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CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
SEQUEL TO OBJECTIONS.—IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE HOW THE RAYS OF THE SUN, BEING MATERIAL SUBSTANCES, CAN BE THE GERMS OF SOULS, WHICH ARE IMMATERIAL SUBSTANCES
OUR system of nature may be met with the following final objection. It will be said, how can the rays of the sun, being material bodies, convey animated germs which are immaterial substances? These terms exclude each other.
We find, in the Scriptures, a magnificent comparison, of which we shall avail ourselves in order to answer this objection, or rather, this question.
Saint Matthew speaks of a grain of mustard seed, that is to say, of a tree germ, which, cast into the earth, produces a herbaceous plant, then a tree with majestic branches, and he is astonished to behold the imposing lord of the forests, which, laden with flowers and fruit, towers aloft in majestic beauty, and gives shelter under its shadow to the weary birds, springing from a humble little seed. Not only, says the evangelist, is there no resemblance between the tree and its original seed, but there does not exist in the tree a single atom of the matter of which the seed was primarily composed.
To our mind, this grain of mustard-seed is an image of the sun, which, falling upon the earth, sows animated germs in its bosom, which produce plants that afterwards give birth to animals, and later still to man, and thus to the entire series of creatures, invisible to us, which succeed him in the domain of the heavens.
The little cold, colourless, scentless seed is nothing to look at, nothing distinguishes it apparently from the neighbouring dust. Nevertheless, it contains that mysterious leaven, that sacred being, so to speak, which we call a germ. And what wonderful things are to be born from that sacred being! In the obscurity of the cold, damp earth the germ transforms itself, it becomes a new body without any resemblance to the seed which contained it. It produces a plantlet, a subterranean, but perfectly organized creature, possessing a root which fastens itself into the soil, and a stalk which takes the opposite direction. Between the two portions lies the seed, split, gutted, having allowed the germ to escape, its part in the matter ended.
The subterranean plantlet is a new being; it has no longer anything in common with the seed from whence it came. The plantlet is dull and colourless, but it breathes, it has channels, in which liquids and gases are circulating.
In a little while the plantlet comes up above the earth, it greets the daylight, it appears to our eyes, and then it is a very different being from the subterranean creature. The new-born vegetable is no longer as it was when in the bosom of the earth, dull and grey; it is green, it breathes like other vegetables, producing oxygen under the influence of life, whereas in the bosom of the earth it gave out carbonic acid. Instead of the dull and sombre subterranean plantlet, you have a green and tender shoot, provided with special organs. Where is the grain of mustard seed?
Presently our shoot grows, and becomes a young plant. It is still weak and hidden under the grass, but nevertheless the young plant has its complete individuality. It resembles neither the shoot nor the plantlet, its subterranean ancestor.
The shoot grows, and becomes a twig, that is to say, the adolescent of the vegetable kingdom, with the ardour and the energy of the young among herbaceous creatures.
In this state the plant has already renewed its substance several times, and nothing remains of the organic and mineral elements which existed in the different beings that have preceded it on the same little corner of the earth which have witnessed the changing phases of its curious metamorphoses. Wait a while, and you will see the twig growing long and large. Its respiration becomes active, its leaves spread out, and vigorously exhale the carbonic acid gas of the air. The exhalation of watery vapour over all the surface takes place, and a young and vigorous tree is there, which day by day grows more robust and more beautiful.
During this growth, during this transition from the shrub to the young tree, with a separate and upright stem, a new being has been formed. Organs which it had not have come to it, and have made it a separate individual. It has flowers, it has branches, it has new vessels for the circulation of the sap, and the juices which were not previously elaborated. The structure of the surface of its leaves has been changed, so that absorption may be more successfully accomplished.
Where is the shoot, from which our vigorous young shrub sprung? What relation, what resemblance is there between these two beings? We can only discern differences. One individual has succeeded to another individual. The vegetable has been renewed, not only in matter, which is changed, but in the form of its organs. A series of new forms have succeeded each other in the shrub, since it was a simple shoot, just peeping above the soil.
