LIFE, UNIVERSAL AND ETERNAL
And now, while thanking my readers for having followed me so far in this
descriptive account of the marvels of the Cosmos, I must inquire what
philosophical impression has been produced on their minds by these
celestial excursions to the other worlds? Are you left indifferent to
the pageant of the Heavens? When your imagination was borne away to
these distant stars, suns of the infinite, these innumerable stellar
systems disseminated through a boundless eternity, did you ask what
existed there, what purpose was served by those dazzling spheres, what
effects resulted from these forces, radiations, energies? Did you
reflect that the elements which upon our little Earth determined a vital
activity so prodigious and so varied must needs have spread the waves of
an incomparably vaster and more diversified existence throughout the
immensities of the Universe? Have you felt that all can not be dead and
deserted, as we are tempted by the illusions of our terrestrial senses
and of our isolation to believe in the silence of the night: that on the
contrary, the real aim of Astronomy, instead of ending with statements
of the positions and movements of the stars, is to enable us to
penetrate to them, to make us divine, and know, and appreciate their
physical constitution, their degree of life and intellectuality in the
universal order?
On the Earth, it is Life and Thought that flourish; and it is Life and
Thought that we seek again in these starry constellations strewn to
Infinitude amid the immeasurable fields of Heaven.
The humble little planet that we inhabit presents itself to us as a
brimming cup, overflowing at every outlet. Life is everywhere. From the
bottom of the seas, from the valleys to the mountains, from the
vegetation that carpets the soil, from the mold in the fields and woods,
from the air we breathe, arises an immense, prodigious, and perpetual
murmur. Listen! it is the great voice of Nature, the sum of all the
unknown and mysterious voices that are forever calling to us, from the
ocean waves, from the forest winds, from the 300,000 kinds of insects
that are redundant everywhere, and make a lively community on the
surface of our globe. A drop of water contains thousands of curious and
agile creatures. A grain of dust from the streets of Paris is the home
of 130,000 bacteria. If we turn over the soil of a garden, field, or
meadow, we find the earthworms working to produce assimilable slime. If
we lift a stone in the path, we discover a crawling population. If we
gather a flower, detach a leaf, we everywhere find little insects living
a parasitic existence. Swarms of midges fly in the sun, the trees of the
wood are peopled with nests, the birds sing, and chase each other at
play, the lizards dart away at our approach, we trample down the
antheaps and the molehills. Life enwraps us in an inexorable
encroachment of which we are at once the heroes and the victims,
perpetuating itself to its own detriment, as imposed upon it by an
eternal reproduction. And this from all time, for the very stones of
which we build our houses are full of fossils so prodigiously multiplied
that one gram of such stone will often contain millions of shells,
marvels of geometrical perfection. The infinitely little is equal to the
infinitely great.
Life appears to us as a fatal law, an imperious force which all obey, as
the result and the aim of the association of atoms. This is illustrated
for us upon the Earth, our only field of direct observation. We must be
blind not to see this spectacle, deaf not to hear its reaching. On what
pretext could one suppose that our little globe which, as we have seen,
has received no privileges from Nature, is the exception; and that the
entire Universe, save for one insignificant isle, is devoted to vacancy,
solitude, and death?
We have a tendency to imagine that Life can not exist under conditions
other than terrestrial, and that the other worlds can only be inhabited
on the condition of being similar to our own. But terrestrial nature
itself demonstrates to us the error of this way of thinking. We die in
the water: fishes die out of the water. Again, short-sighted naturalists
affirm categorically that Life is impossible at the bottom of the sea:
1, because it is in complete darkness; 2, because the terrible pressure
would burst any organism; 3, because all motion would be impossible
there, and so on. Some inquisitive person sends down a dredge, and
brings up lovely creatures, so delicate in structure that the daintiest
touch must proceed with circumspection. There is no light in these
depths: they make it with their own phosphorescence. Other inquirers
visit subterranean caverns, and discover animals and plants whose organs
have been transformed by adaptation to their gloomy environment.
What right have we to say to the vital energy that radiates round every
Sun of the Universe: "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further"? In the
name of Science? An absolute mistake. The Known is an infinitesimal
island in the midst of the vast ocean of the Unknown. The deep seas
which seemed to be a barrier are, as we have seen, peopled with special
life. Some one objects: But after all, there is air there, there is
oxygen: oxygen is indispensable: a world without oxygen would be a
world of death, an eternally sterile desert. Why? Because we have not
yet come across beings that can breathe without air, and live without
oxygen? Another mistake. Even if we did not know of any, it would not
prove that they do not exist. But as it happens, we do know of such: the
_anaerobia_. These beings live without air, without oxygen. Better still:
oxygen kills them!
