Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space and time -- Fiction
Worlds exist in which the vital movements, respiration, assimilation,
the organic periods, day and night, the seasons and the years, are all
of extreme length. Although the nervous system of the human inhabitants
is highly developed, and thought has a prodigious activity, life there
appears to be of an endless length. Those who die of old age have
lived more than a thousand of these years, but they are so rare that
the memory of a few only have been preserved in the historical records
of this humanity. War between the nations has never been invented,
because there is only one race, one people, one language. The natural
constitutions of these organisms are remarkable. Diseases are almost
unknown; there are no doctors. As a result of this great mental
activity, the length of life becomes a perspective without end, and
before long becomes a burden. Hence suicide is almost universal. This
custom has been habitual from very ancient times. The few old men who
from any special motive have not put an end to their lives, are looked
upon as exceptional beings, originals, and more or less eccentric.
Suicide is the general law.
But, my dear friend, it is impossible for me to describe to you all the
curiosities of the universe. Let it suffice that I have raised the veil
sufficiently, to give you a glimpse of the incommensurable diversity
that exists, in the animated productions of all the various systems
disseminated through space.
[Sidenote: Infinite diversity]
While accompanying me in spirit in this interstellar voyage, you
have passed several hours away from the Earth. It is well to isolate
one's self thus at times amongst the celestial solitudes. The soul
obtains a fuller possession of itself, and in its solitary reflections
it penetrates profoundly into the universal reality. Terrestrial
humanity, you understand, is, as regards moral as well as physical
life, the result virtually of the forces of the Earth. Human strength,
figure, weight, all depend on these forces. The organic functions are
determined by the planet. If life is divided with you between work and
rest, between activity and sleep, it is because of the rotation of the
globe, and day and night. In the luminous globes, and those lighted by
many Suns alternately, they do not sleep. If you need to eat and drink,
it is in consequence of the insufficiency of the atmosphere. The bodies
of the beings who do not eat are not constructed like yours, since they
have no need of a stomach and intestines. The terrestrial eye enables
you to see the universe in a certain way, the Saturnian eye sees in a
different manner.
[Sidenote: Other senses than those of the Earth.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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