WHAT was that? Could it be true? Another universe was coming down to us! Millions and millions of suns grouped together were floating about like a celestial archipelago, and as we flew toward them they spread themselves out like a limitless cloud of stars. I looked about me on all sides, trying to pierce the depths of boundless space, and saw similar clusters of twinkling stars scattered about in all directions, at various distances.

The new universe which we were entering was made up principally of red, ruby, and garnet suns. Many of them were absolutely blood-red. It was like going through a magnificent display of lightning. We sped swiftly from sun to sun; but incessant electrical commotions like the flashes of an aurora-borealis assailed us on all sides. What strange abiding-places worlds lighted solely by red suns must be! Then, too, we saw in one section of this universe a secondary group, composed of great numbers of rose-colored and blue stars. Suddenly an enormous comet, whose head was like some monster's open jaws, rushed upon and enveloped us. I clung terror-stricken to my goddess's side, who was for a moment hidden from me by a luminous haze. We were soon in a dark desert again, for the second universe, like the first, was now far away.

"Creation," she said, "comprises an infinite number of distinct worlds, separated from each other by abysses of vacancy."

"An infinite number?"

"A mathematical objection," she answered. "Doubtless, no matter how great a number may be, it cannot be actually infinite, since by thought one can always increase by a unit, or even double, treble, centuple it. But remember that the present is but a door through which the future rushes to the past. Eternity is endless, and the number of the worlds will be like it, without end."

"Look! You still see, always and on all sides, new celestial archipelagoes,—new worlds everywhere."

"It seems to me, O Urania! that we have been ascending toward the boundless heavens for a long time, and at very great speed."

"We could rise like this forever," she answered, "and never reach a definite limit.

"We could be wafted about yonder to right, to left; forward, backward; above, below,—in no matter what direction, but never anywhere should we find any confines.

"Never, never any end!

"Do you know where we are? Do you know how we reached here?

"We are—on the threshold of the infinite, as we were when on the Earth. We have not advanced one step!"

A deep emotion had taken possession of my mind. Urania's last words had pierced my very marrow like an icy chill. "Never any end—never! never," I repeated; I could think or speak of nothing else. But still the magnificence of the spectacle appealed to my eyes, and my feeling of annihilation gave place to enthusiasm.

"Astronomy," I cried, "is everything! To know these things, to live in the infinite,—oh, Urania! what are other human ideas compared with science? Shadows, phantoms!"

"Oh! you will wake up again upon the Earth," she said; "you will admire, and rightly too, the wisdom of your masters. But understand this,—the astronomy of your schools and observatories, mathematical astronomy, the beautiful science as known to Newton, Laplace, Le Verrier, is not yet definite, actual knowledge.

"That, O my son! is not the end which I have pursued since the days of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Look at the thousands of suns analogous to that which gives life to the earth, which like it are sources of light, motion, activity, and splendor! Ah! that is the object of the science to come,—the study of universal and eternal life. Until now, no one has ever entered the temple. Figures are not an end, but a means; they do not represent Nature's structure, only the methods, the scaffoldings. You are to see the dawn of a new day. Mathematical astronomy will yield her place to physical astronomy, to the true study of Nature.

"Yes," she continued, "astronomers who calculate the movements of the stars in their daily passage of the meridian, those who foretell eclipses, celestial phenomena, periodical comets, who observe the exact positions of the stars and planets on the different degrees of the celestial sphere so carefully; those who discover comets, planets, satellites, and variable stars; those who investigate and determine the disturbance caused the Earth's motion by attraction from the Moon and planets; those who consecrate their night-watches to the discovery of the fundamental elements of the world's system,—are all of them calculators and observers, precursors of the new astronomy. These are immense labors, studies worthy of admiration, and important works which bring to light the highest faculties of the human mind. But it is the army of the past; mathematicians and geometricians. Henceforth, the hearts of savants will throb for a still nobler conquest. All these great minds never really left the Earth while studying the skies. Astronomy's aim is not to show us the apparent position of shining specks, nor to weigh stones moving through space, nor to foretell eclipses, or the phases of the Moon or tides. All this is fine, but it is not enough.

"If life did not exist upon the earth, that planet would be absolutely devoid of interest for any mind whatsoever; and the same remark is applicable to all the worlds which gravitate around the thousands of millions of suns in the wide stretches of immensity. Life is the object of the whole creation. If there were neither life nor thought, it would all be null and void.

"You are destined to witness an entire transformation in science. Matter will give place to mind."

"Life universal!" I asked: "Are all the planets of our solar system inhabited? Are the myriads of worlds which people the infinite lived upon? Do those forms of human life resemble ours? Shall we ever know them?"

"The epoch of your life upon the earth, even the duration of terrestrial humanity, is but a moment in eternity." I did not understand this answer to my questions.

"There is no reason why all the worlds should be inhabited now," she went on. "The present period is of no more importance than those which preceded or will follow it.

"The length of the Earth's existence will be longer—much longer, perhaps ten times longer—than that of its vital human period. Out of a dozen worlds selected by chance from immensity, we could, for example, find hardly one inhabited by a really intelligent race. Some have been already, others will be in the future; these are in preparation, those have run through all their phases: here cradles, there graves. And then too an infinite variety in the forces of Nature and their manifestations is revealed; earthly life being in no way the type of extra-terrestrial existence. Beings can think, live, in wholly different organizations from those with which you are familiar on your own planet. Inhabitants of the other worlds have neither your form nor senses; they are otherwise.

"The day will come, and very soon, since you are called to see it, when the study of the conditions of life in the various provinces of the universe will be astronomy's essential aim and chief charm. Soon, instead of being concerned simply about the distance, the motion, and the material facts of your neighboring planets, astronomers will discover their physical constitution,—for example, their geographical appearance, their climatology, their meteorology,—will solve the mystery of their vital organizations, and will discuss their inhabitants. They will find that Mars and Venus are actually peopled by thinking beings; that Jupiter is still in its primary period of organic preparation; that Saturn looks down upon us under quite different conditions from those which were instrumental in the establishment of terrestrial life, and without passing through a state analogous to that of Earth, will be inhabited by beings incompatible with earthly organisms. New methods will tell about the physical and chemical constitutions of the stars and the nature of their atmospheres. Perfected instruments will permit the discovery of direct proofs of existence in these planetary humanities and the idea of putting one's self in communication with them. This is the scientific transformation which will mark the close of the nineteenth century and inaugurate the twentieth."

I listened with delight to these words of the celestial Muse, which shed an entirely different light upon the future of astronomy and filled me with renewed ardor. Before my eyes was a panorama of innumerable worlds moving in space, and I understood that the true object of science is to teach us about those far distant universes and allow us to live in those wide horizons. The beautiful goddess resumed: