Evening star., 1923-09-18
{ NEW hooks
AT RANDOM
DREAMS or an ASTRONOMERS.
Camille Flammarion. d. Appleton

DREAMS OF AN ASTRONOMER.
Camille Flammarion. D. Appleton
& Co.
"A moving and inspiring book" Grant
oyeFten says. Nobody can gainsay
this judgment. Yet astronomy. as pure
science leaves the majority uninspired,
unnoved. We of this earth give but
perfunctory acknowledgment Of debt 70
our own sun. And we leave our moon;
largely. to the lyric transports, of in
constant lovers. AS for the other
worlds that jewel the night with spien-
dor, these lie unheeded. intellectually
remote from the prodigious busy
OF mans nomentous affairs.
How does 1t come about then that.
his own fires burning low with more
than eighty. years Of flaming, Camille
Flammarion is able to give human
warmth and nearness to this infinite
Iy cold and distant thing? How has
he achieved a body for this immense
abstraction? How changed a sheer be-
wilderment of pure calculation TO the
ordered and rhythmic swinging of the
spheres. BY what magic has he en4
sphered the universe itself in the
pnny mind of MANI. Not, we may be
sure, by infidelity to the grounded in
tegrity OF the great fact itself This
stands undisturbed in it's own essence
OF truth, as science has. SO far. un-
IS to move this harmonious world of
the skies into US along the thousand
avenues built by the senses and ex
tended by the imagination for the ad-
mission OF the outside world into the
substance Of our being. knowledge
and imagination are the tools of this
WORKER. Knowing that we are children
In knowledge and feeling, he EMPLOYS
with us the arts that appeal to child
mood. He stretches the magic CARPET
ana IN delight we take passage for
voyage in the sky.
To the moon, to Mars, to Saturn
and on and on and on to the edge OF
our own universe. Sixty thousand
billion miles! In a breathless second.
cons of time! Then infinite space,
other universes-a second, a third. a
fourth! And Flammaripn talks-"aIl
the stars which have ever been seen
IN the sky, the millions of luminous
points that constitute the milky way.
the innumerable celestial bodies, suns
of every magnitude and of every de-
gree of brightness, solar systens
planets and satellites. (which by mill
hons and hundreds of millions suc-
eeed each other In the void around us.
do not in the Infinite represent more
than an archipelago of celestial is!
lands and not more than a city I'm the
grand total of population. In this
CITY or the lfmitless empire. in this
town OF a land without frontiers. our
sun and its system represent sim
sle point, a single house among mil
mons OF other habftattons, Is our So
lar system a palace or a hoveI in this
great city? And the earth? The earth
Is room In the solar mansion
small dwelling, mIserably small -
Ihen Flammarion stops a minute to
compare this fact OF the earth's 1T
tleness with the swollen pretensions
OF man throughout the records OF
history. And he talks, quietly as If
TO himself. of the curious PHILOSOPHERS
and theologies that have risen out Of
the belief that the earth is the center
or all creation. That is his way-to
come back from these far journeys
into space and time TO make sure that
We are seeing the earth and man in
something like their real proportions.
** X
From the unreasonable magnitude
of the universe with the pinpdnt
place of the earth therein, Flam-
marion points TO the whole as a law
abiding uhiyerse-a grand harmony
and unity pFpRuced by the supreme
law Of attraction whose effects he de-
scribes TN one can feel in himself the
Rhythm of the swinging majesty of
the sky. From the celestial workings
OF this law he shows the application
of the law of attraction TO the mole
cules that make up the earth in it's
various aspects, and to human he.
ings also whom # serves to define
and direct and fulfil. Again. by this
passage from the great abstraction. m,
the concrete and immedfate examnIa
Flammarion brings the former into
the sympathy and clearer. compre-
hepsion of the. latter. He Is in aS-
feet. translatfng the skies into farms
OF human interest and understand;ner
All science VIII come to this method
IN the measure to which IL desires 70
be generally understood and support1
eG rms nook Is rare example of
u a
open of general acceptances.
x x x
And Flammarion dreams of tho
world of long ago, a point in the
history of creation, a hundred mil.
lion years passing like a day. A
world, this. which rose and lived
its turn and passed out. And "in a
hundred million years the earth
where we live will no longer exist,
or If any wreck of it remains. IL WIFI
be only a funereal desert. The va
rious worlds of our system will have
achieved their circle of life. the his
tories of its human race will Ione-
ago have been finished Our own
sun, no doubt: will have lost its light
and will roll along. a dark star.
through the realms of light
And he prophesies of the world to
come after our own world shall have
passed away. He pictures life on
the various planets and projects the
various considerable theories as to
communication between these worlds
The spirit of the book, the bent of
this knowledge.full discussion, bears
directly upon the people of this earth.
The closing sentence embodies the
spirit of the whole: "Let us not be
personal. like infants or the aged.
who see only their own room. Let
US know how to live in the infinite
and in the eternal" All this that
has happened accomplishes itself
naturally, "as if God did not exist"
And indeed the being whom the in
habitants of the earth have hitherto
defined as God does not exist. The
Buddha of the Chinese, the Osiris of
the Egyptians, the Jehovah of the
Hebrews, the Ormuzd and Ahriman
of the Persianss the Teutates of the