It is still the history of change, when the young tree has become adult, when, in the progress of years, its trunk has grown hard, and become incrusted with layers of accumulated bark, when its branches have multiplied, and flowering and fruitage have modified all its internal and external parts. It is then a grand cedar tree, whose majestic and imposing shade covers a considerable extent of the soil; or a superb oak, whose robust and gnarled branches spread far and wide; or a flexible chestnut, which flings about its polished and shining arms. The organs of these luxuriant vegetables, the pride of our forests, have no relation to those which belonged to them in the first years of their life. Their flowery crowns in spring-tide, the fruits which succeed to them, the seeds shut up in the protecting shelter of those fruits, these are all peculiarities of organization, belonging to these noble trees, without any analogy in nature.
Where is the grain of mustard seed which formerly sucked the juice of the earth in darkness? Everything is changed; the place of habitation, which is no longer the earth, but the air; the form, and the physiological functions. Not only has all this changed, but it has changed a great number of times. Not only does nothing remain of the matter of which the tree was composed in the earlier stages of its life, but nothing has been retained of the organic forms which were proper to the infancy of the vegetable.
Nevertheless, O great mystery of Nature, in the midst of all these changes, notwithstanding this continual succession of beings, which mutually replace each other, there is something which remains immovable, which has never changed, which has preserved a constant individuality,—it is the secret force which produced all these changes, which presided over all these organic mutations. In our belief, this force is the animated germ which the young plant has received from the seed, whence it has proceeded. In the midst of all the transformations which the vegetable creature has undergone, in spite of the numerous phases through which it has passed, and which have produced a series of different beings succeeding each other in its material substance, the spiritual principle, cause and agent of all this long activity, has remained the same. This animated germ which now exists in the adult vegetable is the same which was there during its growth, the same which was there when it was a shoot, the same which slept in the seed which was thrown into the bosom of the cold and humid earth. In that majestic tree which, coming forth from an imperceptibly minute seed, has had a whole genealogy of successive beings, replacing each other, differing in form and size, and has preserved, throughout its incessant development, the sole and immutable principle of its activity, we behold the faithful image of the persistent, indestructible soul, in the midst of the beings or different bodies which it has animated in succession. Issuing from a germ, it has never ceased to grow, to develop, to become amplified, still remaining itself.
The grain of mustard seed, or the seed of the tree, is according to us, the plant or inferior animal into which the sun has thrown the animated germ. The subterranean plantlet corresponds to the animal whose mission it is to perfect the germ transmitted by the plant, and which develops and amplifies this germ; for example, to the fish or the reptile, perfecting the spiritual principle which they have received from the zoophyte or the mollusc. The shoot which, having burst out of the earth, grows in the shade of the grass, and tries its air organs, corresponds to the animal somewhat more elevated in the organic scale, such as the bird, in which the animating principle—derived from the reptile or the fish—increases in intellectual power. The young vegetable, arrived at the condition of the twig, which lives a completely aërial life, corresponds to the mammifer. The tree, grown tall, and pushing out its young boughs, corresponds to man, perfecting the soul which he has received from a mammifer. Finally, the powerful and vigorous forest lord, over-topping all the neighbouring trees in size and majesty, with mighty girth of stem, and noble crest, with wide-spreading branches and splendid flowers, this grand creature corresponds to the superhuman being who lives in the bosom of the ethereal fluid, and who is himself destined to be replaced by a series of superior creatures, who shall climb from stage to stage, from height to height, even to the radiant kingdom of the sun, where those absolutely spiritual beings, whose essence is entire and perfect immateriality are enthroned.
Thus, the animating principle remains immutable and identical with itself, during all the transformations undergone by the beings who are successively charged to receive this precious deposit. From the vegetable, in which it had its first domicile as a germ, and through the whole series of living creatures, from the plant and the zoophyte to the man and the superhuman being, the same spiritual principle is preserved in its identity, perfecting and amplifying itself without cessation.
