[Transcriber's note: this etext is a translation of ProjectGutenberg's #4649. ] THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE. VOLUME XXXIII FROM THE PRINTING HOUSE OF A. FIRMIN DIDOT, RUE JACOB, No 24. THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE PREFACES, CAUTIONS, NOTES, ETC. BY M. BEUCHOT. VOLUME XXXIII. NOVELS. VOLUME I. IN PARIS, LEFÈVRE, BOOKSELLER, RUE DE L'ÉPERON, Ko 6. WERDET ET LEQUIEN FILS, RUE DU BATTOIR, No 20. MDCCCXXIX. MICROMEGAS, PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY. Publisher's preface. Voltaire's lengthy correspondences do not contain anything that mightindicate the period in which _Micromegas_ was published. The engravedtitle of the edition that I believe to be the original displays nodate. Abbot Trublet, in his _Biography of Fontenelle_, does nothesitate to say that _Micromegas_ is directed against Fontenelle; butdoes not speak of the date of publication. I have therefore retainedthat given by the Kehl editions: 1752. However there is an editioncarrying the date of 1700. Is this date authentic? I would not makethis claim; far from it. I have therefore followed the Kehl editions, in which _Micromegas_ is preceded by this warning: This novel can be seen as an imitation of Gulliver's Travels. Itcontains many allusions. The dwarf of Saturn is Mr. Fontenelle. Despite his gentleness, his carefulness, his philosophy, all ofwhich should endear him to Mr. Voltaire, he is linked with theenemies of this great man, and appears to share, if not in theirhate, at least in their preemptive censures. He was deeply hurt bythe role he played in this novel, and perhaps even more so due tothe justness, though severe, of the critique; the strong praisegiven elsewhere in the novel only lends more weight to therebukes. The words that end this work do not soften the wounds, and the good that is said of the secretary of the academy of Parisdoes not console Mr. Fontenelle for the ridicule that is permittedto befall the one at the academy of Saturn. The notes without signature, and those indicated by letters, arewritten by Voltaire. The notes signed with a K have been written by the Kehl publishers, Mr. Condorcet and Mr. Decroix. It is impossible to rigorouslydistinguish between the additions made by these two. The additions that I have given to the notes of Voltaire or to thenotes of the Kehl publishers, are separated from the others by a --, and are, as they are mine, signed by the initial of my name. BEUCHOT October 4, 1829. CONTENTS I. Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn. II. Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn. III. Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn. IV. What happened on planet Earth. V. Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers. VI. What happened to them among men. VII. Conversation with the men. MICROMEGAS, PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY CHAPTER I. Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn. On one of the planets that orbits the star named Sirius there lived aspirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyagehe made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], afitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or24, 000 geometric paces of five feet each. [1] From _micros_, small, and from _megas_, large. B. Certain geometers[2], always of use to the public, will immediatelytake up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas, inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24, 000 paces tall, which isequivalent to 20, 000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth arehardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9, 000 leagues around; they willfind, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere thatproduced him was 21, 600, 000 times greater in circumference than ourlittle Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. Thesovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in ahalf hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, areonly feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature hasplaced in all beings. [2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, inplace of "geometers, " put "algebraists. " B. His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all oursculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that hisbelt would have been 50, 000 feet around, which gives him very goodproportions. [3] His nose taking up one third of his attractiveface, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractivebody, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6, 333 feetplus a fraction; which is manifest. [3] I restore this sentence in accordance with the first editions. B. As for his mind, it is one of the most cultivated that we have. Heknows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4]colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by purewillpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 morethan Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwingaround, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairlymediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450thyear, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects nomore than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinarymicroscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave himsome