A Voyage to the Moon

CHAPTER XII.

Of a Philosophical Entertainment

After I had Proclaimed this, in the five great places of the Town, my Advocate came and reached me his Hand to help me down. I was in great amaze, when after I had Eyed him I found him to be my Spirit; we were an hour in embracing one another: "Come lodge with me," said he, "for if you return to Court, after a Publick Disgrace, you will not be well lookt upon: Nay more, I must tell you, that you would have been still amongst the Apes yonder, as well as the Spaniard your Companion, if I had not in all Companies published the vigour and force of your Wit, and gained from your Enemies the protection of the great Men in your favours." I ceased not to thank him all the way, till we came to his Lodgings; there he entertained me till Suppertime with all the Engines he had set a work to prevail with my Enemies, notwithstanding the most specious pretexts they had used for riding the Mobile,[95 - The people, the populace. Cf. pp. 74 (#p_74) and 168 (#p_168).] to desist from so unjust a Prosecution. But as they came to acquaint us that Supper was upon the Table, he told me that to bear me company that evening he had invited Two Professors of the University of the Town to Sup with him: "I'll make them," said he, "fall upon the Philosophy which they teach in this World, and by that means you shall see my Landlord's Son: He's as Witty a Youth as ever I met with; he would prove another Socrates, if he could use his Parts aright, and not bury in Vice the Graces wherewith God continually visits him, by affecting a Libertinism,[96 - "Libertinism" in seventeenth-century English is like the French libertinage, applied rather to licentiousness of opinion than of practice; so here it means rather "free thought" than free living.] as he does, out of a Chimerical Ostentation and Affectation of the name of a Wit. I have taken Lodgings here, that I may lay hold on all Opportunities of Instructing him: " He said no more, that he might give me the Liberty to speak, if I had a mind to it; and then made a sign, that they should strip me of my disgraceful Ornaments, in which I still glistered.

The Two Professors, whom we expected, entered just as I was undrest, and we went to sit down to Table, where the Cloth was laid, and where we found the Youth he had mentioned to me, fallen to already. They made him a low Reverence, and treated him with as much respect as a Slave does his Lord. I asked my Spirit the reason of that, who made me answer, that it was because of his Age; seeing in that World, the Aged rendered all kind of Respect and Difference[97 - Deference.] to the Young; and which is far more, that the Parents obeyed their Children, so soon as by the Judgment of the Senate of Philosophers they had attained to the Years of Discretion.[98 - Cf. Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput, chap. vi.]

Why Parents Obey Children

"You are amazed," continued he, "at a Custom so contrary to that of your Country; but it is not all repugnant to Reason: For say, in your Conscience, when a brisk young Man is at his Prime in Imagining, Judging, and Acting, is not he fitter to govern a Family than a Decrepit piece of Threescore Years, dull and doting, whose Imagination is frozen under the Snow of Sixty Winters, who follows no other Guide but what you call the Experience of happy Successes; which yet are no more but the bare effects of Chance, against all the Rules and Oeconomy of humane Prudence? And as for Judgment, he hath but little of that neither, though the people of your World make it the Portion of Old Age: But to undeceive them, they must know, That that which is called Prudence in an Old Man is no more but a panick Apprehension, and a mad Fear of acting any thing where there is danger: So that when he does not run a Risk, wherein a Young Man hath lost himself; it is not that he foresaw the Catastrophe, but because he had not Fire enough to kindle those noble Flashes, which make us dare: Whereas the Boldness of that Young Man was as a pledge of the good Success of his design; because the same Ardour that speeds and facilitates the execution, thrust him upon the undertaking.

