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CHAPTER THE THIRD
WHERE DOES THE SUPERHUMAN BEING DWELL?
WE have seen that of the three elements which compose the human aggregate, one only, the soul, resists destruction. After the dissolution of the body, after the extinction of the life, the soul, detached from the material bonds which chained it to the earth, goes away, to feel, to love, to conceive, to be free, in a new body, endowed with more powerful faculties than those allotted to humanity. It goes away to compose that which we call the superhuman being. But where does this new creature dwell?
All students of nature know that life is spread over our globe in prodigious proportions. We cannot take a step, our eyes cannot glance around us, without everywhere encountering myriads of living beings. The earth is nothing but a vast reservoir of life. Examine a blade of grass in a field, and you will find it covered with insects, or inferior animals. But your eyes will not suffice for this examination; you must have recourse to the microscope. With the aid of the magnifying glass, you will discover that this blade of grass is the refuge of an active population, which are born, multiply, and die with prodigious rapidity on their almost imperceptible domain.
From this blade of grass you may draw inferences and conclusions respecting the vegetation of the entire globe.
The fresh waters which flow upon the surface of the earth are also the receptacle of a prodigious quantity of organic existence. Without mentioning the plants, and the animals which live in the waters of the rivers and streams, and are visible to the naked eye, if you take a drop of water from a pool, and place it under the microscope, you will see that it is filled with living beings, who, though so small that they escape our unassisted vision, are none the less active, and all hold their appointed place in the economy of nature. We know how thickly peopled with inhabitants is the great drop; but, without speaking of beings visible to all, the fishes, the crustacea, and the zoophytes, or of the marine plants, creatures, invisible except under microscopical examination, abound to such an extent in sea water, that one single drop of it, so examined, displays innumerable quantities of these microscopic animals and plants.
From this drop of water you may draw inferences and conclusions respecting the entire mass of waters which occupy the basins of the seas, and form three-fourths of the surface of our globe.
In order that some conception may be reached of the enormous numbers of the living beings contained in the seas now, and formerly, we may fitly recall in this place a fact well known to geologists. It is, that all building stone, all the calcareous earth of which chalk hills and banks are formed, are entirely composed of the pulverized and agglomerated remains of the shells of mollusca, visible or microscopic, which, in the most remote ages of the existence of the globe, peopled the basin of the seas. The whole of this formation is composed of the accumulation of shells. If life has been lavished with such profusion in the waters during the geological periods, it must be equally lavished now, in almost similar ways, because the actual conditions of nature do not differ from what they were in the primitive ages of the globe.
The air which surrounds us is, like the earth and the seas, a vast receptacle of living creatures. We see only a few animals cleaving the aërial space, but the savant, who looks beyond the simple appearance of things, discovers myriads of existences in the air.
The air seems to us very pure, very transparent, but only because it is not sufficiently illumined by light to enable us to perceive the particles, or foreign bodies, which are floating about in it. When we allow one ray of daylight to penetrate into a closed room, one thread of solar light, we can discern a luminous streak flung across the chamber, while the remaining portion is still in darkness. We all know that, thanks to the powerful light, and its contrast with the surrounding obscurity, the luminous streak is seen to be filled with light, slender floating bodies, rising, descending, fluttering with the motion of the air. That which is perceptible in the atmosphere of a brightly-lighted room is necessarily existent in the entire atmosphere surrounding our globe, so that the air is everywhere filled with these specks of dust.
Of what are these specks of dust formed? Almost entirely of living creatures, of the germs of microscopic plants (cryptogamia), or of the eggs of inferior animals (zoophytes). So-called spontaneous generation, so largely discussed of late in France and other countries, is merely due to these organic germs which fill the atmosphere, and which, falling into the water, or into the infusions of plants, give birth to forms of vegetation, which have been imputed to spontaneous generation; that is to say, to a creation without a germ, a generation without a cause, which is an error. Every living thing has parents, which are always discoverable by science and attention.
