nificence of the Cities of the Sun cannot be described by human imagination or analytic science.

The scientific proof of the immortality of matter and of the sun as its past and future home is strong collateral proof of the immortality of the soul and the sun as its future abode. If the "soul shall return to the God who gave it," and the sun is His visible dwelling-place, then the sun is man's future perennial residence. And its cities are marvels of beauty and perfection where dwell the happy denizens that once trod the solar planets.

The march of science will soon produce a universal Christianity without dogmas or ecclesiasticism. It is in the nature of human progress. All fruitless wrangles over texts and creeds will be deemed barbaric nonsense. But the essential truths of Christianityuniversal love; the immortality of man, as well as the immortality of matter; the existence of Deity as well as that of His universe; His personal residence as man's future heaven; His spiritual fatherhood, and man's eternal brotherhood-will be everywhere recognized. These will be accepted as the basis of all future civilization, human law, and civil and divine government.

In my former book, "Invisible Light, or The Electric Theory of Creation," I endeavored to formulate a new theory of creation. In the present volume I have endeavored to carry the theory a step further, and to show that the suns are not only not hot, or burning globes, but are the self-luminous perfected worlds of the universe, the personal residence of Deity, and the future abode of man; that housed in the heavenly mansions and beautiful Cities of the Sun are the former citizens of the solar planets, including earth's mighty host of departed spirits. New York City, May, 1901. THE AUTHOR.

THE CITIES OF THE SUN

CHAPTER I

THE SUNS ARE THE SELF-LUMINOUS PERFECTED WORLDS OF THE UNIVERSE

I hold that the suns are not hot, nor burning gaseous spheres, but are the self-luminous perfected worlds of the universe and the future abode of man. I claim that man is the product of planetary forces, and the planets are the hatcheries of human souls, and the suns the places of their development and growth to perfection. These are questions of paramount importance, profoundly interesting and intensely practical.

They are profoundly interesting because they affect the scope and foundations of human life. They are intensely practical because they create our ideals of present and future existence, and make or mar our realities of character and conduct.

Our ideals mould our character, control our actions, and make us what we are. To believe in this life and this world as our only sphere of being dwarfs our aspirations, our ideals, and our actions, and makes us but a reasoning atom built of dust, soon to sink back to its mother dust in endless silence and oblivion.

But to regard this life and this world as but one of many spheres of destiny is to rouse us to broader

realms of thought, nobler conceptions of the universe, and to invest our lives here and all moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, and lift them from the stage of mere human society to the imperishable theatre of all life and being.

So important is it for man to have ideals that Ruskin affirms that the man born into the world without an ideal, and without the necessity of labor, is the most unfortunate animal in creation, and is already on the road to hopeless ruin. Realizing this, I desire to fix such ideals in the mind that it may blend with the tragic incidents and personalities of this human life, the anticipations of a future life of loftier possibilities and attainments. Are all these important questions of man's future existence and place of abode, merely matters of conjecture? Have we sufficient facts, reasoning from the known to the unknown, to justify positive conclusions from scientific deductions? I am impelled without dogmatic assumption to believe we have. But I do not contend that they are susceptible of absolute demonstration like a problem in geometry or mathematics.

This would be asking too much, since all the foundations of the so-called exact sciences are assumed; and all mathematics have unknown quantities, and are founded on universal assumption.

Most of the accepted truths of science are still unproven, and rest, as the Copernican theory did for centuries, upon mere probability. If so important a truth as the revolution of the earth upon its axis could for centuries find no better proof than mere probability, what may we expect of scientific truths more complex and more difficult of solution?

Copernicus reasoned thus, Which is more likely to

be in motion, the earth or the whole universe outside of it? In whatever proportion the heavens are greater than the earth, in the same proportion must their motion be more rapid to carry them round in twenty-four hours.

Ptolemy showed that the heavens were so immense that the earth was but a point in comparison, and they might extend into infinity. Then it would require an infinite velocity of revolution.

Therefore it is far more likely that it is this comparative point, the earth, that turns, and that the universe is fixed, than the reverse.

Reasoning from this standpoint of probability, may we not reach a reasonable scientific hypothesis as to the immortality and future abode of man, the inhabitability of the sun and its fitness for the soul's perennial dwelling-place?

As the marvellous advance of science has surpassed all human expectation, may it not continue until ultimate and perfect knowledge is attained? It would not be more marvellous than the progress of the nineteenth century. Conte said there were problems in astronomical science which were beyond the reach of our powers. We might find out, he said, the movements of the heavenly bodies, survey their distances and appraise their weight; but to find out their material composition and chemical elements was impossible.

But this rash assertion was soon disproved, and the spectrum demonstrated that our central luminary, the sun, possessed iron and all the known metals of the earth. The elements comprising the sun, moon, stars, and planets were as absolutely unknown up to that time as aluminum and helium to Aristotle and the ancients; and we knew nothing

of the composition or substance of the globes external to the earth.

Then Dr. Huggins showed that the actual spectrum of the object demonstrated that the cause of the color in each star arose from the absorption of its peculiar atmosphere and registered the elements of its composition.

The spectrum also discovered the movements of the approach or recission in the object from which the light emanates, and measured the speed to within a mile per second.

And soon the elements, motion, and direction of many stars were measured, including suns so remote it took two hundred years for their light to reach the earth.

Humboldt stated a fundamental truth when he said that, "Belief in the discord of the elements gradually vanishes in proportion as science extends her empire, and the most important result of a rational inquiry into nature is to establish the unity and harmony of this stupendous mass of force and matter."

Thus reasoning I have sought through the electric theory of creation,* set forth in my book "Invisible Light," to simplify and unify all scientific truth. Not the truth established by scientific authority, for we must not rely on authority for truth, but on truth for authority. To get at the truth we must uniearn: all present scientific theories. We must reverse our conceptions of creation. We must cease to regard matter as dead and inert, or the visible world as all that exists. The universe of invisible matter and electricity far surpasses the visible world. We must look upon the universe as a vast electric organism,

* "Invisible Light," G. W. Dillingham Co., New York.