A. What is the Sun?
B. Are the beings that inhabit different worlds unknown to each other?
C. What is the relative importance of the Earth in the hierarchy of worlds?
Text for reading
362. Diversity Worlds – You have accompanied us in our celestial excursions and you have visited with us the vast regions of space. Under our eyes, suns have succeeded suns, systems have succeeded systems, and nebulae have succeeded nebulas. The splendid of the harmony of the cosmos has unfolded before our steps and we have received a forecast of the ideas of infinity, which only with our future perfectibility will we be able to understand in all its extension.
363. Without a doubt, it is good to have realized the tininess of the earth and its mediocre importance in the hierarchy of worlds. It is good to have struck down the human presumption, that is so dear to us, and to have humbled ourselves before the absolute greatness; however, it will be better still to morality interpret the spectacle that we have witnessed. I would like to speak of the infinite power of nature and the idea we ought to have about its mode of action in the diverse parts of the vast universe.
364. Accustomed as we are to judging things by our insignificant and poor small dwelling place, we imagine that nature could not or must not have acted on other worlds except according to the rules that we know on Earth. Now, it is precisely in this that it is important for us to reform our way judgment.
365. Cast your gaze for an instant on any one region of your globe and on one of the productions of your nature. Do you not recognize there the seal of an infinite variety and the proof of an unequaled activity? Do you not see in the wing of Canary Islands or in the petal of a rosebud in the bloom the extraordinary fecundity of such beautiful nature? May your studies be applied to the beings that soar through the air; may they descend to the violet growing in the woods; may they break open the depths of the ocean, in everything and everywhere you will read this universal truth: all-powerful nature acts according to places, times and the circumstances. It is one in its overall harmony but multiple in its productions. It plays with a sun as with a drop of water, and it peoples an immense world with living beings with the same ease that it hatches the egg laid by the autumn butterfly.
366. Now then, if such is the variety that nature has been able to portray to us in all places of this small world, so narrow and limited, how much broader should you consider this mode of action when pondering the perspectives of vaster worlds! How much more developed and lush you must recognize nature to be operating in those wonderful worlds that, much more than the Earth, attest to its unknowable perfection!
367. Thus, do not see systems similar to your own planetary system revolving around each one of the suns in space, do not see on those unknown planets the three kingdoms of nature that display themselves around you. Instead, think that, just as no human face looks like any other face in the entire human species, a prodigious, unimaginable diversity is also manifested in the ethereal dwelling places that float in the bosom of space.
368. Do not conclude that the millions and millions of earths that float in the spatial expanse are similar to this one. Far from it. They differ according to the various conditions that have been assigned to them and according to their respective roles in the scenario of the universe. They are the diversified jewels in an immense mosaic, the diverse flowers in a remarkable flowerbed.
369. Chapter VII – A geological sketch of the Earth - Earth itself retains the evident traces of its formation. The phases can be tracked with mathematical precision in the different formations that make up its framework. Taken together, these studies form the science of Geology, born in the nineteenth century and which has cast light on the highly controversial question of the origin of the earth and the living beings that inhabit it.
370. On this point there is no theory; there is the result of rigorous observation of facts, and considering the facts, no room for doubt. The history of the formation of the Earth is written in the geological strata, far more certain than in preconceived books, because it is nature itself that speaks, it exposes rather than the imagination of men to create theories.
371. Where one sees traces of fire, it can be said with certainty that there has been fire; where one sees traces of water, it can be said that the water was there; where one sees traces of animals, it can be said that animals have lived there.
372. Geology is therefore a whole science of observation; it draws conclusions only from what it sees; on questionable points, it affirms nothing; it forgoes disputable opinions, waiting for more complete observations. Without the discoveries of geology, as without those of Astronomy, the world’s Genesis would still be in dwelling in the darkness of legend. Thanks to geology, people today know the history of their dwelling and the scaffolding of the fables that used to surround its cradle has crumbled, never to rise again.
373. Everywhere in the terrains where there are trenches, natural or man-made excavations, one may observe what we call stratifications, i.e. superposed strata. The terrains that display this pattern are called by the name of stratified terrain. These strata of thickness ranging from a few centimeters up to 100 meters and more are distinguishable by color and nature of the substances that compose them. The artwork, drilling of wells, quarrying, and especially mines have made it possible to observe them to a very great depth.
374. The strata are generally homogeneous, i.e., each consisting of the same substance or different substances but which existed together and form a compact whole. The line of demarcation that separates them from one another is always clearly defined, like the layer of foundation of a building. Nowhere are presented and mixed lost in one another at their respective boundaries, as occurs, for example, in the colors of the prism and or a rainbow.
375. By these characteristics, one can see that they were formed successively and deposited one over another, under different conditions and by different causes. The deepest ones, of course, formed first, and those closer to the surface, afterward. The last of all of them - that which is found on the surface, is called the vegetative stratum, which owes its properties to the decayed remains of organic matter coming from plants and animals.
376. In geology, the lower layers placed underneath the vegetative layer are called rock strata, a name which in this context does not always imply the idea of a rocky substance, but rather means a bed or bench made of a mineral substance whatsoever.
377. Some are composed of sand, clay, marl(1) or gravel; others are composed of actual stone varying hardness, such as sandstone, marble, marbles, the chalk, limestone or calcareous rock, grindstone, coal, asphalt, etc. It is said that a rock is harder or less hard according to its density.
378. By examining the nature of these rocks or strata one can recognize certain signs indication that some come from molten matter, and at times, vitrified by the action of fire; others from earth-like substances deposited by water. Some of these substances remain disaggregated, such as sand; other, initially in the pasty state due to the action of certain chemical agents or other causes, hardened and acquired the consistency of stone over time. The layers of superposed stone are evidence of successive deposits. Fire and the water therefore have played their part in forming the materials that compose the solid framework of the globe.
(1) Marl: a friable earthly deposit consisting of clay and calcium carbonate.
Answers to Proposed Questions
A. What is the Sun?
Through modern observations, it is known that the sun is not fixed, neither central place as was believed in the early days of the new astronomy; but that it travels through space, dragging its vast system of planets, satellites and comets. This journey is not fortuitous and the sun does not wander through the infinite voids, led astray from the regions assigned to it, its children and its subjects. No, its orbit is measured, and concurrently with other suns of the same order and surrounded by a certain number of inhabited planets, it gravitates around a central sun. Its gravitation movement, like that of its sister suns, is imperceptible to annual observations, because only large number of century-long periods would hardly be sufficient to mark out the time of one such stellar year. (Genesis, Ch. VI, items 41 to 44)
B. Are the beings that inhabit different worlds unknown to each other?
No. One and the same human family has been created in the universality of the worlds, and the ties of fraternity still inappreciable by you have been bestowed on these worlds. If these heavenly bodies, which are harmonized in their vast systems, are inhabited by intelligent beings, it is not at all by some unknown beings to another, but rather, by beings marked in their foreheads by the same fate, which will temporarily meet one another according to their functions of life, and meet again according to their mutual affinities. It is the great family of spirits who inhabit the heavenly lands; it is the large irradiation of the divine Spirit that covers the extent of the heavens and that remain the first and ultimate archetype spiritual perfection. (Genesis, Ch. VI, items 54 to 56)
C. What is the relative importance of the Earth in the hierarchy of worlds?
Earth is tiny and of mediocre importance in the hierarchy of worlds, a fact that has the merit of striking down the human presumption. (Genesis, Ch. VI, item 59)