"As for Execution, I should wrong your Judgment if I endeavoured to convince it by proofs: You know that Youth alone is proper for Action; and were you not fully perswaded of this, tell me, pray, when you respect a Man of Courage, is it not because he can revenge you on your Enemies or Oppressors? And does any thing, but meer Habit, make you consider[99 - Respect.] him, when a Battalion of Seventy Januarys hath frozen his Blood and chilled all the noble Heats that youth is warmed with? When you yield to the Stronger, is it not that he should be obliged to you for a Victory which you cannot Dispute him? Why then should you submit to him, when Laziness hath softened his Muscles, weakened his Arteries, evaporated his Spirits, and suckt the Marrow out of his Bones? If you adore a Woman, is it not because of her Beauty? Why should you then continue your Cringes, when Old Age hath made her a Ghost, which only represents a hideous Picture of Death? In short, when you loved a Witty Man, it was because by the Quickness of his Apprehension he unravelled an intricate Affair, seasoned the choicest Companies with his quaint Sayings, and sounded the depth of Sciences with a single Thought; and do you still honour him, when his worn Organs disappoint his weak Noddle, when he is become dull and uneasy in Company, and when he looks like an aged Fairy[100 - Fr., Dieu Foyer. The change seems to be an interesting embroidery of the translator's fancy, since he has correctly translated the words as "Household God" on p. 76 (#p_76).] rather than a rational Man?

"Conclude then from thence, Son, that it is fitter Young Men should govern Families, than Old; and the rather, that according to your own Principles, Hercules, Achilles, Epaminondas, Alexander, and Cæsar, of whom most part died under Fourty Years of Age, could have merited no Honours, as being too Young in your account, though their Youth was the only cause of their Famous Actions; which a more advanced Age would have rendered ineffectual, as wanting that Heat and Promptitude that rendered them so highly successful. But you'll tell me, that all the Laws of your World do carefully enjoin the Respect that is due to Old Men: That's true; but it & as true also, that all who made Laws have been Old Men, who feared that Young Men might justly have dispossessed them of the Authority they had usurped.

"You owe nothing to your mortal Architector, but your Body only; your Soul comes from Heaven, and Chance might have made your Father your Son, as now you are his. Nay, are you sure he hath not hindered you from Inheriting a Crown? Your Spirit left Heaven, perhaps with a design to animate the King of the Romans, in the Womb of the Empress; it casually encountered the Embryo of you by the way, and it may be to shorten its journey, went and lodged there: No, no, God would never have razed your name out of the List of Mankind, though your Father had died a Child. But who knows, whether you might not have been at this day the work of some valiant Captain, that would have associated you to his Glory, as well as to his Estate. So that, perhaps, you are no more indebted to your Father – for the life he hath given you, than you would be to a Pirate who had put you in Chains, because he feeds you: Nay, grant he had begot you a Prince, or King; a Present loses its merit, when it is made without the Option of him who receives it. Cæsar was killed, and so was Cassius too: In the mean time Cassius was obliged to the Slave, from whom he begg'd his Death, but so was not Cæsar to his Murderers, who forced it upon him. Did your Father consult your Will and Pleasure, when he Embraced your Mother? Did he ask you, if you thought fit to see that Age, or to wait for another; if you would be satisfied to be the Son of a Sot, or if you had the Ambition to spring from a Brave Man? Alas, you whom alone the business concerned, were the only Person not consulted in the case. May be then, had you been shut up any where else, than in the Womb of Nature's Ideas, and had your Birth been in your own Opinion, you would have said to the Parca, my dear Lady, take another Spindle in your Hand: I have lain very long in the Bed of Nothing, and I had rather continue an Hundred years still without a Being, than to Be to day, that I may repent of it to morrow: However, Be you must, it was to no purpose for you to whimper and squall to be taken back again to the long and darksome House they drew you out of, they made as if they believed you cryed for the Teat.

"These are the Reasons, at least some of them, my Son, why Parents bear so much respect to their Children: I know very well that I have inclined to the Childrens side more than in justice I ought; and that in favour of them, I have spoken a little against my Conscience. But since I was willing to repress the Pride of some Parents, who insult over the weakness of their little Ones; I have been forced to do as they do who to make a crooked Tree streight bend it to the contrary side, that betwixt two Conversions it may become even: Thus I have made Fathers restore to their Children what they have taken from them, by taking from them a great deal that belonged to them; that so another time they may be content with their own. I know very well also that by this Apology I have offended all Old men: But let them remember, that they were Children before they were Fathers, and Young before they were Old; and that I must needs have spoken a great deal to their advantage, seeing they were not found in a Parsley-bed:[101 - Fr., "sous une pomme de chou" under a cabbage-head; where, as too curious children are sometimes told in France, the babies are found. The English expression is exactly equivalent. Cf. Locke: "Sempronia dug Titus out of the parsley bed, as they used to tell children, and so became his mother."] But, in fine, fall back, fall edge, though my Enemies draw up against my Friends, it will go well enough still with me; for I have obliged all men, and only disobliged but one half."

With that he held his tongue, and our Landlord's Son spoke in this manner: "Give me leave," said he to him, "since by your care I am informed of the Original, History, Customs, and Philosophy, of the World of this little Man; to add something to what you have said; and to prove that Children are not obliged to Parents for their Generation, because their Parents were obliged in Conscience to procreate them.

"The strictest Philosophy of their World acknowledges that it is better to dye, since to dye one must have lived, than not to have had a Being. Now seeing, by not giving a Being to that Nothing, I leave it in a state worse than Death, I am more guilty in not producing, than in killing it. In the mean time, my little Man, thou wouldst think thou hadst committed an unpardonable Parracide, shouldst thou have cut thy Sons throat: It would indeed be an enormous Crime, but it is far more execrable, not to give a Being to that which is capable of receiving it: For that Child whom thou deprivest of life for ever, hath had the satisfaction of having enjoyed it for some time. Besides, we know that it is but deprived of it, but for some ages; but these forty poor little Nothings, which thou mightest have made forty good Souldiers for the King, thou art so malicious as to deny them Life, and lettest them corrupt in thy Reins, to the danger of an Appoplexy, which will stifle thee."

This Philosophy did not at all please me, which made me three or four times shake my head; but our Preceptor held his tongue, because Supper was mad to be gone.

We laid our selves along, then, upon very soft Quilts, covered with large Carpets; and a young man that waited on us, taking the oldest of our Philosophers, led him into a little parlour apart, where my Spirit called to him to come back to us as soon as he had supped.

This humour of eating separately, gave me the curiosity of asking the Cause of it: "He'll not relish," said he, "the steam of Meat, nor yet of Herbs, unless they die of themselves, because he thinks they are sensible of Pain." "I wonder not so much," replied I, "that he abstains from Flesh, and all things that have had a sensitive Life: For in our World the Pythagoreans, and even some holy Anchorites, have followed that Rule; but not to dare, for instance, cut a Cabbage, for fear of hurting it; that seems to me altogether ridiculous." "And for my part," answered my Spirit, "I find a great deal of probability in his Opinion."

The Soul of Plants

"For tell me, Is not that Cabbage you speak of, a Being existent in Nature, as well as you? Is not she the common Mother of you both? Yet the Opinion that Nature is kinder to Mankind, than to Cabbage-kind, tickles and makes us laugh: But seeing she is incapable of Passion, she can neither love nor hate any thing; and were she susceptible of Love, she would rather bestow her affection upon this Cabbage, which you grant cannot offend her, than upon that Man who would destroy her, if it lay in his power.

"And moreover, Man cannot be born Innocent, being a Part of the first Offender: But we know very well, that the first Cabbage did not offend its Creator. If it be said, that we are made after the Image of the Supreme Being, and so is not the Cabbage; grant that to be true; yet by polluting our Soul, wherein we resembled Him, we have effaced that Likeness, seeing nothing is more contrary to God than Sin. If then our Soul be no longer his Image, we resemble him no more in our Feet, Hands, Mouth, Forehead and Ears, than a Cabbage in its Leaves, Flowers, Stalk, Pith, and Head: Do not you really think, that if this poor Plant could speak, when one cuts it, it would not say, 'Dear Brother Man, what have I done to thee that deserves Death? I never grow but in Gardens, and am never to be found in desart places, where I might live in Security: I disdain all other company but thine; and scarcely am I sowed in thy Garden, when to shew thee my Goodwill, I blow, stretch out my Arms to thee; offer thee my Children in Grain; and as a requital for my civility, thou causest my Head to be chopt off.' Thus would a Cabbage discourse, if it could speak.

