The Day After Death; Or, Our Future Life According to Science (New Edition)Figuier, Louis
Religion
The Day After Death; Or, Our Future Life According to Science (New Edition)
Figuier, Louis
Cosmology; Future life; Transmigration
I have said that there are double stars, that is to say, worlds
illuminated by two suns, and sometimes even by three or four. It is a
strange fact that in almost every instance one of these suns is white,
like ours, but the second is coloured, blue, red, or green. In the
constellation _Perseus_ for example, a double star can be distinctly
seen by the aid of a good telescope. The star η is in fact accompanied
by a second, which makes part of the same solar system. Now, this
second star is blue. In the constellation _Ophiochus_ there is a
similar system of double stars, one of which is red and the other blue.
The same peculiarity exists in the constellation of the _Dragon_. In a
double star of the constellation of the _Bull_, there is a red sun, and
a blue sun. There are double solar systems red and blue; such are the
constellations _Hercules_ and _Cassiopœia_. Other double solar systems
are yellow and green, and sometimes yellow and blue. In all the worlds
which are illuminated by these coloured suns, the effect of light must
be very strange. No painter could represent them, and indeed we, who
know only the white light of our own sun, cannot form any idea of them.
_Theophilus._ These features of the stellar worlds are very
interesting, and I am glad to learn them. But are we not straying from
our subject?
_The Author._ No. After having made you understand that the solar
system which we inhabit is only a member of an immense family of other
solar worlds, only a small fraction of the universe, I wished to show
you by the diversity of those worlds, the facility with which nature
varies the forces and the physical conditions proper to the stellar
worlds, and consequently the living and inanimate types which make a
portion of these different stellar worlds. Now that you understand the
prodigious diversity of the solar worlds which compose the universe,
I will go on to our principal object. I have not lost sight of my
intention of proving to you that the universe has no limits, that in
its extent it is really the Infinite. I am now approaching this great
question. By the consideration of the stars, I am going to bring out
into relief the immeasurable vastness of the universe. Let me speak,
first, of the appalling distances which separate the stars from the
earth, and the figures will show you that on that side we fall into
the Infinite, and then I will speak of the numbers of the stars which
people space; and on this side also the abyss of the Infinite will yawn
before us. First, as to the distances which separate the stars from the
earth, from whence we may logically infer the distances which separate
these stars from one another. The distance between the earth and the
sun is 38,000,000 leagues, and this shall be our unit, our standard of
measurement, by which to estimate the distance of the stars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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