A MODERN FRENCH GNOSTIC.

TT is not easy to conceive a more curious moral phenomenon than 1. that of a Frenchman deeply read in the popular aspects at least of modern science, and especially of modern inductive science, but reproducing, nevertheless, out of the very materials that he has thus collected, some of the most characteristic features of the ancient Gnosis. M. Figuier has distinguished himself by popularising the most interesting aspects of the astronomy and natural history of our day, in books which have been translated into English and have been found full of vivacity. But he has now passed out of that domain into the region of what we may call a bastard gnosis, that is, into transcendental dreams of things divine, not evolved pure out of his personal consciousness of the Infinite, but evolved out of a con- sciousness which gazes at the Infinite through the coloured glass of an imagination imbued with the lessons of modern physical

science. The result is curiously grotesque. You have the revelations of the telescope and the microscope predominating, in the slides of the strangest of moral magic-lanthorns, over the mystic dreams of a modernized Valentinus or Baailides. You have the doctrine of metempsychosis and an antenatal existence in quaint alliance with the doctrine of the correlation of forces and the indestructibility of matter. You have the funniest possible cross between the Darwinian theory of evolution and the Gnostic theory of successive emanations from the divine full- ness. You have the modernest possible discussions on the plurality of worlds' mixed up with the ancientest possible discussions on the metempsychosis of the souls of animals and human beings and their repeated reincarnations. Finally, you have physical theories of the sun and the heat it engenders, arrayed for the purpose of ex- plaining a new doctrine of angelic ministration, and the astronomic -theorem that all the stellar worlds move round some central point in space, brought up for the sake of illustrating what we may with reverence call a physical theory of God. It is impossible to imagine a book fuller of strange spiritual, moral, and logical medleys than M. Figuier's, of which Mr. Bentley* has given us what, if we may judge without examining the French, is an exceedingly lively, pure, and classical translation ;—though not of course without a few of the inevitable typographical and a few scientific blunders, the latter probably due to carelessness in the original, of which we give below a few specimens.t The oddity of the phenomenon consists in the curious influence which modern science has exerted, and the still more curious influ- ence which it has failed to exert, over this modern Gnostic's mind. It has saturated his imagination, and not affected his intellectual method of testing truth at all. It has coloured all his visions and not made it a whit the less easy to him to lend belief to the merest dreams. It has apparently weaned him from all confidenee in dogmatic authority, — except his own, but not rendered it even difficult to him to believe ardently on a mere guess, or to exult in the grandeur of an elaborate system of which no two links hold together against the feeblest of intellectual tests. If we had not read M. Figuier's book, we should have deemed it simply incredible that modern science could crowd any man's mind with pictures without even visibly affect- ing its logic. Indeed, so frail and even fanciful is the thread between M. Figuier's knowledge of the physical world and his dreams of the super-sensual world, that, but for the Introduction, which it is impossible to read without recognising that a serious and satisfying belief fills the author's mind, of which he would gladly share the comfort with others, we should have said that he had been trying very hard to find a new and attractive mode of airing his knowledge of physical science, and that he had made the religious doubts and difficulties of the day, and the tendency that Doubt has to trust in physical science as the only solid basis of truth, the excuse for a new book of great pretence and no value. However, as we have said, the seriousness of M. Figuier's purpose cannot be questioned, and therefore there is a real interest in observing the strange mixture which his mind presents of the wild guess-work which springs from unsatisfied spiritual craving, and the pictorial scenery of modern naturalism.

