The Eternal Adam

“The Eternal Adam” is a French science fiction story, originally published in 1910. It´s attributed to Jules Verne, but many now believe that the real author was Verne´s son Michel, who greatly expanded on a draft left behind by his father (who died in 1905). The story is still very short, but has an intriguing message.

Set on planet Earth but in an indefinite future, the main character Zartog Sofr-Ai-San is an archeologist living in a society resembling that of Verne´s own time (i.e. the late 19^th century). After millennia of barbarism and war, humans have finally created a single world empire (but that too took a savage war to accomplish) and for the first time, something like universal peace, prosperity and constant scientific progress seems possible. Most people still believe in old superstitions, such as the idea that all of humanity is descended from a single primordial pair named Hedom and Hiva, created out of nothing by God. Sofr and the other “zartogs” (scientists or philosophers) know better, having arrived at something resembling Darwin´s theory of evolution. However, Sofr – who is a surprisingly honest scientist – admits that the theory (mostly developed by himself) has one major flaw. Humans don´t seem to fit into it. Archeological digs suggest that humans were just as advanced millennia before the establishment of the Empire of the Four Seas (Sofr´s own time). Even worse, humans seem to have *regressed* from an ancestral form with an even bigger brain than that of the zartogs, after which progress began anew. Animals and plants fit the evolutionary picture admirably, but not the human species.

One day, Sofr-Ai-San makes a sensational discovery literally in his own backyard. An aluminum casket thousands of years old surfaces, and after years of labor, the zartog finally manages to translate the mysterious documents inside it. It turns out to be a diary written in French during the 21^st century (although the technology seems to suggest 19^th century). It tells a dramatic story of a great human civilization (ours) which vanishes within hours after a world-wide cataclysmic earthquake during which all land is submerged by the sea. The few survivors manage to reach a new land arising out of the sea – the same land at which the Empire of the Four Seas would eventually be established – but within just one generation, most of their scientific and philosophical knowledge is lost, the people reverting to a primitive lifestyle. They walk around nude, sleep on the ground, think mostly of food collection, etc. The French castaway tries to salvage the scientific knowledge of his lost civilization, but these manuscripts are long gone when Sofr find the aluminum container near his residence. In passing, the survivor also mentions that another great civilization, known as Atlantis, once disappeared under the ocean…

The story ends with Sofr realizing the meaning of “Hedom” and “Hiva” (it´s Adam and Eve, of course), while also reaching the disturbing conclusion that “Adam” is eternal, every round of human civilization being a product of a few survivors from a previous one which was destroyed. Sofr is profoundly unsettled by the implications: there is no evolution or progress, but instead an eternal return (a concept presumably borrowed from Nietzsche).

I have no idea whether Verne (the father) believed in this or not, but I´m almost sure few other people did at the time (1910). I used to be a strong believer in Eternal Progress myself, so stories like this would have filled me with existential dread only 20 years ago or so. Which may even be the point – perhaps “The Eternal Adam” is intended as horror? Today, I have to say that the story doesn´t feel like science fiction at all. It´s the true human story, accidentally or otherwise stumbled upon by Jules and Michel Verne.

We are all Eternal Adams. And, dare I add, Eves.