A Voyage to the Moon
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"And this happens, when in that motion these little Bodies meet with other little Bodies within us moving in the same manner, or whose Figure renders them susceptible of the same Agitation; for then these Newcomers stir up their Landlords to move as they do; & thus, when a violent Air meets with the Fire of our Blood, it inclines it to the same Motion, and animates it to a Sally, which is the thing we call Heat of Courage; if the Sound be softer, and have only force enough to raise a less Flame in greater Agitation, by leading it along the Nerves, Membranes, and through the interstices of our Flesh it excites that Tickling which is called Joy: And so it happens in the Ebullition of the other Passions, according as these little Bodies are more or less violently tossed upon us, according to the Motion they receive by the rencounter of other Agitations, and according as they find Dispositions in us for motion. So much for Hearing.
"Now, I think the Demonstration of Touching will be every whit as easie, if we conceive that out of all palpable Matter there is a perpetual Emission of little Bodies, and that the more we touch them, the more evaporates; because we press them out of the Subject it self, as Water out of a Sponge when we squeez it. The Hard make a report to the Organ of their Hardness; the Soft, of their Softness; the Rough, &c. And since this is so, we are not so quaint in Feeling with Hands used to Labour, because of the Thickness of the Skin, which being neither porous, nor animated, with difficulty transmits the Evaporations of Matter. Some, perhaps, may desire to know where the Organ of Touching has its Residence. For my part, I think it is spread over all the Surface of the Body, seeing in all parts it feels: Yet I imagine, that the nearer the Member, wherewith we touch, be to the Head, the sooner we distinguish; which Experience convinces us of, when with shut Eyes we handle any thing, for then we'll more easily guess what it is; and if on the contrary we feel it with our hinder Feet, it will be harder for us to know it: And the Reason is, because our Skin being all over perforated, our Nerves, which are of no compacter Matter, lose by the way a great many of those little Atomes through the little Holes of their Contexture, before they reach the Brain, which is their Journeys end: It remains, that I speak of the Smelling and Tasting.
"Pray tell me, when I taste a Fruit, is it not because the Heat of my Mouth melts it? Confess to me then, that there being Salts in a Pear, and that they being separated by Dissolution into little Bodies of a different Figure from those which make the Taste of an Apple, they must needs pierce our Pallate in a very different manner: Just so as the thrust of a Pike, that passes through me, is not like the Wound which a Pistol-Bullet makes me feel with a sudden start; and as that Pistol Bullet makes me suffer another sort of Pain than that of a Slug of Steel.
"I have nothing to say, as to the Smelling, seeing the Philosophers themselves confess, that it is performed by a continual Emission of little Bodies.
"Now upon the same Principle will I explain to you the Creation, Harmony, and Influence of the Celestial Globes, with the immutable Variety of Meteors."
He was about to proceed; but the Old Landlord coming in, made our Philosopher think of withdrawing: He brought in Christals full of Glow-worms, to light the Parlour; but seeing those little fiery Insects lose much of their Light, when they are not fresh gathered, these which were ten days old had hardly any at all. My Spirit stayed not till the Company should complain of it, but went up to his Chamber, and came immediately back again with two Bowls of Fire so Sparkling that all wondred he burnt not his Fingers. "These incombustible Tapers," said he, "will serve us better than your Week114 of Worms. They are Rays of the Sun, which I have purged from their Heat; otherwise, the corrosive qualities of their Fire would have dazzled and offended your Eyes; I have fixed their Light, and inclosed it within these transparent Bowls.115 That ought not to afford you any great Cause of Admiration; for it is not harder for me, who am a Native of the Sun, to condense his Beams, which are the Dust of that World, than it is for you to gather the Atomes of the pulveriz'd Earth of this World."
Thereupon our Landlord sent a Servant to wait upon the Philosophers home, it being then Night, with a dozen Globes of Glowworms hanging at his four Legs. As for my Preceptor and my self, we went to rest, by order of the Phisiognomist. He laid me that Night in a Chamber of Violets and Lillies, [and] ordered me to be tickled after the usual manner.
CHAPTER XV.
Of the Books in the Moon, and their Fashion; of Death, Burial, and Burning; of the Manner of telling the Time; and of Noses
Next Morning about Nine a Clock, my Spirit came in, and told me that he was come from Court, where
"When you are weary of Reading, you may Walk, or Converse with our Landlord's Son, he has a very Charming Wit; but that which I dislike in him is, that he is a little Atheistical. If he chance to Scandalize you, or by any Argument shake your Faith, fail not immediately to come and propose it to me, and I'll clear the Difficulties of it; any other, but I, would enjoin you to break Company with him; but since he is extreamly proud and conceited, I am certain he would take your flight for a Defeat, and would believe your Faith to be grounded on no Reason, if you refused to hear his."
