II.
"THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH."
FEW of those who find pleasure in frequenting
bookstores can have failed to come across one or more
of the profusely illustrated volumes in which M. Louis
Figuier has sought to render dry science entertaining to
the multitude. And of those who may have casually
turned over their pages, there are probably none, competent
to form an opinion, who have not speedily perceived
that these pretentious books belong to the class
of pests and unmitigated nuisances in literature. Antiquated
views, utter lack of comprehension of the subjects
treated, and shameless unscrupulousness as to
accuracy of statement, are faults but ill atoned for by
sensational pictures of the "dragons of the prime that
tare each other in their slime," or of the Newton-like
brow and silken curls of that primitive man in contrast
with whom the said dragons have been likened to "mellow
music."
Nevertheless, the sort of scientific reputation which
these discreditable performances have gained for M.
Figuier among an uncritical public is such as to justify
us in devoting a few paragraphs to a book[1]
which, on
its own merits, is unworthy of any notice whatever.
"The To-morrow of Death"—if one were to put his
trust in the translator's prefatory note—discusses a
grave question upon "purely scientific methods." We
are glad to see this remark, because it shows what
notions may be entertained by persons of average intelligence
with reference to "scientific methods." Those
—and they are many—who vaguely think that science
is something different from common-sense, and
that any book is scientific which talks about perihelia
and asymptotes and cetacea, will find their vague notions
here well corroborated. Quite different will be the
impression made upon those—and they are yet too few—
who have learned that the method of science is the
common-sense method of cautiously weighing evidence
and withholding judgment where evidence is not forthcoming.
If talking about remote and difficult subjects
suffice to make one scientific, then is M. Figuier scientific
to a quite terrible degree. He writes about the
starry heavens as if he had been present at the hour
of creation, or had at least accompanied the Arabian
prophet on his famous night-journey. Nor is his knowledge
of physiology and other abstruse sciences at all
less remarkable. But these things will cease to surprise
us when we learn the sources, hitherto suspected only
in mythology, from which favoured mortals can obtain a
knowledge of what is going on outside of our planet.
The four inner planets being nearly alike in size (?)
and in length of day, M. Figuier infers, by strictly scientific
methods, that whatever is true of one of them, as
our earth, will be true of the others (p. 34). Hence,
they are all inhabited by human beings. It is true that
human beings must find Venus rather warm, and are
not unlikely to be seriously incommoded by the tropical
climate of Mercury. But we must remember that "the
men of Venus and Mercury are made by nature to resist
heat, as those of Jupiter and Saturn are made to endure
cold, and those of the Earth and Mars to live in a mean
temperature:
otherwise they could not exist" (p. 72). In
view of this charming specimen of a truly scientific inference,
it is almost too bad to call attention to the fact
that M. Figuier is quite behind the age in his statement
of facts. So far from Jupiter and Saturn being cold,
observation plainly indicates that they are prodigiously
hot, if not even incandescent and partly self-luminous;
the explanation being that, by reason of their huge
bulk, they still retain much of the primitive heat which
smaller planets have more quickly radiated away. As
for M. Figuier's statement, that polar snows have been
witnessed on these planets, it is simply untrue; no such
thing has ever been seen there. Mars, on the other
hand, has been observed to resemble in many important
respects its near neighbour, the Earth; whence our
author declares that if an aeronaut were to shoot clear
of terrestrial gravitation and land upon Mars, he would
unquestionably suppose himself to be still upon the
earth. For aerolites, it seems, are somehow fired down
upon our planet both from Mars and from Venus; and
aerolites sometimes contain vegetable matter (?). Therefore,
Mars has a vegetation, and very likely its red colour
is caused by its luxuriant autumnal foliage! (p. 47.) To
return to Jupiter: this planet, indeed, has inconveniently
short days. "In his `Picture of the Heavens,'
the German astronomer, Littrow (
these Germans think
of nothing but gormandizing), asks how the people of
Jupiter order their meals in the short interval of five
hours." Nevertheless, says our author, the great planet
is compensated for this inconvenience by its equable
and delicious climate.
In view, however, of our author's more striking and
original disclosures, one would suppose that all this discussion
of the physical conditions of existence on the
various planets might have been passed over without
detriment to the argument. After these efforts at proving
(for M. Figuier presumably regards this rigmarole as
proof) that all the members of our solar system are habitable,
the interplanetary ether is forthwith peopled
thickly with "souls," without any resort to argument.
This, we suppose, is one of those scientific truths which
as M. Figuier tells us, precede and underlie demonstration.
Upon this impregnable basis is reared the scientific
theory of a future life. When we die our soul
passes into some other terrestrial body, unless we have
been very good, in which case we at once soar aloft and
join the noble fraternity of the ether-folk. Bad men
and young children, on dying, must undergo renewed
probation here below, but ultimately all pass away into
the interplanetary ether. The dweller in ether is chiefly
distinguished from the mundane mortal by his acute
senses and his ability to subsist without food. He can
see as if through a telescope and microscope combined.
