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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas
+
+Author: Voltaire
+
+Translator: Peter Phalen
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2009 [EBook #30123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANS -- VOLUME 3: MICROMEGAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Phalen.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: this etext is a translation of Project
+Gutenberg'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 might
+indicate the period in which _Micromegas_ was published. The engraved
+title of the edition that I believe to be the original displays no
+date. Abbot Trublet, in his _Biography of Fontenelle_, does not
+hesitate to say that _Micromegas_ is directed against Fontenelle; but
+does not speak of the date of publication. I have therefore retained
+that given by the Kehl editions: 1752. However there is an edition
+carrying the date of 1700. Is this date authentic? I would not make
+this 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. It
+contains many allusions.  The dwarf of Saturn is Mr. Fontenelle.
+Despite his gentleness, his carefulness, his philosophy, all of
+which should endear him to Mr. Voltaire, he is linked with the
+enemies of this great man, and appears to share, if not in their
+hate, at least in their preemptive censures. He was deeply hurt by
+the role he played in this novel, and perhaps even more so due to
+the justness, though severe, of the critique; the strong praise
+given elsewhere in the novel only lends more weight to the
+rebukes. The words that end this work do not soften the wounds,
+and the good that is said of the secretary of the academy of Paris
+does not console Mr. Fontenelle for the ridicule that is permitted
+to befall the one at the academy of Saturn.
+
+
+The notes without signature, and those indicated by letters, are
+written by Voltaire.
+
+The notes signed with a K have been written by the Kehl publishers,
+Mr. Condorcet and Mr. Decroix. It is impossible to rigorously
+distinguish between the additions made by these two.
+
+The additions that I have given to the notes of Voltaire or to the
+notes 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 a
+spirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyage
+he made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], a
+fitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or
+24,000 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 immediately
+take up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas,
+inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which is
+equivalent to 120,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth are
+hardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they will
+find, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere that
+produced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than our
+little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. The
+sovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in a
+half hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, are
+only feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature has
+placed in all beings.
+
+
+[2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, in
+place of "geometers," put "algebraists."  B.
+
+
+His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all our
+sculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that his
+belt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very good
+proportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractive
+face, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractive
+body, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feet
+plus 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. He
+knows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250
+years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4]
+colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by pure
+willpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 more
+than Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwing
+around, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairly
+mediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450th
+year, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects no
+more than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinary
+microscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave him
+some income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorant
+worrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, and
+heretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued it
+vigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantial
+form of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of the
+snails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some women
+to testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally the
+mufti 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 first
+edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit."  B.
+
+[5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as
+those that contributed to the progress of science with great
+discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among
+the 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 for
+having stated in his _Letters on the English_ that our souls
+develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of
+animals.  K.
+
+
+He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a
+court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He
+wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter
+hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in
+order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those
+that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised
+learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of
+mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our
+voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the
+other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that,
+whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped
+from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to
+branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report
+that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the
+beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen
+at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has
+poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes
+him 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, upon
+seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself
+from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the
+wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than
+Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a
+thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men
+poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the
+music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good
+heart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is not
+necessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. He
+got to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built a
+strong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, a
+spirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, but
+who understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote some
+passable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I will
+report here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversation
+that Micromegas had with the secretary one day.
+
+
+[8]  See my note, page 110.  B.  [this note, in Zadig, says: "This
+line is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employs
+these expressions in his _Treatise on Studies_. Voltaire returns
+to 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 of
+song VIII of _The Young Virgin_.  B."]
+
+[9] English savant, author of _Astro-Theology_, and several other
+works that seek to prove the existence of God through detailing
+the wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators are
+often mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they rave
+about the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soon
+discovers that the phenomenon is completely different than they
+supposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them this
+impression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type,
+discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the author
+will 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 secretary
+approached him.
+
+"You have to admit," said Micromegas, "that nature is extremely
+varied."
+
+"Yes," said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed wherein the
+flowers--"
+
+"Ugh!" said the other, "leave off with flower beds."
+
+The secretary began again. "Nature is like an assembly of blonde and
+brown-haired girls whose jewels--"
+
+"What am I supposed to do with your brown-haired girls?" said the
+other.
+
+"Then she is like a gallery of paintings whose features--"
+
+"Certainly not!" said the voyager. "I say again that nature is like
+nature. Why bother looking for comparisons?"
+
+"To please you," replied the Secretary.
+
+"I do not want to be pleased," answered the voyager. "I want to be
+taught. Tell me how many senses the men of your planet have."
+
+"We only have 72," said the academic, "and we always complain about
+it. Our imagination surpasses our needs. We find that with our 72
+senses, our ring, our five moons, we are too restricted; and in spite
+of all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions that
+result from our 72 senses, we have plenty of time to get bored."
+
+"I believe it," said Micromegas, "for on our planet we have almost
+1,000 senses; and yet we still have a kind of vague feeling, a sort
+of worry, that warns us that there are even more perfect beings. I
+have traveled a bit; and I have seen mortals that surpass us, some
+far superior. But I have not seen any that desire only what they
+truly need, and who need only what they indulge in. Maybe someday I
+will happen upon a country that lacks nothing; but so far no one has
+given me any word of a place like that."
+
+The Saturnian and the Sirian proceeded to wear themselves out in
+speculating; but after a lot of very ingenious and very dubious
+reasoning, 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. It
+must be a universal law of nature."
+
+"Alas! We only live through 500 revolutions around the sun," said the
+Saturnian. (This translates to about 15,000 years, by our standards.)
+"You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one is
+born; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planet
+an 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 any
+plans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I am
+ashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in this
+world."
+
+Micromegas replied, "If you were not a philosopher, I would fear
+burdening you by telling you that our lifespan is 700 times longer
+than yours; but you know very well when it is necessary to return
+your body to the elements, and reanimate nature in another form,
+which we call death. When this moment of metamorphosis comes, to have
+lived an eternity or to have lived a day amounts to precisely the
+same thing. I have been to countries where they live a thousand times
+longer than we do, and they also die. But people everywhere have the
+good sense to know their role and to thank the Author of nature. He
+has scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with a
+kind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beings
+are different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thought
+and desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has different
+properties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you count
+in yours?"
+
+"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we
+believe that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of
+them, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity,
+divisibility, and the rest."
+
+"Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices for
+what the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdom
+in everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion.
+Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have few
+sensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work of
+Providence. What color is your sun upon examination?"
+
+"A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide one
+of its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."
+
+"Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary
+colors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close to
+that resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that is
+identical to the others."
+
+After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how many
+essentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned that
+there were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beings
+with extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense and
+think, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that are
+penetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose home
+contained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages,
+prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, after
+having told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of what
+they did not know, after having reasoned over the course of a
+revolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a small
+philosophical voyage together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.
+
+
+Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn's
+atmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument when
+the ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came in
+tears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only
+660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with many
+other charms.
+
+"Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1,500 years, just when
+I 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 from
+another world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: if
+you were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are you
+running off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant than
+you, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyone
+ever again."
+
+The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that he
+was; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself with
+the help of one of the dandies of the country.
+
+
+[1] The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all the
+earlier 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 illustrious
+inhabitant of our little sphere[2]; from there they went easily from
+moon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it with
+their servants and their instruments. When they had traveled about
+one hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites of
+Jupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during which
+time they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have been
+forthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some of
+the propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscript
+in the library of the illustrious archbishop of...., who with a
+generosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me to
+see his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition of
+Moréri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a great
+hope 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 they
+traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues and
+approached the planet Mars, which, as we know, is five times smaller
+than our own; they swung by two moons that cater to this planet but
+have escaped the notice of our astronomers. I know very well that
+Father Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the
+existence of these two moons; but I rely on those who reason by
+analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it would be for
+Mars, so far from the sun, to have gotten by with less than two
+moons. Whatever the case may be, our explorers found it so small that
+they feared not being able to land on it, and they passed it by like
+two travelers disdainful of a bad village cabaret, pressing on
+towards a neighboring city. But the Sirian and his companion soon
+regretted it. They traveled a long time without finding anything.
+Finally they perceived a small candle, it was earth; this was a
+pitiful sight to those who had just left Jupiter. Nevertheless, from
+fear of further regret, they resolved to touch down. Carried by the
+tail of a comet, and finding an aurora borealis at the ready, they
+started towards it, and arrived at Earth on the northern coast of the
+Baltic sea, July 5, 1737, new style.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+What happened on planet Earth.
+
+
+After resting for some time they ate two mountains for lunch, which
+their crew fixed up pretty nicely. Then they decided to get to know
+the 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 thousand
+fathoms, trailed behind, breathing heavily. He had to make twelve
+steps each time the other took a stride; imagine (if it is alright to
+make such a comparison) a very small lapdog following a captain of
+the guards of the Prussian king.
+
+Since our strangers moved fairly rapidly, they circumnavigated the
+globe in 36 hours. The sun, in truth, or rather the Earth, makes a
+similar voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going is
+much easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one's
+feet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seen
+the nearly imperceptible pond we call _the Mediterranean_, and the
+other little pool that, under the name _Ocean_, encircles the
+molehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardly
+wet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whether
+the planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, laid down, felt
+around everywhere; but their eyes and their hands were not
+proportionate to the little beings that crawl here, they could not
+feel in the least any sensation that might lead them to suspect that
+we and our associates, the other inhabitants of this planet, have the
+honor of existing.