Let us complete the comparison. When the forest tree has ripened its fruits, the fruits burst open, the seeds escape from it, and fall into the soil, or are dispersed by the caprice of the winds. If the seeds fall into damp earth, they germinate, and, according to the laws of nature, young vegetables are produced, as we have previously explained. Multitudes of similar vegetables are produced by a single oak, a single cedar, a single chestnut tree. Just as the majestic adult tree lets fall from its thousand branches upon the soil the countless seeds which are to germinate there, so the spiritualized beings who dwell in the sun shed their emanations, their animated germs, upon all the planets. These germs, carried to the earth by the sunbeams, and falling upon our globe, produce the vegetables which afterwards give birth to the various animals, by the effect of the successive transmigrations of the same soul into the bodies of these creatures.
We can now reply to the objection which we have placed at the beginning of this chapter: "How can the solar rays, being material substances, convey animated germs, which are immaterial substances?"
When the physicists professed Newton's theory of the nature of light, in the theory of emission, it was necessary to regard light, and, consequently the solar rays, which produce it, as material bodies.
But science has now rejected this theory, and replaced it by the theory of undulation, founded by Malus, Fresnel, Ampère, and all the constellation of great physicists and mathematicians of the commencement of this century. Facts, collected on every side, prove that the solar rays are not matter which transports itself from the sun to the earth, but that light, like heat, results from a primitive disturbance produced by the sun upon the ether, which is spread over all space. This disturbance communicates itself from molecule to molecule, from the planetary ether down to us, and produces the phenomena of light and heat. We cannot here develop at greater length, or explain more scientifically, the theory of undulations, which will be found sufficiently demonstrated in works on physics. We merely desire to prove that, according to the principles of modern science, the solar rays are not material bodies, but that they result from a simple vibration of the planetary ether. If, then, the rays of the sun are not material substances, there can be no difficulty in admitting that these rays (immaterial substance) are the bearers of the animated germs, which are immaterial substance.
If we be driven to a closer definition of the problem, if we be asked to explain with greater precision how these immaterial germs journey through space, we reply that we must guard against the mania for insisting on everything being explained. Absolute explanation is forbidden to the limit of our intelligence. We are forced to confess our powerlessness whenever we try to explain the phenomena of nature rigorously. What is the true cause of the fall of bodies, of the gravitation of the stars, of electricity, of heat? What is the cause of the circulation of our blood, of the beating of our hearts? The deepest obscurity veils the primary causes of these phenomena, which we all behold every day; and the more earnestly we desire to penetrate the secret essence, the more the darkness deepens in our minds. Since the time of Newton, the physicists have laid down a wise and excellent principle. They have agreed to study the laws of physical phenomena with sedulous care, to measure with exactness the effects of heat, weight, electricity, or light, but, also, never to disquiet themselves by researches into the causes of these phenomena. The more we learn, the further we advance in the knowledge of the universe and its laws, the more we become convinced that man knows absolutely nothing about first causes, that he ought to esteem himself happy in knowing the laws according to which the effects of these first causes manifest themselves; that is to say, the physical and vital actions which are visible to us, but that he ought, in the interests of his own peace of mind, to lay down a rule that he would never seek to know the wherefore of things. Pliny, speaking of first causes, said: "Latent in majestate mundi," ("They are hidden in the majesty of the world.") The thought is as fine as the phrase is eloquent. Let us, then, leave to nature her secrets, and, if we are led to believe that the sun sheds animated germs upon the earth and the planets, let us not try to penetrate further into the essence of this mysterious phenomenon. Let us not ask of the earth why she turns, the stone why it falls, the tree why it grows, our hearts why they beat—nor the rays of the sun why they produce life on earth, and immortality in the heavens.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
PRACTICAL RULES RESULTING FROM THE FACTS AND PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED IN THIS WORK.—THE ENNOBLING OF THE SOUL BY THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE, BY SEEKING TO KNOW, THROUGH SCIENCE, NATURE AND ITS LAWS.—THE RENDERING OF PUBLIC WORSHIP TO THE DIVINITY.—THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD TO BE RETAINED.—WE OUGHT NOT TO FEAR DEATH.—DEATH IS ONLY AN UNFELT TRANSITION FROM ONE STATE TO ANOTHER, IT IS NOT A TERMINATION, BUT A METAMORPHOSIS.—THE IMPRESSIONS OF THE DYING.—THEY WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG.—REUNION WITH THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE
WE will conclude our work by laying down certain practical rules which result from the facts and the principles that have been explained in its course.