"Well, and because it cannot complain, may we therefore justly do it all the Wrong which it cannot hinder? If I find a Wretch bound Hand and Foot, may I lawfully kill him, because he cannot defend himself? so far from that, that his Weakness would aggravate my Cruelty. And though this wretched Creature be poor, and destitute of all the advantages which we have, yet it deserves not Death; and when of all the Benefits of a Being it hath only that of Encrease, we ought not cruelly to snatch that away from it. To massacre a Man, is not so great Sin, as to cut and kill a Cabbage, because one day the Man will rise again, but the Cabbage has no other Life to hope for: By putting to death a Cabbage, you annihilate it; but in killing a Man, you make him only change his Habitations Nay, I'll go farther with you still: since God doth equally cherish all his Works, and hath equally divided the Benefits betwixt Us and Plants, it is but just we should have an equal Esteem for Them as for our Selves. It is true we were born first, but in the Family of God there is no Birthright. If then the Cabbage share not with us in the inheritance of Immortality, without doubt that Want was made up by some other Advantage, that may make amends for the shortness of its Being; may be by an universal Intellect, or a perfect Knowledge of all things in their Causes; and it's for that Reason, that the wise Mover of all things hath not shaped for it Organs like ours, which are proper only for a simple Reasoning, not only weak, but many times fallacious too; but others, more ingeniously framed, stronger, and more numerous, which serve to manage its Speculative Exercises. You'll ask me, perhaps, when ever any Cabbage imparted those lofty Conceptions to us? But tell me, again, who ever discovered to us certain Beings, which we allow to be above us; to whom we bear no Analogy nor Proportion, and whose Existence it is as hard for us to comprehend, as the Understanding and Ways whereby a Cabbage expresses its self to its like, though not to us, because our senses are too dull to penetrate so far.

"Moses, the greatest of Philosophers, who drew the Knowledge of Nature from the Fountain-Head, Nature her self, hinted this truth to us when he spoke of the Tree of Knowledge; and without doubt he intended to intimate to us under that Figure, that Plants, in Exclusion to Mankind, possess perfect Philosophy. Remember, then, O thou Proudest of Animals! that though a Cabbage which thou cuttest sayeth not a Word, yet it pays it at Thinking; but the poor Vegetable has no fit Organs to howl as you do, nor yet to frisk it about, and weep: Yet, it hath those that are proper to complain of the Wrong you do it, and to draw a Judgement from Heaven upon you for the Injustice. But if you still demand of me, how I come to know that Cabbage and Coleworts conceive such pretty Thoughts? Then will I ask you, how come you to know that they do not; and that some amongst them, when they shut up at Night, may not Compliment one another as you do, saying: Good Night, Master Cole-Curled-Pate; your most humble Servant, good Master Cabbage-Round-Head."

So far was he gone on in his Discourse, when the young Lad, who had led out our Philosopher, led him in again; "What, Supped already?" cryed my Spirit to him. He answered, yes, almost: The Physiognomist having permitted him to take a little more with us. Our young Landlord stayed not till I should ask him the meaning of that Mystery; "I perceive," said he, "you wonder at this way of Living; know then, that in your World, the Government of Health is too much neglected, and that our Method is not to be despised."

The Physiognomist

"In all Houses there is a Physiognomist entertained by the Publick,[102 - Supported by the State. Cf. p. 34, n. 1 (#cn_18).] who in some manner resembles your Physicians, save that he only prescribes to the Healthful, and judges of the different manners how we are to be Treated only according to the Proportion, Figure, and Symmetry of our Members; by the Features of the Face, the Complexion, the Softness of the Skin, the Agility of the Body, the Sound of the Voice, and the Colour, Strength, and Hardness of the Hair. Did not you just now mind a Man, of a pretty low Stature, who ey'd you; he was the Physiognomist of the House: Assure your self, that according as he observed your Constitution, he hath diversified the Exhalation of your Supper: Mark the Quilt on which you lie, how distant it is from our Couches; without doubt, he judges your Constitution to be far different from ours; since he feared that the Odour which evaporates from those little Pipkins that stand under our Noses, might reach you, or that yours might steam to us; at Night, you'll see him chuse the Flowers for your Bed with the same Circumspection."

