A young budding scientist who wore thick glasses and looked at a lot of TV said, one day, to a stooping old man who had dedicated his whole life to scientific research:

-Today, thanks to science and technology, nothing is impossible. The human being has already explored the Moon and soon he will surely walk on the Sun!

The old professor sat up straight a little, cleared his throat, fixed his eyes on the young wearing eyeglasses and answered him with an affectionate voice:

-My young friend, do not believe that it would be a so great feat; already you are walking on the sun.

-Me? to reply the stunned youngster. I am not on the sun, Mister professor, I am on the Earth. As you may know, the Earth is at 150 million kilometres from the sun, and the sun is rather hot!

Wearing a large smile, the old man answers:

-To be on earth, my child, is already to have one's two feet on the sun, since the Earth, you see, is a big slice of sun. To convince you, you only have to look at the fire that is spewed by the chimneys of the volcanoes; that fire reveals the true nature of the Earth.

-Many believe that the Earth is only a mass of mud, stones and water and ignore that before anything else it is a mass of fire. This mass of fire separated itself from the sun a long time ago. It is true that with time it has cool down a little at the surface, but, inside, it burns always very strongly while turning around the sun like a baby panda around its mother. My dear little friend, we are living on a star.

-I live on a star and I did not know that! retorted the child while opening large eyes behind his big eyeglasses.

-Yes! You live on a star, repeated the professor while stroking the head of the child; and since you would not exist without the sun and without the earth, I would add that you yourself is a star like them.

-Me, a star? cried out the child, stunned once again.

-Oh yes, you are a star! And much more than a star! to add more the professor. The day when you discover that reality always very largely surpasses all that your brain can perceive about it, that day, you will be able to begin to let yourself be dazed by the marvel that you are.

-Of course, science and technology greatly help to understand something about the stars, but they are not nor will they ever be stars.

-They can scrutinize the inside of the human body and with only one of its particles clone another human body; yet, they will always be powerless to give birth to a single atom of life, or to the slightest parcel of love.

-Never will they be able to penetrate the hidden secret at the heart of his being, where shines the marvellous sun that you are.

-As such, facing the greatest marvels of out laboratories and our industries, the human being may be able, with Confucius, regret having eyes and not be able to see Mount Tai.

The professor could have brought to a close the conversation with this resounding sentence, but he could not stop himself of adding another one:

-My young friend, science will only progress insofar as it will remember that it is not the eyes which create light, but the light which creates the eyes.

This said, the professor retired, leaving our young budding scientist totally in awe. That the human being is greater than science and technology was something totally new. And for the first time in his life, he began to think that no one should aspire to become a great scientist if, at the same time, he does not try to become a wise person.

In his small bright head, he could already foresee that by dint of exalting science at the expense of wisdom, the humans of our time seriously risk of transforming themselves, unwittingly, into robots of their science and their technology, and maybe even into slaves of those who have already left their footprints on the Moon.

To dream of walking on the sun was not so stupid after all, thought our little scientist (now having become a budding wise person); it was enough to know that one had to begin immediately to take better care of our Earth that is the beloved child of the sun, and to seriously care about the miserable fate of the many inhabitants of the earth who still have no place under the sun.

Eloy Roy

Translated from the French by Jacques Bourdages