Since man can raise himself to the range of a superhuman being only when his soul has acquired the necessary degree of purification in this life, it is evidently his interest to apply himself to the culture of his soul, to preserve it from every stain, to keep it from falling. Be good, generous, and compassionate; grateful for benefits, accessible to the suffering, the friend of the oppressed. Console those who suffer and who weep. Practise every form of charity. Endeavour to raise your thoughts above terrestrial things. Strive against those material instincts, which are the stigmata of human existence. Aspire to the good and the beautiful. Live in the most elevated spheres, those which are the least bound to lower things. It is only thus that you can elevate and ennoble your soul, and render it fit to enjoy the higher existence which awaits it in the ethereal spheres. For, if your soul be vicious and corrupt, if, during all your terrestrial life, you have been sunk in material interests, exclusively given up to purely physical occupations and enjoyments, which make you the fellow of the animals; if your heart has been hard, your conscience dumb, your instincts low and evil, you will be condemned to recommence a second existence on the earth. Once, or many times again you will have to bear the burthen of life on this disinherited globe, where physical suffering and moral evil have taken up their abode, where happiness is unknown, and unhappiness is the universal law.
There is another motive for our careful cultivation of the faculties of the soul, and for our constantly purifying ourselves by the practice of good. Noble and generous persons, elect souls, are, as we have said, the only ones capable of communicating with the dead, with the beloved beings whom they have lost. If, therefore, we be stained with moral evil, we shall not receive any communication, any succour from the beings who have left us, and whom we loved. This is a powerful motive for our constant striving towards perfection.
One of the most effectual means of perfecting and ennobling the soul, of raising it above terrestrial conditions, and bringing it near the higher spheres, is science. Study, labour to learn of nature, to comprehend the plans and the phenomena which surround you, to explain to yourselves the universe of which you form a portion, and your soul will grow in strength and wisdom. It is very sad to contemplate the shameful ignorance in which almost all humanity is sunk. The population of our globe numbers 1,300,000,000, and of all this multitude hardly 10,000,000 can be said to have studied the sciences, and really cultivated their minds. All the rest of mankind are abandoned to an intellectual passiveness, which almost reduces them to the level of the animals. The earth is but a vast field of ignorance. As far as knowledge is concerned, almost all men die as they were born, they have not added a single idea, a single branch of knowledge to those which their parents—themselves ignorant—have inculcated in their youth. Nevertheless, thanks to the labours of some few men of uncommon mind and energy, the knowledge we possess at the present time is immense, we have made great progress in the study of nature and its laws.
We understand the mechanism and the regulation of the universe, we have learned to reject the fallacious testimony of our senses, we have discerned the courses of the different stars, which look so much alike, when they shine in the firmament by night. We know that the sun is motionless in the centre of our world, and that a company of planets, among which the earth figures, revolve around him, in an orbit whose mathematical curve has been precisely fixed. We know the cause of the days and nights, as well as that of the seasons; we can predict almost to a second the return of the stars to a certain point of their orbit, their meetings, eclipses, and occultations. The globe which we inhabit has been surveyed and explored with care which has hardly missed a nook of it. We know the causes of the winds and of the rains, we can point out the exact course of the sea-currents, and foretell the hour and the height of the tides all over the globe. We know why glaciers exist at the northern and southern extremities of the earth, and why other glaciers crown the great mountain heights. The movements of the earth, which formerly produced chains of mountains, and which at present occasion volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, are quite comprehensible to us. The composition of all the bodies which exist on the surface, or are hidden in the depths of the earth, has been fixed with certainty.