CHAPTER XIII.

Of the little Animals that make up our Life, and likewise cause our Diseases; and of the Disposition of the Towns in the Moon

During all this Discourse, I made Signs to my Landlord, that he would try if he could oblige the Philosophers to fall upon some head of the Science which they professed. He was too much my Friend, not to start an Occasion upon the Spot: But not to trouble the Reader with the Discourse and Entreaties that were previous to the Treaty, wherein Jest and Earnest were so wittily interwoven, that it can hardly be imitated; I'll only tell you that the Doctor, who came last, after many things, spake as follows:

"It remains to be proved, that there are infinite Worlds, in an infinite World: Fancy to your self then the Universe as a great Animal; and that the Stars, which are Worlds, are in this great Animal, as other great Animals that serve reciprocally for Worlds to other Peoples; such as we, our Horses, &c. That we in our turns, are likewise Worlds to certain other Animals, incomparably less than our selves, such as Nits, Lice, Hand-worms, &c. And that these are an Earth to others, more imperceptible ones; in the same manner as every one of us appears to be a great World to these little People. Perhaps our Flesh, Blood, and Spirits, are nothing else but a Contexture of little Animals[103 - This and the following paragraphs appear to be an anticipation of the microbe theory.] that correspond, lend us Motion from theirs, and blindly suffer themselves to be guided by our Will which is their Coachman; or otherwise conduct us, and all Conspiring together, produce that Action which we call Life.

"For tell me, pray, is it a hard thing to be believed, that a Louse takes your Body for a World; and that when any one of them travels from one of your Ears to the other, his Companions say, that he hath travelled the Earth from end to end, or that he hath run from one Pole to the other? Yes, without doubt, those little People take your Hair for the Forests of their Country; the Pores full of Liquor, for Fountains; Buboes and Pimples, for Lakes and Ponds; Boils, for Seas; and Defluxions, for Deluges: And when you Comb your self, forwards, and backwards, they take that Agitation for the Flowing and Ebbing of the Ocean. Doth not Itching make good what I say? What is the little Worm that causes it but one of these little Animals, which hath broken off from civil Society, that it may set up for a Tyrant in its Country? If you ask me, why are they bigger than other imperceptible Creatures? I ask you, why are Elephants bigger than we? And the Irish-men, than Spaniards?

"As to the Blisters, and Scurff, which you know not the Cause of; they must either happen by the Corruption of their Enemies, which these little Blades have killed, or which the Plague has caused by the scarcity of Food, for which the Seditious worried one another[104 - Fr., "dont les Séditieux se sont gorgés" – with which the rebels have filled their bellies.] and left Mountains of Dead Carcases rotting in the Field; or because the Tyrant, having driven away on all Hands his Companions, who by their Bodies stopt up the Pores of ours, hath made way out for the waterish matter, which being extravasted out of the Sphere of the Circulation of our Blood, is corrupted. It may be asked, perhaps, why a Nit, or Hand-worm, produces so many disorders: But that's easily conceived, for as one Revolt begets another, so these little People, egg'd on by the bad Example of their Seditious Companions, aspire severally to Sovereign Command; and occasion every where War, Slaughter, and Famine.

"But you'll say, some are far less subject to Itching than others; and, nevertheless, all are equally inhabited by these little Animals, since you say they are the Cause of our Life. That's true; for we observe, that Phlegmatick People are not so much given to scratching as the Cholerick; because the People sympathizing with the Climate they inhabit, are slower in a cold Body, than those others that are heated by the temper of their Region, who frisk and stir, and cannot rest in a place: Thus a Cholerick Man is more delicate than a Phlegmatick; because being animated in many more Parts, and the Soul being the Action of these little Beasts, he is capable of Feeling in all places where these Cattle stir. Whereas the Phlegmatick Man, wanting sufficient Heat to put that stirring Mobile in Action, is sensible but in a few places.

