Lumen Read online

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  QUAERENS. Your revelations which were interrupted by the break of day,O Lumen, have left me hungering and thirsting to hear more of thiswonderful mystery. As a child to whom one shows a delicious fruitlongs to have a bite, and when he has tasted of it begs for more, somy curiosity is eager to have renewed enjoyment of these paradoxes ofnature. May I venture to submit to you a few questions in relation tothe subject, which have been suggested to me by the friends to whom Ihave communicated the substance of your revelations, and then may I askyou to continue the narrative of your impressions of the regions beyondthis Earth?

  [Sidenote: Scientific truth, not fancy or romance.]

  LUMEN. No, my friend, I cannot consent to such curiosity. Howeverperfectly disposed your mind may be to accept my communications, Iam convinced that all the details of my subject have not been equallyapprehended by you, and are not in your eyes equally self-evident. Myrecital has been called mystical by those who have not quite understoodthat it is neither a romance nor a phantasy, but a scientific truth,a physical fact demonstrable and demonstrated, indisputable and aspositive as the fall of an aerolite or the motion of a cannon-ball. Thereason which prevents you and your friends from fully comprehendingthese facts is, that they took place beyond this Earth, in regionsforeign to the sphere of your impressions, and inaccessible to yourterrestrial senses. Naturally you do not comprehend them. (Pardonmy frankness, but in the spiritual world one is frank; there, eventhoughts are visible.) You only comprehend those things which youperceive. And as you persist in regarding your ideas of time and spaceas _absolute_, although they are only _relative_, and thence form ajudgment on truths which are quite beyond your sphere, and which areimperceptible to your terrestrial organism and faculties, I should notdo you a true service, my friend, in giving you fuller details of myultra-terrestrial observations.

  [Sidenote: An inquiring mind.]

  QUAERENS. It is not, I assure you, in a spirit of simple curiosity,dear Lumen, that I ventured to draw you forth from the bosom of theinvisible world, where advanced souls partake of indescribable joys.But I have understood, perhaps better than you, the grandeur of theproblem, and it is under the inspiration of an earnest, studiousavidity that I seek for other aspects of it, still more novel thanthose you have given me, if I may say so, or rather more bold and moreincomprehensible. As the result of reflection, I have arrived at theconclusion that what we know is _nothing_, and that what we do not knowis _everything_; I am therefore disposed to welcome everything you tellme. I beg of you, if you will allow me, to share your revelations....

  LUMEN. The fact is, my friend, I assure you, either you are notsufficiently able to understand, or you are too willing to believe: inthe first case, you do not fully comprehend; in the second, you are toocredulous, and do not appreciate my communications at their full value.However, I shall continue.

  QUAERENS. Dear comrade of my earthly life!

  LUMEN. The remaining facts, which I shall now relate to you, are stillmore extraordinary than any that preceded them.

  QUAERENS. I feel like Tantalus in the midst of his lake, or like thespirits in the twenty-fourth canto of the Purgatorio. I am as eager asthe Hesperides holding out their hands for the fragrant fruit, or asEve in her desire for....

  [Sidenote: Travelling on a ray of light.]

  [Sidenote: Lumen sees the Revolution of 1848.]

  LUMEN. Some time after my departure from the Earth, the eyes of my soulbeing still mournfully directed toward my native world, I found that,on an attentive examination, I could perceive at the 45th degree ofnorth latitude and the 35th degree of longitude, a triangular pieceof land of a sombre colour, north of the Black Sea, on the shores ofwhich I saw, towards the west, a grievous number of my compatriotsmadly engaged in killing one another. I recalled to mind that relicof barbarism, war, formerly called glorious, with which you are stillbeset and burdened, and I remembered that in this corner of the Crimea800,000 men fell, in ignorance of the cause of their mutual massacre.Some clouds then passed over Europe. At that time I was not on Capella,but in mid space, between that star and the Earth, about half thedistance from Vega. Having left the Earth some time before, I turnedtoward a group of stars, that, seen from your planet, are to the leftof Capella. Meanwhile my thoughts recurred from time to time to theEarth, and soon after taking the observation to which I have referred,my eyes being fixed on Paris, I was surprised to see it a prey to aninsurrection of the people. Examining it more attentively, I discernedbarricades on the boulevards, near the Hotel de Ville, and along thestreets, and the citizens firing at one another. The first idea thatoccurred to me was that a new revolution was taking place before myeyes, and that Napoleon III. was dethroned. But, by the secret sympathyof souls, my sight was attracted to a barricade in the Faubourg St.Antoine, upon which I saw lying prostrate the Archbishop Denis AugusteAffre, with whom I had been slightly acquainted. His sightless eyeswere turned towards the heavens where I was, but he saw nothing; in hishand he held a green branch. I was thus witnessing the days of 1848,and in particular that of the 25th of June.

  [Sidenote: He sees the events of 1831.]

  A few minutes--a few hours, perhaps--passed, during which myimagination and my reason sought in turns for an explanation of thisspecial scene. To see 1848 _after_ 1854! When my sight was againattracted to the Earth, I remarked a distribution of tricoloured flagsin a grand square of the city of Lyons, Trying to distinguish theofficial person who was making this distribution, I recognised theuniforms, and I remembered that after the accession of Louis Philippe,the young Duke of Orleans had been sent to quell the disturbances inthe capital of French manufactures. It followed from thence that,_after_ 1854 and 1848, I had before my eyes an event of 1831. Presentlymy glance turned to Paris on the day of a public fete. The king, acoarse-looking man, with a rubicund face, was tearing along in amagnificent chariot, and was just crossing the Pont Neuf. The weatherwas splendid. Some fair ladies posed, like a basket of lilies, on thewhite parapet of the bridge. Floating over Paris some brightly-colouredcreatures could be seen. Evidently I beheld the en trance of theBourbons into France.