All the evidence goes to show that in interpreting as we ought the
spectacle of terrestrial life, and the positive facts acquired by
Science, we should enlarge the circle of our conceptions and our
judgments, and not limit extra-terrestrial existence to the servile
image of what is in existence here below. Terrestrial organic forms are
due to local causes upon our planet. The chemical constitution of water
and of the atmosphere, temperature, light, density, weight, are so many
elements that have gone to form our bodies. Our flesh is composed of
carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen combined in the state of water,
and of some other elements, among which we may instance sodium chloride
(salt). The flesh of animals is not chemically different from our own.
All this comes from the water and the air, and returns to them again.
The same elements, in very minute quantities, make up all living bodies.
The ox that browses on the grass is formed of the same flesh as the man
who eats the beef. All organized terrestrial matter is only carbon
combined in variable proportions with hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, etc.
But we have no right to forbid Nature to act differently in worlds from
which carbon is absent. A world, for example, in which silica replaces
carbon, silicic acid carbonic acid, might be inhabited by organisms
absolutely different from those which exist on the Earth, different not
only in form, but also in substance. We already know stars and suns for
which spectral analysis reveals a predominance of silica, _e.g._, Rigel
and Deneb. In a world where chlorine predominated, we might expect to
find hydrochloric acid, and all the fecund family of chlorides, playing
an important part in the phenomena of life. Might not bromine be
associated in other formations? Why, indeed, should we draw the line at
terrestrial chemistry? What is to prove that these elements are really
simple? May not hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur all be
compounds? Their equivalents are multiples of the first: 1, 6, 8, 14,
16. And is even hydrogen the most simple of the elements? Is not its
molecule composed of atoms, and may there not exist a single species of
primitive atom, whose geometric arrangement and various associations
might constitute the molecules of the so-called simple elements?
In our own solar system we discover the essential differences between
certain planets. In the spectrum of Jupiter, for instance, we are aware
of the action of an unknown substance that manifests itself by a marked
absorption of certain red rays. This gas, which does not exist upon the
Earth, is seen still more obviously in the atmospheres of Saturn and
Uranus. Indeed, upon this last planet the atmosphere appears, apart from
its water vapor, to have no sort of analogy with our own. And in the
solar spectrum itself, many of the lines have not yet been identified
with terrestrial substances.
The interrelation of the planets is of course incontrovertible, since
they are all children of the same parent. But they differ among
themselves, not merely in respect of situation, position, volume, mass,
density, temperature, atmosphere, but again in physical and chemical
constitution. And the point we would now accent is that this diversity
should not be regarded as an obstacle to the manifestations of life,
but, on the contrary, as a new field open to the infinite fecundity of
the universal mother.
When our thoughts take wing, not only to our neighbors, Moon, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn, but still more toward the myriads of unknown
worlds that gravitate round the suns disseminated in space, we have no
plausible reason for imagining that the inhabitants of these other
worlds of Heaven resemble us in any way, whether in form, or even in
organic substance.
The substance of the terrestrial human body is due to the elements of
our planet, and notably to carbon. The terrestrial human form derives
from the ancestral animal forms to which it has gradually raised itself
by the continuous progress of the transformation of species. To us it
seems obvious that we are man or woman, because we have a head, a heart,
lungs, two legs, two arms, and so on. Nothing is less a matter of
course. That we are constituted as we are, is simply the result of our
pro-simian ancestors having also had a head, a heart, lungs, legs, and
arms--less elegant than your own, it is true, Madam, but still of the
same anatomy. And more and more, by the progress of paleontology, we are
delving down to the origin of beings. As certain as it is that the bird
derives from the reptile by a process of organic evolution, so certain
is it that terrestrial Humanity represents the topmost branches of the
huge genealogical tree, whereof all the limbs are brothers, and the
roots of which are plunged into the very rudiments of the most
elementary and primitive organisms.
The multitude of worlds is surely peopled by every imaginable and
unimaginable form. Terrestrial man is endowed with five senses, or
perhaps it is better to say six. Why should Nature stop at this point?
Why, for instance, may she not have given to certain beings an
electrical sense, a magnetic sense, a sense of orientation, an organ
able to perceive the ethereal vibrations of the infra-red or
ultra-violet, or permitted them to hear at a distance, or to see through
walls? We eat and digest like coarse animals, we are slaves to our
digestive tube: may there not be worlds in which a nutritive atmosphere
enables its fortunate inhabitants to dispense with this absurd process?
