grouping of cerebral matter,--our individual me, our _ego_ which
acquires and preserves a personal scientific and moral value, increasing
with study; our _ego_ which feels itself responsible for its acts
performed a month, a year, ten, twenty, fifty years ago, during which
time however the molecular grouping has been _changed_ frequently.
"Physiologists who affirm that the soul does not exist, are like their
ancestors who affirmed that they felt pain in their finger or their
foot. They are a little less far from the truth, but they stop on the
way when they stop at the brain, and make the human being consist of
cerebral impressions. This hypothesis is all the less excusable because
these same physiologists know perfectly well that personal sensation is
always accompanied by a modification of substance. In other words, the
_ego_ of the individual only continues when the identity of its matter
ceases to continue.
"Our principle of sensibility, then, cannot be a material object; it is
put in communication with the universe by cerebral impressions, by the
chemical forces disengaged in the encephalon in consequence of material
combinations. But it is _different_.
"And our organic constitution is perpetually transformed under the
direction of a psychic principle.
"Some molecule now incorporated in our organism escapes from it by
expiration, perspiration, etc., to belong to the atmosphere for a longer
or shorter time, then to be incorporated into another organism,--plant,
animal, or man. The molecules which actually constitute your body were
not all made part of your person yesterday, and none of them were there
three months ago. Where were they? Either in the air or in another body.
All the molecules now forming your organic tissues, your lungs, your
eyes, your brain, your legs, etc., have already served to form other
organic tissues. We are all resuscitated dead men, made from the dust of
our ancestors. If all the people who have lived up to this time arose
from the dead, there would be five of them to every square foot upon the
surface of all the continents,--obliged to climb on one another's
shoulders in order to stand; but they could not all be completely
resuscitated, for many of the molecules have served successively for
several bodies.
"Our own organisms likewise, resolved into their ultimate particles,
will help to form the bodies of our descendants.
"Each molecule of air then goes on eternally from life to life, and
escapes thence from death to death, by turns wind, wave, earth, animal,
or flower. It is incorporated successively into the substance of
numberless organisms. The air, the inexhaustible source whence
everything that lives takes its breath, is yet an immense reservoir into
which everything that dies pours its last sigh; by its absorption,
vegetable and animal, different organisms come to life and afterwards
perish. Life and death are both in the air we breathe, and perpetually
succeed each other by the exchange of gaseous molecules; the molecule of
oxygen which this old oak exhales will fly away to the lungs of a child
in its cradle. The last sighs of a man will weave the brilliant corolla
of a flower, or expand like a smile over the verdant meadow. And thus by
an infinite series of partial deaths, the atmosphere incessantly
nourishes the universal life spread over the surface of the world.
"And if nevertheless some objection should still remain unanswered, I
would go further, and add that our clothes as well as our bodies are
composed of substances which at first were all gaseous. Take this
thread, draw it out: what a resistance! How many webs of cambric, silk,
linen, cotton, and wool industry have been formed by the help of these
warps and woofs! And yet, what is a thread of linen, flax, or cotton?
Globules of air in juxtaposition which are held together only by their
molecular force. What is a thread of silk or wool? Another set of
molecules in juxtaposition. Admit, then, that our clothes as
well are air, gas, substances drawn in the beginning from the
atmosphere,--oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, vapor of water, etc."
* * * * *
"I am glad to see," said the painter, "that art is not so far from
science as is supposed in certain circles. If your theory is purely
scientific to you, to me it is art, and of the best. Besides, do all
these distinctions exist in Nature? In Nature there is neither art nor
painting nor sculpture, music nor decoration, philosophy nor chemistry,
nor astronomy nor meteorology. Look at the sky, the sea, those
foot-hills of the Alps, those rosy evening clouds, those luminous
perspectives towards the Italian coast,--all that is one. There is unity
in everything. And since molecular philosophy demonstrates that there is
no longer any body, that even the atoms in a bar of steel or platinum do
not touch each other, no one will be the loser, provided our souls are
left us."
"Yes, it is a fact against which no prejudice can prevail,--living
beings are souls clothed with air. I pity the worlds deprived of their
atmosphere."
