An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars

by Henri de Parville

  Mr. Haughton: “Mr. President, I asked to speak several sessions ago, and I think that it would not be superfluous, before examining the possibility of the fall of an aerolith originating from another planet, to embark straight away on the most important question—in my opinion—of the development of creatures on the surface of the Earth and similar worlds. I should like, in that respect, to raise a few objections to Mr. Greenwight’s opinion.”

  Mr. Newbold: “The floor is Mr. Haughton’s, but I am bound to remind you, Gentlemen, that time is passing, and I recommend my colleagues to be as brief as possible.”

  Mr. Haughton: “Who says creature, gentlemen, says life. Now, what is life? For Mr. Greenwight, if I have understood correctly, life results from a given unified mass and a given quantity of motion. But if that were the case, gentlemen, what would prevent me from producing life? Am I not the master of the quantity of motion; can I not increase or diminish mass at will?

  “Here is some matter, then some more matter; can I animate it? No, a thousand times no. I can produce chemical reactions, which will not continue by themselves and will extinguish themselves after a certain lapse of time. That is not the nature of life. And besides, if that were the case, we would see life becoming manifest from moment to moment, everywhere that matter is in contact with matter; spontaneous generation would produce it before our eyes all the time. There is none.

  “Then again, why is there death after such a brief evolution of matter? Is it not obvious that the quantity of motion cannot have varied much in so short a time? Besides, individual succeeds individual, and what kills one animates another; there are anomalies and contradictions here that force me to reject the definition made in advance by the savant astronomer. No, life is not a reaction.”

  Mr. Ziegler: “I shall take the liberty of interrupting my illustrious colleague; I share Mr. Greenwight’s ideas up to a point, and I cannot let Mr. Haughton’s negations pass without reply. I am even more insistent about this because, in another arena—in France—no other academician, in a dispute that has last several years, has dared to put forward the opinion that I oppose to Mr. Haughton. My honorable colleague’s cause is defended artfully in Paris by Messieurs Pasteur, Milne-Edwards, Balard, etc., etc., and mine, or similar ones, by provincial professors: Messieurs Pouchet, Joly and Musset. Why, in the Institut de France, even though several academicians have a fixed opinion on the subject, has no one raised his voice in favor of heterogenesis? 47

  “I ask you not to follow that example and, although I am cutting out a path that is entirely new to you, I ask permission fully to explain my thinking. What we are all seeking, gentlemen, if not the truth? We must work together, each contributing his stone to the edifice.

  “Evidently, matter added to matter cannot produce life in every instance, but I dare to assert that the necessary and sufficient conditions lie in that juxtaposition. Organic bodies are bodies whose material elements are susceptible to being stimulated by the quantity of motion normally originating from the World itself or from the Sun; these bodies enter into harmonic vibration; they become animated; they live—and the reactions thus produced are perpetuated for a given time, which it will be necessary to define in due course.

  “As for the material elements of organic bodies, note this: they are always formed of various mineral materials, dependent on the milieu in which they are placed, and are invariably wholly or partly made up of certain fixed components: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen.

  “You deny that uniting matter with matter suffices to determine life, but do you not see an implicit reply in that continual juxtaposition of four substances: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen? Can you not perceive clearly that only certain varieties of matter, certain aggregations and certain compounds have the ability to constitute living bodies? Can it not be admitted that, if you know how to place them in the presence of the required conditions, you would produce life?

  “Right! A creature can only be formed out of one substance, one specifically-defined substance among the innumerable materials of nature, which can become a creature—but you refuse to see that as the first clue! Logic instructs you at least to admit a doubt and forbids you to cut such a difficulty question short so quickly.”

  Mr. Newbold: “Let us not forget the interplanetary habitant, gentlemen.”

  Mr. Ziegler: “Yes, Mr. President; I’m moving on.