  [Sidenote: Supposed explanation of this strange slight.]

  I should not have understood this last strange sight if I had notrecollected that a number of balloons, in the form of animals, hadbeen sent up on that occasion. From my higher altitude they appearedto wriggle about the roofs of the houses. To see again past eventswas comprehensible enough, according to the law of light. But to seethings contrary to their real order in time, that was too fantastic,and puzzled me beyond expression. Nevertheless, as I had the thingsbefore my eyes, I could not deny the fact. I sought forthwith forsome hypothesis to account for this singular phenomenon. At first Isupposed it was really the Earth that I saw, and that by a fiat offate, the secret of which is known only to God, the history of Francerepeats itself, and passes through the same phases that it has alreadytraversed; that the course of events proceed up to a certain maximum,where they shine gloriously for a time, and then comes a reaction tothe original state of things, by an oscillation in human affairs likethe variations of the magnetic needle, or like the movements of thestars.

  The personages whom I took for the Duke of Orleans and Louis XVIII.were perhaps other princes, who were repeating exactly what theformer had done. This hypothesis, however, appeared to be so veryextraordinary, that I paused to consider a more rational theory.Admitting the fact of the number of stars, with planets moving roundthem, is it not probable that a world exactly like the Earth existssomewhere in the universe of space?

  [Sidenote: Calculation of probabilities.]

  The calculation of probabilities supplies an answer to this question.The greater the number of worlds, the greater will be the probabilitythat the forces of nature have given birth to an organisation likethat of the Earth. Now the real number of worlds surpasses all humancalculation, either written or possible to be written. If we couldunderstand what "infinite" means, we might venture to say that thisnumber is in
finite. I concluded, then, that there is a very highprobability in favour of the existence of many worlds exactly like theEarth, on the surface of which the same history is accomplished, andthe same succession of historical events takes place; worlds which areinhabited by identically the same species of vegetables and animals,and the same humanity, and where men and families like our own, I doubtnot, exist.

  In the second place, I asked myself if another world analogous tothe Earth might not also be symmetrical to it; and then I worked outthe geometry of the problem, and the metaphysical theory of images.I arrived at the conclusion that it was _possible_ for the world inquestion to be like the Earth, but in an inverse form. When you lookat yourself in a mirror, you notice that the ring on your right handappears to be on the ring-finger of your left hand. This explains thesymbol. If you wink your right eye, your reflection winks the lefteye; when you advance your right arm, your image advances the leftarm. It is not impossible that in the infinity of the stars a worldexists exactly the converse of the terrestrial world. Undoubtedly in an_infinity_ of worlds the non-existence of a similar world, perhaps ofmillions of them, would be the real impossibility. Nature of necessityrepeats herself, reproduces herself, but still under all forms playsthe game of creation. I thought therefore that the world on which I sawthose things was not the Earth, but a globe like the Earth, the historyof which was precisely the opposite of yours.

  QUAERENS. I myself have had the idea also that it might have been as yousay. But was it not easy for you to make sure of it by ascertainingwhether it was the Earth or another star that you had before your eyes,by examining its astronomical position?

  [Sidenote: The solution of the problem.]

  LUMEN. That is precisely what I did immediately, and this examinationconfirmed me in my opinion. The star where I had just witnessed fourfacts, analogous to four terrestrial facts, but inversely, did notappear to me to occupy its original position. The little constellationof the Altar no longer existed, and on that side of the heavens whereyou remember the Earth appeared to be in my first episode, there wasan irregular polygon of unknown stars. I was thus convinced that itwas not our Earth that I had before my eyes. I could no longer feelany doubt about it, and I was satisfied that I had now, for my fieldof exploration, a world so much the more curious that it was not theEarth, and that its history appeared to represent, in an inverse order,the scenes of the history of our world.

  [Sidenote: History retraced]

  [Sidenote: France of the past.]

  Some events, it is true, did not appear to have corresponding oneson the Earth, but in general the coincidence was very remarkable. Iwas the more struck with this because the contempt which I feel forthe instigators of war had led me to hope that a folly so absurdand so infamous might not have existed in other worlds. But, on thecontrary, the greater part of the events which I witnessed werecombats or preparations for war. After a battle, which appeared tome very much to resemble that of Waterloo, I saw the battle of thePyramids. An image of Napoleon as emperor had become first Consul,and I saw the Revolution succeed to the Consulate. Some time afterI observed the square in front of the Chateau of Versailles coveredwith mourning-coaches, and in an open pathway from Ville-d'Avray Irecognised the botanist Jean Jacques Rousseau slowly walking along,and, no doubt, at that moment philosophising on the death of Louis XV.I was particularly struck with the gala fetes at the beginning of thereign of Louis XV., worthy successors of those of the Regency, duringwhich the treasures of France glistened in precious stones on thefingers of the three or four adored courtesans. I saw Voltaire, withhis white cotton cap, in his park at Ferney; and later on, Bossuet,walking on the little terrace of his episcopal palace at Meaux, not farfrom the little hill through which the railway is now cut, but I couldnot see the least trace of the railway line. In this same succession ofevents, I saw the highroads covered with diligences, and large sailingships on the seas. Steam and all the factories that are moved by itnow, had disappeared. Neither telegraphs nor any other applicationof electricity existed. Balloons, which more than once I had seen inthe field of observation, were lost to sight. The last that I saw wasthe shapeless globe sent up by the brothers Montgolfier at Annonayin the presence of the States-General. The face of the Earth wasquite changed--Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Havre, and more especiallyVersailles, were not recognisable; the first four had lost theirimmense activity, the last had gained incomparably in magnificence.

