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Nicolas Camille Flammarion (26 February 1842 – 3 June 1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research and related topics. He also published the magazine ''L'Astronomie'', starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. ==Biography== Camille Flammarion was born in Montigny-le-Roi, Haute-Marne, France. He was the brother of Ernest Flammarion (1846–1936), founder of the Groupe Flammarion publishing house. He was a founder and the first president of the ''Société astronomique de France'', which originally had its own independent journal, ''BSAF'' (''Bulletin de la Société astronomique de France''), first published in 1887. In January, 1895, after 13 volumes of ''L'Astronomie'' and 8 of ''BSAF'', the two merged, making ''L’Astronomie'' the Bulletin of the Societé. The 1895 volume of the combined journal was numbered 9, to preserve the ''BSAF'' volume numbering, but this had the consequence that volumes 9 to 13 of ''L'Astronomie'' can each refer to two different publications, five years apart from each other.〔(Which l'Astronomie? )〕 The "Flammarion engraving" first appeared in Flammarion’s 1888 edition of ''L’Atmosphère''. In 1907, he wrote that he believed that dwellers on Mars had tried to communicate with the Earth in the past. He also believed in 1907 that a seven-tailed comet was heading toward Earth. In 1910, for the appearance of Halley's Comet, he believed the gas from the comet’s tail "would impregnate (Earth’s ) atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet." As a young man, Flammarion was exposed to two significant social movements in the western world: the thoughts and ideas of Darwin and Lamarck, and the rising popularity of spiritism with spiritualist churches and organizations appearing all over Europe. He has been described as an "astronomer, mystic and storyteller" who was "obsessed by life after death, and on other worlds, and () seemed to see no distinction between the two."〔(Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs )〕 He was influenced by Jean Reynaud (1806–1863) and his ''Terre et ciel'' (1854), which described a religious system based on the transmigration of souls believed to be reconcilable with both Christianity and pluralism. He was convinced that souls after the physical death pass from planet to planet, progressively improving at each new incarnation.〔(Reynaud, Jean (1806-1863) - The Worlds of David Darling )〕 In ''Real and Imaginary Worlds'' (1864) and ''Lumen'' (1887), he "describes a range of exotic species, including sentient plants which combine the processes of digestion and respiration. This belief in extraterrestrial life, Flammarion combined with a religious conviction derived, not from the Catholic faith upon which he had been raised, but from the writings of Jean Reynaud and their emphasis upon the transmigration of souls. Man he considered to be a “citizen of the sky,” others worlds “studios of human work, schools where the expanding soul progressively learns and develops, assimilating gradually the knowledge to which its aspirations tend, approaching thus evermore the end of its destiny.”〔(Camille Flammarion's Collection )〕 His psychical studies also influenced some of his science fiction, where he would write about his beliefs in a cosmic version of metempsychosis. In "Lumen", a human character meets the soul of an alien, able to cross the universe faster than light, that has been reincarnated on many different worlds, each with their own gallery of organisms and their evolutionary history. Other than that, his writing about other worlds adhered fairly closely to then current ideas in evolutionary theory and astronomy. Among other things, he believed that all planets went through more or less the same stages of development, but at different rates depending on their sizes. The fusion of science, science fiction and the spiritual influenced other readers as well; "With great commercial success he blended scientific speculation with science fiction to propagate modern myths such as the notion that “superior” extraterrestrial species reside on numerous planets, and that the human soul evolves through cosmic reincarnation. Flammarion’s influence was great, not just on the popular thought of his day, but also on later writers with similar interests and convictions."〔(Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs )〕 Both George Griffith and Edgar Rice Burroughs are referring to him in their writing. In the English translation of Lumen, Brian Stapleford argues that both Olaf Stapledon and William Hope Hodgson have likely been influenced by Flammarion. Arthur Conan Doyle's ''The Poison Belt'', published 1913, also have a lot in common with Flammarion's worries that the tail of Halley's Comet would be poisonous for earth life. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Camille Flammarion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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