Those animals and plants which are called parasites furnish another example of the extraordinary profusion with which life is distributed over the earth. Animals and plants which live on other animals or on other plants, and which feed on the substance of their involuntary entertainers, are called parasites. Each of the mammals has its parasites, such as fleas, lice, &c., and man has the flea, the louse, and the bug. So each vegetable has its parasite. The oak gives shelter and food to lichens and various cryptogamia, and even on its roots we find particular kinds of cryptogamia, such as the truffle. Thus we see that life plants itself, grafts itself upon life.
But, more than this, these parasites in their turn have their smaller parasites, so minute as only to be microscopically discerned. Take a lichen off an oak and examine it with a magnifying glass, and also examine a flea, or a nit, and you will behold the curious spectacle of a parasite attached to another parasitical creature, and living upon its substance. From the great vegetable the alimentary substance passes to the visible parasite, and from that to the invisible. In this little space life is superposed and concentrated. Such a fact proves with what prodigious abundance life is spread over our globe.
Thus, then, we see that the surface of the globe, the fresh waters, and the salt seas, and, finally, the atmosphere, are inhabited by immense numbers of living beings. Life abounds on the earth, in the waters, and in the air. Our globe is like an immense vase, in which life is accumulated, pressed down, and running over.
But, the earth, the air, and the waters are not the only places at the command of nature. Above the atmosphere there extends another region, with which astronomers and physicists are acquainted, and which they call ether or planetary ether. The atmosphere which surrounds our globe, and is drawn with it in its course through space, as it is drawn with it in its rotation upon its own axis, is not very high. It does not extend beyond thirty or forty leagues, and it diminishes in substance in proportion to its elevation above the earth. At three or four leagues in height the air is so rarefied that it becomes impossible for men or animals to breathe it. In aërostatic ascents it is impossible to go beyond seven or eight kilometres, because at that height the air loses so much density, is so highly rarefied, that it no longer serves for purposes of respiration, nor counterbalances the effect of the interior pressure of the body on the exterior. After that height, the density of the air decreases more and more, until there is absolutely no air. At that point begins the fluid which astronomers and physicists call ether.
This ether is a true fluid, a gas, analogous to the air we breathe, but infinitely more rarefied and lighter than air. The existence of the planetary ether cannot be disputed, since astronomers take account of its resistance in calculating the speed of heavenly bodies, just as they take account of the resistance of the air in calculating the motions of bodies traversing our atmosphere.
Ether is, then, the fluid which succeeds to atmospheric air. It is spread, not only around the earth, but around the other planets. More than this, it exists throughout all space, it occupies the intervals between the planets. It is, in fact, in ether that the planets, which, with their satellites, compose our solar world, revolve. The comets, too, in their immense journeys through space pass through ether.
The uneducated mind is disposed to believe that above the air which surrounds the terrestrial globe, there is nothing more, that all is void. But no void exists anywhere in nature. Space is always occupied by something, whether it be by earth, by water, by atmospheric air, or, finally, by planetary ether.
It has just been said that life abounds upon the globe, swarms upon the earth, clusters in the air and in the waters. Is the ethereal fluid which succeeds to our atmosphere, and which fills space, equally inhabited by living beings? This is a question which no savant has ever yet asked himself. In our opinion, it would be very surprising that life, which we may say overflows in the waters and in the air, should be absolutely wanting in the fluid which is contiguous to the air. Everything, then, indicates that the ether is inhabited. But who are the beings who dwell in the planetary ether? We believe that they are those superhuman beings, whom we consider to be resuscitated men, endowed with every kind of moral perfection.
The chemical composition of planetary ether is not known. Astronomical phenomena have taught us its existence, but not its components. We believe it may safely be asserted that the ether does not contain oxygen. In fact, oxygen is the fundamental element of atmospheric air; and as, in proportion as they ascend into that air, the respiration of men and animals becomes more and more difficult, it is, in our opinion, presumable, that this difficulty is caused by the approach of a description of gas impossible to breathe; and which, therefore, excludes human life from the superior regions of the air. A man, rising in a balloon towards the ether, is like a fish half drawn out of the water, half exposed to the air. The fish is breathless and palpitating in a place which is fatal to him; thus it is with man, when he rises by degrees through our nether atmosphere, and draws near to the ether. It seems to us that we may, at once, conclude, from this, that there is no oxygen in planetary ether.
