in empty infinity.
"At last we have reached the very limits of creation!" I cried.
[Illustration]
"Look!" she replied, pointing to the zenith.
[Illustration]
IV.
ETERNITY AND THE INFINITE
What was that? Could it be true? Another universe was coming down to us!
Millions and millions of suns grouped together were floating about like
a celestial archipelago, and as we flew toward them they spread
themselves out like a limitless cloud of stars. I looked about me on all
sides, trying to pierce the depths of boundless space, and saw similar
clusters of twinkling stars scattered about in all directions, at
various distances.
The new universe which we were entering was made up principally of red,
ruby, and garnet suns. Many of them were absolutely blood-red.
It was like going through a magnificent display of lightning. We sped
swiftly from sun to sun; but incessant electrical commotions like the
flashes of an aurora-borealis assailed us on all sides. What strange
abiding-places worlds lighted solely by red suns must be! Then, too, we
saw in one section of this universe a secondary group, composed of great
numbers of rose-colored and blue stars. Suddenly an enormous comet,
whose head was like some monster's open jaws, rushed upon and enveloped
us. I clung terror-stricken to my goddess's side, who was for a moment
hidden from me by a luminous haze. We were soon in a dark desert again,
for the second universe, like the first, was now far away.
* * * * *
"Creation," she said, "comprises an infinite number of distinct worlds,
separated from each other by abysses of vacancy."
"An _infinite_ number?"
"A mathematical objection," she answered. "Doubtless, no matter how
great a number may be, it cannot be actually infinite, since by thought
one can always increase by a unit, or even double, treble, centuple it.
But remember that the present is but a door through which the future
rushes to the past. Eternity is endless, and the number of the worlds
will be like it, without end."
"Look! You still see, always and on all sides, new celestial
archipelagoes,--new worlds everywhere."
"It seems to me, O Urania! that we have been ascending toward the
boundless heavens for a long time, and at very great speed."
"We could rise like this forever," she answered, "and never reach a
definite limit.
"We could be wafted about yonder to right, to left; forward, backward;
above, below,--in no matter what direction, but never anywhere should we
find any confines.
"Never, never any end!
"Do you know where we are? Do you know how we reached here?
"We are--on the threshold of the infinite, as we were when on the Earth.
_We have not advanced one step!_"
* * * * *
A deep emotion had taken possession of my mind. Urania's last words had
pierced my very marrow like an icy chill. "Never any end--never!
never," I repeated; I could think or speak of nothing else. But still
the magnificence of the spectacle appealed to my eyes, and my feeling of
annihilation gave place to enthusiasm.
"Astronomy," I cried, "is everything! To know these things, to live in
the infinite,--oh, Urania! what are other human ideas compared with
science? Shadows, phantoms!"
"Oh! you will wake up again upon the Earth," she said; "you will admire,
and rightly too, the wisdom of your masters. But understand this,--the
astronomy of your schools and observatories, mathematical astronomy, the
beautiful science as known to Newton, Laplace, Le Verrier, is not yet
definite, actual knowledge.
"That, O my son! is not the end which I have pursued since the days of
Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Look at the thousands of suns analogous to that
which gives life to the earth, which like it are sources of light,
motion, activity, and splendor! Ah! that is the object of the science to
come,--the study of universal and eternal life. Until now, no one has
ever entered the temple. Figures are not an end, but a means; they do
not represent Nature's structure, only the methods, the scaffoldings.
You are to see the dawn of a new day. Mathematical astronomy will yield
her place to physical astronomy, to the true study of Nature.
"Yes," she continued, "astronomers who calculate the movements of the
stars in their daily passage of the meridian, those who foretell
eclipses, celestial phenomena, periodical comets, who observe the exact
positions of the stars and planets on the different degrees of the
celestial sphere so carefully; those who discover comets, planets,
satellites, and variable stars; those who investigate and determine the
disturbance caused the Earth's motion by attraction from the Moon and
planets; those who consecrate their night-watches to the discovery of
the fundamental elements of the world's system,--are all of them
calculators and observers, precursors of the new astronomy. These are
immense labors, studies worthy of admiration, and important works which
bring to light the highest faculties of the human mind. But it is the
army of the past; mathematicians and geometricians. Henceforth, the
hearts of savants will throb for a still nobler conquest. All these
great minds never really left the Earth while studying the skies.