+
+The dwarf, who was a bit hasty sometimes, decided straightaway that
+the planet was uninhabited. His first reason was that he had not seen
+anyone. Micromegas politely indicated that this logic was rather
+flawed: "For," said he, "you do not see with your little eyes certain
+stars of the 50th magnitude that I can perceive very distinctly. Do
+you 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 is
+so irregular and has such a ridiculous shape! Everything here seems
+to be in chaos: you see these little rivulets, none of which run in a
+straight line, these pools of water that are neither round, nor
+square, nor oval, nor regular by any measure; all these little pointy
+specks scattered across the earth that grate on my feet? (This was in
+reference to mountains.) Look at its shape again, how it is flat at
+the poles, how it clumsily revolves around the sun in a way that
+necessarily eliminates the climates of the poles? To tell the truth,
+what really makes me think it is uninhabited is that it seems that no
+one of good sense would want to stay."
+
+"Well," said Micromegas, "maybe the inhabitants of this planet are
+not of good sense! But in the end it looks like this may be for a
+reason. Everything appears irregular to you here, you say, because
+everything on Saturn and Jupiter is drawn in straight lines. This
+might be the[1] reason that you are a bit puzzled here. Have I not
+told you that I have continually noticed variety in my travels?"
+
+
+[1] All the editions that precede those of Kehl read: "It might be
+for this"  B.
+
+
+The Saturnian responded to all these points. The dispute might never
+have finished if it were not for Micromegas who, getting worked up,
+had the good luck to break the thread of his diamond necklace. The
+diamonds fell; they were pretty little carats of fairly irregular
+size, of which the largest weighed four hundred pounds and the
+smallest fifty. The dwarf recaptured some of them; bending down for a
+better look, he perceived that these diamonds were cut with the help
+of an excellent microscope. So he took out a small microscope of 160
+feet in diameter and put it up to his eye; and Micromegas took up one
+of 2,005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one of
+them could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finally
+the Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow waters
+of the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with his
+little finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it to
+the Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrously
+small scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuaded
+that our world was inhabited, figured very quickly that it was
+inhabited only by whales; and as he was very good at reasoning, he
+was determined to infer the origin and evolution of such a small
+atom; whether it had ideas, a will, liberty. Micromegas was confused.
+He examined the animal very patiently and found no reason to believe
+that a soul was lodged in it. The two voyagers were therefore
+inclined to believe that there is no spirit in our home, when with
+the help of the microscope they perceived something as large as a
+whale floating on the Baltic Sea. We know that a flock of
+philosophers was at this time returning from the Arctic Circle, where
+they had made some observations, which no one had dared make up to
+then. The gazettes claimed that their vessel ran aground on the coast
+of Bothnia, and that they were having a lot of difficulty setting
+things straight; but the world never shows its cards. I am going to
+tell how it really happened, artlessly and without bias; which is no
+small thing for an historian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers.
+
+
+Micromegas slowly reached his hand towards the place where the object
+had appeared, extended two fingers, and withdrew them for fear of
+being mistaken, then opened and closed them, and skillfully seized
+the vessel that carried these fellows, putting it on his fingernail
+without pressing it too hard for fear of crushing it.
+
+"Here is a very different animal from the first," said the dwarf from
+Saturn.
+
+The Sirian put the so-called animal in the palm of his hand. The
+passengers and the crew, who believed themselves to have been lifted
+up by a hurricane, and who thought they were on some sort of boulder,
+scurried around; the sailors took the barrels of wine, threw them
+overboard onto Micromegas hand, and followed after. The geometers
+took their quadrants, their sextants, two Lappland girls[1], and
+descended onto the Sirian's fingers. They made so much fuss that he
+finally felt something move, tickling his fingers. It was a steel-tipped
+baton being pressed into his index finger. He judged, by this
+tickling, that it had been ejected from some small animal that he was
+holding; but he did not suspect anything else at first. The
+microscope, which could barely distinguish a whale from a boat, could
+not capture anything as elusive as a man. I do not claim to outrage
+anyone's vanity, but I am obliged to ask that important men make an
+observation here. Taking the size of a man to be about five feet, the
+figure we strike on Earth is like that struck by an animal of about
+six hundred thousandths[2] the height of a flea on a ball five feet
+around. Imagine something that can hold the Earth in its hands, and
+which has organs in proportion to ours--and it may very well be that
+there are such things--conceive, I beg of you, what these things
+would think of the battles that allow a vanquisher to take a village
+only to lose it later.
+
+
+[1] See the notes to the speech in verse, "On Moderation" (Volume
+XII), and those of "Russia to Paris" (Volume XIV).  K.
+
+[2] The edition that I take to be original reads "sixty
+thousandths."  B.
+
+
+I do not doubt that if ever some captain of some troop of imposing
+grenadiers reads this work he will increase the size of the hats of
+his troops by at least two imposing feet. But I warn him that it will
+have been done in vain; that he and his will never grow any larger
+than infinitely small.
+
+What marvelous skill it must have taken for our philosopher from
+Sirius to perceive the atoms I have just spoken of. When Leuwenhoek
+and Hartsoëker tinkered with the first or thought they saw the grains
+that make us up, they did not by any means make such an astonishing
+discovery. What pleasure Micromegas felt at seeing these little
+machines move, at examining all their scurrying, at following them in
+their enterprises! how he cried out! with what joy he placed one of
+his microscopes in the hands of his traveling companion!
+
+"I see them," they said at the same time, "look how they are carrying
+loads, stooping, getting up again." They spoke like that, hands
+trembling from the pleasure of seeing such new objects, and from fear
+of losing them. The Saturnian, passing from an excess of incredulity
+to an excess of credulity, thought he saw them mating.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I have caught nature in the act"[1]. But he was
+fooled by appearances, which happens only too often, whether one is
+using a microscope or not.
+
+
+[1] _j'ai pris la nature sur le fait_. A happy, good-natured turn
+of phrase expressed by Fontenelle upon making some observations of
+natural history.  K.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+What happened to them among men.
+
+
+Micromegas, a much better observer than his dwarf, clearly saw that
+the atoms were speaking to each other, and pointed this out to his
+companion, who, ashamed of being mistaken about them reproducing, did
+not want to believe that such a species could communicate. He had the
+gift of language as well as the Sirian. He could not hear the atoms
+talk, and he supposed that they did not speak. Moreover, how could
+these impossibly small beings have vocal organs, and what would they
+have to say? To speak, one must think, more or less; but if they
+think, they must therefore have the equivalent of a soul. But to
+attribute the equivalent of a soul to this species seemed absurd to
+him.
+
+"But," said the Sirian, "you believed right away that they made love.
+Do you believe that one can make love without thinking and without
+uttering one word, or at least without making oneself heard? Do you
+suppose as well that it is more difficult to produce an argument than
+an infant? Both appear to be great mysteries to me."
+
+"I do not dare believe or deny it," said the dwarf. "I have no more
+opinions. We must try to examine these insects and reason after."
+
+"That is very well said," echoed Micromegas, and he briskly took out
+a pair of scissors with which he cut his fingernails, and from the
+parings of his thumbnail he improvised a kind of speaking-trumpet,
+like a vast funnel, and put the end up to his ear. The circumference
+of the funnel enveloped the vessel and the entire crew. The weakest
+voice entered into the circular fibers of the nails in such a way
+that, thanks to his industriousness, the philosopher above could hear
+the drone of our insects below perfectly. In a small number of hours
+he was able to distinguish words, and finally to understand French.
+The dwarf managed to do the same, though with more difficulty. The
+voyagers' surprise redoubled each second. They heard the mites speak
+fairly intelligently. This performance of nature's seemed
+inexplicable to them. You may well believe that the Sirian and the
+dwarf burned with impatience to converse with the atoms. The dwarf
+feared that his thunderous voice, and assuredly Micromegas, would
+deafen the mites without being understood. They had to diminish its
+force. They placed toothpicks in their mouths, whose tapered ends
+fell around the ship. The Sirian put the dwarf on his knees and the
+ship with its crew on a fingernail. He lowered his head and spoke
+softly. Finally, relying on these precautions and many others, he
+began his speech like so:
+
+"Invisible insects, that the hand of the Creator has caused to spring
+up in the abyss of the infinitely small, I thank him for allowing me
+to uncover these seemingly impenetrable secrets. Perhaps those at my
+court 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 these
+words. They could not figure out where they were coming from. The
+chaplain of the vessel recited the exorcism prayers, the sailors
+swore, and the philosophers of the vessel constructed systems; but no
+matter what systems they came up with, they could not figure out who
+was talking. The dwarf from Saturn, who had a softer voice than
+Micromegas, told them in a few words what species they were dealing
+with. He told them about the voyage from Saturn, brought them up to
+speed on what Mr. Micromegas was, and after lamenting how small they
+were, asked them if they had always been in this miserable state so
+near nothingness, what they were doing on a globe that appeared to
+belong to whales, whether they were happy, if they reproduced, if
+they had a soul, and a hundred other questions of this nature.
+
+A reasoner among the troop, more daring than the others, and shocked
+that someone might doubt his soul, observed the interlocutor with
+sight-vanes pointed at a quarter circle from two different stations,
+and at the third spoke thusly: "You believe then, Sir, that because
+you are a thousand fathoms tall from head to toe, that you are a--"
+
+"A thousand fathoms!" cried the dwarf. "Good heavens! How could he
+know my height? A thousand fathoms! You cannot mistake him for a
+flea. 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 know
+his!"
+
+"Yes, I measured you," said the physician, "and I will measure your
+large companion as well." The proposition was accepted, his
+excellency laid down flat; for were he to stay upright his head would
+have been among the clouds. Our philosophers planted a great shaft on
+him, in a place that doctor Swift would have named, but that I will
+restrain myself from calling by its name, out of respect for the
+ladies. Next, by a series of triangles linked together, they
+concluded that what they saw was in effect a young man of 120,000
+feet[1].
+
+
+[1]The edition I believe to be original reads, "a beautiful
+young ... of 120,000 feet."  B.
+
+
+So Micromegas delivered these words: "I see more than ever that one
+must not judge anything by its apparent size. Oh God! you who have
+given intelligence to substance that appears contemptible. The
+infinitely small costs you as little as the infinitely large; and if
+it is possible that there are such small beings as these, there may
+just as well be a spirit bigger than those of the superb animals that
+I have seen in the heavens, whose feet alone would cover this
+planet."