It seems not unlikely that the planetary ether may be composed of hydrogen gas, excessively rarefied, that is to say, of an extremely light gas, still further rarefied, and rendered infinitely more subtle by the absence of all pressure. We are induced to conclude that the ether in which the planets revolve is hydrogen, because, from observations made of late years during the solar total eclipses, it has been ascertained that the sun is surrounded by burning hydrogen gas.
In the language of every nation, the space which lies beyond our atmosphere is called by the same name, that of heaven. It is, then, in the universally recognized heaven that we place our superhuman beings. In this we are in accord with popular belief and prejudice, and we recognize this argument with satisfaction. These prejudices, these presentiments are frequently the outcome of the wisdom and the observation of an infinite number of generations of men. A tradition which has a uniform and universal existence, has all the weight of scientific testimony.
In accordance with this phrase, and the immemorial tradition, the most widely-spread modern religions, Christianity, Buddhism, and Mahometanism, assign heaven as the sojourn of the elect of God.
Thus, we find science, tradition, and religion at one on this point; and that it was a scientific truth which found utterance by the lips of the priest who said to the martyred king upon the scaffold: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven."
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
DO ALL MEN, WITHOUT DISTINCTION, PASS, AFTER DEATH, INTO THE CONDITION OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING?—RE-INCARNATION OF IMPENITENT SOULS.—RE-INCARNATION OF CHILDREN WHO HAVE DIED IN INFANCY
DEATH is not a termination, it is a change. We do not die; we experience a metamorphosis. The fall of the curtain of death is not the catastrophe, it is only a deeply moving scene in the drama of human destiny. The agony is not the prelude to annihilation, it is only the obligatory suffering which, throughout all nature, accompanies every change. Every one knows that the insect world, the cold and motionless chrysalis, rends itself asunder that the brilliant butterfly may come forth. If you examine the butterfly a moment after it has left its temporary tomb, you will find it trembling and panting with the pain of bursting through the trammels which had held it. It needs to rest, to calm itself, and to collect its strength before it soars away into the air which it is destined to traverse. This is a symbol of our death agony. In order that we may cast aside the material covering which we leave behind us here below, and rise to the unknown spheres which await us beyond the tomb, we must suffer. We suffer, in the body, from physical pain, and in the soul, from the anguish with which we contemplate our approaching destiny, wrapped, as it is, in the most appalling darkness.
But here a difficulty presents itself. Do all men, without distinction, pass into the condition of the superhuman being? An infinite range of qualities and of moral perversion is an attribute of humanity. To it belong good and evil, the honest man and the criminal. Let us inhabit whatsoever spot of earth we may, let the culture of our minds be what it may, whether we be savages or civilized men, learned or ignorant, whether we contemplate contemporary generations or those of far distant times, there exists one universal morality, one law of absolute equity. Everywhere, in all times, it has been a bad action to kill one's neighbour, to take another's goods, to ill-treat one's children, to be ungrateful to parents, to live on bad terms with one's wife, to conspire against the liberty of others, to lie, and to commit suicide. From one end of the earth to the other, these actions have been esteemed evil.
There exists, therefore, in the sphere of nature, and in the absolute meaning of the words, good souls and perverse souls. Must we believe that both the good and the wicked are called, without distinction, to undergo the change of nature which elevates us to the condition of superhuman beings? Are both classes admitted, upon the same footing, to the felicity of the new life, which is reserved for us beyond the tomb? Our conscience, that exquisitely accurate sentiment which dwells within us, and which never deceives, tells us that this could not be.