His intelligence is so great that in comparison an Aristotle
would seem idiotic. It should not be forgotten,
too, that he possesses eighty-five per cent of soul to fifteen
per cent of body, whereas in terrestrial man the
two elements are mixed in equal proportions. There is
no sex among the ether-folk, their numbers being kept
up by the influx of souls from the various planets.
"Alimentation, that necessity which tyrannizes over
men and animals, is not imposed upon the inhabitants
of ether. Their bodies must be repaired and sustained
by the simple respiration of the fluid in which they are
immersed, that is, of ether." Most likely, continues our
scientific author, the physiological functions of the ether-
folk are confined to respiration, and that it is possible to
breathe "without numerous organs is proved by the fact
that in all of a whole class of animals—the batrachians
—the mere bare skin
constitutes the whole machinery of
respiration" (p. 95). Allowing for the unfortunate slip
of the pen by which "batrachians" are substituted for
"fresh-water polyps," how can we fail to admire the
severity of the scientific method employed in reaching
these interesting conclusions?
But the King of Serendib must die, nor will the
relentless scythe of Time spare our Etherians, with all
their exalted attributes. They will die repeatedly; and
after having through sundry periods of probation attained
spiritual perfection, they will all pour into the
sun. Since it is the sun which originates life and feeling
and thought upon the surface of our earth, "why
may we not declare that the rays transmitted by the
sun to the earth and the other planets are nothing more
nor less than the emanations of these souls?" And
now we may begin to form an adequate conception, of
the rigorously scientific character of our author's method.
There have been many hypotheses by which to account
for the supply of solar radiance. One of the most
ingenious and probable of these hypotheses is that of
Helmholtz, according to which the solar radiance is due
to the arrested motion of the sun's constituent particles
toward their common centre of gravity. But this is too
fanciful to satisfy M. Figuier. The speculations of
Helmholtz "have the disadvantage of resting on the
idea of the sun's nebulosity,—an hypothesis which
would need to be more closely examined before serving
as a basis for so important a deduction." Accordingly,
M. Figuier propounds an explanation which possesses
the signal advantage that there is nothing hypothetical
in it. "In our opinion, the solar radiation is sustained
by the continual influx of souls into the sun." This, as
the reader will perceive, is the well-known theory of
Mayer, that the solar heat is due to a perennial
bombardment of the sun by meteors, save that, in place
of gross materialistic meteors, M. Figuier puts ethereal
souls. The ether-folk are daily raining into the solar
orb in untold millions, and to the unceasing concussion
is due the radiation which maintains life in the planets,
and thus the circle is complete.
In spite of their exalted position, the ether-folk do
not disdain to mingle with the affairs of terrestrial mortals.
They give us counsel in dreams, and it is from
this source, we presume, that our author has derived his
rigid notions as to scientific method. In evidence of
this dream-theory we have the usual array of cases, "a
celebrated journalist, M. R—," "M. L—, a lawyer,"
etc., etc., as in most books of this kind.
M. Figuier is not a Darwinian: the derivation of our
bodies from the bodies of apes is a conception too grossly
materialistic for him. Our souls, however, he is quite
willing to derive from the souls of lower animals. Obviously
we have pre-existed; how are we to account for
Mozart's precocity save by supposing his pre-existence?
He brought with him the musical skill acquired in a previous
life. In general, the souls of musical children
come from nightingales, while the souls of great architects
have passed into them from beavers (p. 247). We
do not remember these past existences, it is true; but
when we become ether-folk, we shall be able to look
back in recollection over the whole series.
Amid these sublime inquiries, M. Figuier is sometimes
notably oblivious of humbler truths, as might indeed
be expected. Thus he repeatedly alludes to Locke
as the author of the doctrine of innate ideas (!!),
[2]
and he informs us that Kepler never quitted Protestant
England (p. 336), though we believe that the nearest
Kepler ever came to living in England was the refusing
of Sir Henry Wotton's request that he should move
thither.
And lastly, we are treated to a real dialogue, with
quite a dramatic mise en scène.
The author's imaginary
friend, Theophilus, enters, "seats himself in a comfortable
chair, places an ottoman under his feet, a book under
his elbow to support it, and a cigarette of Turkish
tobacco between his lips, and sets himself to the task of
listening with a grave air of collectedness, relieved by a
certain touch of suspicious severity, as becomes the arbiter
in a literary and philosophic matter." "And so,"
begins our author, "you wish to know, my dear Theophilus,
where I locate God? I locate him in the centre
of the universe, or, in better phrase, at the central focus,
which must exist somewhere, of all the stars that make
the universe, and which, borne onward in a common
movement, gravitate together around this focus."
Much more, of an equally scientific character, follows;
but in fairness to the reader, who is already blaming us
for wasting the precious moments over such sorry trash,
we may as well conclude our sketch of this new line of
speculation.
May, 1872.
[[1]]
The To-morrow of Death; or, The Future Life according to Science.
By Louis Figuier. Translated from the French by S. R. Crocker.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872.
[[2]]
Pages 251, 252, 287. So in the twenty-first century some avatar of
M. Figuier will perhaps describe the late professor Agassiz as the author
of the Darwinian theory.