  [Sidenote: The monarchy.]

  I had formed a very imperfect idea of the splendour of the royal fetesat Versailles. It was a satisfaction to me to be present at them; andit was not without interest that I recognised Louis XIV. himself, onthe splendid terrace at the west, surrounded by a thousand nobles whosebreasts were covered with decorations. It was in the evening; the lastrays of glowing sunshine were reflected on the royal facade, whilstgallant couples gravely descended the steps of the marble stairs, andpresently disappeared along the silent and shady avenues. My sight wasfixed in preference on France, or at least toward that region of thisunknown world which represented France to me; for absence makes theheart grow fonder, and when far from one's country one thinks of itall the more, and recurs with ever new interest to the thought of it.Do not believe that souls liberated from their bodies are scornful,and indifferent, and devoid of memory. Our existence would then be asad one. No; we preserve the faculty of remembrance. Our hearts arenot wholly absorbed in the life of the spirit; and so it was with aninstinctive feeling of delight, which you can imagine, that thus I sawagain the history of France unfolded before me as though its phaseswere being accomplished in an inverse order.

  [Sidenote: Feudalism]

  [Sidenote: Joan of Arc.]

  [Sidenote: The Crusades.]

  [Sidenote: The history of France unrolled.]

  After the people had amalgamated into one nationality, I saw the ruleof a single sovereign established. After that came princely feudalism.Mazarin, Richelieu, Louis XIII., and Henry IV. appeared to me at SaintGermain. The Bourbons and the Guises resumed their skirmishes for me.I thought I could distinguish the night of St. Bartholomew, I saw somespecial events in the history of our provinces--for instance, one ofthe scenes in the sorcery of Chaumont, which I had time to observe,before the Church of Saint Jean, and the massacre of the Protestantsat Vassy. What a comedy is human life! Alas! too often a tragedy!Suddenly I beheld in space the magnificent comet of 1577, in theform of a sabre. In grand array in the midst of a plain, brilliantlydecorated, I recognised Francis I. and Charles V. saluting one another.Louis XI. I perceived on a terrace of the Bastile, attended by his twogloomy companions. Later on, my sight was turned to a square in Rouen,where I observed flames and smoke, and in their midst I discerned theform of the Maid of Orleans. Convinced as I was that the world I waslooking at was the exact counterpart of the Earth, I divined beforehandthe events that I was about to see. Thus, after having seen SaintLouis dying before Tunis, I was present at the eighth Crusade, andsubsequently at the third, where I recognised Frederick Barbarossa byhis beard. Then at the first Crusade, when Peter the Hermit and Godfreyreminded me of Tasso. I was not a little surprised. I then expected tosee, in succession, Hugh Capet, leading a procession, arrayed in hisofficial robes; the Council of Tauriacum deciding that the judgment ofGod would be pronounced in the battle of Fontanet; Charles the Baldordering the massacre of a hundred thousand men and all the Merovingiannobility; Charlemagne crowned in Rome: his war against the Saxons andthe Lombards; Charles Martel hammering away at the Saracens; KingDagobert founding the Abbey of St. Denis, just as I had seen AlexanderIII. laying the first stone of Notre Dame; Brunehaut dragged alongthe pavement by a horse; the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths,Clovis Meroveus appearing in the country of the Saliens: in a word,the history of France, from its very beginning, unrolled itself beforeme in an order inverse to the succession of events--this was whatactually happened. Many historical questions which were very important,and which had hitherto been obscure to me, were rendered clear. Iascertained, am
ong other things, that the French were the originalpossessors of the right bank of the Rhine, and that the Germans have noright to claim that river, and still less to dispute the possession ofthe left bank.

  [Sidenote: Old Paris]

  [Sidenote: Rome of the Caesars.]

  [Sidenote: Judea.]

  [Sidenote: Calvary.]

  [Sidenote: Death of Julius Caesar.]