The least sparrow, even the dusky bat, has an advantage over us in that
it can fly through the air. Think how inferior are our conditions, since
the man of greatest genius, the most exquisite woman, are nailed to the
soil like any vulgar caterpillar before its metamorphosis! Would it be a
disadvantage to inhabit a world in which we might fly whither we would;
a world of scented luxury, full of animated flowers; a world where the
winds would be incapable of exciting a tempest, where several suns of
different colors--the diamond glowing with the ruby, or the emerald with
the sapphire--would burn night and day (azure nights and scarlet days)
in the glory of an eternal spring; with multi-colored moons sleeping in
the mirror of the waters, phosphorescent mountains, aerial
inhabitants,--men, women, or perhaps of other sexes,--perfect in their
forms, gifted with multiple sensibilities, luminous at will,
incombustible as asbestos, perhaps immortal, unless they commit suicide
out of curiosity? Lilliputian atoms as we are, let us once for all be
convinced that our imagination is but sterility, in the midst of an
infinitude hardly glimpsed by the telescope.
One important point seems always to be ignored expressly by those who
blindly deny the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. It is that this
doctrine does not apply more particularly to the present epoch than to
any other. _Our_ time is of no importance, no absolute value. Eternity
is the field of the Eternal Sower. There is no reason why the other
worlds should be inhabited _now_ more than at any other epoch.
What, indeed, is the Present Moment? It is an open trap through which
the Future falls incessantly into the gulf of the Past.
The immensity of Heaven bears in its bosom cradles as well as tombs,
worlds to come and perished worlds. It abounds in extinct suns, and
cemeteries. In all probability Jupiter is not yet inhabited. What does
this prove? The Earth was not inhabited during its primordial period:
what did that prove to the inhabitants of Mars or of the Moon, who were
perhaps observing it at that epoch, a few million years ago?
To pretend that our globe must be the only inhabited world because the
others do not resemble it, is to reason, not like a philosopher, but, as
we remarked before, like a fish. Every rational fish ought to assume
that it is impossible to live out of water, since its outlook and its
philosophy do not extend beyond its daily life. There is no answer to
this order of reasoning, except to advise a little wider perception, and
extension of the too narrow horizon of habitual ideas.
For us the resources of Nature may be considered infinite, and
"positive" science, founded upon our senses only, is altogether
inadequate, although it is the only possible basis of our reasoning. We
must learn to see with the eyes of our spirit.
As to the planetary systems other than our own, we are no longer reduced
to hypotheses. We already know with certainty that our Sun is no
exception, as was suggested, and is still maintained, by some theorists.
The discovery in itself is curious enough.
It is surely an exceptional situation that, given a sidereal system
composed of a central sun, and of one or more stars gravitating round
him, the plane of such a system should fall just within our line of
vision, and that it should revolve in such a way that the globes of
which it is composed pass exactly between this sun and ourselves in
turning round him, eclipsing him more or less during this transit. As,
on the other hand, the eclipses would be our only means of determining
the existence of these unknown planets (save indeed from perturbation,
as in the case of Sirius and Procyon), it might have seemed quixotic to
hope for like conditions in order to discover solar systems other than
our own. But these exceptional circumstances have reproduced themselves
at different parts of the Heavens.
Thus, for instance, we have seen that the variable star Algol owes its
variations in brilliancy, which reduce it from second to fourth
magnitude every sixty-nine hours, to the interposition of a body between
itself and the Earth, and celestial mechanics has already been able to
determine accurately the orbit of this body, its dimensions and its
mass, and even the flattening of the sun Algol. Here, then, is a system
in which we know the sun and an enormous planet, whose revolution is
effected in sixty-nine hours with extreme rapidity, as measured by the
spectroscope.
The star [delta] of Cepheus is in the same case: it is an orb eclipsed
in a period of 129 hours, and its eclipsing planet also revolves in the
plane of our vision. The variable star in Ophiuchus has an analogous
system, and observation has already revealed a great number of others.
Since, then, a certain number of solar systems differing from our own
have been revealed, as it were in section, to terrestrial observation,
this affords us sufficient evidence of the existence of an innumerable
quantity of solar systems scattered through the immensities of space,
and we are no longer reduced to conjecture.
On the other hand, analysis of the motions of several stars, such as
Sirius, Procyon, Altair, proves that these distant orbs have
companions,--planets not yet discovered by the telescope, and that
perhaps never will be discovered, because they are obscure, and lost in
the radiation of the star.
* * * * *
Some _savants_ have asserted that Life can not germinate if the
conditions of the environment differ too much from terrestrial
conditions.
This hypothesis is purely gratuitous, and we will now discuss it.
In order to examine what is happening on the Earth, let us mount the
ladder of time for a moment, to follow the evolutions of Nature.
There was an epoch when the Earth did not exist. Our planet, the future
world of our habitation, slept in the bosom of the solar nebula.