"To prove more plainly that universal Vermicularity, you need but consider, when you are wounded, how the Blood runs to the Sore: Your Doctors say that it is guided by provident Nature, who would succour the parts debilitated; which might make us conclude, that, besides the Soul and Mind, there were a third intellectual Substance, that had distinct Organs and Functions: And therefore, it seems to me far more Rational to say, That these little Animals finding themselves attacked send to demand Assistance from their Neighbours, and thus, Recruits flocking in from all Parts and the Country being too little to contain so many, they either die of Hunger or We stifled in the Press. That Mortality happens when the Boil is ripe; for as an Argument that these Animals at that time are stifled, the Flesh becomes insensible: Now, if Blood-letting, which is many times ordered to divert the Fluxion, do any good, it is because, much being lost by the Orifice which these little Animals laboured to stop, they refuse their Allies Assistance, having no more Forces than is enough to defend themselves at home."

Thus he concluded, and when the second Philosopher perceived by all our Looks that we longed to hear him speak in his turn:

"Men," said he, "seeing you are curious to instruct this little Animal, (our like), in somewhat of the Science which we profess, I am now dictating a Treatise which I wish he might see, because of the Light it gives to the Understanding of our Natural Philosophy; it is an Explication of the Original[105 - Cf. p. 95, n. 1.] of the World: But seeing I am in haste to set my Bellows at work, (for to Morrow, without delay, the Town departs;) I hope you'll excuse my want of time, and I promise to satisfie you as soon as the Town is arrived at the place whither it is to go."

Towns in the Moon

At these words, the Landlord's Son called his Father, to know what it was a Clock? who having answered him, that it was past Eight, he asked him in a great Rage, Why he did not give him notice at Seven, according as he had commanded him; that he knew well enough the Houses were to be gone to Morrow; and that the City Walls were already upon their Journey? "Son," replyed the good Man, "since you sate down to Table, there is an Order published, That no House shall budg before next day: " "That's all one," answered the young Man; "you ought blindly to obey, not to examine my Orders, and only remember what I commanded you. Quick, go fetch me your Effigies: " So soon as it was brought, he took hold on't by the Arm, and Whipt it a whole quarter of an Hour: "Away you ne'er be good," continued he; "as a Punishment for your disobedience, it's my Will and Pleasure, that this day you serve for a Laughing-stock to all People; and therefore I command you, not to walk but upon two Legs, till Night." The Poor Man went out in a very mournful Condition, and the Young man excused to us his Passion.

I had much ado, though I bit my Lip, to forbear Laughing at so pleasant a Punishment; and therefore to take me off of this odd piece of Pedantick Discipline, which, without doubt, would have made, me burst out at last; I prayed my Philosopher to tell me what he meant by that Journey of the Town he talked of, and if the Houses and Walls Travelled?

"Dear Stranger," answered he, "we have some Ambulatory Towns, and some Sedentary; the Ambulatory, as for instance this wherein now we are, are Built in this manner: The Architector, as you see, builds every Palace of a very light sort of Timber; supported by four Wheels underneath; in the thickness of one of the Walls he places ten large pair of Bellows, whose Snouts pass in a Horizontal Line through the upper Story, from one Pinacle to the other; so that when Towns are to be removed from one place to another, (for according to the Seasons they change the Air) every one spreads a great many Sails upon one side of the House, before the Noses of the Bellows; then having wound up a Spring to make them play, in less than Eight days time their Houses, by the continual Puffs which these Windy Monsters blow, are driven, if one pleases, an Hundred Leagues and more.

