The moon, the mysterious dwelling-place of
men unknown, would no longer be an inaccessible place. Space no
longer contained regions which man could not cross! Indeed,
certain expeditions attempted the crossing of the heavens, and
brought back news of the moon. The planets that revolve round
the sun, the far-flying comets, the most distant stars--these
formed the field which from that time was to lie open to the
investigations of man.
This enthusiasm one can well enough understand. There is in the
simple fact of an aerial ascent something so bold and so
astonishing, that the human spirit cannot fail to be profoundly
stirred by it. And if this is the feeling of men at the present
day, when, after having been witnesses of ascents for the last
eighty years, they see men confiding themselves in a swinging car
into the immensities of space, what must have been the
astonishment of those who, for the first time since the
commencement of the world, beheld one of their fellow-creatures
rolling in space, without any other assurance of safety than what
his still dim perception of the laws of nature gave him?
Why should we be obliged here to state that the great discovery
that stirred the spirits of men from the one end of Europe to the
other, and gave rise to hopes of such vast discoveries, should
have failed in realising the expectations which seemed so clearly
justified by the first experiments? It is now eighty-six years
since the first aerial journey astonished the world, and yet, in
1870, we are but little more advanced in the science than we were
in 1783.
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