income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorantworrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, andheretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued itvigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantialform of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of thesnails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some womento testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally themufti had the book condemned by jurisconsults who had not read it, and the author was ordered not to appear in court for 800 years[7]. [4] In place of "the most celebrated" that one finds in the firstedition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit. " B. [5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class asthose that contributed to the progress of science with greatdiscoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked amongthe geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K. [6] The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash, smelling heresy. " The present text is dated 1756. B. [7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer forhaving stated in his _Letters on the English_ that our soulsdevelop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls ofanimals. K. He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from acourt that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. Hewrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latterhardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet inorder to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Thosethat travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprisedlearn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile ofmud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Ourvoyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all theother attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that, whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumpedfrom globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch tobranch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to reportthat he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, thebeautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seenat the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham haspoor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makeshim a reliable witness, and I do not want to contradict anyone. Micromegas, after having toured around, arrived at the planet Saturn. As accustomed as he was to seeing new things, he could not, uponseeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himselffrom smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes thewisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger thanEarth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than athousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his menpoked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at themusic of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a goodheart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is notnecessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6, 000 feet tall. Hegot to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built astrong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, aspirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, butwho understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote somepassable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I willreport here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversationthat Micromegas had with the secretary one day. [8] See my note, page 110. B. [this note, in Zadig, says: "Thisline is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employsthese expressions in his _Treatise on Studies_. Voltaire returnsto it often: see, in the present volume, chapter I of Micromegas, and in volume XXXIV, chapter XI of _The Man of Forty Crowns_, chapter IX of _The White Bull_ and volume XI, the second verse ofsong VIII of _The Young Virgin_. B. "] [9] English savant, author of _Astro-Theology_, and several otherworks that seek to prove the existence of God through detailingthe wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators areoften mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they raveabout the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soondiscovers that the phenomenon is completely different than theysupposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them thisimpression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type, discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the authorwill end up admiring whatever he has chosen to discuss. CHAPTER II. Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn. After his excellency laid himself down to rest the secretaryapproached him. "You have to admit, " said Micromegas, "that nature is extremelyvaried. " "Yes, " said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed wherein theflowers--" "Ugh!" said the other, "leave off with flower beds. " The secretary began again. "Nature is like an assembly of blonde andbrown-haired girls whose jewels--" "What am I supposed to do with your brown-haired girls?" said theother. "Then she is like a gallery of paintings whose features--" "Certainly not!" said the voyager. "I say again that nature is likenature. Why bother looking for comparisons?" "To please you, " replied the Secretary. "I do not want to be pleased, " answered the voyager. "I want to betaught. Tell me how many senses the men of your planet have. " "We only have 72, " said the academic, "and we always complain aboutit. Our imagination surpasses our needs. We find that with our 72senses, our ring, our five moons, we are too restricted; and in spiteof all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions thatresult from our 72 senses, we have plenty of time to get bored. " "I believe it, " said Micromegas, "for on our planet we have almost1, 000 senses; and yet we still have a kind of vague feeling, a sortof worry, that warns us that there are even more perfect beings. Ihave traveled a bit; and I have seen mortals that surpass us, somefar superior. But I have not seen any that desire only what theytruly need, and who need only what they indulge in. Maybe someday Iwill happen upon a country that lacks nothing; but so far no one hasgiven me any word of a place like that. " The Saturnian and the Sirian proceeded to wear themselves out inspeculating; but after a lot of very ingenious and very dubiousreasoning, it was necessary to return to the facts. "How long do you live?" said the Sirian. "Oh! For a very short time, " replied the small man from Saturn. "Same with us, " said the Sirian. "we always complain about it. Itmust be a universal law of nature. " "Alas! We only live through 500 revolutions around the sun, " said theSaturnian. (This translates to about 15, 000 years, by our standards. )"You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one isborn; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planetan atom. Hardly do we begin to learn a little when death arrives, before we get any experience. As for me, I do not dare make anyplans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I amashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in thisworld. " Micromegas replied, "If you were not a philosopher, I would fearburdening you by telling you that our lifespan is 700 times longerthan yours; but you know very well when it is necessary to returnyour body to the elements, and reanimate nature in another form, which we call death. When this moment of metamorphosis comes, to havelived an eternity or to have lived a day amounts to precisely thesame thing. I have been to countries where they live a thousand timeslonger than we do, and they also die. But people everywhere have thegood sense to know their role and to thank the Author of nature. Hehas scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with akind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beingsare different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thoughtand desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has differentproperties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you countin yours?" "If you mean those properties, " said the Saturnian, "without which webelieve that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 ofthem, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity, divisibility, and the rest. " "Apparently, " replied the voyager, "this small number suffices forwhat the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdomin everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion. Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have fewsensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work ofProvidence. What color is your sun upon examination?" "A very yellowish white, " said the Saturnian. "And when we divide oneof its rays, we find that it contains seven colors. " "Our sun strains at red, " said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primarycolors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close tothat resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that isidentical to the others. " After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how manyessentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned thatthere were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beingswith extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense andthink, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that arepenetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose homecontained 300 and who had discovered 3, 000 of them in his voyages, prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, afterhaving told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of whatthey did not know, after having reasoned over the course of arevolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a smallphilosophical voyage together. CHAPTER III. Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn. Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn'satmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument whenthe ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came intears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with manyother charms. "Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1, 500 years, just whenI was beginning to come around, when I'd spent hardly a hundred[1]years in your arms, you leave me to go on a voyage with a giant fromanother world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: ifyou were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are yourunning off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant thanyou, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyoneever again. " The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that hewas; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself withthe help of one of the dandies of the country. [1] The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all theearlier editions read: "two hundred. " B. Our two explorers left all the same; they alighted first on the ring, which they found to be fairly flat, as conjectured by an illustriousinhabitant of our little sphere[2]; from there they went easily frommoon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it withtheir servants and their instruments. When they had traveled aboutone hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites ofJupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during whichtime they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have beenforthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some ofthe propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscriptin the library of the illustrious archbishop of. .. . , who with agenerosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me tosee his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition ofMoréri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a greathope of perpetuating the race of their illustrious father. [2] Huygens. See volume XXVI, page 398. B. But let us now return to our travelers. Upon leaving Jupiter theytraversed a space of around one hundred million leagues andapproached the planet Mars, which, as we know, is five times smallerthan our own; they swung by two moons that cater to this planet buthave escaped the notice of our astronomers. I know very well thatFather Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against theexistence of these two moons; but I rely on those who reason byanalogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it would be forMars, so far from the sun, to have gotten by with less than twomoons. Whatever the case may be, our explorers found it so small thatthey feared not being able to land on it, and they passed it by liketwo travelers disdainful of a bad village cabaret, pressing ontowards a neighboring city. But the Sirian and his companion soonregretted it. They traveled a long time without finding anything. Finally they perceived a small candle, it was earth; this was apitiful sight to those who had just left Jupiter. Nevertheless, fromfear of further regret, they resolved to touch down. Carried by thetail of a comet, and finding an aurora borealis at the ready, theystarted towards it, and arrived at Earth on the northern coast of theBaltic sea, July 5, 1737, new style. CHAPTER IV. What happened on planet Earth. After resting for some time they ate two mountains for lunch, whichtheir crew fixed up pretty nicely. Then they decided to get to knowthe small country they were in. They went first from north to south. The usual stride of the Sirian and his crew was around 30, 000 feet. The dwarf from Saturn, who clocked in at no more than a thousandfathoms, trailed behind, breathing heavily. He had to make twelvesteps each time the other took a stride; imagine (if it is alright tomake such a comparison) a very small lapdog following a captain ofthe guards of the Prussian king. Since our strangers moved fairly rapidly, they circumnavigated theglobe in 36 hours. The sun, in truth, or rather the Earth, makes asimilar voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going ismuch easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one'sfeet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seenthe nearly imperceptible pond we call _the Mediterranean_, and theother little pool that, under the name _Ocean_, encircles themolehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardlywet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whetherthe planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, laid down, feltaround everywhere; but their eyes and their hands were notproportionate to the little beings that crawl here, they could notfeel in the least any sensation that might lead them to suspect thatwe and our associates, the other inhabitants of this planet, have thehonor of existing. The dwarf, who was a bit hasty sometimes, decided straightaway thatthe planet was uninhabited. His first reason was that he had not seenanyone. Micromegas politely indicated that this logic was ratherflawed: "For, " said he, "you do not see with your little eyes certainstars of the 50th magnitude that I can perceive very distinctly. Doyou conclude that these stars do not exist?" "But, " said the dwarf, "I felt around a lot. " "But, " answered the other, "you have pretty weak senses. " "But, " replied the dwarf, "this planet is poorly constructed. It isso irregular and has such a ridiculous shape! Everything here seemsto be in chaos: you see these little rivulets, none of which run in astraight line, these pools of water that are neither round, norsquare, nor oval, nor regular by any measure; all these little pointyspecks scattered across the earth that grate on my feet? (This was inreference to mountains. ) Look at its shape again, how it is flat atthe poles, how it clumsily revolves around the sun in a way thatnecessarily eliminates the climates of the poles? To tell the truth, what really makes me think it is uninhabited is that it seems that