At last it came to birth, this cherished Earth, a gaseous, luminous
ball, poor reflection of the King of Orbs, its parent. Millions of years
rolled by before the condensation and cooling of this new globe were
sufficiently transformed to permit life to manifest itself in its most
rudimentary aspects.
The first organic forms of the protoplasm, the first aggregations of
cells, the protozoons, the zoophytes or plant-animals, the gelatinous
mussels of the still warm seas, were succeeded by the fishes, then by
the reptiles, the birds, the mammals, and lastly man, who at present
occupies the top of the genealogical tree, and crowns the animal
kingdom.
Humanity is comparatively young upon the Earth. We may attribute some
thousands of centuries of existence to it ... and some five years of
reason!
The terrestrial organisms, from the lowest up to man, are the resultant
of the forces in action at the surface of our planet. The earliest seem
to have been produced by the combinations of carbon with hydrogen and
nitrogen; they were, so to speak, without animation, save for some very
rudimentary sensibility; the sponges, corals, polyps, and medusae, give
us a notion of these primitive beings. They were formed in the tepid
waters of the primary epoch. As long as there were no continents, no
islands emerging from the level of the universal ocean, there were no
beings breathing in the air. The first aquatic creatures were succeeded
by the amphibia, the reptiles. Later on were developed the mammals and
the birds.
What, again, do we not owe to the plant-world of the primary epoch, of
the secondary epoch, of the tertiary epoch, which slowly prepared the
good nutritious soil of to-day, in which the roses flourish, and the
peach and strawberry ripen?
Before it gave birth to a Helen or a Cleopatra, life manifested itself
under the roughest forms, and in the most varied conditions. A
long-period comet passing in sight of the Earth from time to time would
have seen modifications of existence in each of its transits, in
accordance with a slow evolution, corresponding to the variation of the
conditions of existence, and progressing incessantly, for if Life is the
goal of nature, Progress is the supreme law.
The history of our planet is the history of life, with all its
metamorphoses. It is the same for all the worlds, with some exceptions
of orbs arrested in their development.
The constitution of living beings is in absolute relation with the
substances of which they are composed, the environment in which they
move, temperature, light, weight, density, the length of day and night,
the seasons, etc.--in a word, with all the cosmographic elements of a
world.
If, for example, we compare between themselves two worlds such as the
Earth and Neptune, utterly different from the point of view of distance
from the Sun, we could not for an instant suppose that organic
structures could have followed a parallel development on these planets.
The average temperature must be much lower on Neptune than on the Earth,
and the same holds for intensity of light. The years and seasons there
are 165 times longer than with us, the density of matter is three times
as weak, and weight is, on the contrary, a little greater. Under
conditions so different from our own, the activities of Nature would
have to translate themselves under other forms. And doubtless the
elementary bodies would not be found there in the same proportions.
Consequently we have to conclude that organs and senses would not be the
same there as here. The optic nerve, for instance, which has formed and
developed here from the rudimentary organ of the trilobite to the
marvels of the human eye, must be incomparably more sensitive upon
Neptune than in our dazzling solar luminosity, in order to perceive
radiations that we do not perceive here. In all probability, it is
replaced there by some other organ. The lungs, functioning there in
another atmosphere, are different from our own. So, too, for the stomach
and digestive organs. Corporeal forms, animal and human, can not
resemble those which exist upon the Earth.
Certain _savants_ contend that if the conditions differed too much from
terrestrial conditions, life could not be produced there at all. Yet we
have no right to limit the powers of Nature to the narrow bounds of our
sphere of observation, and to pretend that our planet and our Humanity
are the type of all the worlds. That is a hypothesis as ridiculous as it
is childish.
Do not let us be "personal," like children, and old people who never see
beyond their room. Let us learn to live in the Infinite and the Eternal.
From this larger point of view, the doctrine of the plurality of worlds
is the complement and the natural crown of Astronomy. What interests us
most in the study of the Universe is surely to know what goes on there.
* * * * *
These considerations show that, in all the ages, what really constitutes
a planet is not its skeleton but the life that vibrates upon its
surface.
And again, if we analyze things, we see that for the Procession of
Nature, life is all, and matter nothing.
What has become of our ancestors, the millions of human beings who
preceded us upon this globe? Where are their bodies? What is left of
them? Search everywhere. Nothing is left but the molecules of air,
water, dust, atoms of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc., which
are incorporated in turn in the organism of every living being.