"For those which we call Sedentary, they are almost like to your Towers; save that they are of Timber, and that they have a Great and Strong Skrew or Vice in the Middle, reaching from the top to the Bottom; whereby they may be hoisted up or let down as People please. Now the Ground under neath is dugg as deep as the House is high; and it is so ordered, that so soon as the Frosts begin to chill the Air, they may sink their Houses down under Ground, where they keep themselves secure from the Severity of the Weather: But as soon as the gentle Breathings of the Spring begin to soften and qualifie the Air; they raise them above Ground again, by means of the great Skrew I told you of."

CHAPTER XIV.

Of the Original of All Things; of Atomes; and of the Operation of the Senses

I prayed him, since he had shew'd so much goodness, and that the Town was not to part[106 - Part and depart were interchangeable in the seventeenth century. Cf. Shakspere, Two Gentlemen of Verona:"But now he parted hence ";and, on the other hand, King John:"Hath willingly departed with a part" (= given up a part).] till next day, that he would tell me somewhat of that Original of the World, which he had mentioned not long before; "and I promise you," said I, "that in requital, so soon as I am got back to the Moon, from whence my Governour (pointing to my Spirit) will tell you that I am come, I'll spread your Renown there, by relating the rare things you shall tell me: I perceive you Laugh at that promise, because you do not believe that the Moon I speak of is a World, and that I am an Inhabitant of it; but I can assure you also, that the People of that World, who take this only for a Moon, will Laugh at me when I tell them that your Moon is a World, and that there are Fields and Inhabitants in it:"

He answered only with a smile, and spake in this manner:

"Since in Ascending to the Original of this Great A L L, we are forced to run into three or four Absurdities; it is but reasonable we should follow the way wherein we may be least apt to stumble. I say then, that the first Obstacle that stops us short is the Eternity of the World; and the minds of men, not being able enough to conceive it, and being no more able to imagine, that this great Universe, so lovely and so well ordered, could have made it self, they have had their recourse to Creation: But like to him that would leap into a River for fear of being wet with Rain, they save themselves out of the Clutches of a Dwarf, by running into the Arms of a Giant; and yet they are not safe for all that: For that Eternity which they deny the World, because they cannot comprehend it, they attribute it to God, as if he stood in need of that Present, and as if it were easier to imagine it in the one than in the other; for tell me, pray, was it ever yet conceived in Nature, how Something can be made of Nothing? Alas! Betwixt Nothing and an Atome only, there are such infinite Disproportions, that the sharpest Wit could never dive into them; therefore to get out of this inextricable Labyrinth, you must admit of a Matter Eternal with God: But you'll say to me, grant I should allow you that Eternal Matter; how could that Chaos dispose and order it self? That's the thing I am about to explain to you.

"My little Animal, after you have mentally divided every little Visible Body, into an infinite many little invisible Bodies; you must imagine, That the infinite Universe consists only of these Atomes, which are most solid, most incorruptible, and most simple; whose Figures are partly Cubical, partly Parallelograms, partly Angular, partly Round, partly Sharp-pointed, partly Pyramidal, partly Six-cornered, and partly Oval; which act all severally, according to their Various Figures: And to shew that it is so, put a very round Ivory Bowl upon a very smooth place, and with the least touch you give it will be half a quarter of an hour before it rest: Now I say, that if it were perfectly round, as some of the Atomes I speak of are, and the Surface on which it is put perfectly smooth, it would never rest. If Art then be capable of inclining a Body to a perpetual Motion, why may we not believe that Nature can do it? It's the same with the other Figures, of which the Square requires a perpetual Rest, others an oblique Motion, others a half Motion, as Trepidation; and the Round, whose Nature is to move, joyning a Pyramidal, makes that, perhaps, which we call Fire; because not only Fire is in continual Agitation, but also because it easily penetrates: Besides, the Fire hath different effects, according to the openings and quality of the Angles, when the round Figure is joyned; for Example, The Fire of Pepper is another thing than the Fire of Sugar, the Fire of Sugar differs from that of Cinnamon; that of Cinnamon, from that of the Clove; and this from the Fire of a Faggot. Now the Fire, which is the Architect of the parts and whole of the Universe, hath driven together, and Congregated into an Oak, the quantity of Figures which are necessary for the Composition of that Oak.