noone of good sense would want to stay. " "Well, " said Micromegas, "maybe the inhabitants of this planet arenot of good sense! But in the end it looks like this may be for areason. Everything appears irregular to you here, you say, becauseeverything on Saturn and Jupiter is drawn in straight lines. Thismight be the[1] reason that you are a bit puzzled here. Have I nottold you that I have continually noticed variety in my travels?" [1] All the editions that precede those of Kehl read: "It might befor this" B. The Saturnian responded to all these points. The dispute might neverhave finished if it were not for Micromegas who, getting worked up, had the good luck to break the thread of his diamond necklace. Thediamonds fell; they were pretty little carats of fairly irregularsize, of which the largest weighed four hundred pounds and thesmallest fifty. The dwarf recaptured some of them; bending down for abetter look, he perceived that these diamonds were cut with the helpof an excellent microscope. So he took out a small microscope of 160feet in diameter and put it up to his eye; and Micromegas took up oneof 2, 005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one ofthem could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finallythe Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow watersof the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with hislittle finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it tothe Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrouslysmall scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuadedthat our world was inhabited, figured very quickly that it wasinhabited only by whales; and as he was very good at reasoning, hewas determined to infer the origin and evolution of such a smallatom; whether it had ideas, a will, liberty. Micromegas was confused. He examined the animal very patiently and found no reason to believethat a soul was lodged in it. The two voyagers were thereforeinclined to believe that there is no spirit in our home, when withthe help of the microscope they perceived something as large as awhale floating on the Baltic Sea. We know that a flock ofphilosophers was at this time returning from the Arctic Circle, wherethey had made some observations, which no one had dared make up tothen. The gazettes claimed that their vessel ran aground on the coastof Bothnia, and that they were having a lot of difficulty settingthings straight; but the world never shows its cards. I am going totell how it really happened, artlessly and without bias; which is nosmall thing for an historian. CHAPTER V. Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers. Micromegas slowly reached his hand towards the place where the objecthad appeared, extended two fingers, and withdrew them for fear ofbeing mistaken, then opened and closed them, and skillfully seizedthe vessel that carried these fellows, putting it on his fingernailwithout pressing it too hard for fear of crushing it. "Here is a very different animal from the first, " said the dwarf fromSaturn. The Sirian put the so-called animal in the palm of his hand. Thepassengers and the crew, who believed themselves to have been liftedup by a hurricane, and who thought they were on some sort of boulder, scurried around; the sailors took the barrels of wine, threw themoverboard onto Micromegas hand, and followed after. The geometerstook their quadrants, their sextants, two Lappland girls[1], anddescended onto the Sirian's fingers. They made so much fuss that hefinally felt something move, tickling his fingers. It was a steel-tippedbaton being pressed into his index finger. He judged, by thistickling, that it had been ejected from some small animal that he washolding; but he did not suspect anything else at first. Themicroscope, which could barely distinguish a whale from a boat, couldnot capture anything as elusive as a man. I do not claim to outrageanyone's vanity, but I am obliged to ask that important men make anobservation here. Taking the size of a man to be about five feet, thefigure we strike on Earth is like that struck by an animal of aboutsix hundred thousandths[2] the height of a flea on a ball five feetaround. Imagine something that can hold the Earth in its hands, andwhich has organs in proportion to ours--and it may very well be thatthere are such things--conceive, I beg of you, what these thingswould think of the battles that allow a vanquisher to take a villageonly to lose it later. [1] See the notes to the speech in verse, "On Moderation" (VolumeXII), and those of "Russia to Paris" (Volume XIV). K. [2] The edition that I take to be original reads "sixtythousandths. " B. I do not doubt that if ever some captain of some troop of imposinggrenadiers reads this work he will increase the size of the hats ofhis troops by at least two imposing feet. But I warn him that it willhave been done in vain; that he and his will never grow any largerthan infinitely small. What marvelous skill it must have taken for our philosopher fromSirius to perceive the atoms I have just spoken of. When Leuwenhoekand Hartsoëker tinkered with the first or thought they saw the grainsthat make us up, they did not by any means make such an astonishingdiscovery. What pleasure Micromegas felt at seeing these littlemachines move, at examining all their scurrying, at following them intheir enterprises! how he cried