On arriving at the Sorbonne he was ushered into a large room where a special banquet had been prepared for the professor and his party. Scientists were present from every part of France. The scene that ensued baffled all description.
Speeches were made, songs were sung by celebrated divas and tenors specially engaged for the occasion, while the students themselves united in singing a song specially composed for the event.
As the dinner drew towards the end, a deputation from his students presented Delapine with a beautifully carved silver casket containing an illuminated address.
After the health of the hero of the hour had been drunk amid ringing cheers from every part of the room, the professor got up to reply.
"Mes honorables collegues et mes amis," said Delapine, quite overcome by the enthusiasm and affection displayed by his pupils. "I thank you from my heart for these signs of your affection and esteem for my poor efforts on your behalf (cries of 'no, no,' on all sides) and also for your expressions of sympathy with me during my prolonged state of trance, and the pleasure you have shown at my restoration to health. I have, like Ulysses, returned from my wanderings, and I rejoice to be with you once more. (Great applause and shouts of 'hurrah for Delapine!')
"I have not," he continued as soon as silence had been restored, "I have not altogether wasted my time since I left you last if I have been able to prove that a new era is dawning, and that wonders upon wonders are looming up in the horizon of our view. The spirit world is approaching nearer and nearer. Things which were inconceivable to our fathers are becoming commonplace to-day. Our great-grandfathers communicated with each other at a distance by means of beacons and flags; our grandfathers by means of mirrors and the semaphore; our fathers by the telegraph, while we communicate by means of the more convenient telephone and wireless ether waves; but mark me, our children or at least our grandchildren, will communicate their inmost thoughts by the infinitely more rapid psychic waves of the soul. (Deafening cheers followed). Writing and speech will be largely replaced by telepathy and thought transference. Both the past and the future will become unfolded to our mental gaze like a scroll.
"If we follow nature's laws and search into its hidden mysteries with an open mind, we shall march on from victory to victory (shouts of 'Vive la France!') we shall form a compact army of students who will refuse to acknowledge defeat. We shall be able to converse with the spirits of those who have gone before, and passed over to the other side. As my illustrious colleague, Sir Oliver Lodge, so eloquently puts it, 'The boundary between the two states—the known and the unknown—is still substantial, but it is wearing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in boring a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we are beginning to hear now and again the strokes of the pick-axes of our comrades on the other side.' Gentlemen, it is our solemn duty to search out the 'raison d'etre' of our existence on this planet, and to ascertain whither we are drifting.
"We must find an answer to the questions put by the immortal Heine:
"Sagt mir was bedeutet der Mensch?
Wohin ist er gekommen? Wo geht er her?
Wer wohnt dort oben auf goldenen Sternen?[22]
"If you cannot discover the known from the unknown you can at least, like the newly discovered elements, Niton, Thorium, and Actinium, excite activity in others. We must refuse to acknowledge defeat. I do not ask you to waste your precious time in fruitless efforts to win the Wolfskehl prize of 125,000 frs. by attempting to find a positive solution of Fermat's great theorem, that xn + yn = zn[23]. You, gentlemen, can well afford to leave such investigations to the German professors and the students of Göttingen. We Frenchmen have no time for such speculations, so long as rich pastures of fruitful and practical facts await discovery on every hand. Organic chemistry is only beginning to be unfolded and treated mathematically. We know the laws of gravity, but what is the cause of it? How does one body attract another at a distance, with nothing but the invisible and intangible Ether between them? The questions asked by Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the geometer of Alexandria, fifteen hundred years ago, 'Who am I, what am I, whence do I go, and what is the soul of man?' remain unanswered to-day. If you study the smallest object, or the meanest insect, you cannot help making important discoveries, if you only go about it in the right way. The fields are already white unto the harvest and the labourers are few. If we would spend our lives like men we must work as long as our frail bodies will hold out. Do not let us be put to shame by the tiny insects. Look at the Megachile, the Anthidium, the Halictes and the wild bee Chalcidoma who, as our illustrious naturalist Henri Fabre informed us, work for the very joy of it, until they drop dead from sheer fatigue. So eager are they, that they even allow themselves to be killed rather than give up their work. It is not our business to read history, rather let it be our task to make it. (Deafening applause). I am merely a pioneer in the field of science, (cries of 'No, no'). I have just peeped behind the veil which screens our view from the unknown beyond. It remains for you to tear that veil asunder. Truly it has been said 'Labore est orare.' Let us then work until we die, and when our work is finished: