The ancient inhabitants of the new world had no other worship than that of the sun. This fact is established by the historical archives of the Indian races which we possess; such as the Aztecs or ancient inhabitants of Mexico, and the _Incas_ or ancient Peruvians. Manco Capac, who subjugated Peru, and imposed his own laws upon the country, passed for the son of the sun. Did not all these primitive people, whose customs extend back to the origin of humanity, when they rendered religious homage to the sun, obey a mysterious intuition, a secret voice of nature? However that may be, it is very remarkable that the religious conceptions of the most ancient people should be in such complete harmony with the most recent and most authoritative deductions of modern science. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [8] "Palingénésie Philosophique," vol. ii. pp. 427 and following. [9] "_Revue des Deux Mondes_," 15th April, 1868. [Illustration] CHAPTER THE TENTH. WHAT ARE THE RELATIONS WHICH SUBSIST BETWEEN US, AND SUPERHUMAN BEINGS? HAVING drawn a picture of the transmigrations of souls which, having belonged to men, attain, according to our belief, to the sublime dwelling-place of the solar spaces, we will now return to the superhuman being, and endeavour to find out whether that being, who immediately succeeds to man, who is a resuscitated man, incarnate in a new body, and living in the plains of ether, can place himself in relation with the inhabitants of the earth, notwithstanding the immense space which divides them. We have already endeavoured (ch. iv.) to discern the attributes of the superhuman being. Considering the number and extent of the faculties with which we believe him to be endowed, we cannot hesitate to accord to this mighty creature the power of communicating with our earth, and of exerting a certain influence there. But how and by what means can such a communication be established? What is the agency whose existence we must presuppose, in order that beings floating in the ethereal spaces can produce an impression here below? What transcendent system of electric telegraphy does the superhuman being employ? On this point we are absolutely ignorant, but the fact that communication does exist between these beings and our globe appears to us to be certain; a conviction which we base upon the following grounds. First, let us address ourselves to the popular feeling. As we have already said, we are not afraid of invoking vulgar prejudices and opinions, because they are almost always the expression of some great moral truth. Observations repeated thousands of times, traditions transmitted from generation to generation, and which have resisted the control of time, without being either altered or destroyed, cannot deceive. Only, when the people amidst whom this tradition has been formulated and preserved, are unenlightened, they translate their observations into a coarse form.