  There was, I assure you, an immense interest in taking part, if I mayso express myself, in the events of which I had but the vague ideasderived from the echoes of history, often deceptive, and in visitingcountries that are now totally transformed. The vast and brilliantcapital of modern civilisation became old to me, and had shrunk tothe size of an ordinary town, but was at the same time fortified withcrenellated towers. I admired in turns the beautiful city of thefifteenth century, its curious types of architecture, the celebratedtower of Nesle, and the extensive convents of Saint Germain-des-Pres.Where the tower of St. Jacques now stands, I recognised the gloomycourt of the alchemist Nicolas Flamel. The round and pointed roofs hadthe singular effect of looking like mushrooms on the banks of a river.Then this feudal aspect disappeared, and gave place to a solitarycastle in the Seine valley surrounded by cottages; and finally therewas nothing but a fertile plain, where one could only distinguish afew huts of savages. At the same time I remarked that the seat ofcivilisation was changed, and was now in the south. I will confess toyou, my friend, that I never felt greater delight than at the momentwhen I was permitted to see Rome of the Caesars in all its splendour.It was the day of a triumph, and no doubt under the rule of the Syrianprinces; for in the midst of magnificent surroundings, gorgeouschariots, the purple oriflammes of the Senate, and of elegant womenand of performers of theatres, I distinguished the Emperor luxuriouslyreclining in a golden car, clothed in delicately-coloured silk,covered with precious stones and ornaments in gold and silver, whichglittered in the golden sunshine. This must have been Heliogabalus,the priest of the sun. The Coliseum, the temple of Antoninus, thetriumphal arches, and Trajan's column were standing. Rome was in allits ancient beauty and grandeur, that last beautiful phase which wasno more than a scene in a theatre to those crowned buffoons. A littlelater I was present at the eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmedHerculaneum and Pompeii. I saw Rome in flames, just for a moment; andalthough I was not able to distinguish Nero on his terrace, I have nodoubt I beheld the conflagration in the year 64, and the signal for thepersecution of the Christians. A few hours after, my attention beingstill occupied in examining the extensive gardens by the Tiber, I hadjust seen the Emperor near a parterre of roses, when, in consequence ofthe revolution of the Earth on its axis, Judea was presented to me. Howanxiously I regarded it when I distinguished Jerusalem and the mountainof Golgotha. Jesus was climbing this mountain, accompanied by a fewwomen, escorted by a troop of soldiers, and followed by the Jewishpopulace. I shall never forget this spectacle. It assumed a totallydifferent aspect to me from what it did to those who were living atthe time and who took part in it, for the glorious future (and thepast also) of the Christian Church was unfolded for me as the crown ofthe Divine sacrifice.... I cannot dwell on it; you can understand whatvarious feelings agitated my soul on this supreme occasion.... A littlelater, returning to Rome, I recognised Julius Caesar prostrate in death,with Antony beside him holding what I think was a roll of papyrus inhis left hand. The conspirators were hastening down to the banks ofthe Tiber. With a very natural curiosity I traced back the life ofJulius Caesar, and found him with Vercingetorix in the centre of Gaul,and I may state that none of the suppositions of our modern historiansrespecting the situation of Alesia are correct. In fact, this fortresswas situated on . . .

  QUAERENS.. Master, pardon me for interrupting you, but I am anxious toseize this opportunity to question you on a particular point respectingthe Dictator. Since you have seen Julius Caesar, tell me, I pray you, ifhis face resembles that given by the Emperor Napoleon III. in his greatwork on the life of that famous captain?

  LUMEN. I should be delighted, my old friend, to enlighten you on thispoint if it were possible for me to do so. But reflect for a moment,and you will see that the laws of perspective forbid me.

  QUAERENS. Of perspective? You mean to say of politics.

  LUMEN. No, of perspective (although these two things strongly resembleone another); for in seeing great men from the height of heaven, I donot see them as they appear to the vulgar. From the heavens we seemen geometrically from above, not face to face; that is to say, whenthey are standing we have only a horizontal projection of them. You mayremember that once in a balloon, as we passed over the Vendome Columnat Paris, you remarked to me that Napoleon seen from that height wasnot above the level of other men. It was just the same with Caesar. Inthe other world material measures disappear, only intellectual measuresexist.

  [Sidenote: Roman history.]

  [Sidenote: Building of the Pyramids.]

  [Sidenote: The Stone Age.]

  To continue, however, I retraced history, from Julius Caesar to theConsuls, and then to the kings of Latium, in order to witness the rapeof the Sabines, which I was pleased to observe actually, as a type ofancient manners. History has embellished many things, and I discoveredthat most events as represented to us are totally different from theactual facts. Then I saw King Candaules in Lydia, in the scene in thebath that you remember, then the invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians,the oligarchical republic of Corinth, the eighth Olympiad in Greece,and Isaiah the prophet in Judea. I saw the building of the Pyramidsby troops of obedient slaves under chiefs mounted on dromedaries.The great dynasties of Bactria and of India appeared before me, andChina showed the marvellous skill in the arts that she possessed evenbefore the birth of the western world. I had an opportunity to searchfor the Atlantis of Plato, and I saw that the opinions of Bailly onthat continent, now submerged, are not devoid of foundation. In Gaul Icould distinguish nothing but vast forests and swamps; even the Druidshad disappeared, and the savage inhabitants strongly resembled thosethat we find now in Oceania. It was truly the _stone age_ as it isunearthed for us by modern archaeologists. Further back still, I sawthat the number of men diminished by degrees, and the domination ofnature seemed to belong to a race of the great apes, to the cave bears,to lions, hyenas, and the rhinoceros. A moment arrived when it wasnot only impossible to distinguish a single man on the surface of theearth, but when not the least vestige of the human race was visible.All had disappeared; earthquakes, volcanoes, deluges prevailed over thesurface of the planet, and the presence of man in the midst of such achaotic state of things was no longer possible.

  QUAERENS. I shall confess to you, dear Lumen, that I have waited withimpatience for the moment when you should arrive at the garden of Eden,in order to learn in what form the creation of the human race on theearth was presented to you. I am surprised that you do not seem to havethought of making this important observation.

  LUMEN. I relate to you only the things which I saw, my curious friend,and I refrain from substituting the dreams of my imagination for theevidences of my sight. I did not perceive the least trace of thatEden so poetically depicted in the primitive theogonies. Now, thiswas very extraordinary, since the resemblance between the world thatI had before my eyes and the Earth was so complete. It was more thansurprising, if the terrestrial paradise was really the cradle ofhumanity. But I do not see why paradise might not have been, with asgood reason, at the end of human society.

