s here. The optic nerve, for instance, which has formed and
developed here from the rudimentary organ of the trilobite to the
marvels of the human eye, must be incomparably more sensitive upon
Neptune than in our dazzling solar luminosity, in order to perceive
radiations that we do not perceive here. In all probability, it is
replaced there by some other organ. The lungs, functioning there in
another atmosphere, are different from our own. So, too, for the stomach
and digestive organs. Corporeal forms, animal and human, can not
resemble those which exist upon the Earth.

Certain _savants_ contend that if the conditions differed too much from
terrestrial conditions, life could not be produced there at all. Yet we
have no right to limit the powers of Nature to the narrow bounds of our
sphere of observation, and to pretend that our planet and our Humanity
are the type of all the worlds. That is a hypothesis as ridiculous as it
is childish.

Do not let us be "personal," like children, and old people who never see
beyond their room. Let us learn to live in the Infinite and the Eternal.

From this larger point of view, the doctrine of the plurality of worlds
is the complement and the natural crown of Astronomy. What interests us
most in the study of the Universe is surely to know what goes on there.

* * * * *

These considerations show that, in all the ages, what really constitutes
a planet is not its skeleton but the life that vibrates upon its
surface.

And again, if we analyze things, we see that for the Procession of
Nature, life is all, and matter nothing.

What has become of our ancestors, the millions of human beings who
preceded us upon this globe? Where are their bodies? What is left of
them? Search everywhere. Nothing is left but the molecules of air,
water, dust, atoms of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc., which
are incorporated in turn in the organism of every living being.

The whole Earth is a vast cemetery, and its finest cities are rooted in
the catacombs. But now, in crossing Paris, I passed for at least the
thousandth time near the Church of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and was
obliged to turn out of the direct way, on account of excavations. I
looked down, and saw that immediately below the pavement, they had just
uncovered some stone coffins still containing the skeletons that had
reposed there for ten centuries. From time immemorial the passers-by had
trampled t