Having said so, he left me; and no sooner was his back turned, but I fell to consider attentively my Books and their Boxes, that's to say, their Covers, which seemed to me to be wonderfully Rich; the one was cut of a single Diamond, incomparably more resplendent than ours; the second looked like a prodigious great Pearl, cloven in two. My Spirit had translated those Books into the Language of that World; but because I have none of their Print, I'll now explain to you the Fashion of these two Volumes.
Books in the MoonAs I opened the Box, I found within somewhat of Metal, almost like to our Clocks, full of I know not what little Springs and imperceptible Engines: It was a Book, indeed; but a Strange and Wonderful Book, that had neither Leaves nor Letters: In fine, it was a Book made wholly for the Ears, and not the Eyes. So that when any Body has a mind to read in it, he winds up that Machine with a great many Strings; then he turns the Hand to the Chapter which he desires to hear, and straight, as from the Mouth of a Man, or a Musical Instrument, proceed all the distinct and different Sounds,118 which the Lunar Grandees make use of for expressing their Thoughts, instead of Language.
When I since reflected on this Miraculous Invention, I no longer wondred that the Young – Men of that Country were more knowing at Sixteen or Eighteen years Old, than the Gray-Beards of our Climate; for knowing how to Read as soon as Speak, they are never without Lectures,119 in their Chambers, their Walks, the Town, or Travelling; they may have in their Pockets, or at their Girdles, Thirty of these Books, where they need but wind up a Spring to hear a whole Chapter, and so more, if they have a mind to hear the Book quite through; so that you never want the Company of all the great Men, living and Dead, who entertain you with Living Voices. This Present employed me about an hour; and then hanging them to my Ears, like a pair of Pendants, I went a Walking; but I was hardly at End of the Street when I met a Multitude of People very Melancholy.
Four of them carried upon their Shoulders a kind of a Herse, covered with Black: I asked a Spectator, what that Procession, like to a Funeral in my Country, meant? He made me answer, that that naughty
"All are Burnt here, except Malefactors: And, indeed, it is a most rational and decent Custom: For we believe, that the Fire having separated the pure from the impure, the Heat by Sympathy reassembles the natural Heat which made the Soul, and gives it force to mount up till it arrive at some Star, the Country of certain people more immaterial and intellectual than us; because their Temper ought to suit with, and participate of the Globe which they inhabit.
"However, this is not our neatest way of Burying neither; for when any one of our Philosophers comes to an Age, wherein he finds his Wit begin to decay, and the Ice of his years to numm the Motions of his Soul, he invites all his Friends to a sumptuous Banquet; then having declared to them the Reasons that move him to bid farewel to Nature, and the little hopes he has of adding any thing more to his worthy Actions, they shew him Favour; that's to say, they suffer him to Dye; or otherwise are severe to him and command him to Live. When then, by plurality of Voices, they have put his Life into his own Hands, he acquaints his dearest Friends with the day and place. These purge, and for Four and Twenty hours abstain from Eating; then being come to the House of the Sage, and having Sacrificed to the Sun, they enter the Chamber where the generous Philosopher waits for them on a Bed of State; every one embraces him, and when it comes to his turn whom he loves best, having kissed him affectionately, leaning upon his Bosom, and joyning Mouth to Mouth, with his right hand he sheaths a Dagger in his Heart."
Telling the TimeI interrupted this Discourse, saying to him that told me all, That this Manner of Acting much resembled the ways of some People of our World; and so pursued my Walk, which was so long that when I came back Dinner had been ready Two Hours. They asked me, why I came so late? It is not my Fault, said I to the Cook, who complained: I asked what it was a Clock several times in the Street, but they made me no answer but by opening their Mouths, shutting their Teeth, and turning their Faces awry.
"How," cried all the Company, "did not you know by that, that they shewed you what it was a Clock?" "Faith," said I, "they might have held their great Noses in the Sun long enough, before I had understood what they meant." "It's a Commodity," said they, "that saves them the Trouble of a Watch; for with their Teeth they make so true a Dial, that when they would tell any Body the Hour of the day, they do no more but open their Lips, and the shadow of that Nose, falling upon their Teeth, like the Gnomon of a Sun-Dial, makes the precise time.
"Now that you may know the reason, why all People in this Country have great Noses; as soon as a Woman is brought to Bed the Midwife carries the Child to the Master of the Seminary; and exactly at the years end, the Skillful being assembled, if his Nose prove shorter than the standing Measure, which an Alderman keeps, he is judged to be a Flat Nose, and delivered over to be gelt. You'll ask me, no doubt, the Reason of that Barbarous Custom, and how it comes to pass that we, amongst whom Virginity is a Crime, should enjoyn Continence by force; but know that we do so, because after Thirty Ages experience we have observed, that a great Nose is the mark of a Witty, Courteous, Affable, Generous and Liberal Man; and that a little Nose is a Sign of the contrary:120 Wherefore of Flat Noses we make Eunuchs, because the Republick had rather have no Children at all than Children like them."
Of NosesHe was still a speaking, when I saw a man come in stark Naked; I presently sat down and put on my Hat to shew him Honour, for these are the greatest Marks of Respect, that can be shew'd to any in that Country. "The Kingdom," said he, "desires you would give the Magistrates notice, before you return to your own World; because a Mathematician hath just now undertaken before the Council, that provided when you are returned home, you would make a certain Machine, that he'll teach you how to do; he'll attract your Globe, and joyn it to this."
During all this Discourse we went on with our Dinner; and as soon as we rose from Table, we went to take the Air in the Garden; where taking Occasion to speak of the Generation and Conception of things, he said to me, "You must know, that the Earth, converting it self into a Tree, from a Tree into a Hog, and from a Hog into a Man, is an Argument that all things in Nature aspire to be Men; since that is the most perfect Being, as being a Quintessence, and the best devised Mixture in the World; which alone unites the Animal and Rational Life into one. None but a Pedant will deny me this, when we see that a Plumb-Tree, by the Heat of its Germ, as by a Mouth, sucks in and digests the Earth that's about it; that a Hog devours the Fruit of this Tree, and converts it into the Substance of it self; and that a Man feeding on that Hog, reconcocts that dead Flesh, unites it to himself, and makes that Animal to revive under a more Noble Species. So the Man whom you see, perhaps threescore years ago was no more but a Tuft of Grass in my Garden; which is the more probable, that the Opinion of the Pythagorean Metamorphosis, which so many Great Men maintain, in all likelyhood has only reached us to engage us into an Enquiry after the truth of it; as, in reality, we have found that Matter, and all that has a Vegetative or Sensitive Life, when once it hath attained to the period of its Perfection, wheels about again and descends into its Inanity, that it may return upon the Stage and Act the same Parts over and over." I went down extreamly satisfyed to the Garden, and was beginning to rehearse to my Companion what our Master had taught me; when the Physiognomist came to conduct us to Supper, and afterwards to Rest.
CHAPTER XVI.
Of Miracles; and of Curing by the Imagination
Next Morning, so soon as I awoke, I went to call up my Antagonist. "It is," said I, accosting him, "as great a Miracle to find a great Wit, like yours, buried in Sleep, as to see Fire without Heat and Action: " He bore with this ugly Compliment; "but," (cryed he, with a Cholerick kind of Love) "will you never leave these Fabulous Terms? Know, that these Names defame the Name of a Philosopher; and that seeing the wise Man sees nothing in the World, but what he conceives, and judges may be conceived, he ought to abhor all those Expressions of Prodigies, and extraordinary Events of Nature, which Block heads have invented to excuse the Weakness of their Understanding."
I thought my self then obliged in Conscience, to endeavour to undeceive him; and therefore, said I, "Though you be very stiff and obstinate in your Opinions, yet I have plainly seen supernatural Things happen: " "Say you so," continued he; "you little know, that the force of Imagination is able to cure all the Diseases which you attribute to supernatural Causes, by reason of a certain natural Balsam, that contains Qualities quite contrary to the qualities of the Diseases that attack us; which happens, when our Imagination informed by Pain searches in that place for the specifick Remedy, which it applies to the Poison. That's the reason, why an able Physician of your World advises the Patient to make use of an Ignorant Doctor whom he esteems to be very knowing, rather than of a very Skilful Physician whom he may imagine to be Ignorant; because he fancies, that our Imagination labouring to recover our Health, provided it be assisted by Remedies, is able to cure us; but that the strongest Medicines are too weak, when not applied by Imagination. Do you think it strange, that the first Men of your World lived so many Ages without the least Knowledge of Physick? No. And what might have been the Cause of that, in your judgement; unless their Nature was as yet in its force, and that natural Balsam in vigour, before they were spoilt by the Drugs wherewith Physicians consume you; it being enough then for the recovery of ones Health, earnestly to wish for it, and to imagine himself cured: So that their vigorous Fancies, plunging into that vital Oyl, extracted the Elixir of it, and applying Actives to Passives, in almost the twinkling of an Eye they found themselves as sound as before: Which, notwithstanding the Depravation of Nature, happens even at this day, though somewhat rarely; and is by the Multitude called a Miracle: For my part, I believe not a jot on't, and have this to say for my self, that it is easier for all these Doctors to be mistaken, than that the other may not easily come to pass: For I put the Question to them; A Patient recovered out of a Feaver, heartily desired, during his sickness, as it is like, that he might be cured, and, may be, made Vows for that effect; so that of necessity he must either have dyed, continued sick, or recovered: Had he died, then would it have been said, kind Heaven hath put an end to his Pains; Nay, and that according to his Prayers, he was now cured of all Diseases, praised be the Lord: Had his Sickness continued, one would have said, he wanted Faith; but because he is cured, it's a Miracle forsooth. Is it not far more likely, that his Fancy, being excited by violent Desires, hath done its Duty and wrought the Cure? For grant he hath escaped, what then? must it needs be a Miracle? How many have we seen, pray, and after many solemn Vows and Protestations, go to pot with all their fair Promises and Resolutions."