  “Whenever you find yourself in the presence of material aggregations too dense as yet to be excited by the quantity of motion received from the planet, you will only have inert bodies before your eyes, incapable of entering into a harmonic vibration with that motion, incapable of perpetuating that force for a certain time, incapable of living. That is inorganic nature.

  “On the other hand, if you have before you aggregations sufficiently dense, mobile enough to store the motion and perpetuate it for a certain time, just as a string moved by a bow continues to vibrate when the effort has ceased, you will see those aggregations that were inert just now born, developing and living. That is organic nature.

  “Now, is this a mere hypothesis, a dream? If so, why do we only ever find the same molecules associated, the same atomic aggregations: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen? You see, gentlemen, that certain molecules alone, in invariable composition, like to come together. They alone are capable of receiving and transmitting the motion. Is it not necessary to conclude, whether we like it or not, that with them alone can life be produced? The proposition is therefore true that appropriate matter, excited by an appropriate quantity of motion, is a necessary and sufficient condition of the emergence of life. From that comes this definition: organic substance is merely the matter susceptible to harmonic excitation in the presence of the quantity of motion freely available at the surface of the globe.

  “Life is merely the release of the quantity of internal motion originally stored in matter and perpetuated by the quantity of external motion. Life therefore depends on the initial aggregation of matter and the environment in which it finds itself.”

  Mr. Haughton: “Does Mr. Ziegler extend this opinion, not merely to organic matter—which is to say, to the substance susceptible to increase and decrease which constitutes living beings—but to living beings themselves: to animals and vegetables?”

  Mr. Ziegler: “Most certainly; the law applies universally. Mr. Greenwight has said on his own authority that constellations and worlds supercharged with quantity of motion are in an embryonic state. As that quantity of motion diminishes, worlds age; when it is nullified, they die. I have only to repeat his statement for organic nature. The excited matter is aggregated in various combinations.

  “The fall of these innumerable atoms one upon another for each little body, however infinitesimal it is, produces a great quantity of motion.48 The release of that quantity of internal motion, slowed down every day by the quantity of external motion, just as the cooling of the Earth is slowed by the radiation of the Sun, determines the different phases of life.

  “The energy of the spring that releases it is the vital force; thus you pass necessarily from youth to old age, and when the quantity of internal motion is finally exhausted, and the external excitation is insufficient to maintain equilibrium, Death follows.

  “The molecular aggregations still subsist thereafter, just as the worlds still remain in their solid state after the completion of their cooling, but when the molecules have finished vibrating in unison with the molecules of neighboring bodies and there is no more tendency to aggregate, organic bodies become disorganized in their turn, like old worlds in space. The molecules, like the interplanetary atoms, resume their liberty to enter into new combinations somewhere else. Such is the cycle of life.

  “Mr. Haughton asks me how I give birth thus to vegetables and animals. I have demonstrated the generation of tissue, the embryonic cells of all organic substance; the ensemble will be born from the details, the creature from constituent parts. But the session is well advanced; with the agreement of the assemb
ly, I shall postpone the development of this thesis until tomorrow.

  LETTER X

  The genesis of living beings. The first organisms on Earth. Rudimentary vegetables. The law of formation and reproduction. The first animals. A few lines by Lavoisier. The solidarity of living beings. Species. Varieties. From which terrain did human beings originate? Such a ground, such an animal. On size. The epoch of large animals.

  Mr. Ziegler still has the floor.

  Mr. Ziegler: “Gentlemen, if the details that I introduced yesterday are still present in your memories, I think I can give you some assistance with respect to the genesis of creatures, as Mr. Greenwight has unfolded before to the genesis of worlds.