  QUAERENS. Indeed I think it would be more just to suppose it to be atthe end rather than the beginning, as the result and the recompense,instead of the misunderstood prelude, to a life of suffering. But sinceyou have not seen it I shall not urge my question.

  [Sidenote: Prehistoric ages.]

  [Sidenote: A dying world.]

  [Sidenote: The beginning, not the end of the Earth.]

  LUMEN. Finally, in concluding my observations of this singular world,whose history was exactly the inverse of yours, I saw marvellousanimals, of monstrous forms, in combat on
the shores of vast oceans.There were enormous serpents armed with formidable paws; crocodilesthat flew in the air, sustained by wings organically longer than theirbodies; misshapen fishes with jaws wide enough to swallow an ox; birdsof prey struggling in terrible battles in the desert islands. Therewere whole continents covered with forests, trees with enormous leavesentangled in one another; a vegetation at once sombre and severe,for the vegetable kingdom was devoid of both flowers and fruit. Themountains vomited forth clouds of flame and vapour, the rivers fellin cataracts, the ground opened in immense chasms in which wereengulfed hills, woods, streams, trees, and animals. But before long itbecame impossible for me to perceive even the surface of the globe; auniversal sea appeared to cover it, and the vegetable kingdom, likethe animal kingdom, was slowly effaced, and gave place to a monotonousverdure interspersed with lightning and whitish smoke. Henceforthit was a dying world. I was present at the last palpitations of itsheart, intermittently revealed in the gloom by flashes of flame. Thenit seemed to me that it rained everywhere over its whole surface,for the Sun threw light on nothing but clouds and torrents of rain.The hemisphere opposite to the Sun appeared less sombre than before,and one could perceive a dull light gleaming through the tempests.This light increased in intensity, and spread over the entire sphere.Great crevasses became red like iron in the furnace; and as iron ina hot furnace becomes bright red, then orange, then yellow, then insuccession white and incandescent, so the world passed through allthe progressive phases of heat. Its volume increased, its movement ofrotation became slower. The mysterious globe seemed like an immensesphere of molten metal enveloped in metallic vapours. Under theincessant action of this interior furnace and the elemental combats(or combinations) of this strange chemistry, it acquired enormousproportions, and the sphere of fire became a sphere of smoke. Thenceit went on developing without cessation, and lost its personality. TheSun, which at first had shed light on it, no longer surpassed it inbrightness, and it itself increased so much in circumference that itbecame evident to me that the vaporous planet would soon lose its ownexistence and be absorbed in the enlarged atmosphere of the Sun. It isa rare experience to be present at the end of a world. And so in myenthusiasm I could not prevent myself from crying out with a kind ofvanity, "Behold the end of the world, O God! and this, then, is thefate in store for all the inhabited worlds!" "This is not _the end_,"replied a voice in the hearing of my soul; "_this is the beginning_.""How can this be the beginning?" thought I immediately. "The beginningof the Earth itself," replied the same voice. "Thou hast seen overagain the whole history of the Earth _in thus withdrawing from her witha velocity greater than that of light_."

  This declaration did not surprise me so much as the first episodeof my ultra-terrestrial life, for I was now familiarised with theastonishing effects of the laws of light; I was henceforth preparedfor every new surprise. I had some doubts of the fact, in consequenceof certain details that I have not given you to avoid disturbing theunity of my recital or breaking the thread of my narrative, but whichwere nevertheless incomparably more extraordinary than the generalsuccession of events.

  QUAERENS. But if it was really the Earth, how comes it that theastronomical calculations you made in order to recognise her in theconstellation of the Altar, indicated, as you have pointed out, thatthe world you were examining was neither the Earth nor a star of theAltar?

  [Sidenote: Events retraced.]

  [Sidenote: Sidereal perspective.]

  LUMEN. The fact is, that even that constellation had itself changed inconsequence of my voyage in space. In place of the stars of the thirdmagnitude, [Greek: a], [Greek: g], and [Greek: z] (alpha, gamma, zeta),and stars of the fourth magnitude, [Greek: b], [Greek: d], and [Greek:th] (beta, delta, theta), which constitute that figure as seen fromthe Earth, my distance towards the nebulae had reduced those starsato little imperceptible points. It had placed other brilliant starsthere, which were no doubt [Greek: a] (alpha) and [Greek: b] (beta) ofAuriga, [Greek: th], [Greek: i], [Greek: e] (theta, iota, eta), andperhaps even [Greek: e] (epsilon) of the same constellation--starsdiametrically opposite to the preceding when seen from the Earth, butwhich were necessarily interposed there when I had passed them by. Thecelestial perspective had already changed, and it had become, in truth,almost impossible to determine the position of our Sun.

  [Sidenote: It was really the Earth that Lumen saw.]

  QUAERENS. I had not thought of this inevitable change of perspectiveon the other side of Capella; and so it was really the Earth that yousaw, and therefore its history was unrolled before you in an inverseorder--you saw ancient events taking place _after_ modern events. Bywhat new process has light thus enabled you to ascend the stream oftime? Furthermore, dear Lumen, you have informed me that you haveobserved some curious particulars relative to the Earth itself. I amwishful to ask you some special questions on these details. I shalllisten, then, with interest to the extraordinary history which ought tocomplete this recital, persuaded, as before, that it will fully rewardmy curiosity.

