Thus, we find that neither astronomy nor physical science offers us any satisfactory explanation of the constant maintenance of solar radiation. Common sense tells us that this furnace, constantly in activity, must be as unceasingly fed; but science is as yet unable to discover the nature and source of its aliment.
There, where science places nothing, we venture to place something. In our belief solar radiation is maintained by the continuous, unbroken succession of souls, in the sun. These pure and burning spirits are perpetually replacing the emanations perpetually sent through space by the sun, to the globes which surround him. Thus we complete that uninterrupted circle of which we have previously spoken, which binds together all the creatures of nature by the links of a common chain, and attaches the visible to the invisible world. We may venture to put forward this explanation of the maintenance of solar radiation with some confidence, since science can give us no exact information upon the point, and philosophy in this case only fills up the void left by astronomy and physics.
In short, the sun, the centre of the planetary aggregation, the constant source of light and heat, which sends forth motion, sensation, and life upon the earth, is, in our belief, the final sojourn of purified perfected souls, which have attained their most exquisite subtlety. They are entirely devoid of material alloy, they are pure spirits who dwell in the midst of the blazing atmosphere and the burning masses which compose the sun. That star, whose size far surpasses the bulk of all the others put together, is sufficiently vast to contain them. From their throne of fire, these souls, all intelligence and activity, behold the marvellous spectacle of the march of all the planetary globes which compose the solar world, through space. Placed in the centre of this vast world, understanding the secrets of nature, and all the mysteries of the universe, they are in possession of perfect happiness, of absolute wisdom, and of illimitable knowledge.
The Genoese naturalist, Charles Bonnet, was the first to bring forward general ideas upon the philosophy of the universe, in the same order as those which we have just developed. In his Palingénésie Philosophique, published in 1771, he introduces the doctrine of divers existences for the human soul, outside that of the earth. In a chapter appended to that work, and entitled, "Conjectures on the blessings to come," he draws a picture of the perfect happiness which we shall enjoy in that abode, and dwells, in the following eloquent words, on the transcendent knowledge which we shall possess, which will unfold to our view all the secrets of the physical and moral worlds:—
"If the Supreme Intelligence," says Charles Bonnet, "has varied all His works here below, so that nothing created is identical with anything else, if harmonious progression reigns among all terrestrial beings; and one common chain unites them; is it not probable that this marvellous chain is prolonged throughout all the planetary worlds; that it unites them all, and that they are only constituent and infinitesimal parts of the same series?
"At present we can see only a few links of this great chain; we are not even certain that we observe them in their habitual order; we can only follow this admirable progression very imperfectly, and through innumerable windings in which we meet with frequent interruptions, but we always know that the breaches are not in the chain, but in our knowledge.
"When it shall have been granted to us to contemplate this chain, as I have supposed the intelligences for whom our world was chiefly made to contemplate it; when, like them, we shall be able to follow its coils in other worlds, then, and then only, we shall understand their reciprocal dependence, their secret relations, the exact meaning of every link, and we shall rise by a scale of relative perfection to the most transcendent and luminous truths.
"With what feelings shall our souls be filled, when, having studied to its depths the economy of a world, we shall fly to another, and compare the two! How perfect shall our cosmology be then! How wide the generalization and great the fecundity of our principles, the succession, the mass, the exactness of our knowledge! What light shall be shed from so many different objects upon the other branches of our studies; upon physics, geometry, astronomy, rational science, and especially upon that divine study whose object is the Supreme Being.
"All these truths are chained together, and the most distant are held to the nearest by hidden links, which it is the end of understanding to discover. Newton, no doubt, exulted in having discovered the secret relation between the fall of a stone and the motion of a planet; when he shall be one day transformed into a celestial intelligence, he will smile at this child's play, and his profound geometry will be to him only the first elements of another Infinite.
"Man's reason has already penetrated beyond all the planetary worlds; it has raised itself up to heaven, where God dwells; it contemplates the august throne of the Ancient of Days, it beholds all the spheres rolling beneath His feet, and obeying the impulse of His hand, it hears the acclamations of all the intelligences, and, mingling its adoration and its praise with the majestic song of the hierarchies, it cries with the deepest consciousness of its own nothingness: 'Holy, holy, holy, is He who is eternal, and the All Good; glory be to God in the highest, and good-will towards man!' Oh! the depth of the riches of the Divine Goodness, which is not satisfied with manifesting itself to men on the earth by countless means, but will bring him one day to the celestial dwelling-places, and satisfy the thirst of his soul with the fulness of delight. There are many dwellings in our Father's home; had it not been so, He whom He sent to us would have told us, and He is gone thither to prepare a place for us. He will come back and take us with Him; that where He is we may be also. Where He is, not in the outer court, not in the vestibule, but in the sanctuary of universal creation, in the holy of holies. Where He is, who is the King of angels and of men, the Mediator of the new covenant, the Author and Finisher of our Faith, who has made the new way for us which leads to life, who has made us free to enter into the Holy Place, who has brought us near to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable multitude of angels, to God Himself, who is the Judge of all.... In this eternal dwelling, in the bosom of light, of perfection and happiness, we shall read the general and particular history of Providence. Initiated, to a certain extent, in the profound mysteries of His government, His laws, His dispensations, we shall admiringly recognize the secret reasons of the many general and particular events which astonish us, confound us, and throw us into a state of doubt which philosophy does not always dissipate, but which religion never fails to allay. We shall ceaselessly meditate upon the great book of the destinies of the worlds. We shall dwell particularly on the pages which concern this little planet; the cradle of our infancy, and the first monument of the paternal goodness of the Creator towards man. We shall discover, with astonishment, the numerous revolutions which this little globe has undergone before it assumed its actual form, and we shall follow with our gaze those which it is destined to undergo in the course of ages; but our admiration and our gratitude will be chiefly excited by the wonders of that great redemption, in which there are so many things beyond our feeble reach, which have been the objects of the studious research and the profound meditation of the prophets, and which the angels have desired to look into. One line on this page will contain our own history, and will develop to our view the why and the how of those calamities, trials, and privations which in this world try the patience of the just man, purify his soul, and enhance his virtues, while they crush and destroy the weak. When we have reached so elevated a degree of knowledge, the origin of physical and moral evil will no longer embarrass us; we shall confront them distinctly at their source, and in their most distant effects, and we shall acknowledge, from the evidence before us, that all which God does is well done.