  “In the beginning, the quantity of motion of our globe was too great to permit any juxtaposition of organic elements. When it became small enough to permit their association and aggregation, the organic molecules were combined, and produced the first rudimentary organisms—organisms that would have been invisible to us, so small and imperceptible were they, had we been capable of existing on the world’s surface at that time. What were these organisms? We shall be careful in defining them. What were they! Masses of molecules that, in combination, had—by virtue of that very fact—condensed a certain quantity of motion. That aggregation, excited by external motion, was capable of increasing by the adjunction of new molecules, by virtue of an exchange with other neighboring materials—which gave rise to birth, life, and then, after the release of all the motion, death. Thus the most rudimentary organisms were born, in the infancy of our planet; they were doubtless compounded in abundance almost everywhere, covering the surface of the globe.

  “But these little bodies, these tiny elementary cells tossed about randomly in the milieu of an atmosphere charged with gas, ended up falling back on to the solid surface; they found new elements of aggregation there, and the majority, extracting organic materials from the ground, drew them into their evolution and transformed themselves into more complex organisms.49 Thus the primitive organic molecule went on, constantly and successively complicating itself, sometimes taking force and density into its adjunction along with organic molecules. Such is the origin of vegetables. Forms multiplied increasingly, from the cell and the elementary tissue to multiple tissues. It was, first and foremost, a matter of mass, time and the quantity of internal and external motion.

  “Do you imagine that one of these masses of organic molecules, in the presence of new masses, would have been able to increase permanently and grow indefinitely by juxtaposition and combination? No, gentlemen, the primitive vegetable, the rudimentary cell, could not grow infinitely. Its life depends on its quantity of motion, and its quantity of motion is finite.

  “When the developable surface of a cellule has become sufficiently large, by virtue of the adjunction of neighboring molecules, under the action of external forces—the world’s own heat and solar radiation—an equilibrium will be established between its superficial diminution and its vital release; the organic element will no longer be able to increase. Consider this curious mechanism, though. It is the surface that makes the individual waste away; the quantity of motion insufficient to keep it alive in its new state also concentrates its efforts at a single point. A new center of action forms, of newly-aggregated molecules; a new individual appears. Worlds are constantly-varying centers of action; these rudimentary vegetables are also centers of aggregation, incessantly transmutable. It is thus that the primitive cell reproduces itself, endlessly, by fission, fragmentation, budding, etc.

  “One might suppose that there is a continual loss of quantity of motion in the death and birth of each organic element, but there is not, for the forced aggregation of new molecules condenses new forces every time.

  “With regard to these infinitely tiny rudimentary individuals, it is evident that we ought to find them in al the eras of the existence of our planet, for as long as the conditions of temperature permit organic molecules to exist. They form wherever and whenever the physical elements of their existence are not lacking, or they reproduce by fractionation.

  “From the preceding argument, it seems to me, contrary to the opinion of Mr. Haughton, that if one puts the organic elements together, in the desired quantity—if you expose them to an appropriate heat and, especially, light, and to the desired humidity and electrical conditions—you will produce their association, and inevitably constitute creatures capable of living, nourishing themselves and reproducing themselves—which are, in consequence, vegetables by definition.50

  “The vegetable cell is distinct from the animal cell; although it has the same origin, its molecular grouping is different. Agate, japer and amethyst are only forms of flint, but their molecules are variously combined; it is the same with the vegetable cell and the animal element. The anatomical rudiments were doubtless constituted at the same time as the vegetable rudiments, and the difference is still imperceptible today. Certain animals and certain vegetables are so similar that one cannot precisely identify the point at which the animal sequence ends, giving way to the vegetable sequence.

  “Like the rudimentary vegetables, the first animal organisms, in extracting new materials from the bosom of the waters, the air and the surface of the ground, became more complex and increased in dimension. Like the vegetables, they were obliged to grow no further beyond a certain limit, and their death led to the birth of new individuals. With regard to the duration of their life, it is evidently proportional to the initial quantity of motion stored by molecular aggregation and the surface of each creature. It is therefore not considerable; reproduction has to manifest itself very energetically. Life and death overtake these organisms with an extreme rapidity.