"But at least," replied I to him, "if what you say of that Balsam be true, it is a mark of the Rationality of our Soul; seeing without the help of our Reason, or the Concurrence of our Will, she Acts of her self; as if being without us, she applied the Active to the Passive. Now if being separated from us she is Rational, it necessarily follows that she is Spiritual; and if you acknowledge her to be Spiritual, I conclude she is immortal; seeing Death happens to Animals, only by the changing of Forms, of which Matter alone is capable."
The Young Man at that, decently sitting down upon his Bed, and making me also to sit, discoursed, as I remember, in this manner: "As for the Soul of Beasts, which is Corporeal, I do not wonder they Die; seeing the best Harmony of the four Qualities may be dissolved, the greatest force of Blood quelled, and the loveliest Proportion of Organs disconcerted; but I wonder very much, that our intellectual, incorporeal, and immortal Soul should be constrained to dislodge and leave us, by the same Cause that makes an Ox to perish. Hath she covenanted with our Body, that as soon as he should receive a prick with a Sword in the Heart, a Bullet in the Brain, or a Musket-shot through the Chest, she should pack up and be gone? And if that Soul were Spiritual, and of her self so Rational that being separated from our Mass she understood as well as when Clothed with a Body; why cannot Blind Men, born with all the fair advantages of that intellectual Soul, imagine what it is to see? Is it because they are not as yet deprived of Sight, by the Death of all their Senses? How! I cannot then make use of my Right Hand, because I have a Left!
"And in fine, to make a just comparison which will overthrow all that you have said; I shall only alledge to you a Painter, who cannot work without his pencil: And I'll tell you, that it is just so with the Soul, when she wants the use of the Senses. Yet they have the Soul, which can only act imperfectly, because of the loss of one of her Tools, in the course of Life, to be able then to work to Perfection, when after our death she hath lost them all. If they tell me, over and over again, that she needeth not these Instruments for performing her Functions, I'll tell them e'en so, That then all the Blind about the Streets ought to be Whipt at a Carts-Arse, for playing the Counterfeits in pretending not to See a bit."
He would have gone on in such impertinent Arguments, had not I stopt his Mouth, by desiring him to forbear, as he did for fear of a quarrel; for he perceived I began to be in a heat: So that he departed, and left me admiring the People of that World, amongst whom even the meanest have Naturally so much Wit; whereas those of ours have so little, and yet so dearly bought.
CHAPTER XVII.
Of the Author's Return to the Earth
At length my Love for my Country took me off of the desire and thoughts I had of staying there; I minded nothing now but to be gone; but I saw so much impossibility in the matter, that it made me quite peevish and melancholick. My Spirit observed it, and having asked me, What was the reason that my Humor was so much altered? I frankly told him the Cause of my Melancholy; but he made me such fair Promises concerning my Return, that I relied wholly upon him. I acquainted the Council with my design; who sent for me, and made me take an Oath, that I should relate in our World, all that I had seen in that. My Passports then were expeded, and my Spirit having made necessary Provisions for so long a Voyage, asked me, What part of my Country I desired to light in? I told him, that since most of the Rich Youths of Paris, once in their life time, made a Journey to Rome; imagining after that that there remained no more worth the doing or seeing; I prayed him to be so good as to let me imitate them.
"But withal," said I, "in what Machine shall we perform the Voyage, and what Orders do you think the Mathematician, who talked t'other day of joyning this Globe to ours, will give me?" "As to the Mathematician," said he, "let that be no hinderance to you; for he is a Man who promises much, and performs little or nothing. And as to the Machine that's to carry you back, it shall be the same which brought you to Court." "How," said I, "will the Air become as solid as the Earth, to bear your steps? I cannot believe that." "And it is strange," replied he, "that you should believe, and not believe. Pray why should the Witches of your World, who march in the Air, and conduct whole Armies of Hail, Snow, Rain, and other Meteors, from one Province into another, have more Power than we? Pray have a little better opinion of me, than to think I would impose upon you." "The truth is," said I, "I have received so many good Offices from you, as well as Socrates, and the rest, for whom you have [had] so great kindness, that I dare trust my self in your hands, as now I do, resigning my self heartily up to you."