The French popular-science writer Louis Figuier proposes that body, soul and life part company at death, and that the soul rises as a superhuman being into the ethereal spaces, passing through new incarnations until it reaches the Sun. Astronomy, natural history and religious hope are mixed freely; the science is that of the 1870s and the speculation is wholly his own.
A curious document of Victorian attempts to reconcile science and immortality, read today as speculation rather than fact. Download the free EPUB.