+
+One of the philosophers responded that he could certainly imagine
+that there are intelligent beings much smaller than man. He
+recounted, not every fabulous thing Virgil says about bees, but what
+Swammerdam discovered, and what Réaumur has anatomized. He explained
+finally 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 which
+they looked like atoms. Little by little the conversation became
+interesting, and Micromegas spoke thusly:
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Conversation with the men.
+
+
+"Oh intelligent atoms, in which the Eternal Being desired to make
+manifest his skill and his power, you must, no doubt, taste pure joys
+on your planet; for having so little matter, and appearing to be
+entirely spirit, you must live out your life thinking and loving, the
+veritable life of the mind. Nowhere have I seen true bliss, but it is
+here, without a doubt."
+
+At this all the philosophers shook their heads, and one of them, more
+frank than the others, avowed that if one excepts a small number of
+inhabitants held in poor regard, all the rest are an assembly of mad,
+vicious, and wretched people. "We have more substance than is
+necessary," he said, "to do evil, if evil comes from substance; and
+too much spirit, if evil comes from spirit. Did you know, for
+example, that as I am speaking with you[1], there are 100,000 madmen
+of our species wearing hats, killing 100,000 other animals wearing
+turbans, or being massacred by them, and that we have used almost
+surface of the Earth for this purpose since time immemorial?"
+
+
+[1] We saw, at the end of chapter III, that the story occurs in
+1737. Voltaire is referring to the war between the Turks and the
+Russians, from 1736 to 1739.  B.
+
+
+The Sirian shuddered, and asked the reason for these horrible
+quarrels between such puny animals.
+
+"It is a matter," said the philosopher, "of some piles of mud as big
+as your heel[2]. It is not that any of these millions of men that
+slit each other's throats care about this pile of mud. It is only a
+matter of determining if it should belong to a certain man who we
+call 'Sultan,' or to another who we call, for whatever reason,
+'Czar.' Neither one has ever seen nor will ever see the little piece
+of Earth, and almost none of these animals that mutually kill
+themselves have ever seen the animal for which they kill."
+
+
+[2] Crimea, which all the same was not reunited with Russia until
+1783.  B.
+
+
+"Oh! Cruel fate!" cried the Sirian with indignation, "who could
+conceive of this excess of maniacal rage! It makes me want to take
+three steps and crush this whole anthill of ridiculous assassins."
+
+"Do not waste your time," someone responded, "they are working
+towards ruin quickly enough. Know that after ten years only one
+hundredth of these scoundrels will be here. Know that even if they
+have not drawn swords, hunger, fatigue, or intemperance will overtake
+them. Furthermore, it is not they that should be punished, it is
+those sedentary barbarians who from the depths of their offices
+order, while they are digesting their last meal, the massacre of a
+million men, and who subsequently give solemn thanks to God."
+
+The voyager was moved with pity for the small human race, where he
+was discovering such surprising contrasts.
+
+"Since you are amongst the small number of wise men," he told these
+sirs, "and since apparently you do not kill anyone for money, tell
+me, I beg of you, what occupies your time."
+
+"We dissect flies," said the philosopher, "we measure lines, we
+gather figures; we agree with each other on two or three points that
+we do not understand."
+
+It suddenly took the Sirian and the Saturnian's fancy to question
+these thinking atoms, to learn what it was they agreed on.
+
+"What do you measure," said the Saturnian, "from the Dog Star to the
+great 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 air
+weighed around 900 times less than an identical volume of the purest
+water, and 19,000 times less than a gold ducat. The little dwarf from
+Saturn, surprised at their responses, was tempted to accuse of
+witchcraft the same people he had refused a soul fifteen minutes
+earlier.
+
+
+[3] The edition I believe to be original reads "put them off" in
+place of "caught them."
+
+
+Finally Micromegas said to them, "Since you know what is exterior to
+you so well, you must know what is interior even better. Tell me what
+your soul is, and how you form ideas." The philosophers spoke all at
+once as before, but they were of different views. The oldest cited
+Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes; this one here,
+Malebranche; another Leibnitz; another Locke. An old peripatetic
+spoke up with confidence: "The soul is an entelechy, and a reason
+gives it the power to be what it is." This is what Aristotle
+expressly declares, page 633 of the Louvre edition. He cited the
+passage[4].
+
+[4] Here is the passage such as it is transcribed in the edition
+dated 1750: "Entele'xeia' tis esi kai' lo'gos toû dy'namin
+e'xontos toude' ei'nai."
+
+This passage of Aristotle, _On the Soul_, book II, chapter II, is
+translated thusly by Casaubon: _Anima quaedam perfectio et actus
+ac 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 named
+Aristotle in the Greek?"
+
+"Because," replied the savant, "one should always cite what one does
+not understand at all in the language one understands the least."
+
+The Cartesian took the floor and said: "The soul is a pure spirit
+that has received in the belly of its mother all metaphysical ideas,
+and which, leaving that place, is obliged to go to school, and to
+learn all over again what it already knew, and will not know again."
+
+"It is not worth the trouble," responded the animal with the height
+of eight leagues, "for your soul to be so knowledgeable in its
+mother's stomach, only to be so ignorant when you have hair on your
+chin. But what do you understand by the mind?"
+
+"You are asking me?" said the reasoner. "I have no idea. We say that
+it is not matter--"
+
+"But do you at least know what matter is?"
+
+"Certainly," replied the man. "For example this stone is grey, has
+such and such a form, has three dimensions, is heavy and divisible."
+
+"Well!" said the Sirian, "this thing that appears to you to be
+divisible, heavy, and grey, will you tell me what it is? You see some
+attributes, 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, asked
+what his soul was, and what it did.
+
+"Nothing at all," said the Malebranchist philosopher[5]. "God does
+everything 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, "what
+is your soul?"
+
+"It is," answered the Leibnitzian, "the hand of a clock that tells
+the time while my body rings out. Or, if you like, it is my soul that
+rings out while my body tells the time, or my soul is the mirror of
+the universe, and my body is the border of the mirror. All that is
+clear."
+
+A small partisan of Locke was nearby, and when he was finally given
+the floor: "I do not know," said he, "how I think, but I know that I
+have only ever thought through my senses. That there are immaterial
+and intelligent substances I do not doubt, but that it is impossible
+for God to communicate thought to matter I doubt very much. I revere
+the eternal power. It is not my place to limit it. I affirm nothing,
+and content myself with believing that many more things are possible
+than one would think."
+
+The animal from Sirius smiled. He did not find this the least bit
+sage, while the dwarf from Saturn would have kissed the sectarian of
+Locke were it not for the extreme disproportion. But there was,
+unfortunately, a little animalcule in a square hat who interrupted
+all the other animalcule philosophers. He said that he knew the
+secret: that everything would be found in the _Summa_ of Saint
+Thomas. He looked the two celestial inhabitants up and down. He
+argued that their people, their worlds, their suns, their stars, had
+all been made uniquely for mankind. At this speech, our two voyagers
+nearly fell over with that inextinguishable laughter which, according
+to Homer[6], is shared with the gods. Their shoulders and their
+stomachs heaved up and down, and in these convulsions the vessel that
+the Sirian had on his nail fell into one of the Saturnian's trouser
+pockets. These two good men searched for it a long time, found it
+finally, and tidied it up neatly. The Sirian resumed his discussion
+with the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, although
+in the depths of his heart he was a little angry that the infinitely
+small had an almost infinitely great pride. He promised to make them
+a beautiful philosophical book[7], written very small for their
+usage, and said that in this book they would see the point of
+everything. Indeed, he gave them this book before leaving. It was
+taken 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 dated
+1750, reads, "philosophical book, that would teach them of
+admirable things, and show them the goodness of things."
+
+[8] Although this scene occurs in 1737, as one saw in pages 177 to
+188, one could assign the epithet of "old" to Fontenelle, who was
+80 at that point, and who died 20 years later. In 1740 he resigned
+from his position as perpetual secretary.
+
+
+
+
+                END OF THE HISTORY OF MICROMEGAS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas
+
+Author: Voltaire
+
+Translator: Peter Phalen
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2009 [EBook #30123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANS -- VOLUME 3: MICROMEGAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Phalen.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="transnote">
+[Transcriber's note: this etext is a translation of Project
+Gutenberg's #4649.]
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+                            THE WORKS<BR>
+                               OF<BR>
+                            VOLTAIRE.<BR>
+<BR>
+                           VOLUME XXXIII<BR>
+<BR>
+        FROM THE PRINTING HOUSE OF A. FIRMIN DIDOT,<BR>
+                        RUE JACOB, No 24.<BR>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+                           THE WORKS<BR>
+                               OF<BR>
+                            VOLTAIRE<BR>
+<BR>
+              PREFACES, CAUTIONS, NOTES, ETC.<BR>
+<BR>
+                        BY  M. BEUCHOT.<BR>
+<BR>
+                        VOLUME XXXIII.<BR>
+<BR>
+                       NOVELS.  VOLUME   I.<BR>
+<BR>
+                            IN PARIS,<BR>
+                       LEFÈVRE, BOOKSELLER,<BR>
+<BR>
+         RUE DE L'ÉPERON, Ko 6.  WERDET ET LEQUIEN FILS,<BR>
+                      RUE DU BATTOIR, No 20.<BR>
+<BR>
+                           MDCCCXXIX.<BR>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+                           MICROMEGAS,<BR>
+<BR>
+                     PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY.<BR>
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Publisher's preface.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Voltaire's lengthy correspondences do not contain anything that might
+indicate the period in which <I>Micromegas</I> was published. The engraved
+title of the edition that I believe to be the original displays no
+date. Abbot Trublet, in his <I>Biography of Fontenelle</I>, does not
+hesitate to say that <I>Micromegas</I> is directed against Fontenelle; but
+does not speak of the date of publication. I have therefore retained
+that given by the Kehl editions: 1752. However there is an edition
+carrying the date of 1700. Is this date authentic? I would not make
+this claim; far from it. I have therefore followed the Kehl editions,
+in which <I>Micromegas</I> is preceded by this warning:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="block">
+This novel can be seen as an imitation of Gulliver's Travels. It
+contains many allusions.  The dwarf of Saturn is Mr. Fontenelle.
