LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      CHAPTER THE FIFTH

WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING?—THE PHYSICAL FORM, SENSES, DEGREE OF INTELLIGENCE, AND FACULTIES OF THE SUPERHUMAN BEING

      NOTWITHSTANDING the daring of such an attempt, let us now endeavour to form some idea of the radiant creatures which float in the mysterious and sublime regions of that empyrean which hides them from our view. Let us try to discern the attributes, form, and qualities of the superhuman being.

      Like the human, the superhuman being possesses the three elements of the aggregate, the body, the soul, and the life. In order to gain some idea of him, we must examine each of these three elements separately.

      The Body of the Superhuman Being.—We might perhaps conceive a superhuman being without a body; we might imagine that the soul, purely spiritual, constitutes the blessed dweller in ethereal space. But it is not thus that we do conceive him. Absolute immateriality appears to us to apply only to a being much more elevated in the moral hierarchy than the superhuman one—a being of whom we shall speak hereafter. We believe that the inhabitant of the ethereal spaces has a body; that the soul, leaving its terrestrial dwelling, incarnates itself in a body, as it did here below. But this body must be provided with qualities infinitely superior to those which belong to the human body. First, let us inquire what the form of this body may be. The painters of the Renaissance, whom modern artists follow in this respect, give to the angel the form of a young and handsome man, furnished with white wings, which bear him through the air on his celestial missions. This image is both coarse and poetic. It is poetic because it responds to the idea which we have of the radiant creature who dwells in ethereal space; and it is coarse, because it gives to a being far superior to man the physical attributes of man, which is inadmissible.

      Painters who, like Raphael, represent the angel by the head of a child, with wings, give a far more profound expression to the same thought. By suppressing the larger portion of the body, and reducing the seraphic being to the head, the seat of intelligence, they indicate that in the angel of the Christian belief the spiritual dominates, in immense proportion, over the material part.

      We shall not be expected to delineate the form of the dwellers in the realms of ether. We can only say, that, as ether is an excessively subtle and rarefied fluid, it necessarily follows that the superhuman being who is to float and fly in its light masses, must be wonderfully light, must be composed of extraordinary subtle substances. A slight material tissue, animated by life, a vaporous, diaphanous drapery of living matter, such do we represent the superhuman being to our fancy.

      How is this body supported? Does it need food for its maintenance, like the bodies of men and of animals? We may reply with confidence that food—that tyrannous obligation of the human and the animal species—is spared to the inhabitants of the planetary ether. Their bodies must be supported and refreshed by mere respiration of the fluid in which they exist.

      Let us consider the immense space occupied in the lives of animals by their need of alimentation. Many animals, especially those which live in the water, have an incessant need of food. They must eat always, without intermission, or they die of inanition. Among superior animals, the necessity for eating and drinking is less imperious, because the respiratory function comes to their aid, bringing into the body, by the absorption of oxygen and a small proportion of azote, a certain amount of reparative element, as a supplement to alimentary substances. Man profits largely by this advantage. Our respiration is a function of the highest importance, and it bears a great share in the reparation of all our organs. The oxygen which our blood borrows from the air in breathing, contributes largely to our nutrition. The respiratory function in birds is very active, and the organs which exercise it are largely developed, and in their nutrition also oxygen counts largely, and takes the place of a certain quantity of food.

      It is our belief that the respiration of the ether in which he lives, suffices for the support of the material body of the

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