out! with what joy he placed one ofhis microscopes in the hands of his traveling companion! "I see them, " they said at the same time, "look how they are carryingloads, stooping, getting up again. " They spoke like that, handstrembling from the pleasure of seeing such new objects, and from fearof losing them. The Saturnian, passing from an excess of incredulityto an excess of credulity, thought he saw them mating. "Ah!" he said. "I have caught nature in the act"[1]. But he wasfooled by appearances, which happens only too often, whether one isusing a microscope or not. [1] _j'ai pris la nature sur le fait_. A happy, good-natured turnof phrase expressed by Fontenelle upon making some observations ofnatural history. K. CHAPTER VI. What happened to them among men. Micromegas, a much better observer than his dwarf, clearly saw thatthe atoms were speaking to each other, and pointed this out to hiscompanion, who, ashamed of being mistaken about them reproducing, didnot want to believe that such a species could communicate. He had thegift of language as well as the Sirian. He could not hear the atomstalk, and he supposed that they did not speak. Moreover, how couldthese impossibly small beings have vocal organs, and what would theyhave to say? To speak, one must think, more or less; but if theythink, they must therefore have the equivalent of a soul. But toattribute the equivalent of a soul to this species seemed absurd tohim. "But, " said the Sirian, "you believed right away that they made love. Do you believe that one can make love without thinking and withoututtering one word, or at least without making oneself heard? Do yousuppose as well that it is more difficult to produce an argument thanan infant? Both appear to be great mysteries to me. " "I do not dare believe or deny it, " said the dwarf. "I have no moreopinions. We must try to examine these insects and reason after. " "That is very well said, " echoed Micromegas, and he briskly took outa pair of scissors with which he cut his fingernails, and from theparings of his thumbnail he improvised a kind of speaking-trumpet, like a vast funnel, and put the end up to his ear. The circumferenceof the funnel enveloped the vessel and the entire crew. The weakestvoice entered into the circular fibers of the nails in such a waythat, thanks to his industriousness, the philosopher above could hearthe drone of our insects below perfectly. In a small number of hourshe was able to distinguish words, and finally to understand French. The dwarf managed to do the same, though with more difficulty. Thevoyagers' surprise redoubled each second. They heard the mites speakfairly intelligently. This performance of nature's seemedinexplicable to them. You may well believe that the Sirian and thedwarf burned with impatience to converse with the atoms. The dwarffeared that his thunderous voice, and assuredly Micromegas, woulddeafen the mites without being understood. They had to diminish itsforce. They placed toothpicks in their mouths, whose tapered endsfell around the ship. The Sirian put the dwarf on his knees and theship with its crew on a fingernail. He lowered his head and spokesoftly. Finally, relying on these precautions and many others, hebegan his speech like so: "Invisible insects, that the hand of the Creator has caused to springup in the abyss of the infinitely small, I thank him for allowing meto uncover these seemingly impenetrable secrets. Perhaps those at mycourt would not deign to give you audience, but I mistrust no one, and I offer you my protection. " If anyone has ever been surprised, it was the people who heard thesewords. They could not figure out where they were coming from. Thechaplain of the vessel recited the exorcism prayers, the sailorsswore, and the philosophers of the vessel constructed systems; but nomatter what systems they came up with, they could not figure out whowas talking. The dwarf from Saturn, who had a softer voice thanMicromegas, told them in a few words what species they were dealingwith. He told them about the voyage from Saturn, brought them up tospeed on what Mr. Micromegas was, and after lamenting how small theywere, asked them if they had always been in this miserable state sonear nothingness, what they were doing on a globe that appeared tobelong to whales, whether they were happy, if they reproduced, ifthey had a soul, and a hundred other questions of this nature. A reasoner among the troop, more daring than the others, and shockedthat someone might doubt his soul, observed the interlocutor withsight-vanes pointed at a quarter circle from two different stations, and at the third spoke thusly: "You believe then, Sir, that becauseyou are a thousand fathoms tall from head to toe, that you are a--" "A thousand fathoms!" cried the dwarf. "Good heavens! How could heknow my height? A thousand fathoms! You cannot mistake him for aflea. This atom just measured me! He is a surveyor, he knows my size;and I, who can only see him through a microscope, I still do not knowhis!" "Yes, I measured you, " said the physician, "and I will measure yourlarge companion as well. " The proposition was accepted, hisexcellency laid down flat; for were he to stay upright his head wouldhave been among the clouds. Our philosophers planted a great shaft onhim, in a place that doctor Swift would have named, but that I willrestrain myself from calling by its