"But you'll say, how could Hazard congregate into one place all the Figures that are necessary for the production of that Oak? I answer, That it is no wonder that Matter so disposed should form an Oak, but the wonder would have been greater, if the Matter being so disposed the Oak had not been produced; had there been a few less of some Figures, it would have been an Elm, a Poplar, a Willow; and fewer of 'em still, it would have been the Sensitive Plant, an Oyster, a Worm, a Flie, a Frog, a Sparrow, an Ape, a Man. If three Dice being flung upon a Table, there happen a Raffle of two, or all;[107 - Two alike, or all three alike.] a three, a four, and a five; or two sixes, and a third in the bottom;[108 - Two sixes and a one.] would you say, O strange! that each Die should turn up such a chance, when there were so many others. A Sequence of three hath happened, O strange! Two sixes turned up, and the bottom of the third, O strange! I am sure that being a man of Sense, you'll never make such Exclamations; for since there is but a certain quantity of Numbers upon the Dice, it's impossible but some of them must turn up; and you wonder, after that, how matter shuffled together Pell-Mell, as Chance pleases, should make a Man, seeing so many things were necessary for the Construction of his Being. You know not then, that this Matter tending to the Fabrick of a Man hath been a Million of times stopt in it's Progress for forming sometimes a Stone, sometimes Lead, sometimes Coral, sometimes Flower, sometimes a Comet; and all because of more or less Figures, that were required for the framing of a Man: So that it is no greater wonder, if amongst infinite Matters, which incessantly change and stir, some have hit upon the construction of the few Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals which we see, than if in a Hundred Casts of the Dice, one should throw a Raffle: Nay, indeed, it is impossible, that in this hurling of things, nothing should be produced; and yet this will be always admired[109 - Wondered at.] by a Blockhead, who little knows how small a matter would have made it to have been otherwise. When the great River of

makes a Mill to Grind, or guides the Wheels of a Clock, and the Brook of

only runs, and sometimes absconds, you will not say that that River hath a great deal of Wit, because you know that it hath met with things disposed for producing such rare Feats; for had not the Mill stood in the way, it would not have ground the Corn; had it not met the Clock, it would not have marked the Hours: and if the little Rivulet I speak of had met with the same Opportunities, it would have wrought the very same Miracles. Just so it is with the Fire that moves of it self; for finding Organs fit for the Act of Reasoning, it Reasons; when it finds only such as are proper for Sensation, it Sensates; and when such as are fit for Vegetation, it Vegetates. And to prove it is so, put out but the Eyes of a Man, the Fire of whose Soul makes him to see, and he will cease to see; just as our great Clock will leave off to make the Hours, if the Movements of it be broken.

"In fine, these Primary and indivisible Atomes make a Circle, whereon without difficulty move the most perplexed Difficulties of Natural Philosophy; not so much as even the very Operation of the Senses, which no Body hitherto hath been able to conceive, but I will easily explain by these little Bodies. Let us begin with the Sight. It deserves, as being the most incomprehensible, our first Essay.

Operation of the Senses

[110 - Notice that the basis of this discussion is the supposition that the visual rays start from the eye.]"It is performed then, as I imagine, when the Tunicles of the Eye, whose Pores resemble those of Glass, transmitting that fiery Dust which is called Visual Rays, the same is stopt by some opacous Matter which makes it recoil; and then, meeting in its retreat the Image of the Object that forced it back, and that Image being but an infinite number of little Bodies exhaled in an equal Superfice from the Object beheld, it pursues it to our Eye: You'll not fail to Object, I know, that Glass is an Opacous Body, and very Compact; and that nevertheless, instead of reflecting other Bodies, it lets them pass through: But I answer, that the Pores of Glass are shaped in the same Figure as those Atomes are which pass through it; and as a Wheat-Sieve is not proper for Sifting of Oats, nor an Oat-Sieve to Sift Wheat; so a Box of Deal-Board, though it be thin and lets a sound go through it, is impenetrable to the Sight; and a piece of Chrystal, though transparent and pervious to the Eye, is not penetrable to the Touch."