+Despite his gentleness, his carefulness, his philosophy, all of
+which should endear him to Mr. Voltaire, he is linked with the
+enemies of this great man, and appears to share, if not in their
+hate, at least in their preemptive censures. He was deeply hurt by
+the role he played in this novel, and perhaps even more so due to
+the justness, though severe, of the critique; the strong praise
+given elsewhere in the novel only lends more weight to the
+rebukes. The words that end this work do not soften the wounds,
+and the good that is said of the secretary of the academy of Paris
+does not console Mr. Fontenelle for the ridicule that is permitted
+to befall the one at the academy of Saturn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The notes without signature, and those indicated by letters, are
+written by Voltaire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The notes signed with a K have been written by the Kehl publishers,
+Mr. Condorcet and Mr. Decroix. It is impossible to rigorously
+distinguish between the additions made by these two.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The additions that I have given to the notes of Voltaire or to the
+notes of the Kehl publishers, are separated from the others by a &mdash;,
+and are, as they are mine, signed by the initial of my name.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+BEUCHOT
+<BR>
+October 4, 1829.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+CONTENTS
+</H2>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap01">Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap04">What happened on planet Earth.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">What happened to them among men.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap07">Conversation with the men.</A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+                           MICROMEGAS,<BR>
+<BR>
+                     PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY<BR>
+</H2>
+
+<BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+On one of the planets that orbits the star named Sirius there lived a
+spirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyage
+he made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], a
+fitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or
+24,000 geometric paces of five feet each.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] From <I>micros</I>, small, and from <I>megas</I>, large.  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+<P>
+Certain geometers[2], always of use to the public, will immediately
+take up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas,
+inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which is
+equivalent to 120,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth are
+hardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they will
+find, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere that
+produced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than our
+little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. The
+sovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in a
+half hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, are
+only feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature has
+placed in all beings.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, in
+place of "geometers," put "algebraists."  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all our
+sculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that his
+belt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very good
+proportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractive
+face, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractive
+body, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feet
+plus a fraction; which is manifest.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[3] I restore this sentence in accordance with the first editions.
+B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+As for his mind, it is one of the most cultivated that we have. He
+knows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250
+years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4]
+colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by pure
+willpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 more
+than Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwing
+around, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairly
+mediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450th
+year, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects no
+more than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinary
+microscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave him
+some income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorant
+worrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, and
+heretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued it
+vigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantial
+form of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of the
+snails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some women
+to testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally the
+mufti 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].
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[4] In place of "the most celebrated" that one finds in the first
+edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit."  B.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as
+those that contributed to the progress of science with great
+discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among
+the geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[6]  The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash,
+smelling heresy." The present text is dated 1756.  B.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer for
+having stated in his <I>Letters on the English</I> that our souls
+develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of
+animals.  K.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a
+court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He
+wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter
+hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in
+order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those
+that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised
+learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of
+mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our
+voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the
+other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that,
+whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped
+from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to
+branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report
+that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the
+beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen
+at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has
+poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes
+him 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, upon
+seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself
+from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the
+wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than
+Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a
+thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men
+poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the
+music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good
+heart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is not
+necessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. He
+got to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built a
+strong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, a
+spirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, but
+who understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote some
+passable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I will
+report here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversation
+that Micromegas had with the secretary one day.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[8]  See my note, page 110.  B.  [this note, in Zadig, says: "This
+line is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employs
+these expressions in his <I>Treatise on Studies</I>. Voltaire returns
+to it often: see, in the present volume, chapter I of Micromegas,
+and in volume XXXIV, chapter XI of <I>The Man of Forty Crowns</I>,
+chapter IX of <I>The White Bull</I> and volume XI, the second verse of
+song VIII of <I>The Young Virgin</I>.  B."]
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[9] English savant, author of <I>Astro-Theology</I>, and several other
+works that seek to prove the existence of God through detailing
+the wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators are
+often mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they rave
+about the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soon
+discovers that the phenomenon is completely different than they
+supposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them this
+impression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type,
+discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the author
+will end up admiring whatever he has chosen to discuss.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+After his excellency laid himself down to rest the secretary
+approached him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You have to admit," said Micromegas, "that nature is extremely
+varied."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed wherein the
+flowers&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ugh!" said the other, "leave off with flower beds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The secretary began again. "Nature is like an assembly of blonde and
+brown-haired girls whose jewels&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What am I supposed to do with your brown-haired girls?" said the
+other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then she is like a gallery of paintings whose features&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Certainly not!" said the voyager. "I say again that nature is like
+nature. Why bother looking for comparisons?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To please you," replied the Secretary.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not want to be pleased," answered the voyager. "I want to be
+taught. Tell me how many senses the men of your planet have."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We only have 72," said the academic, "and we always complain about
+it. Our imagination surpasses our needs. We find that with our 72
+senses, our ring, our five moons, we are too restricted; and in spite
+of all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions that
+result from our 72 senses, we have plenty of time to get bored."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe it," said Micromegas, "for on our planet we have almost
+1,000 senses; and yet we still have a kind of vague feeling, a sort
+of worry, that warns us that there are even more perfect beings. I
+have traveled a bit; and I have seen mortals that surpass us, some
+far superior. But I have not seen any that desire only what they
+truly need, and who need only what they indulge in. Maybe someday I
+will happen upon a country that lacks nothing; but so far no one has
+given me any word of a place like that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Saturnian and the Sirian proceeded to wear themselves out in
+speculating; but after a lot of very ingenious and very dubious
+reasoning, it was necessary to return to the facts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How long do you live?" said the Sirian.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh! For a very short time," replied the small man from Saturn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Same with us," said the Sirian. "we always complain about it. It
+must be a universal law of nature."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Alas! We only live through 500 revolutions around the sun," said the
+Saturnian. (This translates to about 15,000 years, by our standards.)
+"You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one is
+born; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planet
+an 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 any
+plans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I am
+ashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in this
+world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Micromegas replied, "If you were not a philosopher, I would fear
+burdening you by telling you that our lifespan is 700 times longer
+than yours; but you know very well when it is necessary to return
+your body to the elements, and reanimate nature in another form,
+which we call death. When this moment of metamorphosis comes, to have
+lived an eternity or to have lived a day amounts to precisely the
+same thing. I have been to countries where they live a thousand times
+longer than we do, and they also die. But people everywhere have the
+good sense to know their role and to thank the Author of nature. He
+has scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with a
+kind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beings
+are different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thought
+and desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has different
+properties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you count
+in yours?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we
+believe that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of
+them, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity,
+divisibility, and the rest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices for
+what the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdom
+in everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion.
+Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have few
+sensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work of
+Providence. What color is your sun upon examination?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide one
+of its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary
+colors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close to
+that resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that is
+identical to the others."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how many
+essentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned that
+there were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beings
+with extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense and
+think, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that are
+penetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose home
+contained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages,
+prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, after
+having told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of what
+they did not know, after having reasoned over the course of a
+revolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a small
+philosophical voyage together.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn's
+atmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument when
+the ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came in
+tears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only
+660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with many
+other charms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1,500 years, just when
+I 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 from
+another world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: if
+you were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are you
+running off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant than
+you, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyone
+ever again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that he
+was; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself with
+the help of one of the dandies of the country.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all the
+earlier editions read: "two hundred."  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Our two explorers left all the same; they alighted first on the ring,
+which they found to be fairly flat, as conjectured by an illustrious
+inhabitant of our little sphere[2]; from there they went easily from
+moon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it with
+their servants and their instruments. When they had traveled about
+one hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites of
+Jupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during which
+time they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have been
+forthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some of
+the propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscript
+in the library of the illustrious archbishop of...., who with a
+generosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me to
+see his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition of
+Moréri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a great
+hope of perpetuating the race of their illustrious father.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] Huygens.  See volume XXVI, page 398.  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+But let us now return to our travelers. Upon leaving Jupiter they
+traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues and
+approached the planet Mars, which, as we know, is five times smaller
+than our own; they swung by two moons that cater to this planet but
+have escaped the notice of our astronomers. I know very well that
+Father Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the
+existence of these two moons; but I rely on those who reason by
+analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it would be for
+Mars, so far from the sun, to have gotten by with less than two
+moons. Whatever the case may be, our explorers found it so small that
+they feared not being able to land on it, and they passed it by like
+two travelers disdainful of a bad village cabaret, pressing on
+towards a neighboring city. But the Sirian and his companion soon
+regretted it. They traveled a long time without finding anything.