name, out of respect for theladies. Next, by a series of triangles linked together, theyconcluded that what they saw was in effect a young man of 120, 000feet[1]. [1]The edition I believe to be original reads, "a beautifulyoung . .. Of 120, 000 feet. " B. So Micromegas delivered these words: "I see more than ever that onemust not judge anything by its apparent size. Oh God! you who havegiven intelligence to substance that appears contemptible. Theinfinitely small costs you as little as the infinitely large; and ifit is possible that there are such small beings as these, there mayjust as well be a spirit bigger than those of the superb animals thatI have seen in the heavens, whose feet alone would cover thisplanet. " One of the philosophers responded that he could certainly imaginethat there are intelligent beings much smaller than man. Herecounted, not every fabulous thing Virgil says about bees, but whatSwammerdam discovered, and what Réaumur has anatomized. He explainedfinally that there are animals that are to bees what bees are to man, what the Sirian himself was for the vast animals he had spoken of, and what these large animals are to other substances before whichthey looked like atoms. Little by little the conversation becameinteresting, and Micromegas spoke thusly: CHAPTER VII. Conversation with the men. "Oh intelligent atoms, in which the Eternal Being desired to makemanifest his skill and his power, you must, no doubt, taste pure joyson your planet; for having so little matter, and appearing to beentirely spirit, you must live out your life thinking and loving, theveritable life of the mind. Nowhere have I seen true bliss, but it ishere, without a doubt. " At this all the philosophers shook their heads, and one of them, morefrank than the others, avowed that if one excepts a small number ofinhabitants held in poor regard, all the rest are an assembly of mad, vicious, and wretched people. "We have more substance than isnecessary, " he said, "to do evil, if evil comes from substance; andtoo much spirit, if evil comes from spirit. Did you know, forexample, that as I am speaking with you[1], there are 100, 000 madmenof our species wearing hats, killing 100, 000 other animals wearingturbans, or being massacred by them, and that we have used almostsurface of the Earth for this purpose since time immemorial?" [1] We saw, at the end of chapter III, that the story occurs in1737. Voltaire is referring to the war between the Turks and theRussians, from 1736 to 1739. B. The Sirian shuddered, and asked the reason for these horriblequarrels between such puny animals. "It is a matter, " said the philosopher, "of some piles of mud as bigas your heel[2]. It is not that any of these millions of men thatslit each other's throats care about this pile of mud. It is only amatter of determining if it should belong to a certain man who wecall 'Sultan, ' or to another who we call, for whatever reason, 'Czar. ' Neither one has ever seen nor will ever see the little pieceof Earth, and almost none of these animals that mutually killthemselves have ever seen the animal for which they kill. " [2] Crimea, which all the same was not reunited with Russia until1783. B. "Oh! Cruel fate!" cried the Sirian with indignation, "who couldconceive of this excess of maniacal rage! It makes me want to takethree steps and crush this whole anthill of ridiculous assassins. " "Do not waste your time, " someone responded, "they are workingtowards ruin quickly enough. Know that after ten years only onehundredth of these scoundrels will be here. Know that even if theyhave not drawn swords, hunger, fatigue, or intemperance will overtakethem. Furthermore, it is not they that should be punished, it isthose sedentary barbarians who from the depths of their officesorder, while they are digesting their last meal, the massacre of amillion men, and who subsequently give solemn thanks to God. " The voyager was moved with pity for the small human race, where hewas discovering such surprising contrasts. "Since you are amongst the small number of wise men, " he told thesesirs, "and since apparently you do not kill anyone for money, tellme, I beg of you, what occupies your time. " "We dissect flies, " said the philosopher, "we measure lines, wegather figures; we agree with each other on two or three points thatwe do not understand. " It suddenly took the Sirian and the Saturnian's fancy to questionthese thinking atoms, to learn what it was they agreed on. "What do you measure, " said the Saturnian, "from the Dog Star to thegreat star of the Gemini?" They responded all at once, "thirty-two and a half degrees. " "What do you measure from here to the moon?" "60 radii of the Earth even. " "How much does your air weigh?" He thought he had caught them[3], but they all told him that airweighed around 900 times less than an identical volume of the purestwater, and 19, 000 times less than a gold ducat. The little dwarf fromSaturn, surprised at their responses, was tempted to accuse ofwitchcraft the same people he had refused a soul fifteen minutesearlier. [3] The edition I believe to be original reads "put them off" inplace of "caught them. " Finally Micromegas said to them, "Since you know what is exterior toyou so well, you must know what is interior even better. Tell me whatyour soul is, and how you form ideas. " The philosophers spoke all atonce as