"In this world we see effects only; and we even observe them in a very superficial manner; all the causes are hidden from us: then we shall see effects in their causes, consequences in their principles, the history of the individual in that of the species, the history of the species in that of the globe, the history of the globe in that of the worlds, &c. Now we see things only confusedly, and in a glass darkly; but then we shall see face to face, and shall know in some sort as we have been known; in short, because we shall have an infinitely more complete and distinct knowledge of the work, we shall also acquire an incomparably deeper sense of the perfections of the workman. And this knowledge, the most sublime, the most vast, the most desirable of all, will be incessantly perfected by intimate intercourse with the eternal source of all perfection! I cannot express this sufficiently, I do but stammer over it; words are wanting; would that I could know the language of the angels. If it were possible to a finite intelligence ever to exhaust the universe, it would still find the treasures of truth from eternity to eternity in contemplation of its author; and, after a thousand myriads of ages consumed in such meditation, it would only have touched the edges of that science of which it may be even the highest intelligences possess no more than the rudiments. There is no true reality except in Him who is, for all which is, is by Him, before being out of Him; there is but one existence, because there is but one Being whose essence it is to exist; and all which bears the inappropriate name of being had remained shut up in necessary existence as the consequence in the principal."[8]
Before concluding this chapter, let us remark that the deductions of science concerning the sovereign part played by the sun in the general economy of nature, are in perfect harmony with the religious conceptions of the most ancient peoples. The worship of fire has reigned from time immemorial in Asia, and especially in ancient Persia. From the Persian shores sailed the first peoples, the Aryas, or Aryans, who occupied and peopled Europe. Fire worship was the first religion of ancient Asia. M. Burnouf dwells on this fact in his Etudes sur la Science des Religions, from which we quote the following passages:
"The men of that time (the Aryas) perceived that all the movements of inanimate things which take place on the earth's surface proceed from heat, which manifests itself, either under the form of fire which burns, or under the form of thunder, or under the form of wind; but the thunder is fire hidden in the cloud, and rises with it into the air; —fire which burns is, before it manifests itself, shut up in the vegetable matters which supply it with aliment; wind is produced when the air is stirred by heat, which rarefies it or condenses it on its withdrawal.
"Vegetables, in their turn, derive their combustibility from the sun, which makes them grow, by storing up his heat in them, and the air is warmed by the rays of the sun, the same rays which reduced the terrestrial waters to invisible vapours, and then to thunder-bearing clouds. The clouds spread the rain, make the rivers, feed the sea which the agitated winds trouble. Thus all this mobility which animates nature around us is the work of heat, and heat proceeds from the sun, which is at the same time "the celestial traveller," and the universal motor.
"Life also seemed to them to be closely allied to the idea of fire. The grand phenomenon of the accumulation of solar heat in plants, a phenomenon which science has since elucidated, was early perceived by the ancients. It is frequently pointed out in the Veddas in expressive terms. When they lighted the wood on the hearth they knew that they only 'forced' it to give out the fire which it had received from the sun. When their attention was directed to animals, the close bond which exists between heat and life, struck them in all its force; heat maintains life, they found no living animals in whom was life without heat; on the contrary, they saw that vital energy displayed itself in the proportion in which the animals shared in heat, and diminished in the same proportion. Life exists and perpetuates itself on the earth on three conditions only, that fire should penetrate the body under its three forms, of which one resides in the sun's rays, one in the ignited aliments, and the third in respiration, which is air renewed by motion. Now these two latter proceed, each after its own fashion, from the sun (sûrya); his celestial force is the universal motor, and the father of life: that which he first engendered, is the fire here below (agni) born of his rays, and his second eternal co-operator is air put in motion, which is also called wind, or spirit (vâyu)."[9]
The worship of the sun still exists among all the negro tribes which inhabit the interior of Africa; it may even be said that it is the only religion of the African tribes, and this religion has existed among them in all times.
The ancient inhabitants of the new world had no other worship than that of the sun. This fact is established by the historical archives of the Indian races which we possess; such as the Aztecs or ancient inhabitants of Mexico, and the Incas or ancient Peruvians. Manco Capac, who subjugated Peru, and imposed his own laws upon the country, passed for the son of the sun.
Did not all these primitive people, whose customs extend back to the origin of humanity, when they rendered religious homage to the sun, obey a mysterious intuition, a secret voice of nature? However that may be, it is very remarkable that the religious conceptions of the most ancient people should be in such complete harmony with the most recent and most authoritative deductions of modern science.