Death is the Supreme Event of Life by Camille Flammarion

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From: Death and Its Mystery 1922

In my childhood, during lessons in philosophy and religious instruction in school, I often heard a discourse, given periodically, which took as text the four words: "Porro unum est necessarium," or in English, "one single thing is necessary." This single thing was the salvation of our souls. The lecturer spoke to us of the wars of Alexander, of Caesar, of Napoleon, and arrived at this conclusion: "What does a man profit, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" They described to us also the flames of hell, and they terrified us with frightful pictures representing the damned, tortured by devils in an inextinguishable fire which burned them without consuming them, for all eternity. The subject of the text retains its value, whatever may be one's beliefs. It cannot be disputed that the one all-important point for us is to know what fate is reserved for us after our last breath. "To be or not to be!" That scene in "Hamlet" is repeated every day. The life of a thinking man is a meditation upon death.

If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about?

Whether we face it boldly, or whether we avoid the image of it, Death is the supreme event of Life. To be unwilling to consider it is a bit of childish silliness, as the precipice is before us and as we shall inevitably fall into it some day. To imagine that the problem is insoluble, that we can know nothing about it and shall only be wasting our time if, with daring curiosity, we try to see clearly,—that is an excuse dictated by a careless laziness and an unjustified timidity.

The funereal aspect of death is due, above all, to what surrounds it, to the mourning that accompanies it, to the religious ceremonies that envelop it, to the Dies Irae, to the De Profundis. Who knows if the despair of those who are left behind would not give place to hope if we had the courage to examine this last phase of our earthly life with the same pains that we bring to an astronomical or a psychological observation? Who knows if the prayers of the dying would not give place to the serenity of the rainbow after the storm?

It is hard not to desire an answer to the formidable question that presents itself when we think of our destiny, or when a cruel death has taken from us some one we love. How is it possible not to ask whether or not we shall find each other again, or if the separation is for eternity? Does a Deity or Goodness exist? Do injustice and evil rule over the progress of humanity, with no regard for the feelings that nature has placed in our hearts? And what is this nature itself? Has it a will, an end? Could there be more intelligence, more justice, more goodness, and more inspiration in our infinitesimally small minds than in the great universe? How many questions are associated with the same enigma!

We shall die; nothing is more certain. When the earth on which we live shall have turned only a hundred times more around the sun, not one of us, dear readers, will still be of this world.

Ought we to fear death for ourselves, or for those whom we love?

"Horror of death" is a senseless expression. One of two things is true: either we shall die wholly, or we shall continue to exist beyond the grave. If we die wholly we shall never know anything about it; consequently we shall not feel it. If we continue to exist, the subject is worth examining.

Some day our bodies will cease to live: there is not the least doubt on this point. They will resolve themselves into millions of molecules, which will later be reincorporated in other organisms of plants, animals, and men; the resurrection of the body is an outworn dogma that can no longer be accepted by any one. If our thought, our psychic entity survives the dissolution of the material organism, we shall have the joy of continuing to live, because our conscious life will continue under another mode of existence that is superior to this. It must be superior, for progress is a law of nature that manifests itself throughout the whole history of the earth, the only planet that we are able to study directly.

As concerns this great problem, we can say with Marcus Aurelius: "What is death? If we consider it in itself, if we separate it from the images with which we have surrounded it, we see that it is only a work of nature. But whoever fears a work of nature is still a child."

Francis Bacon merely repeated the same thought when he said: "The ceremonies of death are more terrifying than death itself."

"True philosophy," wrote the wise Roman emperor, "is to await death with a tranquil heart and to see in it only the dissolution of those elements of which each being is composed. That is according to nature, and nothing is evil which conforms to nature."

But the stoicism of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius, of the Arabs, the Mussulmans, the Buddhists does not satisfy us: we wish to know.

And besides, whether or not nature ever does anything wrong is a debatable question.

No thinking man can avoid being troubled in his hours of personal reflection by this question: "What will become of me? Shall I die wholly?"

It has been said, not without apparent reason, that this is on our part a matter of naive vanity. We attribute a certain importance to ourselves; we imagine it would be a pity for us to cease to exist; we suppose that God occupies Himself with us, and that we are not a negligible quantity in creation. Assuredly, especially when we speak astronomically, we are no great matter; and even the whole of humanity itself is likewise of little importance. We can no longer reason to-day as in the time of Pascal; the geocentric and anthropocentric system no longer exists. Lost atoms on another atom, itself lost in the infinite! But at any rate we exist, we think, and ever since men have thought they have asked themselves the same questions to which the most varied religions have attempted to reply, without any of them, however, having succeeded.

The mystery before which we have raised so many altars and so many statutes of the gods, is still there, as formidable as in the times of the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Christians of the Middle Ages. The anthropomorphic and the anthropophagic gods have crumbled away. Their religions have vanished, but the religion remains — the research into the conditions of immortality. Are we blotted out by death, or shall we continue to exist?

Francis Bacon, more popular and celebrated than Roger Bacon, but without his genius, had, in laying down the foundations of scientific experiment, foreseen the progressive victory of observation and experience, the triumph of fact, judiciously established according to theories, in all the domains of human study except one, that of "divine matters," of the "supernatural," which he abandoned to religious authority and to Faith. This was an error in which a certain number of learned men still actually persist. There is no valid reason for not studying everything, for not submitting everything
to the test of positive analysis, and we shall never know anything that we have not learned. If Theology has been mistaken in pretending that these subjects were reserved for her. Science has been equally mistaken in disdaining them as unworthy or foreign to her mission.

