"Without a doubt!" answered Nicholl.
"Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that nothing seemed to us to move on the moon's surface. The presence of any kind of life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks, such as divers buildings, and even by ruins. And what have we seen? Everywhere and always the geological works of nature, never the work of man. If, then, there exist representatives of the animal kingdom on the moon, they must have fled to those unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot reach; which I cannot admit, for they must have left traces of their passage on those plains which the atmosphere must cover, however slightly raised it may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There remains but one hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion, which is life, is foreign."
"One might as well say, living creatures which do not live," replied Michel.
"Just so," said Barbicane, "which for us has no meaning."
"Then we may form our opinion?" said Michel.
"Yes," replied Nicholl.
"Very well," continued Michel Ardan, "the Scientific Commission assembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having founded their argument on facts recently observed, decide unanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon—'No! the moon is not habitable.'"
This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his notebook, where the process of the sitting of the 6th of December may be seen.
"Now," said Nicholl, "let us attack the second question, an indispensable complement of the first. I ask the honourable Commission, if the moon is not habitable, has she ever been inhabited, Citizen Barbicane?"
"My friends," replied Barbicane, "I did not undertake this journey in order to form an opinion on the past habitability of our satellite; but I will add that our personal observations only confirm me in this opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm, that the moon has been inhabited by a human race organized like our own; that she has produced animals anatomically formed like the terrestrial animals; but I add that these races, human or animal, have had their day, and are now for ever extinct!"