16. These re-incarnations, in the depths of the ethereal spaces, are reproduced more frequently than can be defined, and give us a series of creatures of ever-increasing activity and power of thought and action. At each promotion in the hierarchy of space these sublime beings find the energy of their moral and intellectual faculties, their power of feeling, and of loving, and their induction into the most profound mysteries of the Universe, undergoing augmentation. 17. When he has arrived at the highest degree of the celestial hierarchy, the _spiritualized being_ is absolutely perfect; in strength and in intelligence. He is entirely freed from all material alloy, he has no longer a body, he is a pure spirit. In this condition he passes into the sun. 18. The sun, the king-star, is then the final and common sojourn of all the _spiritualized beings_ who have come from the other planets, after having passed through the long series of existences which have rolled away in the plains of ether. 19. The _spiritualized beings_ gathered together in the sun, send down upon the earth and upon the planets emanations from their essence, that is to say, _animated germs_. These _animated germs_ are carried by the sunbeams, which distribute organization, feeling, and life over all the planets, at the same time that they preside at all the great physical and mechanical operations which take place on the earth, and on the other planets of our solar world. 20. The formation of the aërial and aquatic plants, and the birth of inferior animals or zoophytes, are, as we have said, the result of the action of the sun's rays on our globe. Then commences the series of the transmigrations of souls through the bodies of various animals, which results in man, in the superhuman being, and in all the succession of celestial metempsychoses, whose ultimate term is the spiritualized being or the dweller in the sun. Thus does the great chain of nature close and complete itself;--that uninterrupted chain of vital activity, which has neither beginning nor end, and which links all created beings into one family, the universal family of the worlds. Nature is not a straight line, but a circle, and we cannot say where this wonderful circle begins or ends. The wisdom of the Egyptians, which represented the world as a serpent coiled around itself, was the symbol of a great truth which the science of our time has once more brought to light. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH. REPLIES TO SOME OBJECTIONS.--FIRST: THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, WHICH IS THE BASIS OF THIS SYSTEM, IS NOT DEMONSTRATED.--SECOND: WE HAVE NOT ANY RECOLLECTION OF ANTERIOR EXISTENCES.--THIRD: THIS SYSTEM IS NO OTHER THAN THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE ANCIENTS.--FOURTH: THIS SYSTEM IS CONFOUNDED WITH DARWINISM.