M. Figuier is very severe on the modern spiritualists,—believers in "mediums," and so forth,—but they at least rest their belief on what they assert to be facts within their own experience, and allow their illusions to spring, if they be all illusions, only from the defects of their senses and the haste and credulousness of their inductions. But M. Figuier himself resembles the old Gnostics in nothing so much as this, that be not only asks for no fact at all on which to build belief except its agreeableness to his own inner sense of what is divine, but even if he finds a lot of strongly as- serted but questionable facts which would just fit his view, he rejects them with as much scorn as if the truth of his speculations were rather undermined than established by any show of facts to support it, especially if they be of a kind that make no pretence to dignity or impressiveness. For instance, one of his beliefs is that tolerably good men when they die rise into the ether of the inter-stellar spaces above our atmosphere, putting on a more refined body better adapted to a superhuman nature, and getting nearer and nearer to the sun as they get purer and purer,—while bad men, or children who die too young for the purifying results of human trial and suffering, are re-incarnated in other human bodies, and have another try at human probation. Now we should certainly have expected any man who calmly stated his complete belief in this assertion, to found himself on the ghost-stories of old days and the spiritualist assertions of modern times. But no ; he cannot adequately express his contempt for such stories. He rejects the ghosts peremptorily. He declares that the medium is an ignorant person who mistakes his own thoughts for revelations from beyond the tomb. Spiritualism, he says, "is a vulgar and foolish phase of the popular belief in ghosts. It has higher preten- sions, but science and sense alike forbid us to admit them." (p. 124.) But not the less " the fact of communication between superhuman beings and the dwellers upon earth "is, as it seems to him, "proved." However, as it is not proved by revelation, to which M. Figuier never appeals, except as to a sublime rendering of some of the ideas of natural religion, we naturally ask how it is "proved," and why, if it is proved, he rejects so scornfully statements which seem * The Day after Death; or, Our Future Life, according to Science. Translated from the French of Louis Figuier, and illustrated by Astronomical Plates. London : Bentley.

t As where plants are talked of as "aspiring" liquids (p. 184, line 5), or where "birth" is written probably for 'bulk' (p. 113, line 3), or the planet Jupiter Is spoken of (p. 187, last line) as revolving on its axis in twelve hours, and having "a day and night respectively only ten hours long—the fact being that it revolves in ten hours, and has a day and night respectively five hours long.

in keeping with the "proof." The answer is that it is proved solely by its seeming suitable to M. Figuier,—to which he sub- sequently adds some very faint and dim kind of confirmation from the phenomena of dreams, dreams seeming to M. Figuier phenomena more ideal and less repulsive than the other super- stitions which he rejects. In short, the existence of myriads of superhuman beings in the interplanetary and interstellar spaces is proved by the mere fact that M. Figuier has so represented it to his own imagination, and found that representation to be good.

A still more amazing gnosis of the same kind is his theory of the solar essence. Having shown that astronomy and physical science have as yet failed to account satisfactorily for the enormous and, as far as we know, undiminishing heat of the sun, he goes on : —

" 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 cur 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."

Is it possible to conceive anything stranger than this bastard gnosis

of modern days? The sun is not yet accounted for by physical science, therefore, "with some confidence," we may say it is due to "pure souls"! If M. Figuier had said, that as the chemical law of combining proportions is still unaccounted for, he might "with

some confidence" ascribe it to the songs of the angels, we should have been neither more nor less surprised. As we know very little of pure soul, we certainly can't say that it is not a constant source of heat ; but certainly we should expect, if it were so, that we could detect the purity even of an embodied soul by the thermometer, and trace its purgatorial progress by the ingenious little self-registering contrivance which records a maximum. As M. Figuier never even suggests this confirmation of his theory, we conclude that we are right in saying that, like the Gnostics, he finds pure truth on these subjects only through his own arbitrary intellectual decrees ;—but it does a little puzzle, instead of help us, to find these arbitrary decrees so strongly colourel by the pictorial efforts of modern science. The following passage really exhibits the genesis of speculative opinion in M. Figuier's mind :-

"It seems to us that the human soul, in order to rise to the ethereal spaces, needs to have acquired that last degree of perfection which sets it free from every besetting weight ; that it must be subtle, light, puri- fied, beautiful, and that only under such conditions can it quit the earth, and soar towards the heavens. To our fancy, the human soul is like a celestial a6rostat, who flies towards the sublimest heights with swift strength, because it is free from all impurity. But the soul of a per- verse, wicked, vile, gross, base, cowardly man has not been purified, perfected, or lightened. It is weighed down by evil passions and gross appetites, which he has not sought to repress, but has, on the contrary, cultivated. It cannot rise to the celestial heights, it is constrained to 'dwell upon our melancholy and miserable earth. We believe that the wicked and impenitent man is not called to the immediate enjoyment of the blessed life of the ethereal regions. His soul remains here below, to recommence life a second time."