But how is the separation of the good grain from the tares to be effected by natural forces only? How is the process of sorting, in itself extremely difficult to explain, when one takes into account the complication of the natural question by the mingling of moral and physical influences, to be carried out? We can only state our individual sentiment, not in the dogmatic sense of imposing it on any one, but simply as a testimony to be registered.
It seems to us that the human soul, in order to rise to the ethereal spaces, needs to have acquired that last degree of perfection which sets it free from every besetting weight; that it must be subtle, light, purified, beautiful, and that only under such conditions can it quit the earth and soar towards the heavens. To our fancy, the human soul is like a celestial aërostat, who flies towards the sublimest heights with swift strength, because it is free from all impurity. But the soul of a perverse, wicked, vile, gross, base, cowardly man has not been purified, perfected, or lightened. It is weighed down by evil passions and gross appetites, which he has not sought to repress, but has, on the contrary, cultivated. It cannot rise to the celestial heights, it is constrained to dwell upon our melancholy and miserable earth.
We believe that the wicked and impenitent man is not called to the immediate enjoyment of the blessed life of the ethereal regions. His soul remains here below, to re-commence life a second time. Let us remark, at once, that he re-commences this life without preserving any recollection of his previous existence.
It will be objected to this, that to be born again without retaining any remembrance of a past life, would be to fall into the nothingness to which we are condemned by the materialists. In fact, it is identity which constitutes the resurrection; and without memory there is no identity. The individual, therefore, as an individual, would fall into nothingness if he were born again without memory.
This remark is just. If, after our resurrection to the state of superhuman beings, we were to lose, absolutely and irreparably, all remembrance of our former life, we should be, indeed, the prey of nothingness. But, let us hasten to add, that this loss of memory is of but short duration. Oblivion of our past life is only a temporary condition of our new existence, a sort of punishment. The remembrance of his first terrestrial life will return to each individual, when, by perfecting processes meet for the needs of his soul, he shall have merited the attainment of the condition of a superhuman being. Then he shall recall the evil actions of his first existence, or of his numerous existences, if it has been his lot to have several probations, and the thought of those evil deeds will still be his chastisement, even in the blissful abode to which he shall at length have attained.
To such persons as refuse assent to these views, we would remark that the question of rewards and punishments after death is the rock upon which all religions and all philosophers have split. The explanation of the punishment of the wicked which we offer, is at least preferable to the hell of the Christian creed. A return to a second terrestrial life is a less cruel, a more reasonable, and a more just punishment than condemnation to eternal torment. In the one case the penalty is in proportion to the sin. It is equitable and indulgent, like the chastisement of a father. It is not eternal punishment for a sin of short duration, it is a merciful form of justice, which places beside the penalty the means of freedom from the sin. It does not shut out all return to good by a condemnation without appeal to all eternity, it leaves to man the possibility of retracing the road to happiness from which his passions have led him astray, and of recovering, by deserving them, the blessings which he has forfeited.
Thus, in our opinion, if the human soul, during its sojourn here below, instead of perfecting, purifying, and ennobling itself, has lost its strength, and its primitive qualities,—if, in other words, it has been misused by a perverse, gross, uncultivated, mean, and wicked individual,—then, in that case, it will not quit the earth. After the death of that individual, the soul will tenant a new human body, losing all recollection of its previous existence. In this second incarnation the imperfect and earth-laden soul, deprived of all noble faculties and bereft of memory, will have to re-commence its moral education. This man, born again as an infant, will recommence his existence with the same uncultivated and feeble soul which he possessed at the moment of his death.
These re-incarnations in a human body may be numerous. They must repeat themselves until the faculties of the soul are sufficiently developed, or until its instincts are sufficiently ameliorated and perfected for the man to be raised above the general level of our species. Then only the soul, purified and lightened of all its imperfections, can quit the earth, and after the death of the flesh soar into space, and pass into the new organism which succeeds that of man in the hierarchy of nature.
We must add, here, that the fate of children who die young, either while at the breast or only a few months old, before the soul has undergone any development, is analogous. Their souls pass into the bodies of other children, and re-commence a novel existence.