  “The primitive organisms must have existed alone for a considerable time, some in the atmosphere, some on the solid surface, and others in the seas. Then, when calmer conditions prevailed on the globe, and sediments began to be deposited, the organisms became more numerous and more varied. The vegetable cells found materials for assimilation all around them, in abundance. The animal cells augmented themselves at the expense of the vegetable cells and the mineral substances of the atmosphere and the seas. The exchanges multiplied, forms becoming more varied, and the first species corresponding to the earliest ages of the globe gradually appeared.

  “Each species thus formed inevitably perpetuated itself from the time of its creation to a more distant epoch. In effect, an organism is a center of action, it is stored force; death does not come until that force is exhausted, but the external forces—heat, light, etc.—which stimulate the release of each individual life also work to accumulate within it materials borrowed from the environment into which it is plunged.

  “Now, in order that these forces can stimulate the vital release, it is absolutely necessary to admit that they are capable of doing exactly the same work; otherwise, there would be an arrest; life would not have appeared. The external forces can, therefore, work to group new molecules and are capable of determining by that aggregation a quantity of life equal to that possessed by the individual. This new aggregation permits the formation of a germ, the embryo of an individual similar to the preceding one—and thus it continues.

  “Nevertheless, the external forces are subject to an incessant but imperceptible diminution. Inevitably therefore, the quantity of life that they accumulate in each germ will also diminish. At length, the species will perish. That is one of the regular and imperceptible causes of the extinction of species. The lifespan of each individual, as we have said, depends on its mass and its developable surface; it is the same with the power of reproduction.

  “I have no need to observe that these considerations find further confirmation every day. Place a seed or an organism already in motion in an environment deprived of heat and light, and you will never, ever see life arise or perpetuate itself. Moreover, gentlemen, I must render justice here to the founder of chemistry, a Frenchman we all admire, the great Lavoisier. I found this memorable passage in his writings, which says it a
ll:

  “‘Organization, feeling, spontaneous movement and life only exist on the surface of the Earth and in the places exposed to light. One might say that the flame of Prometheus’ torch was a philosophical expression, which had not escaped the ancients. Without light, nature was without life; it was dead an inanimate. A benevolent God, in bringing light, has spread organization, feeling and thought over the surface of the Earth.’

  “These words will remain an eternal expression of truth.”

  (Prolonged applause.)

  Mr. Newbold: “We are listening with the most lively interest, Mr. Ziegler, but I am forced to recall that we are incessantly straying from the question. These digressions, interesting as they may be, are not advancing the solution of the problem. Mr. Ziegler might care to recall that we have been meeting for ten days, and we still do not know what conclusions to draw regarding the inhabitant of the planet Mars.”

  Mr. Ziegler: “Mr. President, I shall be finished soon. If the assembly will authorize me to do it, I shall complete my task.”

  (“Yes! Yes! Yes!”)

  “To continue: only vegetables, gentlemen, possess the faculty of drawing organic and inorganic molecules directly from the soil; they make organic matter directly. That is because of the simplicity of the aggregations which constitute them. Animals do not have that privilege; they can only grow at the expense of organic substance, vegetable or animal. Vegetables thus precede animals in creation. That is very remarkable, it seems to me, and is a very good indicator of the distance that separates the two kinds of organisms. One elaborates that which the other subsequently absorbs.

  “On sees here, from the outset, the appearance of an immutable law of nature. All organization proceeds incessantly by ascendant degrees, from the simple to the complex, the first creation serving the next, and so on.

  “An animal cannot extract the primitive elements of growth from its immediate surroundings, since it needs them to be subjected to an initial elaboration. It is therefore necessary for it to be able to displace itself. In the beginning, this necessity of displacement would have forced rudimentary organisms to fashion themselves for movement, and that faculty would have increased with the variety of nutrients drawn from every direction. Thus the animal would have been alone among natural bodies in having the ability to carry out external labor: a great concession which gifted it with all its superiority. That privilege, we repeat, small at first—very small—would have increased continually.