Description

Figuier (1819-94) was a French scientist and writer who held the position of Professor of Chemistry at universities in Montpellier and Paris. Aged 30 he abandoned his research to devote himself to writing on popular science subjects. He wrote scientific articles for La Presse and edited and published a yearbook from 1857 to 1894 - L'Annee scientificque et industrielle (or Expose annuel des travaux) - in which he compiled an inventory of the scientific discoveries of the year, and which was continued after his death until 1914. He was also the author of numerous sucessful works, notably La terre avant le deluge (1863), translated into English as World Before the Deluge (1872). In this work (Les Bonheurs d'Outre-Tombe in the original French) Figuier based his theories of the future life on no religion, but on science and reason, putting forward the idea that those who have practiced righteousness and cultivated their minds during their life on earth will go on to become the inhabitants of an interplanetary "heaven." Reprinted from the Macmillan new edition of 1904 and illustrated with 10 plates.