We had returned to the seashore after a long ramble not far from our
point of departure, and were passing the battlemented wall of a villa on
our way from Beaulieu to Cape Ferrat, when two very fashionably dressed
ladies passed us. They were the Duchess of V---- and her daughter, whom
we had met the previous Thursday at a ball at the Préfecture. We bowed
to them, and disappeared under the olive-trees. The young girl,
inquisitive daughter of Eve, turned to look after us, and it seemed to
me that a sudden blush crimsoned her cheeks; it was doubtless the
reflection of the setting sun's rays.
[Illustration]
"Perhaps you think," said the artist, also looking back, "that you have
diminished my admiration for beauty? No, I appreciate it still more. In
it I bow to harmony; and--shall I confess it?--the human body thus
considered as the manifestation to the senses of a directing soul seems
to me to acquire thence more nobility, more beauty, and more light."
[Illustration]
V.
AD VERITATEM PER SCIENTIAM.
I was studying in my library the conditions of life upon the surface of
worlds governed and illuminated by suns of different sizes, when
glancing at the chimney-piece I was struck with the expression--I had
almost said the animation--of my dear Urania's face. It was the
gracious, living expression which once--ah! how quickly the earth goes
round, and how short a quarter of a century is!--which once--and it
seems to me like yesterday--which once--in those youthful days so
quickly flown--had attracted my thoughts and inflamed my heart. I could
not keep from looking at her again, and resting my eyes on her. Truly,
she was still just as beautiful, and my feelings had not changed. She
drew me to her as the light draws an insect. I rose from my table to
approach her, and see again the singular effect of the daylight on her
changing face, and I surprised myself by standing before her, forgetting
my work.
Her look seemed to be lost in the distance, yet she was looking. At
what? I had the firm conviction that she was really looking at
something; and following the direction of that fixed, motionless,
solemn, although not severe gaze, my eyes went straight to Spero's
portrait, hanging there between two book-cases. Really, Urania was
looking fixedly at him.
[Illustration]
Suddenly the picture broke away from the wall and fell, breaking the
frame. I rushed to it. The portrait was lying on the carpet, and Spero's
gentle face was turned towards me. Picking it up, I found a large
paper, grown yellow, which filled up the whole back, and was written
over on both sides in Spero's handwriting. Why had I never noticed this
paper? It is true that it might have lain under the setting of the
frame, hidden beneath the protecting cardboard mat. When I brought this
water-color back from Christiania I did not think of examining its
arrangement. But who could have had the singular idea of putting this
sheet in such a place? I recognized my friend's handwriting, and glanced
over the two pages in utter bewilderment. According to all appearances
they must have been written on the last day of the young student's
life,--the day of his ascension to the aurora borealis. Probably Icléa's
father wished to preserve these last thoughts carefully, so framed them
with Spero's portrait, and forgot to mention it when he afterwards gave
me the portrait as a memento, on my return from the pilgrimage to my two
friends' graves. However that might be, placing the water-color gently
on the table, I experienced the deepest emotion as I recognized every
detail of that dear face. They were his very eyes, so sweet, so deep,
and always unfathomable; the wide brow apparently so calm, the delicate
mouth with its reserved sensitiveness, the fresh coloring of the face,
neck, and hands. His eyes looked at me, whichever way I turned the
portrait; they looked at Urania at the same time; they looked everywhere
at once. Strange idea of the artist! I could not resist the thought of
Urania's eyes, which had seemed to me to be looking at the portrait with
embarrassing intentness. Her celestial countenance no longer wore the
same expression at all, but appeared to me rather to be melancholy,
almost sad. Then I turned again to the mysterious sheet of paper. It was
written in a clear, precise hand, with no erasures. I offer it to the
readers of this book just as I found it, without the slightest change;
for it appears to be the very natural conclusion of the preceding
episodes.
Here it is, _verbatim_:--
This is the scientific testament of a mind which on the Earth
did all in its power to remain independent of the weight of
matter, and which hopes to be freed from it.