+Finally they perceived a small candle, it was earth; this was a
+pitiful sight to those who had just left Jupiter. Nevertheless, from
+fear of further regret, they resolved to touch down. Carried by the
+tail of a comet, and finding an aurora borealis at the ready, they
+started towards it, and arrived at Earth on the northern coast of the
+Baltic sea, July 5, 1737, new style.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+What happened on planet Earth.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+After resting for some time they ate two mountains for lunch, which
+their crew fixed up pretty nicely. Then they decided to get to know
+the 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 thousand
+fathoms, trailed behind, breathing heavily. He had to make twelve
+steps each time the other took a stride; imagine (if it is alright to
+make such a comparison) a very small lapdog following a captain of
+the guards of the Prussian king.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since our strangers moved fairly rapidly, they circumnavigated the
+globe in 36 hours. The sun, in truth, or rather the Earth, makes a
+similar voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going is
+much easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one's
+feet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seen
+the nearly imperceptible pond we call <I>the Mediterranean</I>, and the
+other little pool that, under the name <I>Ocean</I>, encircles the
+molehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardly
+wet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whether
+the planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, laid down, felt
+around everywhere; but their eyes and their hands were not
+proportionate to the little beings that crawl here, they could not
+feel in the least any sensation that might lead them to suspect that
+we and our associates, the other inhabitants of this planet, have the
+honor of existing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dwarf, who was a bit hasty sometimes, decided straightaway that
+the planet was uninhabited. His first reason was that he had not seen
+anyone. Micromegas politely indicated that this logic was rather
+flawed: "For," said he, "you do not see with your little eyes certain
+stars of the 50th magnitude that I can perceive very distinctly. Do
+you conclude that these stars do not exist?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," said the dwarf, "I felt around a lot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," answered the other, "you have pretty weak senses."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," replied the dwarf, "this planet is poorly constructed. It is
+so irregular and has such a ridiculous shape! Everything here seems
+to be in chaos: you see these little rivulets, none of which run in a
+straight line, these pools of water that are neither round, nor
+square, nor oval, nor regular by any measure; all these little pointy
+specks scattered across the earth that grate on my feet? (This was in
+reference to mountains.) Look at its shape again, how it is flat at
+the poles, how it clumsily revolves around the sun in a way that
+necessarily eliminates the climates of the poles? To tell the truth,
+what really makes me think it is uninhabited is that it seems that no
+one of good sense would want to stay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Micromegas, "maybe the inhabitants of this planet are
+not of good sense! But in the end it looks like this may be for a
+reason. Everything appears irregular to you here, you say, because
+everything on Saturn and Jupiter is drawn in straight lines. This
+might be the[1] reason that you are a bit puzzled here. Have I not
+told you that I have continually noticed variety in my travels?"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] All the editions that precede those of Kehl read: "It might be
+for this"  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The Saturnian responded to all these points. The dispute might never
+have finished if it were not for Micromegas who, getting worked up,
+had the good luck to break the thread of his diamond necklace. The
+diamonds fell; they were pretty little carats of fairly irregular
+size, of which the largest weighed four hundred pounds and the
+smallest fifty. The dwarf recaptured some of them; bending down for a
+better look, he perceived that these diamonds were cut with the help
+of an excellent microscope. So he took out a small microscope of 160
+feet in diameter and put it up to his eye; and Micromegas took up one
+of 2,005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one of
+them could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finally
+the Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow waters
+of the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with his
+little finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it to
+the Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrously
+small scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuaded
+that our world was inhabited, figured very quickly that it was
+inhabited only by whales; and as he was very good at reasoning, he
+was determined to infer the origin and evolution of such a small
+atom; whether it had ideas, a will, liberty. Micromegas was confused.
+He examined the animal very patiently and found no reason to believe
+that a soul was lodged in it. The two voyagers were therefore
+inclined to believe that there is no spirit in our home, when with
+the help of the microscope they perceived something as large as a
+whale floating on the Baltic Sea. We know that a flock of
+philosophers was at this time returning from the Arctic Circle, where
+they had made some observations, which no one had dared make up to
+then. The gazettes claimed that their vessel ran aground on the coast
+of Bothnia, and that they were having a lot of difficulty setting
+things straight; but the world never shows its cards. I am going to
+tell how it really happened, artlessly and without bias; which is no
+small thing for an historian.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Micromegas slowly reached his hand towards the place where the object
+had appeared, extended two fingers, and withdrew them for fear of
+being mistaken, then opened and closed them, and skillfully seized
+the vessel that carried these fellows, putting it on his fingernail
+without pressing it too hard for fear of crushing it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here is a very different animal from the first," said the dwarf from
+Saturn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Sirian put the so-called animal in the palm of his hand. The
+passengers and the crew, who believed themselves to have been lifted
+up by a hurricane, and who thought they were on some sort of boulder,
+scurried around; the sailors took the barrels of wine, threw them
+overboard onto Micromegas hand, and followed after. The geometers
+took their quadrants, their sextants, two Lappland girls[1], and
+descended onto the Sirian's fingers. They made so much fuss that he
+finally felt something move, tickling his fingers. It was a steel-tipped
+baton being pressed into his index finger. He judged, by this
+tickling, that it had been ejected from some small animal that he was
+holding; but he did not suspect anything else at first. The
+microscope, which could barely distinguish a whale from a boat, could
+not capture anything as elusive as a man. I do not claim to outrage
+anyone's vanity, but I am obliged to ask that important men make an
+observation here. Taking the size of a man to be about five feet, the
+figure we strike on Earth is like that struck by an animal of about
+six hundred thousandths[2] the height of a flea on a ball five feet
+around. Imagine something that can hold the Earth in its hands, and
+which has organs in proportion to ours&mdash;and it may very well be that
+there are such things&mdash;conceive, I beg of you, what these things
+would think of the battles that allow a vanquisher to take a village
+only to lose it later.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] See the notes to the speech in verse, "On Moderation" (Volume
+XII), and those of "Russia to Paris" (Volume XIV).  K.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] The edition that I take to be original reads "sixty
+thousandths."  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+I do not doubt that if ever some captain of some troop of imposing
+grenadiers reads this work he will increase the size of the hats of
+his troops by at least two imposing feet. But I warn him that it will
+have been done in vain; that he and his will never grow any larger
+than infinitely small.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What marvelous skill it must have taken for our philosopher from
+Sirius to perceive the atoms I have just spoken of. When Leuwenhoek
+and Hartsoëker tinkered with the first or thought they saw the grains
+that make us up, they did not by any means make such an astonishing
+discovery. What pleasure Micromegas felt at seeing these little
+machines move, at examining all their scurrying, at following them in
+their enterprises! how he cried out! with what joy he placed one of
+his microscopes in the hands of his traveling companion!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see them," they said at the same time, "look how they are carrying
+loads, stooping, getting up again." They spoke like that, hands
+trembling from the pleasure of seeing such new objects, and from fear
+of losing them. The Saturnian, passing from an excess of incredulity
+to an excess of credulity, thought he saw them mating.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah!" he said. "I have caught nature in the act"[1]. But he was
+fooled by appearances, which happens only too often, whether one is
+using a microscope or not.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] <I>j'ai pris la nature sur le fait</I>. A happy, good-natured turn
+of phrase expressed by Fontenelle upon making some observations of
+natural history.  K.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+What happened to them among men.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+Micromegas, a much better observer than his dwarf, clearly saw that
+the atoms were speaking to each other, and pointed this out to his
+companion, who, ashamed of being mistaken about them reproducing, did
+not want to believe that such a species could communicate. He had the
+gift of language as well as the Sirian. He could not hear the atoms
+talk, and he supposed that they did not speak. Moreover, how could
+these impossibly small beings have vocal organs, and what would they
+have to say? To speak, one must think, more or less; but if they
+think, they must therefore have the equivalent of a soul. But to
+attribute the equivalent of a soul to this species seemed absurd to
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," said the Sirian, "you believed right away that they made love.
+Do you believe that one can make love without thinking and without
+uttering one word, or at least without making oneself heard? Do you
+suppose as well that it is more difficult to produce an argument than
+an infant? Both appear to be great mysteries to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not dare believe or deny it," said the dwarf. "I have no more
+opinions. We must try to examine these insects and reason after."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is very well said," echoed Micromegas, and he briskly took out
+a pair of scissors with which he cut his fingernails, and from the
+parings of his thumbnail he improvised a kind of speaking-trumpet,
+like a vast funnel, and put the end up to his ear. The circumference
+of the funnel enveloped the vessel and the entire crew. The weakest
+voice entered into the circular fibers of the nails in such a way
+that, thanks to his industriousness, the philosopher above could hear
+the drone of our insects below perfectly. In a small number of hours
+he was able to distinguish words, and finally to understand French.
+The dwarf managed to do the same, though with more difficulty. The
+voyagers' surprise redoubled each second. They heard the mites speak
+fairly intelligently. This performance of nature's seemed
+inexplicable to them. You may well believe that the Sirian and the
+dwarf burned with impatience to converse with the atoms. The dwarf
+feared that his thunderous voice, and assuredly Micromegas, would
+deafen the mites without being understood. They had to diminish its
+force. They placed toothpicks in their mouths, whose tapered ends
+fell around the ship. The Sirian put the dwarf on his knees and the
+ship with its crew on a fingernail. He lowered his head and spoke
+softly. Finally, relying on these precautions and many others, he
+began his speech like so:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Invisible insects, that the hand of the Creator has caused to spring
+up in the abyss of the infinitely small, I thank him for allowing me
+to uncover these seemingly impenetrable secrets. Perhaps those at my
+court would not deign to give you audience, but I mistrust no one,
+and I offer you my protection."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If anyone has ever been surprised, it was the people who heard these
+words. They could not figure out where they were coming from. The
+chaplain of the vessel recited the exorcism prayers, the sailors
+swore, and the philosophers of the vessel constructed systems; but no
+matter what systems they came up with, they could not figure out who
+was talking. The dwarf from Saturn, who had a softer voice than
+Micromegas, told them in a few words what species they were dealing
+with. He told them about the voyage from Saturn, brought them up to
+speed on what Mr. Micromegas was, and after lamenting how small they
+were, asked them if they had always been in this miserable state so
+near nothingness, what they were doing on a globe that appeared to
+belong to whales, whether they were happy, if they reproduced, if
+they had a soul, and a hundred other questions of this nature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A reasoner among the troop, more daring than the others, and shocked
+that someone might doubt his soul, observed the interlocutor with
+sight-vanes pointed at a quarter circle from two different stations,
+and at the third spoke thusly: "You believe then, Sir, that because
+you are a thousand fathoms tall from head to toe, that you are a&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A thousand fathoms!" cried the dwarf. "Good heavens! How could he
+know my height? A thousand fathoms! You cannot mistake him for a
+flea. 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 know
+his!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I measured you," said the physician, "and I will measure your
+large companion as well." The proposition was accepted, his
+excellency laid down flat; for were he to stay upright his head would
+have been among the clouds. Our philosophers planted a great shaft on
+him, in a place that doctor Swift would have named, but that I will
+restrain myself from calling by its name, out of respect for the
+ladies. Next, by a series of triangles linked together, they
+concluded that what they saw was in effect a young man of 120,000
+feet[1].
