hough the immense torrent
of material forces absorb them, as it absorbs the dew that falls from
the pale morning flower. Boundless as the world may be wherein we
live, it is yet as hermetically enclosed as a sphere of steel. Nothing
can fall outside it, for it has no outside; nor can any atom possibly
be lost. Even though our species should perish entirely, the stage
through which it has caused certain fragments of matter to pass would
remain, notwithstanding all ulterior transformations, an indelible
principle and an immortal cause. The formidable, provisional
vegetations of the primary epoch, the chaotic and immature monsters of
the secondary grounds--Plesiosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, Pterodactyl--these
might also regard themselves as vain and ephemeral attempts, ridiculous
experiments of a still puerile nature, and conceive that they would
leave no mark upon a more harmonious globe. And yet not an effort of
theirs has been lost in space. They purified the air, they softened
the unbreathable flame of oxygen, they paved the way for the more
symmetrical life of those who should follow. If our lungs find in the
atmosphere the aliment they need, it is thanks to the inconceivably
incoherent forests of arborescent fern. We owe our brains and nerves
of to-day to fearful hordes of swimming or flying reptiles. These
obeyed the order of their life. They did what they had to do. They
modified matter in the fashion prescribed to them. And we, by carrying
particles of this same matter to the degree of extraordinary
incandescence proper to the thought of man, shall surely establish in
the future something that never shall perish.

IV

THE PAST

1

Our past stretches behind us in long perspective. It slumbers on the
horizon like a deserted city shrouded in mist. A few peaks mark its
boundary, and soar predominant into the air; a few important acts stand
out, like towers, some with the light still upon them, others half
ruined and slowly decaying beneath the weight of oblivion. The trees
are bare, the walls crumble, and shadow slowly steals over all.
Everything seems to be dead there, and rigid, save only when memory,
slowly decomposing, lights it for an instant with an illusory gleam.
But apart from this animation, derived only from our expiring
recollections, all would appear to be definitively motionless,
immutable for ever, divided from present and future by a river that
shall not again be crossed.

In rea