The whole Earth is a vast cemetery, and its finest cities are rooted in
the catacombs. But now, in crossing Paris, I passed for at least the
thousandth time near the Church of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and was
obliged to turn out of the direct way, on account of excavations. I
looked down, and saw that immediately below the pavement, they had just
uncovered some stone coffins still containing the skeletons that had
reposed there for ten centuries. From time immemorial the passers-by had
trampled them unwittingly under foot. And I reflected that it is much
the same in every quarter of Paris. Only yesterday, some Roman tombs and
a coin with the effigy of Nero were found in a garden near the
Observatory.
And from the most general standpoint of Life, the whole world is in the
same case, and even more so, seeing that all that exists, all that
lives, is formed of elements that have already been incorporated in
other beings, no longer living. The roses that adorn the bosom of the
fair ... but I will not enlarge upon this topic.
And you, so strong and virile, of what elements is your splendid body
formed? Where have the elements you absorb to-day in respiration and
assimilation been drawn from, what lugubrious adventures have they been
subject to? Think away from it: do not insist on this point: on no
account consider it....
And yet, let us dwell on it, since this reality is the most evident
demonstration of the ideal; since what exists is you, is all of us, is
_Life_; and matter is only its substance, like the materials of a house,
and even less so, since its particles only pass rapidly through the
framework of our bodies. A heap of stones does not make a house.
Quintillions of tons of materials would not represent the Earth or any
other world.
Yes, what really exists, what constitutes a complete orb, is the city of
Life. Let us recognize that the flower of life flourishes on the surface
of our planet, embellishing it with its perfume; that it is just this
life that we see and admire,--of which we form part,--and which is the
_raison d'etre_ of things; that matter floats, and crosses, and crosses
back again, in the web of living beings,--and the reality, the goal, is
not matter--it is the life matter is employed upon.
Yes, matter passes, and being also, after sharing in the concerted
symphony of life.
And indeed everything passes rapidly!
What irrepressible grief, what deep melancholy, what ineffaceable
regrets we feel, when as age comes on we look back, when we see our
friends fallen upon the road one after the other, above all when we
visit the beloved scenes of our childhood, those homes of other years,
that witnessed our first start in terrestrial existence, our first
games, our first affections--those affections of childhood that seemed
eternal--when we wander over those fields and valleys and hills, when
we see again the landscape whose aspect has hardly changed, and whose
image is so intimately linked with our first impressions. There near
this fireside the grandfather danced us on his knee, and told us
blood-curdling stories; here the kind grandmother came to see if we were
comfortably tucked in, and not likely to fall out of the big bed; in
this little wood, along these alleys that seemed endless, we spread our
nets for birds; in this stream we fished for crayfish; there on the path
we played at soldiers with our elders, who were always captains; on
these slopes we found rare stones and fossils, and mysterious
petrifactions; on this hill we admired the fine sunsets, the appearance
of the stars, the form of the constellations. There we began to live, to
think, to love, to form attachments, to dream, to question every
problem, to breathe intellectually and physically. And now, where is
this beloved grandfather? the good grandmother? where are all whom we
knew in infancy? where are our dreams of childhood? Winged thoughts
still seem to flutter in the air, and that is all. People, caresses,
voices, all have gone and vanished. The cemetery has closed over them
all. There is a silent void. Were all those fine and sunny hours an
illusion? Was it only to weep one day over this negation that our
childish hearts were so tenderly attached to these fleeting shadows? Is
there nothing, down the long length of human history, but eternal
delusion?
It is here, above all, that we find ourselves in presence of the
greatest problems. Life is the goal, it is Life that produces the
conditions of Thought. Without Thought, where would be the Universe?
We feel that without life and thought, the Universe would be an empty
theater, and Astronomy itself, sublime science, a vain research. We feel
that this is the truth, veiled as yet to actual science, and that human
races kindred with our own exist there in the immensities of space. Yes,
we _feel_ that this is truth.
But we would fain go a little further in our knowledge of the universe,
and penetrate in some measure the secret of our destinies. We would know
if these distant and unknown Humanities are not attached to us by
mysterious cords, if our life, which will assuredly be extinguished at
some definite moment here below, will not be prolonged into the regions
of Eternity.
A moment ago we said that nothing is left of the body. Millions of
organisms have lived, there are no remains of them. Air, water, smoke,
dust. _Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem revertebis._
Remember oh man! that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,
says the priest to the faithful, when he scatters the ashes on the day
after the carnival.
The body disappears entirely. It goes where the corpse of Caesar went an
hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of
any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also
disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an
end! That would be too gross a decoy.
If the soul were also to disappear in smoke, what would be left of the
vital and intellectual organization of the world? Nothing.
On this hypothesis, _all_ would be reduced to _nothing_.
Our reason is not immense, our terrestrial faculties are sufficiently
limited, but this reason and these faculties suffice none the less to
make us feel the improbability, the absurdity, of this hypothesis, and
we reject it as incompatible with the sublime grandeur of the spectacle
of the universe.