We know what air contains, and what water is composed of. There is not a mineral, not a particle of earth to which we cannot assign its composition. More than that, we can tell what is the composition of the soil of the planets, and of their satellites, those stars which roll at incalculable distances above our heads, and which we can reach only with our eyes. Science has performed this miracle, the chemical analysis of bodies which it cannot touch, and which it can only see across millions of miles in space.
We have studied, classified, demonstrated all the living beings, animals and plants which people the earth. There is not an insect hidden in the grass of the fields which has not been described, which has not had its just place in creation assigned to it; there is not a blade of grass which has not been reproduced by the pencil of the naturalist.
Beyond all this, science has penetrated far beyond the reach of our vision. It has invented a marvellous instrument which has unveiled an entire world to our astonished gaze, a world whose existence we never should have suspected without its aid. The world thus revealed to us is that of infinitely little things. We know that myriads of living creatures, both animals and plants, exist in a drop of water; that those creatures, in all their prodigious littleness, have a complete existence, and are as well organized as those of great size which are analogous to them, and that the physiological functions of all these imperceptible beings are fulfilled as perfectly as our own.
Just as we have penetrated into the life of infinite littleness, so we have pierced the depths of celestial space, and scrutinized with our eyes the magnified image of the stars which revolve at an incalculable distance above us. The telescope shows us the surface of the moon, the depths of its ravines, and the rough serrated edges of its enormous mountains, furrowed with deep circular crevasses. We can cast our eyes over the lunar disc as if it were a distant landscape of our own globe. We can even, thanks to the magnifying powers of the telescope, form an idea of the aspect of the surfaces of those planets which are almost lost in the infinite distances of the heavens.
After this faint and incomplete sketch of that which human science has been able to accomplish, it might be supposed that every inhabitant of the earth is impatient to make all this knowledge his own, that every one must desire to fill his mind with its treasures. Alas! the great majority of the human species is ignorant of even the elements of all this. Take away the ten millions of individuals, to whom we have already alluded, and who, numerically, are hardly to be counted in considering the population of the globe, all people imagine that the earth is a flat surface which extends to the limits of the horizon, and is covered with a blue cupola, called heaven. If you assert that the earth revolves, they laugh, and point to the motionless earth, and the sun which rises on the right hand and sets on the left, a manifest proof that the sun comes and goes. The poets will have it that the sun rises from his bed in the morning, and returns to it in the evening. People believe that the stars which shine by night, in the celestial vault, are simply ornaments, an agreeable spectacle, made to please our eyes, and that the moon is a beacon. Nobody inquires into the causes of the rain or fine weather, of heat or cold, of the winds or the tides. Every one shuts his eyes to natural phenomena, so as to avoid the trouble of explaining them. Nature is a shut book for the majority of mankind, who live in the midst of the most curious and various phenomena, but who occupy themselves in eating and drinking, and trying to harm their fellows.
It is a sorrowful spectacle to behold humanity thus preoccupied by its more material necessities, and utterly without interest in any mental exertion, and one grieves to think that such is the condition of almost all the inhabitants of the globe. How far is he superior to the great mass of his fellows, who has cultivated his mind, enriched it with various and useful ideas, and appropriated to himself at least one branch of the varied tree of the exact sciences. What breadth and power must be acquired by a mind thus fortified! Strive, O my reader, to study and to learn. Initiate yourself into the secrets of nature, try to understand all that surrounds you, the universe and its infinite productions, admire the power of God in learning the wonders of His works. Then shall you not approach the tomb with your soul void as on the day of your birth. At the supreme hour of death you will be wise, instructed, and, finding yourself nearer to the sublime essence of superhuman beings, you will be eager to follow them into the ethereal spheres.