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1]The edition I believe to be original reads, "a beautiful
+young ... of 120,000 feet."  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+So Micromegas delivered these words: "I see more than ever that one
+must not judge anything by its apparent size. Oh God! you who have
+given intelligence to substance that appears contemptible. The
+infinitely small costs you as little as the infinitely large; and if
+it is possible that there are such small beings as these, there may
+just as well be a spirit bigger than those of the superb animals that
+I have seen in the heavens, whose feet alone would cover this
+planet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the philosophers responded that he could certainly imagine
+that there are intelligent beings much smaller than man. He
+recounted, not every fabulous thing Virgil says about bees, but what
+Swammerdam discovered, and what Réaumur has anatomized. He explained
+finally 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 which
+they looked like atoms. Little by little the conversation became
+interesting, and Micromegas spoke thusly:
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII.
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Conversation with the men.
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+"Oh intelligent atoms, in which the Eternal Being desired to make
+manifest his skill and his power, you must, no doubt, taste pure joys
+on your planet; for having so little matter, and appearing to be
+entirely spirit, you must live out your life thinking and loving, the
+veritable life of the mind. Nowhere have I seen true bliss, but it is
+here, without a doubt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this all the philosophers shook their heads, and one of them, more
+frank than the others, avowed that if one excepts a small number of
+inhabitants held in poor regard, all the rest are an assembly of mad,
+vicious, and wretched people. "We have more substance than is
+necessary," he said, "to do evil, if evil comes from substance; and
+too much spirit, if evil comes from spirit. Did you know, for
+example, that as I am speaking with you[1], there are 100,000 madmen
+of our species wearing hats, killing 100,000 other animals wearing
+turbans, or being massacred by them, and that we have used almost
+surface of the Earth for this purpose since time immemorial?"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[1] We saw, at the end of chapter III, that the story occurs in
+1737. Voltaire is referring to the war between the Turks and the
+Russians, from 1736 to 1739.  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The Sirian shuddered, and asked the reason for these horrible
+quarrels between such puny animals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is a matter," said the philosopher, "of some piles of mud as big
+as your heel[2]. It is not that any of these millions of men that
+slit each other's throats care about this pile of mud. It is only a
+matter of determining if it should belong to a certain man who we
+call 'Sultan,' or to another who we call, for whatever reason,
+'Czar.' Neither one has ever seen nor will ever see the little piece
+of Earth, and almost none of these animals that mutually kill
+themselves have ever seen the animal for which they kill."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[2] Crimea, which all the same was not reunited with Russia until
+1783.  B.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Oh! Cruel fate!" cried the Sirian with indignation, "who could
+conceive of this excess of maniacal rage! It makes me want to take
+three steps and crush this whole anthill of ridiculous assassins."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do not waste your time," someone responded, "they are working
+towards ruin quickly enough. Know that after ten years only one
+hundredth of these scoundrels will be here. Know that even if they
+have not drawn swords, hunger, fatigue, or intemperance will overtake
+them. Furthermore, it is not they that should be punished, it is
+those sedentary barbarians who from the depths of their offices
+order, while they are digesting their last meal, the massacre of a
+million men, and who subsequently give solemn thanks to God."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The voyager was moved with pity for the small human race, where he
+was discovering such surprising contrasts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since you are amongst the small number of wise men," he told these
+sirs, "and since apparently you do not kill anyone for money, tell
+me, I beg of you, what occupies your time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We dissect flies," said the philosopher, "we measure lines, we
+gather figures; we agree with each other on two or three points that
+we do not understand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It suddenly took the Sirian and the Saturnian's fancy to question
+these thinking atoms, to learn what it was they agreed on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you measure," said the Saturnian, "from the Dog Star to the
+great star of the Gemini?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They responded all at once, "thirty-two and a half degrees."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you measure from here to the moon?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"60 radii of the Earth even."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How much does your air weigh?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He thought he had caught them[3], but they all told him that air
+weighed around 900 times less than an identical volume of the purest
+water, and 19,000 times less than a gold ducat. The little dwarf from
+Saturn, surprised at their responses, was tempted to accuse of
+witchcraft the same people he had refused a soul fifteen minutes
+earlier.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[3] The edition I believe to be original reads "put them off" in
+place of "caught them."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Finally Micromegas said to them, "Since you know what is exterior to
+you so well, you must know what is interior even better. Tell me what
+your soul is, and how you form ideas." The philosophers spoke all at
+once as before, but they were of different views. The oldest cited
+Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes; this one here,
+Malebranche; another Leibnitz; another Locke. An old peripatetic
+spoke up with confidence: "The soul is an entelechy, and a reason
+gives it the power to be what it is." This is what Aristotle
+expressly declares, page 633 of the Louvre edition. He cited the
+passage[4].
+</P>
+
+<P>
+[4] Here is the passage such as it is transcribed in the edition
+dated 1750: "Entele'xeia' tis esi kai' lo'gos toû dy'namin
+e'xontos toude' ei'nai."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This passage of Aristotle, <I>On the Soul</I>, book II, chapter II, is
+translated thusly by Casaubon: <I>Anima quaedam perfectio et actus
+ac ratio est quod potentiam habet ut ejusmodi sit</I>.  B.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do not understand Greek very well," said the giant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Neither do I," said the philosophical mite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why then," the Sirian retorted, "are you citing some man named
+Aristotle in the Greek?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because," replied the savant, "one should always cite what one does
+not understand at all in the language one understands the least."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Cartesian took the floor and said: "The soul is a pure spirit
+that has received in the belly of its mother all metaphysical ideas,
+and which, leaving that place, is obliged to go to school, and to
+learn all over again what it already knew, and will not know again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is not worth the trouble," responded the animal with the height
+of eight leagues, "for your soul to be so knowledgeable in its
+mother's stomach, only to be so ignorant when you have hair on your
+chin. But what do you understand by the mind?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are asking me?" said the reasoner. "I have no idea. We say that
+it is not matter&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But do you at least know what matter is?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Certainly," replied the man. "For example this stone is grey, has
+such and such a form, has three dimensions, is heavy and divisible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well!" said the Sirian, "this thing that appears to you to be
+divisible, heavy, and grey, will you tell me what it is? You see some
+attributes, but behind those, are you familiar with that?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said the other.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"&mdash;So you do not know what matter is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Micromegas, addressing another sage that he held on a thumb, asked
+what his soul was, and what it did.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing at all," said the Malebranchist philosopher[5]. "God does
+everything for me. I see everything in him, I do everything in him;
+it is he who does everything that I get mixed up in."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[5] See the opuscule entitled "All in God" in <I>Miscellaneous</I>
+(1796).
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"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, "what
+is your soul?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is," answered the Leibnitzian, "the hand of a clock that tells
+the time while my body rings out. Or, if you like, it is my soul that
+rings out while my body tells the time, or my soul is the mirror of
+the universe, and my body is the border of the mirror. All that is
+clear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A small partisan of Locke was nearby, and when he was finally given
+the floor: "I do not know," said he, "how I think, but I know that I
+have only ever thought through my senses. That there are immaterial
+and intelligent substances I do not doubt, but that it is impossible
+for God to communicate thought to matter I doubt very much. I revere
+the eternal power. It is not my place to limit it. I affirm nothing,
+and content myself with believing that many more things are possible
+than one would think."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The animal from Sirius smiled. He did not find this the least bit
+sage, while the dwarf from Saturn would have kissed the sectarian of
+Locke were it not for the extreme disproportion. But there was,
+unfortunately, a little animalcule in a square hat who interrupted
+all the other animalcule philosophers. He said that he knew the
+secret: that everything would be found in the <I>Summa</I> of Saint
+Thomas. He looked the two celestial inhabitants up and down. He
+argued that their people, their worlds, their suns, their stars, had
+all been made uniquely for mankind. At this speech, our two voyagers
+nearly fell over with that inextinguishable laughter which, according
+to Homer[6], is shared with the gods. Their shoulders and their
+stomachs heaved up and down, and in these convulsions the vessel that
+the Sirian had on his nail fell into one of the Saturnian's trouser
+pockets. These two good men searched for it a long time, found it
+finally, and tidied it up neatly. The Sirian resumed his discussion
+with the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, although
+in the depths of his heart he was a little angry that the infinitely
+small had an almost infinitely great pride. He promised to make them
+a beautiful philosophical book[7], written very small for their
+usage, and said that in this book they would see the point of
+everything. Indeed, he gave them this book before leaving. It was
+taken 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."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[6] Illiad, I, 599.  B.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[7] The edition that I believe to be original, and the one dated
+1750, reads, "philosophical book, that would teach them of
+admirable things, and show them the goodness of things."