before, but they were of different views. The oldest citedAristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes; this one here, Malebranche; another Leibnitz; another Locke. An old peripateticspoke up with confidence: "The soul is an entelechy, and a reasongives it the power to be what it is. " This is what Aristotleexpressly declares, page 633 of the Louvre edition. He cited thepassage[4]. [4] Here is the passage such as it is transcribed in the editiondated 1750: "Entele'xeia' tis esi kai' lo'gos toû dy'namine'xontos toude' ei'nai. " This passage of Aristotle, _On the Soul_, book II, chapter II, istranslated thusly by Casaubon: _Anima quaedam perfectio et actusac ratio est quod potentiam habet ut ejusmodi sit_. B. "I do not understand Greek very well, " said the giant. "Neither do I, " said the philosophical mite. "Why then, " the Sirian retorted, "are you citing some man namedAristotle in the Greek?" "Because, " replied the savant, "one should always cite what one doesnot understand at all in the language one understands the least. " The Cartesian took the floor and said: "The soul is a pure spiritthat has received in the belly of its mother all metaphysical ideas, and which, leaving that place, is obliged to go to school, and tolearn all over again what it already knew, and will not know again. " "It is not worth the trouble, " responded the animal with the heightof eight leagues, "for your soul to be so knowledgeable in itsmother's stomach, only to be so ignorant when you have hair on yourchin. But what do you understand by the mind?" "You are asking me?" said the reasoner. "I have no idea. We say thatit is not matter--" "But do you at least know what matter is?" "Certainly, " replied the man. "For example this stone is grey, hassuch and such a form, has three dimensions, is heavy and divisible. " "Well!" said the Sirian, "this thing that appears to you to bedivisible, heavy, and grey, will you tell me what it is? You see someattributes, but behind those, are you familiar with that? "No, " said the other. "--So you do not know what matter is. " So Micromegas, addressing another sage that he held on a thumb, askedwhat his soul was, and what it did. "Nothing at all, " said the Malebranchist philosopher[5]. "God doeseverything for me. I see everything in him, I do everything in him;it is he who does everything that I get mixed up in. " [5] See the opuscule entitled "All in God" in _Miscellaneous_(1796). "It would be just as well not to exist, " retorted the sage of Sirius. "And you, my friend, " he said to a Leibnitzian who was there, "whatis your soul?" "It is, " answered the Leibnitzian, "the hand of a clock that tellsthe time while my body rings out. Or, if you like, it is my soul thatrings out while my body tells the time, or my soul is the mirror ofthe universe, and my body is the border of the mirror. All that isclear. " A small partisan of Locke was nearby, and when he was finally giventhe floor: "I do not know, " said he, "how I think, but I know that Ihave only ever thought through my senses. That there are immaterialand intelligent substances I do not doubt, but that it is impossiblefor God to communicate thought to matter I doubt very much. I reverethe eternal power. It is not my place to limit it. I affirm nothing, and content myself with believing that many more things are possiblethan one would think. " The animal from Sirius smiled. He did not find this the least bitsage, while the dwarf from Saturn would have kissed the sectarian ofLocke were it not for the extreme disproportion. But there was, unfortunately, a little animalcule in a square hat who interruptedall the other animalcule philosophers. He said that he knew thesecret: that everything would be found in the _Summa_ of SaintThomas. He looked the two celestial inhabitants up and down. Heargued that their people, their worlds, their suns, their stars, hadall been made uniquely for mankind. At this speech, our two voyagersnearly fell over with that inextinguishable laughter which, accordingto Homer[6], is shared with the gods. Their shoulders and theirstomachs heaved up and down, and in these convulsions the vessel thatthe Sirian had on his nail fell into one of the Saturnian's trouserpockets. These two good men searched for it a long time, found itfinally, and tidied it up neatly. The Sirian resumed his discussionwith the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, althoughin the depths of his heart he was a little angry that the infinitelysmall had an almost infinitely great pride. He promised to make thema beautiful philosophical book[7], written very small for theirusage, and said that in this book they would see the point ofeverything. Indeed, he gave them this book before leaving. It wastaken to the academy of science in Paris, but when the ancient[8]secretary opened it, he saw nothing but blank pages. "Ah!" he said, "I suspected as much. " [6] Illiad, I, 599. B. [7] The edition that I believe to be original, and the one dated1750, reads, "philosophical book, that would teach them ofadmirable things, and show them the goodness of things. " [8] Although this scene occurs in 1737, as one saw in pages 177 to188, one could assign the epithet of "old" to Fontenelle, who was80 at that point, and who died 20 years later. In 1740 he resignedfrom his position as perpetual secretary. END OF THE HISTORY OF MICROMEGAS.