To become Selenites!  That idea again brought up the question of the habitability of the moon.  After what they had seen, could the travellers solve it?  Could they conclude for or against?  Michel Ardan asked his two friends to give utterance to their opinion, and asked them outright if they thought that humanity and animality were represented in the lunar world.

“I think we cannot answer,” said Barbicane, “but in my opinion the question ought not to be stated in that form.  I ask to be allowed to state it differently.”

“State it as you like,” answered Michel.

“This is it,” resumed Barbicane.  “The problem is double, and requires a double solution.  Is the moon habitable?  Has it been inhabited?”

“Right,” said Nicholl.  “Let us first see if the moon is habitable.”

“To tell the truth, I know nothing about it,” replied Michel.

“And I answer in the negative,” said Barbicane.  “In her actual state, with her certainly very slight atmosphere, her seas mostly dried up, her insufficient water, her restricted vegetation, her abrupt alternations of heat and cold, her nights and days 354 hours long, the moon does not appear habitable to me, nor propitious to the development of the animal kingdom, nor sufficient for the needs of existence such as we understand it.”

“Agreed,” answered Nicholl; “but is not the moon habitable for beings differently organised to us?”

“That question is more difficult to answer,” replied Barbicane.  “I will try to do it, however, but I ask Nicholl if movement seems to him the necessary result of existence, under no matter what organisation?”

“Without the slightest doubt,” answered Nicholl.

“Well, then, my worthy companion, my answer will be that we have seen the lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards, and that nothing appeared to be moving on the surface of the moon.  The presence of no matter what form of humanity would be betrayed by appropriations, different constructions, or even ruins.  What did we see?  Everywhere the geological work of Nature, never the work of man.  If, therefore, representatives of the animal kingdom exist upon the moon, they have taken refuge in those bottomless cavities which the eye cannot reach.  And I cannot admit that either, for they would have left traces of their passage upon the plains which the atmosphere, however slight, covers.  Now these traces are nowhere visible.  Therefore the only hypothesis that remains is one of living beings without movement or life.”

“You might just as well say living creatures who are not alive.”

“Precisely,” answered Barbicane, “which for us has no meaning.”

“Then now we may formulate our opinion,” said Michel.

“Yes,” answered Nicholl.

“Very well,” resumed Michel Ardan; “the Scientific Commission, meeting in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having supported its arguments upon fresh facts lately observed, decides unanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon—­’No, the moon is not inhabited.’”