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+[8] Although this scene occurs in 1737, as one saw in pages 177 to
+188, one could assign the epithet of "old" to Fontenelle, who was
+80 at that point, and who died 20 years later. In 1740 he resigned
+from his position as perpetual secretary.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+                END OF THE HISTORY OF MICROMEGAS.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas
+
+Author: Voltaire
+
+Translator: Peter Phalen
+
+Release Date: September 28, 2009 [EBook #30123]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANS -- VOLUME 3: MICROMEGAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Phalen.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: this etext is a translation of Project
+Gutenberg'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,
+
+                       LEFEVRE, BOOKSELLER,
+
+         RUE DE L'EPERON, 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 might
+indicate the period in which _Micromegas_ was published. The engraved
+title of the edition that I believe to be the original displays no
+date. Abbot Trublet, in his _Biography of Fontenelle_, does not
+hesitate to say that _Micromegas_ is directed against Fontenelle; but
+does not speak of the date of publication. I have therefore retained
+that given by the Kehl editions: 1752. However there is an edition
+carrying the date of 1700. Is this date authentic? I would not make
+this 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. It
+contains many allusions.  The dwarf of Saturn is Mr. Fontenelle.
+Despite his gentleness, his carefulness, his philosophy, all of
+which should endear him to Mr. Voltaire, he is linked with the
+enemies of this great man, and appears to share, if not in their
+hate, at least in their preemptive censures. He was deeply hurt by
+the role he played in this novel, and perhaps even more so due to
+the justness, though severe, of the critique; the strong praise
+given elsewhere in the novel only lends more weight to the
+rebukes. The words that end this work do not soften the wounds,
+and the good that is said of the secretary of the academy of Paris
+does not console Mr. Fontenelle for the ridicule that is permitted
+to befall the one at the academy of Saturn.
+
+
+The notes without signature, and those indicated by letters, are
+written by Voltaire.
+
+The notes signed with a K have been written by the Kehl publishers,
+Mr. Condorcet and Mr. Decroix. It is impossible to rigorously
+distinguish between the additions made by these two.
+
+The additions that I have given to the notes of Voltaire or to the
+notes 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 a
+spirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyage
+he made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], a
+fitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or
+24,000 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 immediately
+take up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas,
+inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which is
+equivalent to 120,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth are
+hardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they will
+find, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere that
+produced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than our
+little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. The
+sovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in a
+half hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, are
+only feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature has
+placed in all beings.
+
+
+[2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, in
+place of "geometers," put "algebraists."  B.
+
+
+His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all our
+sculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that his
+belt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very good
+proportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractive
+face, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractive
+body, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feet
+plus 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. He
+knows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250
+years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4]
+colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by pure
+willpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 more
+than Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwing
+around, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairly
+mediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450th
+year, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects no
+more than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinary
+microscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave him
+some income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorant
+worrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, and
+heretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued it
+vigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantial
+form of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of the
+snails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some women
+to testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally the
+mufti 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 first
+edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit."  B.
+
+[5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as
+those that contributed to the progress of science with great
+discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among
+the 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 for
+having stated in his _Letters on the English_ that our souls
+develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of
+animals.  K.
+
+
+He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a
+court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He
+wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter
+hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in
+order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those
+that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised
+learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of
+mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our
+voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the
+other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that,
+whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped
+from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to
+branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report
+that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the
+beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen
+at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has
+poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes
+him 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, upon
+seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself
+from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the
+wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than
+Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a
+thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men
+poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the
+music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good
+heart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is not
+necessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. He
+got to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built a
+strong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, a
+spirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, but
+who understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote some
+passable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I will
+report here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversation
+that Micromegas had with the secretary one day.
+
+
+[8]  See my note, page 110.  B.  [this note, in Zadig, says: "This
+line is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employs
+these expressions in his _Treatise on Studies_. Voltaire returns
+to 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 of
+song VIII of _The Young Virgin_.  B."]
+
+[9] English savant, author of _Astro-Theology_, and several other
+works that seek to prove the existence of God through detailing
+the wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators are
+often mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they rave
+about the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soon
+discovers that the phenomenon is completely different than they
+supposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them this
+impression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type,
+discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the author
+will 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 secretary
+approached him.
+
+"You have to admit," said Micromegas, "that nature is extremely
+varied."
+
+"Yes," said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed wherein the
+flowers--"
+
+"Ugh!" said the other, "leave off with flower beds."
+
+The secretary began again. "Nature is like an assembly of blonde and
+brown-haired girls whose jewels--"
+
+"What am I supposed to do with your brown-haired girls?" said the
+other.
+
+"Then she is like a gallery of paintings whose features--"
+
+"Certainly not!" said the voyager. "I say again that nature is like
+nature. Why bother looking for comparisons?"
+
+"To please you," replied the Secretary.
+
+"I do not want to be pleased," answered the voyager. "I want to be
+taught. Tell me how many senses the men of your planet have."
+
+"We only have 72," said the academic, "and we always complain about
+it. Our imagination surpasses our needs. We find that with our 72
+senses, our ring, our five moons, we are too restricted; and in spite
+of all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions that
+result from our 72 senses, we have plenty of time to get bored."
+
+"I believe it," said Micromegas, "for on our planet we have almost
+1,000 senses; and yet we still have a kind of vague feeling, a sort
+of worry, that warns us that there are even more perfect beings. I
+have traveled a bit; and I have seen mortals that surpass us, some
+far superior. But I have not seen any that desire only what they
+truly need, and who need only what they indulge in. Maybe someday I
+will happen upon a country that lacks nothing; but so far no one has
+given me any word of a place like that."
+
+The Saturnian and the Sirian proceeded to wear themselves out in
+speculating; but after a lot of very ingenious and very dubious
+reasoning, 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. It
+must be a universal law of nature."
+
+"Alas! We only live through 500 revolutions around the sun," said the
+Saturnian. (This translates to about 15,000 years, by our standards.)
+"You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one is
+born; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planet
+an 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 any
+plans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I am
+ashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in this
+world."
+
+Micromegas replied, "If you were not a philosopher, I would fear
+burdening you by telling you that our lifespan is 700 times longer
+than yours; but you know very well when it is necessary to return
+your body to the elements, and reanimate nature in another form,
+which we call death. When this moment of metamorphosis comes, to have
+lived an eternity or to have lived a day amounts to precisely the
+same thing. I have been to countries where they live a thousand times
+longer than we do, and they also die. But people everywhere have the
+good sense to know their role and to thank the Author of nature. He
+has scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with a
+kind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beings
+are different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thought
+and desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has different
+properties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you count
+in yours?"
+
+"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we
+believe that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of
+them, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity,
+divisibility, and the rest."
+
+"Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices for
+what the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdom
+in everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion.
+Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have few
+sensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work of
+Providence. What color is your sun upon examination?"
+
+"A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide one
+of its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."
+
+"Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary
+colors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close to
+that resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that is
+identical to the others."
+
+After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how many
+essentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned that
+there were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beings
+with extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense and
+think, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that are
+penetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose home
+contained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages,
+prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, after
+having told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of what
+they did not know, after having reasoned over the course of a
+revolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a small
+philosophical voyage together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.
+
+
+Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn's
+atmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument when
+the ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came in
+tears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only
+660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with many
+other charms.
+
+"Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1,500 years, just when
+I 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 from
+another world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: if
+you were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are you
+running off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant than
+you, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyone
+ever again."
+
+The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that he
+was; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself with
+the help of one of the dandies of the country.
+
+
+[1] The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all the
+earlier 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 illustrious
+inhabitant of our little sphere[2]; from there they went easily from
+moon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it with
+their servants and their instruments. When they had traveled about
+one hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites of
+Jupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during which
+time they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have been
+forthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some of
+the propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscript
+in the library of the illustrious archbishop of...., who with a
+generosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me to
+see his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition of
+Moreri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a great
+hope 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 they
+traversed a space of around one hundred million leagues and
+approached the planet Mars, which, as we know, is five times smaller
+than our own; they swung by two moons that cater to this planet but
+have escaped the notice of our astronomers. I know very well that
+Father Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against the
+existence of these two moons; but I rely on those who reason by
+analogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it would be for
+Mars, so far from the sun, to have gotten by with less than two
+moons. Whatever the case may be, our explorers found it so small that
+they feared not being able to land on it, and they passed it by like
+two travelers disdainful of a bad village cabaret, pressing on
+towards a neighboring city. But the Sirian and his companion soon
+regretted it. They traveled a long time without finding anything.
+Finally they perceived a small candle, it was earth; this was a
+pitiful sight to those who had just left Jupiter. Nevertheless, from
+fear of further regret, they resolved to touch down. Carried by the
+tail of a comet, and finding an aurora borealis at the ready, they
+started towards it, and arrived at Earth on the northern coast of the
+Baltic sea, July 5, 1737, new style.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+What happened on planet Earth.
+
+
+After resting for some time they ate two mountains for lunch, which
+their crew fixed up pretty nicely. Then they decided to get to know
+the 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 thousand
+fathoms, trailed behind, breathing heavily. He had to make twelve
+steps each time the other took a stride; imagine (if it is alright to
+make such a comparison) a very small lapdog following a captain of
+the guards of the Prussian king.
+
+Since our strangers moved fairly rapidly, they circumnavigated the
+globe in 36 hours. The sun, in truth, or rather the Earth, makes a
+similar voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going is
+much easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one's
+feet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seen
+the nearly imperceptible pond we call _the Mediterranean_, and the
+other little pool that, under the name _Ocean_, encircles the
+molehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardly
+wet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whether
+the planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, laid down, felt
+around everywhere; but their eyes and their hands were not
+proportionate to the little beings that crawl here, they could not
+feel in the least any sensation that might lead them to suspect that
+we and our associates, the other inhabitants of this planet, have the
+honor of existing.
+
+The dwarf, who was a bit hasty sometimes, decided straightaway that
+the planet was uninhabited. His first reason was that he had not seen
+anyone. Micromegas politely indicated that this logic was rather
+flawed: "For," said he, "you do not see with your little eyes certain
+stars of the 50th magnitude that I can perceive very distinctly. Do
+you 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 is
+so irregular and has such a ridiculous shape! Everything here seems
+to be in chaos: you see these little rivulets, none of which run in a
+straight line, these pools of water that are neither round, nor
+square, nor oval, nor regular by any measure; all these little pointy
+specks scattered across the earth that grate on my feet? (This was in
+reference to mountains.) Look at its shape again, how it is flat at
+the poles, how it clumsily revolves around the sun in a way that
+necessarily eliminates the climates of the poles? To tell the truth,
+what really makes me think it is uninhabited is that it seems that no
+one of good sense would want to stay."