  II

  [Sidenote: History read backwards.]

  LUMEN. The first circumstance is connected with the battle of Waterloo.

  QUAERENS. No one remembers that catastrophe better than I do. I receiveda ball in my shoulder there, in the neighbourhood of Mont Saint-Jean,and a sabre-cut on my right hand from one of Blucher's blackguards.

  [Sidenote: Waterloo beyond the tomb.]

  LUMEN. Well, my old comrade, in taking part in this battle again,I found it quite different from what it was in the past, as youmay judge from what I will relate to you. When I had recognisedthe field of Waterloo, to the south of Brussels, I distinguishedfirst a considerable number of dead bodies lying on the groundindiscriminately. Far off, through the mist, I perceived Napoleonwalking backwards, holding his horse by the bridle. The officers whoaccompanied him were marching backwards also. The cannon began toboom, and from time to time I saw the lurid gleam of their flashes.When my sight was sufficiently habituated to the scene, I perceivedsome soldiers coming to life out of the eternal night, and by a singleeffort standing up. Group after group, a considerable number, were thusresuscitated. The dead horses revived like the dead cavaliers, andthe latter remounted them. As soon as two or three thousand men hadreturned to life, I saw them form unconsciously in line of battle. Thetwo armies took their places fronting one another, and began to fightdesperately with a fury that one might have taken for despair. As thecombat deepened on both sides, the soldiers came to life more rapidly.French, English, Prussians, Germans, Hanoverians, Belgians--greycoats, blue uniforms, red tunics, green, white--arose from the fieldof the dead and fought. In the centre of the French army I espied theEmperor, a battalion in square surrounded him; the Imperial Guard wasresuscitated. Their immense battalions advanced from the two campsand engaged in a fierce onslaught; from the left and from the right,squadrons advanced. The white manes of the white horses floated in thewind. I remembered the strange picture by Raffet, and the spectralepigram of the German poet Sedlitz:--

  "La caisse sonne, etrange, Fortement elle retentit. Dans leur fosse ressuscitent Les vieux soldats peris."

  And this other:--

  "C'est la grande revue, Qu'a l'heure de minuit Aux Champs-Elysees Tient Cesar decede."

  It was really Waterloo, but a _Waterloo beyond the tomb_, for thecombatants were raised from the dead. Besides, in this singularapparition they marched backwards one against the other. Such a battlehad a magical effect, and impressed me more forcibly, because I foresawthe event itself, and this event was strangely transformed in itscounterpart image. Not less singular was the fact, that the longer theyfought, the more the number of combatants increased; at each gap madeby the cannon in the serried ranks a group of resuscitated dead filledup the gaps immediately. When the belligerents had spent the whole dayin tearing one another to pieces with grape-shot, with cannons andbullets, with bayonets, sabres, and swords--when the great battle wasover, there was not a single person killed, no o
ne was even wounded;even uniforms that before it were torn and in disorder were in goodcondition, the men were safe and sound, and the ranks in correct form.The two armies slowly withdrew from one another, as if the heat of thebattle and all its fury had no other object than the restoration tolife, amid the smoke of the combat, of the two hundred thousand corpseswhich had lain on the field a few hours before. What an exemplary anddesirable battle it was!

  [Sidenote: Reascending the ages.]

  Assuredly it was the most singular of military episodes, and the moralaspect of it far surpassed the physical, when I found that this battleresulted not in the defeat of Napoleon, but in placing him upon thethrone. Instead of losing the battle, it was the Emperor who gainedit; instead of a prisoner, he became a sovereign. Waterloo was an 18thBrumaire!...

  QUAERENS. Dear Lumen, I do not half understand this new effect of thelaws of light. If you have discovered it, I shall be grateful to you ifyou will give me an explanation of it.

  LUMEN. I have helped you to divine it by telling you that I removedfrom the Earth with a _greater_ velocity than that of light.

  QUAERENS. But tell me, I pray you, how does this retrogression in spaceenable you to see events in an order inverse to that in which they tookplace?

  LUMEN. The theory is very simple. Suppose you set out from the Earthwith the velocity exactly _equal_ to that of light, you would alwayshave with you the aspect that the Earth assumed at the moment youset out, since you would be receding from the globe with a swiftnessprecisely equal to that which bore this very aspect into space. Thus,even if you voyaged for a thousand years or a hundred thousand years,this aspect would accompany you always like a photograph which did notgrow old; whilst the original is made old by the years that elapse.

  QUAERENS. I understood this fact already in our first conversation.

  [Sidenote: Retrogressive light pictures.]

  LUMEN. Well, suppose now that you remove from the Earth with a velocity_superior_ to that of light, what will happen? You will find again, asfast as you advance into space, the rays that set out _before_ you,that is to say the successive photographs which, from second to second,from instant to instant, project their rays into space. If, forexample, you set out in 1867 with the velocity equal to that of light,you would retain for ever the year 1867 in sight. If you went morequickly, you would find before you the rays that had set out in formeryears, and which bore upon them the photographs of those years. Inorder further to illustrate this fact, reflect, I pray you, on the manyluminous rays that have set out from the Earth in different epochs. Letus suppose the first to be at some instant of the 1st January 1867.At the rate of 300,000 kilometres a second, it has, at the moment inwhich I am speaking to you, already passed a portion of space from theinstant of its departure till it reached a certain distance which Ishall express by the letter A. Let us now suppose that a second raysets out from the Earth a hundred years before, on the 1st January1767; it is a hundred years _in advance_ of the first, and is found ata still greater distance--a distance that I shall express by the letterB. A third ray which I shall in like manner suppose on the 1st January1667, is still _further off_ by a length equal to the distance thatthe light would travel in a hundred years. I call the place where thisthird ray reaches, C. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, on respectivelythe 1st January 1567, 1467, 1367, &c., are posted at equal distances D,E, F, penetrating more and more into the infinite.