Undoubtedly, Creation does not seem to concern itself with us. It
proceeds on its inexorable course without consulting our sensations.
With the poet we regret the implacable serenity of Nature, opposing the
irony of its smiling splendor to our mourning, our revolts, and our
despair.
Que peu de temps suffit pour changer toutes choses!
Nature au front serein, comme vous oubliez!
Et comme vous brisez dans vos metamorphoses
Les fils mysterieux ou nos coeurs sont lies.
D'autres vont maintenant passer ou nous passames;
Nous y sommes venus, d'autres vont y venir,
Et le songe qu'avaient ebauche nos deux ames,
Ils le continueront sans pouvoir le finir.
Car personne ici-bas ne termine et n'acheve;
Les pires des humains sont comme les meilleurs;
Nous nous eveillons tous au meme endroit du reve:
Tout commence en ce monde et tout finit ailleurs.
Repondez, vallon pur, repondez, solitude!
O Nature, abritee en ce desert si beau,
Quand nous serons couches tous deux, dans l'attitude
Que donne aux morts pensifs la forme du tombeau,
Est-ce que vous serez a ce point insensible,
De nous savoir perdus, morts avec nos amours,
Et de continuer votre fete paisible
Et de toujours sourire et de chanter toujours?[16]
_Note.--Free Translation._
How brief a time suffices for all things to change! Serene-fronted
Nature, too soon you will forget!... in your metamorphoses
ruthlessly snapping the cords that bind our hearts together!
Others will pass where we pass; we have arrived, and others will
arrive after us: the thought sketched out by our souls will be
pursued by theirs ... and they will not find the solution of it.
For no one here begins or finishes: the worst are as the best of
humans; we all awake at the same moment of the dream: we all begin
in this world, and end otherwhere.
Reply, sweet valley, reply, solitude; O Nature, sheltering in this
splendid desert, when we are both asleep, and cast by the tomb into
the attitude of pensive death.
Will you to the last verge be so insensible, that, knowing us lost,
and dead with our loves, you will pursue your cheerful feast, and
smile, and sing always?
Yes, mortals may say that when they are sleeping in the grave, spring
and summer will still smile and sing; husband and wife may ask
themselves if they will meet again some day, in another sphere; but do
we not _feel_ that our destinies can not be terminated here, and that
short of absolute and final nonentity for everything, they must be
renewed beyond, in that starry Heaven to which every dream has flown
instinctively since the first origins of Humanity?
As our planet is only a province of the Infinite Heavens, so our actual
existence is only a stage in Eternal Life. Astronomy, by giving us
wings, conducts us to the sanctuary of truth. The specter of death has
departed from our Heaven. The beams of every star shed a ray of hope
into our hearts. On each sphere Nature chants the paean of Life Eternal.
THE END
INDEX
A
Aberration, 300
Adams, 168
Agnesi, Marie, 5
Alcar, 34
Aldebaran, 44, 66
Alexandria, 3
Algol, 39
Ancients, views of, 30
Andrew Ellicot, 195
Andromeda, 37, 38
Angles, 289
Antares, 45, 66, 70
Antipodes, 208
Arago, 275
Arcturus, 39, 66
Asteroids, 146, 195
Astronomie des Dames, 9
Attraction, 208
Aureole, 279
Autumn Constellations, 54
Axis, 225
B
Babylonian Tables, 30
Bartholomew Diaz, 176
Bear, Little, 35
Great, 32, 34, 35
Betelgeuse, 49, 66
Biela's Comet, 189, 198
Bode's law, 167
Bolides, 201
C
Cancer, 72
Capella, 38, 66
Cassiopeia, 36
Castor, 44, 68
Catalogue of Lalande, 65
Catharine of Alexandria, 3
Centaur, 52, 64, 65, 80
Ceres, 147
Chaldean pastors, 30
Chaldeans, 271
Chariot of David, 32
Charioteer, 38
Chart of Mars, 140
Chatelet, Marquise du, 4
Chiron, The Centaur, 30, 51
Chromosphere, 102
Clairaut, 3
Clerke, Agnes, 7
Cnidus, 31
Coggia's Comet, 187
Comet of Biela, 197
of 1811, 186
of 1858, 174
Comets, 111, 185
Constellations, 28
figures of, 31
Autumn, 54
Constellations, Spring, 52
Summer, 53
Winter, 51
Copernicus, 125
Corona Borealis, 40
Corona of the Sun, 104