In order to elevate and perfect the soul, it is not sufficient only to apply ourselves to the practice of moral virtues and to learning; we must also endeavour to understand God, the Author of the universe. Therefore, let men enter into the temples, and prostrate themselves before God according to the forms and rites of worship in which they have been reared. All religions are good, and ought to be respected, because they permit us to pay the homage of gratitude and heartfelt submission to the Author of nature.
The Christian religion is good, because it is a religion. The religion of Mahomet is good, because it is a religion. For the same reason Buddhism and Judaism are good, and the religion of the wild Indians who worship the sun in the depths of their forests.
The fourth practical rule which we derive from the principles and theories which we have laid down, is that the remembrance and commemoration of the dead should be preserved. Let us not efface from our hearts the memory of those whom death has snatched from us. To forget them is to cause them the most cruel anguish, and to deprive ourselves of the aid and guidance which they can give us here below.
The ancients sedulously kept up the memory of the dead. They did not put the idea of death away from them with terror, like the modern peoples; on the contrary, they loved to invoke it. Among the Greeks and Romans the cemeteries were places of meeting, used for festivals and promenades. The Orientals of our days preserve this ancient tradition. Their cemeteries are perfectly kept gardens, whither festive crowds resort on festal occasions. They visit the relatives and friends who are buried in the shrubberies and the flower-beds, and revel in the pleasures of life amid the pretty dwelling-places of the dead.
In Europe we know nothing of this wholesome philosophy. But we may remark, that peasants, unlike dwellers in cities, who are not brought into familiar daily contact with nature, are far from shunning the idea of death, or avoiding the cemeteries where their relatives and friends rest. They recall the remembrance of their dead, they speak to them, they question them, they consult them, as though they were still seated by the family fireside.
The custom of funeral repasts, which dates from the time of primitive man, is still observed in several countries. On returning from the cemetery the company seat themselves before a well-spread table, in the house of the deceased, and wish him a happy journey to the land of shadows. In our cities, it is "the people" who hold it a duty to carry flowers to the graves of their relatives. Among the higher classes of society people hold themselves exempt, in general, from this pious care, and they are wrong. Piety towards the dead, and reverent commemoration of them, are prescribed by the laws of nature.
Finally, we would impress upon the reader, as a consequence and a practical rule resulting from all that has gone before, that he ought not to fear death. Let him regard with firm heart and tranquil eye that moment which all men dread so much. We have said that death is not a conclusion, but a change, we do not perish, we are transformed. The grub which seems to die, enclosed within a cold shell, does not die, but is born again, a brilliant butterfly, to flutter joyously in the air. Thus it shall be with us. Though our miserable frames remain on earth, and restore their elements to the common reservoir of universal matter, our souls shall not perish. They shall be born again, brilliant creatures of the celestial ether. They shall leave a world in which pain and evil are the constant law, for a blessed domain where every condition of happiness shall be realized. Why, then, should we dread death? If we do not desire it, we ought at least to await it with hope and tranquillity. Death must unite us to those beings whom we have loved, whom we do love, and whom we shall love for ever. What an immense source of consolation during the remainder of our life! What a store of courage for the terrible moment of our own end! The beloved dead, who have never ceased to be present to our memory, have done us the sad, supreme service of softening the anguish of death to us. The sadness of our last moments will be calmed by the thought that they are awaiting our coming, that they are ready to receive us on the threshold of the other life, that they are gone before to lead us into the new domain of existence beyond the tomb!
The fear of death, which is so prevalent among men generally, loses its intensity when the last hour has come. Those who are accustomed to witness death know that the last agony is rarely severe. He who dies after a long and honourable existence knows at that solemn moment that he is going to a new and better world. He is happy, and his words and looks express happiness. The only thought which makes him sorrowful is the grief which his loss must occasion to those whom he loves and is about to leave.
