[Sidenote: Power of the personal soul.] The law of authority in action on the Earth, has determined in the animal series a preponderating direction. You are composed of a multitude of beings grouped together, and dominated by the plastic attraction of your personal soul, which from the centre of your being has formed your body from the embryo, and has united round itself, in a microcosm, a whole world of beings, who have not any consciousness of their individuality. QUÆRENS. On the planet of Orion nature itself is then in a state of absolute Republicanism. LUMEN. Republicanism governed by _law_. QUÆRENS. But when a being finds itself thus disintegrated, how can he afterwards reconstitute himself as a whole? LUMEN. By an act of the will, and often without the least effort, and even by a casual desire. Although separated from the cerebral molecule, the corporeal molecules are still intimately connected with one another. At a given moment they combine, and each takes its place. The directing molecule draws the other from a distance, as the loadstone attracts iron filings. QUÆRENS. I can easily picture to myself the spectacle of this Lilliputian army, when summoned by a whistle, drawing to its centre to organise a reunion; all the little soldiers climbing one over the other, and in a moment taking their places to reconstruct the man-taper that you have described to me. One really ought to leave the Earth to behold such rare wonders! LUMEN. You still judge of universal nature by the atom that you have before your eyes, and you are only qualified to comprehend the facts which are within the sphere of your observations. But I assure you the Earth is not the type of the universe. [Sidenote: Various forms of life.] This world of θ Orionis, with its seven revolving Suns, is peopled by an organic system analogous to that which I have just described to you. I lived there 2400 years ago, and I can see myself there again in accordance with the time that light occupied in coming from that point in space to Capella. When there, I was acquainted with the spirit who in this century was incarnated on the Earth and published his studies under the name of Allan Kardec. We did not recollect that we had known one another before, during our terrestrial life, but we often felt attracted to one another by peculiar intellectual sympathies. Now that he has returned, like myself, into the world of spirits, he also remembers the singular republic of Orion and can see it. Yes, this is very curious, but it is quite true. You have no idea, on your poor planet, of the unimaginable diversity which separates the worlds in their geological, as much as in their physiological organisations. [Sidenote: Sense of sight in spirits.]