  Here, then, we have a series of photographs, taken on the same line,from post to post in space. Now, the mind which travels on in passingsuccessively by the points A, B, C, D, E, F, can retrace successivelythe secular history of the Earth in those epochs.

  QUAERENS. Master, at what distance are these photographs from oneanother?

  [Sidenote: Photographs of the life on Earth imprinted in space.]

  LUMEN. The calculation is very easy. The interval which separatesthem is of necessity that which light travels in a hundred years.Now, at the rate of 75,000 leagues per second, you see at once thatit travels 4,500,000 leagues in a _minute_, 270,000,000 leagues inan _hour_, 6,480,800,000 leagues in a _day_, 2,366,820,000,000 in a_year_, allowing for leap-years; consequently, the result would bethat the interval between two points of departure at the distance ofa _century_ from one another, is nearly 236 _billions_ 682 thousandmillions of leagues. Here, then, I say we have a series of terrestrialphotographs, imprinted in space, at corresponding distances, one afteranother. Let us now suppose that between each of these centennialpictures we should find annual pictures, between each of which thedistance is preserved in accordance with the time that light travels ina year, which I have just given you; then between each of the annualpictures we have those of every day, and as each day contains thephotographs of each hour, every hour the photographs of its minutes,and every minute of its seconds, all succeeding one another, accordingto their respective distances apart--we shall have in a ray of light,or rather in a jet of light, composed of a series of distinct picturesin juxtaposition, the aerial register of the history of the Earth.

  [Sidenote: Psychical optics.]

  When the spirit travels in this ethereal ray of pictures with aswiftness greater than that of light, it sees in succession, backwards,the ancient pictures. When it arrives at the distance at which theaspect of events that set out in 1767 is to be seen, it has alreadyretraced a hundred years of terrestrial history. When it reaches thepoint where the aspect of 1667 has arrived, it retraces two centuries.When it attains to the photograph of 1567, it has seen, again, threecenturies, and so on successively. I told you in the beginning that Idirected my course toward a group of stars situated at the left ofCapella. This group proved to be at an incomparably greater distancethan that star, although from the Earth it appeared to be close besideit, because the two visual rays are near one another. This apparentproximity is solely due to the perspective. In order to give you anidea of the remoteness of this far-off universe, I may tell you thatit is not less vast in size than the Milky Way. One may then ask towhat distance should the Milky Way be transported to reduce it tothe apparent size of this nebula. My learned friend Arago made thiscalculation, of which you must be aware, as he repeated it every yearin his course of lectures at the Observatory, that have been publishedsince his death. It would be necessary to suppose the Milky Way to betransported to a distance equal to 334 times its own length. Now, aslight takes 15,000 years to traverse the Milky Way from one end toanother, it follows that it cannot take less than 334 times 15,000years, that is to say, less than 5,000,000 years, in coming fromthence. I have ascended a ray of light from the Earth to these remoteregions, and if my spiritual sight had been more perfect, I should havebeen able to distinguish not only the retrogression of history for10,000 years or 100,000 years, but even for 5,000,000 years.

  QUAERENS. Can the mind, then, by its powers alone, cross in this way theimmeasurable spaces of the heavens?

  LUMEN. Not by its own power alone, but by making use of the forcesof nature. Attraction is one of these forces. It is transmitted witha velocity incomparably superior to that of light, and the mostrigorously exact astronomical calculations are obliged to considerthis transmission as almost instantaneous. I will add that if I havebeen able to perceive events at such distances, it is not by theapprehension of a physical sense that I know them, but by a processincomparably more subtle, which belongs to the psychic order. Themovements of the ether, which constitute light, are not luminous bythemselves, as you know. The eye is not necessary in order to perceivethem. A soul vibrating under their influence perceives them as well,and often incomparably better than an organic optical apparatus. Thisbeing psychical optics. For example, attraction crosses instantaneouslythe 148,000,000 of kilometres that separate the Earth from the Sun,whilst light occupies 493 seconds in this passage.

  QUAERENS. What length of time did your voyage to that remote universeoccupy?

  LUMEN. Have I not told you that time does not exist outside themovements of the Earth? Whether I employed a year or an hour, it wouldhave bee
n exactly the same period in infinity.

  QUAERENS. I have thought it over, and the physical difficulties seem tome enormous. Permit me now to submit to you a strange thought that hasjust come into my head.

  LUMEN. It is to hear your reflections that I give you this narrative.

  QUAERENS. I want to ask you if the same inversion would take place withthe hearing as well as the sight? If you can see an event backwardsfrom its real occurrence, can you also hear a discourse backwards,beginning at the end? This is perhaps a daring question, and apparentlyridiculous, but in paradoxes where can one stop?

  [Sidenote: Light and sound.]

