On leaving Capella and approaching the Earth, I saw again my seventy-two years of earthly existence, my entire life such as it had been, passed before me; for, in approaching the Earth, I passed through successive zones of earthly scenes, where I saw spread out as in a scroll the visible history of our planet, because in going back towards the Earth, I was continually meeting the various zones which carried through space the visible history of our planet, comprising that of Paris as well as my own, for I was there. Taking thus in one day a retrospective survey of the road which it had taken light seventy-two years to traverse, I had reviewed my whole life in that one day, and I perceived even my own interment.
Quærens. It is as if, on returning from Capella to the Earth, you had seen, as in a mirror, the seventy-two years of your life photographed year by year. The one the farthest from the Earth, but which had started the first, and was the oldest, showed events as they were in 1793; the second, which left the Earth a year later, and had not yet reached Capella, contained those of 1794; the tenth, those of 1803; the thirty-sixth, having reached midway on the road, gave those of 1829; the fiftieth, those of 1843; the seventy-first, those of 1864.
Lumen. It is impossible to have better grasped these facts, which seem so mysterious and incomprehensible at first sight. Now I can recount to you that which happened to me upon Capella, after having thus witnessed over again my existence on the Earth.
I
Lumen. Whilst not very long ago (but I can no longer express that time by earthly measurements), in a melancholy region of Capella, I was contemplating the starry heavens at the beginning of a clear night, occupied in noting the star which is your earthly Sun, and near it the little azure planet, your Earth, I observed one of the scenes of my childhood—my young mother seated in the midst of a garden, holding an infant in her arms (my brother), having at her side a little girl of two summers (my sister), and a boy two years older (myself). I saw myself at that age when man is not yet conscious of his intellectual existence, though he bears even then upon his brow the germ of future promise. Whilst dreaming of this singular spectacle, which showed me myself at the entrance of my earthly career, I felt my attention drawn from your planet by a superior power, and directed towards another point in the heavens, which, even at that moment, seemed to be linked with the Earth and my career there, by some mysterious tie. I could not turn my gaze from this new point in the the heavens, my eyes being, as it were, chained to the spot by some magnetic power I was unable to resist. Several times I endeavoured to withdraw my eyes, and to fix them on the Earth I love so well; but in vain, for I was ever re-attracted to the same unknown star.
The star Gamma in Virgo.
Life on the planet of Virgo.
This star, upon which my eyes sought instinctively to divine something, belongs to the constellation of Virgo, whose form varies slightly as seen from Capella. It is a double star, that is to say, an association of two suns, one of a silvery whiteness, the other of a bright golden yellow, which revolve round one another once in 175 years. This star can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye, and its sign is the letter γ (Gamma), in the constellation of Virgo. Around each of the suns which form it there is a planetary system. My sight was fixed upon one of the planets belonging to the golden sun. On that planet there are animals and vegetables as upon the Earth; their forms bear a similarity to earthly ones, although there is an essential difference in their organisms. Their animal kingdom is analogous to yours; they have fishes in the seas, quadrupeds in the air, in which men can fly without wings, by reason of the extreme density of the atmosphere. The men of this planet possess almost the same form as those on the Earth, but no hair grows upon their heads, and they have three large thin thumbs instead of five fingers on their hands, and three great toes at the heel in place of soles to their feet, the extremities of their arms and legs being supple as india-rubber. They have, nevertheless, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, which give them their resemblance to earthly beings. They have not two ears, one on each side of the head, but one only, in the shape of a cone, which is placed on the upper part of the skull like a little hat.
They live in societies and wear clothing. Thus, you see, in their exterior they differ little from the inhabitants of the Earth.
Quærens. Are there, then, in other worlds beings entirely distinct from us, but who, notwithstanding their dissimilarities, can be compared with us?