I should like to leave the results of my researches in the form
of aphorisms. It seems to me that the Truth can be reached only
through the study of Nature, that is to say, by science. Here
are the inductions which appear to me to be founded on this
method of observation.
I.
The visible, tangible, ponderable, and constantly moving
universe is composed of invisible, intangible, imponderable, and
inert atoms.
II.
These atoms are governed by force, to constitute bodies and to
organize beings.
III.
Force is essential entity.
IV.
Visibility, tangibility, solidity, and weight are relative
properties, and not absolute realities.
V.
The infinitely small.
The experiments made in beating gold-leaf show that ten thousand
leaves are contained in the thickness of a millimetre. A
millimetre has been divided on a glass plate into a thousand
equal parts; and infusoria exist, which are so small that their
entire bodies, placed between two of these divisions, do not
touch either of them. The members and organs of these beings are
composed of cellules, these of molecules, and these of atoms.
Twenty cubic centimetres of oil spread over a lake will cover
four thousand square metres, so that the layer of oil thus
expanded measures only one two hundred thousandth of a
millimetre in thickness. Spectral analysis of light discloses
the presence of a millionth of a milligramme of sodium in a
flame. The sense of smell perceives 1/604000000 a milligramme of
mercaptan in the air breathed. The dimensions of atoms must be
less than a millionth of a millimetre in diameter. [Waves of
light are comprised between 4 and 8 ten millionths of a
millimetre, from violet to red; 2300 are required to fill a
millimetre. In the duration of a second the ether through which
light is transmitted makes 700,000,000,000,000 oscillations,
each of which is mathematically defined.]
VI.
The intangible, invisible atom, scarcely conceivable to our mind
accustomed to superficial judgments, constitutes the only true
matter; and what we call matter is but an effect produced on our
senses by the motion of atoms,--that is to say, an incessant
possibility of sensations.
The result is, that matter, like the manifestations of energy,
is only a mode of motion. If motion should stop; if force should
be annihilated; if the temperature of bodies should be reduced
to absolute zero,--matter, as we know it, would cease to exist.
VII.
The visible universe is composed of invisible bodies. What we
see is made up of things which are not seen. There is but one
kind of primitive atom. The constituent molecules of different
bodies--iron, gold, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.--differ only in the
number, grouping, and motion of the atoms which compose them.
VIII.
What we call "matter," vanishes when scientific analysis thinks
to grasp it. But we find as the support of the universe and the
origin of all form, Force,--the dynamic element. By my will I
can unsettle the Moon in her course.
The movements of each atom on our Earth are the mathematical
resultant of the undulations of the luminiferous ether which
come to it in time from the abysses of infinite space.
IX.
The human being has for essential principle the soul. The body
is visible and transitory.
X.
Atoms are indestructible.
The energy which moves atoms and governs the universe is
indestructible.
The human soul is indestructible.
XI.
The individuality of the soul is recent in the Earth's history.
Our planet was nebula, then sun, after that, chaos. No
terrestrial human being was then in existence. Life began with
the most rudimentary organisms; it has progressed century by
century to attain its present state, which is not the last. What
we call the faculties of the soul,--intelligence, reason,
conscience,--are modern. The mind has gradually freed itself
from matter; as--if the comparison were not awkward--gas frees
itself from coal, perfume from the flower, flame from fire.
XII.
Psychic force has been beginning to assert itself in the higher
spheres of terrestrial humanity for the past thirty or forty
centuries; its action is but in its dawn. Souls conscious of
their individuality, or still unconscious of it, are by their
very nature beyond the conditions of space and time. After the
death of the body, as during life, they occupy no place; perhaps
some of them go to dwell in other worlds. Those only who are
freed from material bonds can be conscious of their
extra-corporeal existence and immortality.
XIII.
The Earth is but a province of the eternal fatherland; it forms
a part of heaven. _Heaven is infinite_; all worlds are a part of
heaven.
XIV.
The planetary and sidereal systems which constitute the universe
are at different degrees of organization and advancement. The
extent of their diversity is infinite; beings are everywhere
appropriate to their worlds.
