“Beings of different evolutionary stages of the Universe”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The collection of works by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, translated into English

1902

(From the manuscript “Ethics.” – 1902 – P. 164-171)

A molecule, according to our hypothesis, is an infinitely complex substance. The creatures known to us and those supposed to live in the vicinity of suns and on planets are composed or built of molecules of different kinds (oxygen, hydrogen, iron, carbon, etc.).

Let’s go back in time and imagine a universe a billion decillion or however many years ago. Then the molecules were less complex, there were other planets, other suns, and other beings made up of these simpler molecules. When they chemically combined, they emitted a different light, not visible to us now, not felt by our visual organs, because the magnitude of the etheric waves was smaller and the etheric medium was different, more rarefied and elastic than it is now.

The beings of that time were less dense, but they were also subject to evolution, and there was a struggle for existence among them, and they reached in their time long past the crown of perfection, and they became immortal rulers of the world, which men will attain and which our kindred inhabitants of heaven have already attained, and they received bliss.

Were they able to be preserved until the present time, and do they live among us, being invisible by us? Or have they decayed to give rise to other creatures of the world visible to us? This is a question which is rather difficult to solve.

The philosopher will say that the origin of matter is the same: but this does not prevent the continuous and as if simultaneous evolution of matter from existing in a multitude of species: from dense metals to ether, which is trillions of times less dense. If the old species of unorganized matter managed to survive without intelligence, the more so could intelligent beings survive.

Bacteria and other single-celled creatures have existed since the dawn of time, but they also gave rise to man. Are there not invisible suns, planets and beings surrounding us, like bacteria, which man has recognized only now?

Where do these higher beings live? Do they inhabit only certain corners of the universe, or are they scattered everywhere and can be wherever they want? What are their properties? Do they have no connection with present beings? Do they not constitute the beginning of the life of men and their kindred, though perfect celestial beings? Do they not constitute their soul (their part)?

Do they not, for some purpose, enter into an animal or a man at his conception? Strange questions, and there is no answer to them…

Still, let us try to answer the last question, i.e., do not these past beings serve as the foundation of man, do they not enter his body at birth and do not constitute his soul with its properties? But, in the first place, all the properties of man’s body and soul find explanation in the structure of his body and brain. And if not all find, we can hope that in the course of time they will find. Secondly, if these beings revitalize man, it is difficult to deny the same to animals. They must all be inhabited at conception by the spirits of times long past. That’s pretty weird! Why did they need to be tormented in the bodies of animals and man! Why, at last, then, a man or an animal is not immediately made perfect (in its kind), if the spirit dwells at birth? Why is an infant not as intelligent as an adult? Why do we acquire intelligence by teaching and labor? How does the perfection of the spirit always depend on the kind of animals and the perfection of their organs? (There is a trashy hypothesis of pre-established harmony to explain this). Why is it that with the destruction of organs also the spirit grows weaker? Why does not a higher spirit dwell in some fly and make it a Newton?

It seems to me, I even almost firmly believe, at least my philosophy points me to it, that there are special beings incomprehensible to us, but they do not live in our bodies, just as they do not live in the bodies of plants and animals. Only primitive ignorance could make such a hypothesis to explain the phenomena of life, when the structure of living things was completely unexplored…

So, with regard to our world, we return to atomism, with its potentiality for life…. Here is a “dead” planet: it has just been covered by a solid crust; life is born on it. It develops, spreads, and covers the surface of the celestial body. And so it has been on every planet, of which the number is infinite.

Here is another glowing, sun-like, incandescent planet. It consists of a mixture of rarefied gases. What’s in it! What life is there! It’s like it doesn’t exist. But as our little sun cools, it inevitably fills with life.

If it appears, it was there before, but in a different, simpler form. Everything is alive, but in its own way. Not everything can be understood by us. Life is continuous, like everything. It sometimes makes sudden leaps (the phenomenon of “death”), but that is all. After all, the state also dies sometimes suddenly. Sometimes it assumes a higher form, and sometimes it is completely upset: its members are beaten, taken prisoner, etc.

It cannot be that there is no matter, time and space anywhere. They are infinite, continuous, and eternal. Likewise, it cannot be that there is no life anywhere. It too is eternal, continuous and omnipresent…

We have now taken a step backward, looking with our mental gaze decillions of years before our time, why don’t we take a similar or much longer backward step still! Back then matter and molecules were even simpler and beings were even less dense. They constituted a third world, invisible even to the second, certainly not yet to be comprehended by our senses.

No matter how many steps we take, no matter how many times we gallop through decillions of years to the beginning of the world, we shall never approach it and will be as far from it as we were. This follows from our hypothesis of the beginninglessness of time and the infinite divisibility of matter.

Feeding backward by giant steps of time, we encounter more and more worlds of living and intelligent beings, infinite gradations of generations, more and more ethereal. There is no end to these frames, just as there is no end to times neither past nor future.

Have all these beings been transformed, as matter less dense into denser matter is transformed? Have not intelligent beings been more powerless than unorganized matter, preserved, as I said, in different densities!

But are not those beings simpler, as bacteria are simpler in comparison with the higher animals and man? And to that no answer can be given. I think there may remain both simple and complex, more perfect than man, and even his perfect descendants. Allowing the transformation or destruction of some, it is difficult to allow the transformation or destruction of all, since there are innumerable categories of them! If they are preserved, are they not related to each other? Do not some, as we have said, serve as the foundation of the subsequent ones in time? Dark difficult questions, but everything is possible!…! Are not these beings servants of the Cosmos, as we should be…? What kind of organization does the society of each category represent…? Are there higher and lower among them…?

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