"Agreed," answered Nicholl; "but is not the moon habitable for beings differently organised to us?"
"That question is more difficult to answer," replied Barbicane. "I will try to do it, however, but I ask Nicholl if movement seems to him the necessary result of existence, under no matter what organisation?"
"Without the slightest doubt," answered Nicholl.
"Well, then, my worthy companion, my answer will be that we have seen the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards, and that nothing appeared to be moving on the surface of the moon. The presence of no matter what form of humanity would be betrayed by appropriations, different constructions, or even ruins. What did we see? Everywhere the geological work of Nature, never the work of man. If, therefore, representatives of the animal kingdom exist upon the moon, they have taken refuge in those bottomless cavities which the eye cannot reach. And I cannot admit that either, for they would have left traces of their passage upon the plains which the atmosphere, however slight, covers. Now these traces are nowhere visible. Therefore the only hypothesis that remains is one of living beings without movement or life."
"You might just as well say living creatures who are not alive."
"Precisely," answered Barbicane, "which for us has no meaning."
"Then now we may formulate our opinion," said Michel.
"Yes," answered Nicholl.
"Very well," resumed Michel Ardan; "the Scientific Commission, meeting in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having supported its arguments upon fresh facts lately observed, decides unanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon—'No, the moon is not inhabited.'"
This decision was taken down by Barbicane in his notebook, where he had already written the procès-verbal of the sitting of December 6th.