Astronomy's aim is not to show us the apparent position of shining
specks, nor to weigh stones moving through space, nor to foretell
eclipses, or the phases of the Moon or tides. All this is fine, but it
is not enough.
"If life did not exist upon the earth, that planet would be absolutely
devoid of interest for any mind whatsoever; and the same remark is
applicable to all the worlds which gravitate around the thousands of
millions of suns in the wide stretches of immensity. Life is the object
of the whole creation. If there were neither life nor thought, it would
all be null and void.
"You are destined to witness an entire transformation in science. Matter
will give place to mind."
"Life universal!" I asked: "Are all the planets of our solar system
inhabited? Are the myriads of worlds which people the infinite lived
upon? Do those forms of human life resemble ours? Shall we ever know
them?"
"The epoch of your life upon the earth, even the duration of terrestrial
humanity, is but a moment in eternity."
I did not understand this answer to my questions.
"There is no reason why all the worlds should be inhabited _now_," she
went on. "The present period is of no more importance than those which
preceded or will follow it.
"The length of the Earth's existence will be longer--much longer,
perhaps ten times longer--than that of its vital human period. Out of a
dozen worlds selected by chance from immensity, we could, for example,
find hardly one inhabited by a really intelligent race. Some have been
already, others will be in the future; these are in preparation, those
have run through all their phases: here cradles, there graves. And then
too an infinite variety in the forces of Nature and their manifestations
is revealed; earthly life being in no way the type of extra-terrestrial
existence. Beings can think, live, in wholly different organizations
from those with which you are familiar on your own planet. Inhabitants
of the other worlds have neither your form nor senses; they are
otherwise.
"The day will come, and very soon, since you are called to see it, when
the study of the conditions of life in the various provinces of the
universe will be astronomy's essential aim and chief charm. Soon,
instead of being concerned simply about the distance, the motion, and
the material facts of your neighboring planets, astronomers will
discover their physical constitution,--for example, their geographical
appearance, their climatology, their meteorology,--will solve the
mystery of their vital organizations, and will discuss their
inhabitants. They will find that Mars and Venus are actually peopled by
thinking beings; that Jupiter is still in its primary period of organic
preparation; that Saturn looks down upon us under quite different
conditions from those which were instrumental in the establishment of
terrestrial life, and without passing through a state analogous to that
of Earth, will be inhabited by beings incompatible with earthly
organisms. New methods will tell about the physical and chemical
constitutions of the stars and the nature of their atmospheres.
Perfected instruments will permit the discovery of direct proofs of
existence in these planetary humanities and the idea of putting one's
self in communication with them. This is the scientific transformation
which will mark the close of the nineteenth century and inaugurate the
twentieth."
[Illustration]
I listened with delight to these words of the celestial Muse, which shed
an entirely different light upon the future of astronomy and filled me
with renewed ardor. Before my eyes was a panorama of innumerable worlds
moving in space, and I understood that the true object of science is to
teach us about those far distant universes and allow us to live in those
wide horizons. The beautiful goddess resumed:
[Illustration]
"Astronomy's mission will be still higher. After making you know and
feel that the Earth is but a city in the celestial country, and man a
citizen of heaven, she will go still farther. Disclosing the plan on
which the physical universe is constructed, she will show that the moral
universe is constructed on the very same basis, that the two worlds form
but one world, and that mind governs matter. What she will have done for
space she will do for time. After realizing the boundlessness of space,
and recognizing that the same laws govern all places simultaneously and
make the vast universe one grand unit, you will learn that the centuries
of the past and of the future are linked with the present, and that
thinking monads will live forever through successive and progressive
changes. You will learn that minds exist incomparably superior to the
greatest minds of earthly humanity, and that all things advance toward
supreme perfection. You will learn too that the material form is but an
appearance, and that the real being consists of an imponderable,
intangible, and invisible form.
"Astronomy will then be eminently and above all else the directress of
philosophy. Those who reason without astronomical knowledge will never
reach the truth. Those who follow her beacon faithfully will gradually
rise to the solutions of the greatest problems.
"Astronomical philosophy will be the religion of lofty minds.