Cygnus, 40
D
de Blocqueville, Madame, 5
de Breteuil, Gabrielle-Emilie, 4
de Charriere, Madame, 5
Deneb, 41
des Brosses, 5
Diaz, Bartholomew, 176
Dipper, 32, 34
Donati, 187
Double star, stellar dial of, 86
Double stars, 68, 70
Dragon, 36
du Chatelet, Marquise, 4
E
Eagle, 41
Earth, 205
ancient notions of, 19
distance from the sun, 215
how sustained, 21
inclination, 224
in space, 20
motion of, round the Sun, 222
movement of, 217
rotundity of, 206
viewed from Mars, 144
viewed from Mercury, 119
viewed from Venus, 130
weight, 210
Eclipse of Sun, May, 1900, 273
Eclipses, 259
Ellicot, Andrew, 195
Entretiens sur la Pluralite des mondes, 9
Equator, 225
Eudoxus, 31
Evening Star, 123
F
Faculae, 98, 100
Fire-balls, 198
Flammarion's Lunar Ring, 253
Fleming, Mrs., 7
Fontenelle, 9
Foucault, 219
G
Galileo, 95, 98, 125, 244
Galle, 168
Globe, divisions of, 226
Great Bear, 32, 34, 35
Great Dog, 50
Grecian Calendar, 229
Greek alphabet, 33
H
Hall, Mr., 143
Halley, 181
Halley's Comet, 3, 175
Heavens, map of, 61
Hercules, 41, 66, 79
Herdsman, 39
Herschel, Caroline, 6
Hevelius, 246
Hipparchus, 31
Houses of the Sun, 43
Huggins, Lady, 8
Huyghens, 49
Hyades, 44
Hypatia, 3
J
Janssen, 102
Jupiter, 148
satellites, 155
telescopic aspect of, 150
K
Klumpke, Miss, 7
Kovalevsky, Sophie, 6
L
Lacaille, 292
Lalande, 3, 9, 65, 292
Latitudes, 226
Leonids, 195
Lepaute, Madame Hortense, 3, 4
Le Verrier, 167
Little Bear, 35
Little Dog, 50
Lockyer, 102
Longitudes, 226
Lucifer, 122
Lunar Apennines, 251
landscape, 254
topography, 252
Lyre, 40
M
Mars, 131
chart of, 140
Measurement, 289
Medes and Lydians, 266
Mercury, 114
Meteorites, 201
Meteors, 190, 191
Metonic Cycle, 271
Milky Way, 78, 87
Mira Ceti, 77
Mitchell, Maria, 7
Mizar, 34, 69
Moon, 232
diameter of, 242
distance of, 292
geological features of, 245
map of, 247
mountains of, 246
phases of, 241
photograph of, 240
revolution of, 234
rotation of, 242
size of, 242
temperature of, 250
total eclipse of, 263
N
Nebula, in Andromeda, 81
in Orion, 81
in the Greyhounds, 82
Neptune, 65, 166
revolution of, 169
Newton, 181
Nucleus, 95, 185
O
Orion, 48, 49, 81
P
Parallax, 292, 293
annual, 306
Pearl, 40
Pegasus, 38
Penumbra, 96
Periodic Comet, orbit of, 182
Perseids, 195
Perseus, 38, 70, 78
Phenician navigators, 30
Phoebus, 67
Photosphere, 101
Piazzi, 147
Planets, 109, 113, 146
distances, 110, 302
orbits of, 115
orbits of, 116
Pleiades, 38, 39, 44, 83
occultation of, 85
Pleione, 84
Polaris, 63
Pole-star, 34, 63
Poles, 225
Pollux, 44
Pope Calixtus, 176
Prodigies in the heavens, 178
Ptolemy, 31, 217
R
Radiant, 195
Riccioli, 246
Rigel, 49, 70
Roberts, Mrs. Isaac, 7
S
Saidak, 34
Saros, 271
Satellites, 110
Saturn, 156
revolution of, 157
satellites, 162, 165
volume, 158
Saturn's rings, 161
Scarpellini, Madame, 7
Scheiner, 95
Schiaparelli, 139
Secchi, Father, 7
Seven Oxen, 32
Sextuple star, 74
Shepherd's Star, 11
Shooting stars, 193, 194, 196
Sirius, 66, 309
_Solar storms_, 100
flames, 105
system, 65
Somerville, Mrs., 6
Spring constellations, 52
Stars, distances, 62
double, 68, 70
first magnitude, 57
number of, 60
quadruple, 73
second magnitude, 58
shooting, 193, 194
temporary, 77
Stars, triple, 72
variable, 75
weight of, 313
Star cluster in Hercules, 79
in the Centaur, 80
St. Catherine, 3
Summer constellations, 53
Sun, 88
houses of the, 43
measurement of distance, 297
photograph of, 96
rotation, 99
temperature of, 105
total eclipse of, 276
weight, 106
Sun and Earth, comparative sizes of, 93
Sun-spots, 95, 101
telescopic aspect of, 97
T
Temporary stars, 77, 78
Three Kings, 49
Total eclipse of the moon, 263
of sun, 276
Triangulation, 288
Triple Star, 72
U
Umbra, 95
Universe, 22, 23, 90
Urania, 8, 9
Uranoliths, 201, 204
Uranus, 162
V
Variable stars, 75
Vega, 40
Venus, 121, 296
phases of, 124
Vesper, 122
Victor Hugo, 24
W
Weighing worlds, 309
Winter constellations, 51
Z
Zodiac, constellations of, 46, 47
Zones, 225
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The French edition of this book is entitled Astronomy for
Women.--TRANSLATOR.