That is, because we name a wicked man's nature "gross," and a gool man's fine and spiritual, M. Figuier infers that the latter

is a sort of inflated balloon, and the former a mere clod of earth. But we also call passionate men hot, and self-controlled men cool. Why does not M. Figuier argue from that, that it is the passionate man's soul that is in the sun,—the source of heat,—

and that it is the spiritual man who cools the atmosphere for us, and feeds the pure fountain of refreshment. There is just as much and just as little to say for the one as the other, indeed, if he had said that the heat of the sun was caused by the agony of ex- tinguished hopes and smothered faculties, in the Hell of condemned souls, he would have had a more plausible case in popular opinion than he now has. M. Figuier dreams and believes one thing to-

day ; there is no reason at all why he should not dream and believe another thing to-morrow. With him the fundamental maxim of philosophy is, "I dream, therefore, it is."

The method or =method of M. Figuier finds its apotheosis in the magnificent climax of his gnosis as to,—we hardly like to write it, —the whereabouts of God. How is it intelligible that a man who had conceived either God or the subjects of physical science, should be able to localize the Divine person, and identify it with the central focus of force in a Newtonian universe ?—

" The absolute fixity of the sun and the stars was an astronomical principle, which, in the time of Newton, appeared to be indubitable. But science never stands still. Observations made in the present century have proved that the fixity, the immobility of the sun is only relative. The truth is that the sun, and with him the entire system of planets, asteroids, satellites, and comets, which he carries in his train, change their places, very slightly no doubt, but still appreciably. Our sun appears to advance slowly, with all the planetary family, towards that part of the sky in which the constellation of Hercules is situated, at the rate of 62,000,000 of leagues each year, or two leagues each second, describing an orbit which comprehends millions of centuries. That which is the case with our sun is equally the case with the other suns, that is to say, the stars. This general motion of translation must be common to all the stellar systems, and it is indubitable that the countless millions of solar systems suspended in infinite space are moving more or less quickly towards an unknown point in the sky. Now, there is nothing to forbid the supposition that all these circles or ellipses traced by myriads of solar systems have a common centre of attraction, towards which our system and all the others gravitate. Thus, all these celestial bodies, without exception, all this ant-hill of worlds which we have enumerated, may be turning round one point, one centre of attrac- tion. What forbids us to believe that God dwells at this centre of attrac- tion for all the worlds which fill infinite space s"

What should forbid us indeed, except that finding a plea for God is destroying the very meaning of the word ?

That M. Figuier's mind is not by any means a scientific one in

any sense whatever,—though his mind is full of the pictures with which modern science has familiarized us,—there. are abundant proofs in this strange book. He argues, for instance, from the hydrogen cyclones visible in the sun, that the "ether" of the inter- stellar spaces must be hydrogen,—a conclusion which a good chemist would make great fun of. Indeed, he does not even seem to see

that where there is burning hydrogen, there must be oxygen also, to support the combustion, and, therefore, if the hydrogen cyclones suggest hydrogen in the inter-stellar spaces, they suggest it no more than they suggest oxygen also. His psychology and theology are just as random and unscientific. The interest of his book lies in the extraordinary exhibition it gives us of a mind saturated with the details of science, and yet as independent of its only trust- worthy method as if its discoveries were mere accidental visions, preternaturally presented on the field of some really magic lanthorn.

He speaks of God, and his mind is full of mere notions of force and origin. He speaks of laws of nature, and his mind is full of pretty pictures that have pleased his fancy, and by that means alone given him the idea that they are true. He is like an intelligent child putting a number of kaleidoscopic fragments together in the forms that please him most, and fancying that because they please him so, they must have pleased the Creator too. It is a strange lesson on the capacity of man not only to learn, but to be deeply impressed by facts without having the faintest suspicion of their drift, their true meaning. M. Figuier is as much at home in recasting the laws of nature at his pleasure, as he would be if modern science had never existed ; and yet, though it is not

modern science, but some painful doubts about immortality which have impelled him to his present task, it is modern science which

has furnished him with all his materials. Comte gives us a Catholic Church minus God, and M. Figuier a scientific picture of theology minus both the scientific and theologic spirit. We suspect that Method will never take its true place in human study till we have admitted frankly to ourselves that the method of the inductive and the method of the psychological and theolo- gical, sciences is not and cannot be the same ; and that both alike require the most rigid and earnest study.