  LUMEN. The paradox is only apparent. The laws of sound are essentiallydifferent from the laws of light. Sound travels only at the rate of 340metres a second, and its effects have absolutely nothing in common withthose of light. Nevertheless it is evident that if we were to advanceinto the air with a velocity _superior_ to that of sound, we shouldhear inversely the sounds that left the lips of a speaker. If, forinstance, some one were to recite an alexandrine, an auditor in movingwith the aforesaid velocity, starting at the moment when he heard thelast foot of the line, would find successively the eleven other feetwhich had been uttered before, and would thus hear the alexandrinebackwards.

  As to the theory itself, it suggests a curious reflection, that naturemight have caused sound to travel, not at the rate of 340 metresa second, and that its velocity, which depends on the density andthe elasticity of the air, might have been very much less. Why, forinstance, might it not have been transmitted at the rate of only a fewcentimetres a second? Now see what would be the result if this werethe case. Men would not be able to speak to one another when walkingtogether. Let two friends be conversing, and suppose one takes a stepor two in advance, or goes on, say the distance of a metre; now, ifsound were to take many seconds to cross this metre, the consequencewould be that, instead of hearing the phrases spoken in their rightorder by his friend, the foremost walker would hear in an inverseorder the sounds conveying the anterior phrases. In that case we couldnot speak whilst walking, and three-fourths of mankind would not beable to hear one another.

  These remarks, my friend, induce me to suggest to you, in thisconnection, for your consideration, a subject well worthy of attention,and which has hitherto received little notice--that of the adaptationof the human organism to its terrestrial environment. The manner inwhich man sees, in which he hears; his sensations, his nervous system,his build, his weight, his density, his walk, his functions--in a word,all his actions are regulated and constituted by the condition of yourplanet. None of your acts are absolutely free and independent. Man isthe obedient, though unconscious, creature of the organic forces of theEarth.

  [Sidenote: The human organism derived from the Earth.]

  [Sidenote: Organic life accords with its habitat on each planet.]

  Undoubtedly the human soul, not being a function of the brain,and existing by itself, enjoys relative liberty; but this libertyis limited by its faculties, its powers, and its energies; it isdetermined, according to the causes which decide it, at the moment ofthe birth of every man. Could one know exactly the faculties of hissoul and the circumstances which were to surround his life, one couldwrite beforehand that man's life in all its details. The human organismis the product of the planet. It is not by a Divine fantasy, by amiracle, or by a direct creation that terrestrial man is constitutedsuch as he is. His form, his figure, his weight, his sense, his wholeorganisation, are derived from the state or condition of your planet,the atmosphere that you breathe, the food that nourishes you, thegravity of the surface of the Earth, the density of terrestrial matter,&c. The human body does not differ anatomically from that of one of thehigher mammalia, and if you go back to the origin of species, you willfind gradual transformations established by unimpeachable evidence. Thewhole of terrestrial life, from the mollusc to man, is the developmentof one single and sole genealogical tree. The human form has itsorigin in the animal form. Man is the butterfly developed from thechrysalis of the palaeontological ages. From this fact the consequenceresults that on other worlds organic life is different from what it ishere, and that their humanities, which, like our own, are the resultof forces in activity on each planet, differ absolutely in theirforms from that of terrestrial humanity. For example, on the worldswhere they do not eat, the digestive apparatus and the intestines donot exist. On the worlds which are very highly electric, the beingsinhabiting them are gifted with an electric sense. On others, sight isadapted for the ultra-violet rays, and the eyes have nothing in commonwith your eyes; they do not see what you see, and they see what youcannot see. The organs are adapted to the functions they have to fulfil.

  QUAERENS. We are not, then, the absolute type of creation? Creationitself is, it appears, a perpetual development of forces in activity.

  [Sidenote: The soul and destiny]

  LUMEN. The soul itself is subject to a similar law. There are as manydiversities of souls as of bodies. In order that the soul should existas an independent being having a consciousness of itself, in order thatit should preserve the recollection of its identity and be qualifiedfor immortality, it is necessary that even in this life it should knowthat it really exists. Otherwise it is no more advanced the day afterdeath than the day before death, and falls as an insensible breathinto the blind cosmos, neither more nor less than any other centreof unconscious force. Many men on the Earth boast that they do notbelieve in anything but matter, without knowing what they say, sincethey do not know what matter is. These last, and those, still morenumerous, who _do not think at all_, are not immortal, since they haveno consciousness of their existence. The spirits who live really thespiritual life are the only ones who are fitted for immortality.

  QUAERENS. Are there many of them?

  LUMEN. My friend, behold the dawn of morning which invites me anew toreturn into the depths of space, peopled with things unknown on Earth,that fruitful mine in which spirits find again the wrecks of pastexistences, the secrets of many mysteries, the ruins of disintegratedworlds, and the genesis of future worlds. And for the rest, it wouldbe superfluous to lengthen out this recital with useless details. Myobject has been to show you that, in order to have the spectacle of aworld and of a system exactly opposite to yours, all that is needed isto recede from the Earth with a velocity greater than that of light.In this flight of the soul towards the inaccessible horizons of theinfinite, one retraces the luminous rays reflected by the Earth andby the other planets for millions and myriads of years, and _whileobserving the planets at this vast distance one can be present_ invision _at the events of their past history_. Thus one ascends thestream of time to its source. Such a faculty ought to illuminate foryou the regions of eternity with a new light. If, as I hope, you admitthe scientific value of my expositions of these ultra-terrestrialstudies, I look forward to unfolding to you before long theirmetaphysical consequences.