[2] 1 kilometer = 0.6214 mile; 100 kilometers may be taken as 62 miles.
1 kilogram is about 2.2 lb.; 5 kilograms = 11 lb.--TRANSLATOR.
[3] It is useful to know the letters of the Greek Alphabet. They are
easily learned, as follows:
[alpha] Alpha
[beta] Beta
[gamma] Gamma
[delta] Delta
[epsilon] Epsilon
[zeta] Zeta
[eta] Eta
[theta] Theta
[iota] Iota
[kappa] Kappa
[lambda] Lambda
[mu] Mu
[nu] Nu
[xi] Xi
[omicron] Omicron
[pi] Pi
[rho] Rho
[sigma] or [sigma] Sigma
[tau] Tau
[upsilon] Upsilon
[phi] Phi
[chi] Chi
[psi] Psi
[omega] Omega
[4] All the stars visible at any hour during the year can easily be
found with the help of the author's Planisphere mobile.
[5] Let it be remarked in passing that the stars might be much farther
off than they are, and invisible to our eyes; the Heavens would then
assume the aspect of an absolutely empty space, the moon and planets
alone remaining.
[6] 14" = 14 seconds of arc. One second of the circle is an exceedingly
minute quantity. It is 1 millimeter seen at a distance of 206 meters.
One millimeter seen at a distance of 20 m. 62 = 10 secs. These values
are invisible to the unaided eye.
[7] These fine double stars can be observed with the help of the
smallest telescope.
[8] For the explanation of the angular distances of degrees, minutes,
and seconds, see Chapter XI, on Methods of Measurement.
[9] The author has endeavored on the plates to represent the aspect of
the Earth in the starry sky of Mercury, Venus, and Mars; but in all
representations of this kind the stars are necessarily made too large.
By calculation the diameters of the Earth and Moon as seen from the
planets, and their distances, are as follows:
Diameter of Diameter of Distance
the Earth. the Moon. Earth-Moon.
Of Mercury (opposition) 20" 8" 871"
Of Venus (opposition) 64" 17" 1,928"
Of Mars (quadrature) 15" 4" 464"
Of Jupiter (quadrature) 3.5" 0.1" 105"
These aspects will be appreciated if we remember that the distance of
the components of [epsilon] Lyre = 207", that of Atlas in Pleione =
301", and that of the stars Mizar and Alcor = 708".
[10] A few evenings ago, after observing Venus in the calm and silent
Heavens at the close of day, my eyes fell upon a drawing sent me by my
friend Gustave Dore, which is included in the illustrations of his
wonderful edition of Dante's Divina Commedia. This drawing seems to be
in place here, and I offer my readers a poor reproduction of it, taken
from the fine engraving in the book. Dante and Virgil, in the peaceful
evening, are contemplating _lo bel pianeta ch'ad amar conforta_ (the
beautiful planet that incites to love).
[11] Strictly speaking, 1 kilometer = 0.6214 mile. Here, as throughout,
the equivalents are only given in round numbers.--TRANSLATOR.
[12] Translator: Compare the well-known English rhyme:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
While all the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
In which but twenty-eight appear
And twenty-nine when comes Leap Year.
[13] Fifty-eight different pictures of the aspect of the Moon to the
unaided eye will be found in the Monthly Bulletins of the Astronomical
Society of France, for the year 1900, in pursuance of an investigation
made by the author among the different members of the Society.
[14] My readers are charged not to speak of this property (which is
fairly extensive), lest the Budget Commission, at the end of its
resources, should be tempted to put on an unexpected tax. This ring,
which the astronomers presented to me in the year 1887, is almost in the
center of the lunar disk, to the north of Ptolemy and Herschel.
[15] "La fin du Monde." Flammarion, p. 186.
[16] Victor Hugo. _Tristesse d'Olympia._
End of Project Gutenberg's Astronomy for Amateurs, by Camille Flammarion