"You will see this double transformation in science," she added, "when
you leave the terrestrial globe; the astronomical knowledge which you
already so justly prize will be entirely remodelled in form as well as
spirit.
"But this is not all. The renewal of an old science will be of little
use to mankind in general if these sublime truths which develop the
mind, enlighten the soul, and free it from vulgar common-place should be
kept shut up within the narrow limits of professional astronomers. This
time too will pass away. We must begin anew. The torch must be taken in
hand, and its glory increased by carrying it into the busy streets and
public squares. Every one is called to receive the light, every one is
thirsting for it,--especially the humble, those on whom fortune frowns,
for these are the persons who think most; these are eager for knowledge,
while the contented ones of the century do not suspect their own
ignorance, and are almost proud of staying in it. Yes, the light of
astronomy must be diffused throughout the world; it must filter through
the strata of humanity to the popular masses, enlighten their
consciences, elevate their hearts. That will be its most beautiful and
its grandest, greatest mission!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V.
THE LIGHT OF THE PAST.
Thus spoke my celestial guide. Her face was glorious as the day, her
eyes shone with a starry lustre, her voice was like divine music. I
looked at the worlds about us revolving in space, and felt that a mighty
harmony controlled the course of Nature.
"Now let us return to the Earth," she said, pointing to the spot where
our terrestrial Sun had disappeared. "But look again. You understand now
that space is infinite; you will soon comprehend that time is eternal."
We crossed other constellations and came back toward the solar system. I
saw the Sun reappear, looking like a little star.
"For an instant," said she, "I am going to give you, if not divine, at
least angelic sight. Your soul shall feel the ethereal vibrations which
constitute light itself, and shall know that the history of each world
is eternal with God. To see is to know: behold!"
Just as a microscope shows us an ant as large as an elephant, and
penetrates the infinitely small, making the invisible visible, so at the
Muse's command my sight suddenly acquired an unknown power of
perception, and distinguished the Earth in space, very near the Sun,
which was in eclipse, and from invisible it became visible.
I recognized it; and as I watched, its disk grew larger, looking like
the Moon a few days before the full. After a while I could distinguish
the principal geographical aspects in the growing disk,--the snowy patch
at the North Pole, the outlines of Europe and Asia, the North Sea, the
Atlantic, the Mediterranean. The more steadily I fixed my gaze, the
better I could see. Details became more and more perceptible, as if I
were gradually changing the lenses of a microscope. I recognized the
geographical form of France; but our beautiful country appeared to be
entirely green,--from the Rhine to the Ocean, from the Channel to the
Mediterranean, as if it were covered with one immense forest. I
succeeded, however, better and better in distinguishing the slightest
details, for the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Loire,
were easily found.
"Pay great attention," murmured my companion.
As she said this, she placed the tips of her slender fingers lightly on
my brow, as though she had wished to magnetize my brain and endow my
perceptive faculties with still greater power. Then I looked again more
intently at the vision, and saw before my eyes Gaul in the time of
Julius Cæsar. It was during the war of independence aroused by the
patriotism of Vercingetorix.
"We are at such a distance from the Earth," said Urania, "that light
requires all the time that separates us from Julius Cæsar to reach here.
Only the rays of light that left the Earth at that time come to us; and
yet light travels at the rate of three hundred thousand kilometres a
second. It is fast, very fast, but it is not instantaneous. Astronomers
on the Earth, who are observing stars situated as far from them as we
are now, do not see them as they really are, but as they were when the
rays of light which they see to-day left them; that is to say, as they
were more than eighteen centuries ago.
[Illustration]
"One never sees the stars from the Earth, nor from any point in space,
as they are, but as they have been," she continued; "the farther away
from them one is, the more behind he is in their history.
"You observe most carefully through the telescope stars which no longer
exist. Many of the stars visible to the naked eye are no longer in
existence. Many of the nebulæ whose substance you analyze through the
spectroscope have become suns. Many of your most beautiful red stars
are extinct and dead; you would not detect them if you should go to
them.
[Illustration]
"The light shed from all the suns which people immensity, the light
reflected into space from all the worlds irradiated by these suns,
carries away through the boundless skies photographs of all the
centuries every day, every second. Looking at a star, you see it as it
was at the time the impression that you receive left it,--just as when
you hear a clock strike, you receive the sound after it has left it, and
as long after as you are far from it.