QUÆRENS. Just one more word, Lumen, before we conclude this interview. Can earthly scenes be transmitted successively into space--if so, the present could be kept perpetually before the eyes of distant spectators, and be limited only by the power of their spiritual sight? [Sidenote: The precession of events as seen in space.] LUMEN. Yes, my friend. Let us, for example, place our first observer on the Moon--he would perceive terrestrial events one second and a quarter after they had happened. Let us place a second observer at four times the distance--he would be cognisant of them five seconds later. Double the distance, and a third would see them ten seconds after they had taken place. Again double the distance, and a fourth observer would have to wait twenty seconds before he could witness them; so on and on with ever-increasing delay, until at the Sun's distance; eight minutes and thirteen seconds must elapse before they could become visible. Upon certain planets, as we have seen, hours must intervene between the action and the sight of it; further off still, days, months even years must elapse. Upon neighbouring stars earthly events are not seen until four, six, ten years after their occurrence; but there are stars so distant that light only reaches them after many centuries, and even thousands of years. Indeed, there are nebulæ to which light takes millions of years to travel. QUÆRENS. Therefore it only needs a sight sufficiently piercing to witness events historic or geologic which are long since past. Could not one, therefore, so gifted see the Deluge, the Garden of Eden, Adam and. . . . LUMEN. I have told you, my old friend, that the rising of the sun on this hemisphere puts to flight all spirits, so I must go. Another interview may be granted us some other day, when we can continue our talk on this subject, and I will then give you a general sketch which will open out for you new horizons. The stars call me, and are already disappearing. I must away. Adieu, Quærens, adieu. FOOTNOTES: [1] Physiological anatomy would probably explain this fact by suggesting that a sort of _punctum cæcum_ is displaced in order to conceal the object that one does not wish to see.