394 LIMITA TIONS OF HUMAN PO WER. 



organization, and establishing the royalty of man "through 

 the interpretation and imitation of Nature ? " 



Do you cherish the idea of penetrating, through the per- 

 fect union of all your intellectual forces, the mysteries of 

 creation ? 



No ; you would never dare to form such a hope, to nourish 

 such an idea, at least unless you felt that the earth (which you 

 must first demonstrate) comprehends in itself the whole uni- 

 verse, that the humanity swarming on its surface is eternal, 

 that every other creature is absolutely subordinate to it : in a 

 word, that Man is all ! 



But we know how limited is human power. We are not 

 masters even of the mechanism of the body ; the movements 

 of organic life are independent of our will; we can neither 

 command the stomach, the lungs, nor the heart : that mar- 

 vellous process of absorption and elimination, that perpetual 

 movement hither or thither which constitutes the essence of 

 the assimilative function, goes on in us as in all living 

 beings, animal or vegetable completely outside our sphere of 

 activity. Then, without quitting our planet, how numerous 

 are the movements which still escape the human will ! 



It is quite different when we lift up our eyes to examine the 

 face of heaven. We have no grasp whatever of the incom- 

 mensurable spiraloids of innumerable worlds to which our own 

 belongs; we have no means of communicating with the inhabit- 

 ants of other planets ; we cannot establish any interchange of 

 thought with the men (if there be any) of Mercury, Venus, 