XV.
All worlds are not lived upon. The present era is of no more
importance than are those which preceded or those which will
follow it. Some worlds have been inhabited in the past, others
will be in the future. Some day nothing will remain of the
Earth; even its ruins will have perished.
XVI.
Terrestrial life is not the type of other lives. An unlimited
diversity reigns in the universe. There are dwelling-places
where the weight is intense, where light is unknown, where
touch, smell, and hearing are the only senses, where, the optic
nerve not being formed, all the beings are blind. There are
others where the beings are so light and so slight that they
would be invisible to earthly eyes, where senses of an exquisite
delicacy reveal to privileged beings sensations forbidden to
terrestrial humanity.
XVII.
The space existing between the worlds distributed over the
immense universe does not separate them from each other. They
are all in perpetual communication, from the attraction which
makes itself felt through all distance, and establishes an
indissoluble link between all worlds.
XVIII.
The universe forms a single unity.
XIX.
The system of the physical world is the material basis, the
habitat of the moral or spiritual world. Hence astronomy must be
the basis of all philosophical and religious belief. Every
thinking being bears within himself the consciousness, but the
uncertainty, of immortality. This is because we are the
microscopic wheels of an unknown mechanism.
XX.
Man makes his own destiny. He rises or falls in accordance with
his works. Beings attached to material riches, misers,
hypocrites, liars, ambitious people, live like the perverse, in
the lower zones.
But a primordial and absolute law governs creation,--the law of
Progress. Everything rises in the infinite. Sins are falls.
XXI.
In the ascension of souls, moral qualities have no less value
than intellectual qualities. Goodness, devotion,
self-abnegation, sacrifice, purify the soul, and raise it, like
study and science.
XXII.
Universal creation is an immense harmony, of which the Earth is
but an insignificant, rather uninteresting, and unfinished
fragment.
XXIII.
Nature is a perpetual future. _Progress is law._ Progression is
eternal.
XXIV.
The eternity of a soul would not be long enough to visit the
infinite and learn all there is to know.
XXV.
The soul's destiny is to free itself more and more from the
material world, and to belong to the lofty Uranian life, whence
it can look down upon matter and suffer no more. It then enters
upon the spiritual life, eternally pure. The supreme aim of all
beings is the perpetual approach to absolute perfection and
divine happiness.
Such was Spero's scientific and philosophical testament. Does it not
seem to have been dictated by Urania herself?
The Nine Muses of ancient mythology were sisters. Modern scientific
conceptions in their turn tend to unity. Astronomy, or the knowledge of
the world, and psychology, or knowledge of being, unite to-day to
establish the only basis on which definite philosophy can be built.
* * * * *
P. S.--The preceding incidents, with the researches and reflections
which accompany them, are brought together here in a sort of essay,
whose aim is to shed a gleam of light on the solution of the greatest
problem that can engage the human mind. With this object the present
work is offered to the attention of those who sometimes "in the midst of
Life's journey," of which Dante speaks, linger to ask themselves where
and what they are,--to seek, to think, and to dream.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Strange coincidences sometimes occur; and upon the day that George
Spero made the ascent which was to be so fatal to him I knew that he had
started, from the extraordinary restlessness of the magnetic needle,
which announced at Paris, where I had remained, the intense aurora
borealis for which he had been waiting so anxiously to make his aerial
journey. It is well known that the aurora borealis causes magnetic
disturbances which are felt at long distances from their manifestation.
But what surprised me most, and what I never have been able to explain,
is, that at the very time of the accident I experienced an undefined
uneasiness; then a kind of presentiment that some accident had happened
to him. The despatch announcing his death found me almost prepared for
it.
[2] Phantasms of the Living. By E. Gurney and Frederick Myers, of the
University of Cambridge, and Frank Podmore. London, 1886. (The president
of the Society for Psychical Research is Professor Balfour Stewart, F.
R. S.)
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Simple typographical errors were corrected, in some cases by referring
to other editions of this book.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Page 280: "A SOUL CLOTHED WITH AIR." is the heading of a chapter that is
not identified as such in this edition.