The problem of the immortality of the soul has not yet been solved in the affirmative, but neither has it yet been solved in the negative, as has sometimes been pretended.

It is the general tendency to believe that the solution of the sphinx's riddle of what lies beyond the grave is out of our reach, and that the human mind has not the power to pierce this mystery. Nevertheless, what subject concerns us more closely, and how can we fail to be interested in our own lot?

The persistent study of this great problem leads us to believe, to-day, that the mystery of death is less obscure and impenetrable than has been admitted hitherto, and that it may become clear to the mind's eye by the light of certain actual experiments that were unknown half a century ago.

It ought not to surprise us to find psychical research associated with astronomical research. It is the same problem. The physical and moral world are one. Astronomy has always been associated with religion. The errors of that ancient science, which was founded on deceptive appearances, had their inevitable consequences in the erroneous beliefs of former days; the theological heaven must accord with
the astronomical heaven under pain of collapse. The duty of all honest men is to seek loyally after truth.

In our epoch of free discussion, science can study tranquilly, with complete independence, the gravest of problems. We can remember, however, — not without some bitterness — that during the intolerant centuries of the Inquisition, inquiries of free thought brought their disciples to the scaffold. Thousands of men have been burned alive for their opinions: the statue of Giordano Bruno reminds us of this, even in Rome. Can we pass before it or before that of Savonarola in Florence or that of Etienne Dolet in Paris, without feeling a shiver of horror at religious intolerance? And Vanini, burned at Toulouse! And Michael Servetus, burned at Geneva by Calvin!

We once affirmed things of which we were ignorant; we imposed silence upon all seekers. This is what has above all retarded the psychic sciences. Undoubtedly this study is not indispensable to a practical life. Men in general are stupid. Not one out of a hundred of them thinks. They live on the earth without knowing where they are and without having the curiosity even to wonder. They are brutes that eat, drink, enjoy themselves, reproduce their kind, sleep, and are occupied above everything in acquiring money. I have had, during an already long life, the joy of spreading among the different classes of all humanity, in all countries and all languages, the basic ideas of astronomical knowledge, and I am in a position to know the proportion of those who are interested in understanding the world which they inhabit and of forming a rudimentary idea of the marvels of creation. Out of the sixteen hundred million human beings who inhabit our planet there are about a million interested in such things, that is to say, who read astronomical books, out of curiosity or otherwise. As for those who study and make themselves personally familiar with the science, who keep up with the new discoveries by reading special and yearly publications, their number can be placed at about fifty thousand for the entire world, of which six thousand are in France.

We can therefore conclude that out of every sixteen hundred human beings there is one who knows vaguely what world he inhabits, and out of a hundred and sixty thousand there is one really well informed.

As for the instruction in astronomy in primary and secondary schools, in colleges and lyceums, either civil or ecclesiastical, it virtually amounts to nothing. In the matter of positive psychology the results are equally negligible. Universal ignorance is the law of our mundane humanity, from the days of its simian birth.

The deplorable conditions of life on our planet, the obligation to eat, the necessities of material existence, explain the indifference to philosophy on the part of the earth's inhabitants, without entirely excusing them; for millions of men and women find the time to indulge in futile amusements, to read newspapers and novels, to play cards, to occupy themselves with the affairs of others, to pass along the old story of the mote and the beam, to criticize and spy upon those about them, to dabble in politics, to fill the churches and the theirs, to support luxurious shops, to overwork the dressmakers and hatmakers, etc.

Universal ignorance is the result of that miserable human individualism that is so self-sufficient. The need of living by the spirit is felt by no one, or almost no one. Men who think are the exception. If these researches lead us to employ our minds better, to find what we are here to do, on this earth, we may be satisfied with this work; for, truly, our life as human beings seems very obscure.

The inhabitant of the earth is still so unintelligent and so bestial that everywhere, even up to the present day, it is still might that makes right and upholds it; the leading statesman of each nation is still the Minister of War, and nine tenths of the financial wealth of the peoples is consecrated to periodic international butcheries.

And Death continues to reign over the destinies of humanity!

She is indeed the sovereign. Her scepter has never exercised its controlling power with such ferocious and savage violence as in these last years. By mowing down millions of men on the battle-field she has raised millions of questions to be addressed to Destiny. Let us study it, this final end. It is a subject well worthy of our attention.

The plan of this work is outlined by its aim: to establish the positive proofs of survival. It will contain neither literary dissertations nor fine poetic phrases, nor more or less captivating theories, nor hypotheses, but only the facts of observation, with their logical deductions.

Are we to die wholly? That is the question. What will remain of us? To say, to believe that our immortality rests with our descendants, depends on our works, on the way in which we have helped humanity, is a mere jest. If we die wholly, we shall know nothing of these services we have rendered, and our planet will come to an end and humanity will perish. Thus everything will be utterly destroyed.

In order to discover if the soul survives the body we must first find out if it exists in itself, independently of the physical organism. We must therefore establish this existence on the scientific basis of definite observation and not on the fine phrases and the ontological arguments with which, up to the present, the theologians of all times have been satisfied. And first of all we must take into account the insufficiency of the theories of physiology, as they are generally accepted and conventionally taught.

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