+
+"Well," said Micromegas, "maybe the inhabitants of this planet are
+not of good sense! But in the end it looks like this may be for a
+reason. Everything appears irregular to you here, you say, because
+everything on Saturn and Jupiter is drawn in straight lines. This
+might be the[1] reason that you are a bit puzzled here. Have I not
+told you that I have continually noticed variety in my travels?"
+
+
+[1] All the editions that precede those of Kehl read: "It might be
+for this"  B.
+
+
+The Saturnian responded to all these points. The dispute might never
+have finished if it were not for Micromegas who, getting worked up,
+had the good luck to break the thread of his diamond necklace. The
+diamonds fell; they were pretty little carats of fairly irregular
+size, of which the largest weighed four hundred pounds and the
+smallest fifty. The dwarf recaptured some of them; bending down for a
+better look, he perceived that these diamonds were cut with the help
+of an excellent microscope. So he took out a small microscope of 160
+feet in diameter and put it up to his eye; and Micromegas took up one
+of 2,005 feet in diameter. They were excellent; but neither one of
+them could see anything right away and had to adjust them. Finally
+the Saturnian saw something elusive that moved in the shallow waters
+of the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He carefully picked it up with his
+little finger and, resting it on the nail of his thumb, showed it to
+the Sirian, who began laughing for a second time at the ludicrously
+small scale of the things on our planet. The Saturnian, persuaded
+that our world was inhabited, figured very quickly that it was
+inhabited only by whales; and as he was very good at reasoning, he
+was determined to infer the origin and evolution of such a small
+atom; whether it had ideas, a will, liberty. Micromegas was confused.
+He examined the animal very patiently and found no reason to believe
+that a soul was lodged in it. The two voyagers were therefore
+inclined to believe that there is no spirit in our home, when with
+the help of the microscope they perceived something as large as a
+whale floating on the Baltic Sea. We know that a flock of
+philosophers was at this time returning from the Arctic Circle, where
+they had made some observations, which no one had dared make up to
+then. The gazettes claimed that their vessel ran aground on the coast
+of Bothnia, and that they were having a lot of difficulty setting
+things straight; but the world never shows its cards. I am going to
+tell how it really happened, artlessly and without bias; which is no
+small thing for an historian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers.
+
+
+Micromegas slowly reached his hand towards the place where the object
+had appeared, extended two fingers, and withdrew them for fear of
+being mistaken, then opened and closed them, and skillfully seized
+the vessel that carried these fellows, putting it on his fingernail
+without pressing it too hard for fear of crushing it.
+
+"Here is a very different animal from the first," said the dwarf from
+Saturn.
+
+The Sirian put the so-called animal in the palm of his hand. The
+passengers and the crew, who believed themselves to have been lifted
+up by a hurricane, and who thought they were on some sort of boulder,
+scurried around; the sailors took the barrels of wine, threw them
+overboard onto Micromegas hand, and followed after. The geometers
+took their quadrants, their sextants, two Lappland girls[1], and
+descended onto the Sirian's fingers. They made so much fuss that he
+finally felt something move, tickling his fingers. It was a steel-tipped
+baton being pressed into his index finger. He judged, by this
+tickling, that it had been ejected from some small animal that he was
+holding; but he did not suspect anything else at first. The
+microscope, which could barely distinguish a whale from a boat, could
+not capture anything as elusive as a man. I do not claim to outrage
+anyone's vanity, but I am obliged to ask that important men make an
+observation here. Taking the size of a man to be about five feet, the
+figure we strike on Earth is like that struck by an animal of about
+six hundred thousandths[2] the height of a flea on a ball five feet
+around. Imagine something that can hold the Earth in its hands, and
+which has organs in proportion to ours--and it may very well be that
+there are such things--conceive, I beg of you, what these things
+would think of the battles that allow a vanquisher to take a village
+only to lose it later.
+
+
+[1] See the notes to the speech in verse, "On Moderation" (Volume
+XII), and those of "Russia to Paris" (Volume XIV).  K.
+
+[2] The edition that I take to be original reads "sixty
+thousandths."  B.
+
+
+I do not doubt that if ever some captain of some troop of imposing
+grenadiers reads this work he will increase the size of the hats of
+his troops by at least two imposing feet. But I warn him that it will
+have been done in vain; that he and his will never grow any larger
+than infinitely small.
+
+What marvelous skill it must have taken for our philosopher from
+Sirius to perceive the atoms I have just spoken of. When Leuwenhoek
+and Hartsoeker tinkered with the first or thought they saw the grains
+that make us up, they did not by any means make such an astonishing
+discovery. What pleasure Micromegas felt at seeing these little
+machines move, at examining all their scurrying, at following them in
+their enterprises! how he cried out! with what joy he placed one of
+his microscopes in the hands of his traveling companion!
+
+"I see them," they said at the same time, "look how they are carrying
+loads, stooping, getting up again." They spoke like that, hands
+trembling from the pleasure of seeing such new objects, and from fear
+of losing them. The Saturnian, passing from an excess of incredulity
+to an excess of credulity, thought he saw them mating.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "I have caught nature in the act"[1]. But he was
+fooled by appearances, which happens only too often, whether one is
+using a microscope or not.
+
+
+[1] _j'ai pris la nature sur le fait_. A happy, good-natured turn
+of phrase expressed by Fontenelle upon making some observations of
+natural history.  K.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+What happened to them among men.
+
+
+Micromegas, a much better observer than his dwarf, clearly saw that
+the atoms were speaking to each other, and pointed this out to his
+companion, who, ashamed of being mistaken about them reproducing, did
+not want to believe that such a species could communicate. He had the
+gift of language as well as the Sirian. He could not hear the atoms
+talk, and he supposed that they did not speak. Moreover, how could
+these impossibly small beings have vocal organs, and what would they
+have to say? To speak, one must think, more or less; but if they
+think, they must therefore have the equivalent of a soul. But to
+attribute the equivalent of a soul to this species seemed absurd to
+him.
+
+"But," said the Sirian, "you believed right away that they made love.
+Do you believe that one can make love without thinking and without
+uttering one word, or at least without making oneself heard? Do you
+suppose as well that it is more difficult to produce an argument than
+an infant? Both appear to be great mysteries to me."
+
+"I do not dare believe or deny it," said the dwarf. "I have no more
+opinions. We must try to examine these insects and reason after."
+
+"That is very well said," echoed Micromegas, and he briskly took out
+a pair of scissors with which he cut his fingernails, and from the
+parings of his thumbnail he improvised a kind of speaking-trumpet,
+like a vast funnel, and put the end up to his ear. The circumference
+of the funnel enveloped the vessel and the entire crew. The weakest
+voice entered into the circular fibers of the nails in such a way
+that, thanks to his industriousness, the philosopher above could hear
+the drone of our insects below perfectly. In a small number of hours
+he was able to distinguish words, and finally to understand French.
+The dwarf managed to do the same, though with more difficulty. The
+voyagers' surprise redoubled each second. They heard the mites speak
+fairly intelligently. This performance of nature's seemed
+inexplicable to them. You may well believe that the Sirian and the
+dwarf burned with impatience to converse with the atoms. The dwarf
+feared that his thunderous voice, and assuredly Micromegas, would
+deafen the mites without being understood. They had to diminish its
+force. They placed toothpicks in their mouths, whose tapered ends
+fell around the ship. The Sirian put the dwarf on his knees and the
+ship with its crew on a fingernail. He lowered his head and spoke
+softly. Finally, relying on these precautions and many others, he
+began his speech like so:
+
+"Invisible insects, that the hand of the Creator has caused to spring
+up in the abyss of the infinitely small, I thank him for allowing me
+to uncover these seemingly impenetrable secrets. Perhaps those at my
+court 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 these
+words. They could not figure out where they were coming from. The
+chaplain of the vessel recited the exorcism prayers, the sailors
+swore, and the philosophers of the vessel constructed systems; but no
+matter what systems they came up with, they could not figure out who
+was talking. The dwarf from Saturn, who had a softer voice than
+Micromegas, told them in a few words what species they were dealing
+with. He told them about the voyage from Saturn, brought them up to
+speed on what Mr. Micromegas was, and after lamenting how small they
+were, asked them if they had always been in this miserable state so
+near nothingness, what they were doing on a globe that appeared to
+belong to whales, whether they were happy, if they reproduced, if
+they had a soul, and a hundred other questions of this nature.
+
+A reasoner among the troop, more daring than the others, and shocked
+that someone might doubt his soul, observed the interlocutor with
+sight-vanes pointed at a quarter circle from two different stations,
+and at the third spoke thusly: "You believe then, Sir, that because
+you are a thousand fathoms tall from head to toe, that you are a--"
+
+"A thousand fathoms!" cried the dwarf. "Good heavens! How could he
+know my height? A thousand fathoms! You cannot mistake him for a
+flea. 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 know
+his!"
+
+"Yes, I measured you," said the physician, "and I will measure your
+large companion as well." The proposition was accepted, his
+excellency laid down flat; for were he to stay upright his head would
+have been among the clouds. Our philosophers planted a great shaft on
+him, in a place that doctor Swift would have named, but that I will
+restrain myself from calling by its name, out of respect for the
+ladies. Next, by a series of triangles linked together, they
+concluded that what they saw was in effect a young man of 120,000
+feet[1].
+
+
+[1]The edition I believe to be original reads, "a beautiful
+young ... of 120,000 feet."  B.
+
+
+So Micromegas delivered these words: "I see more than ever that one
+must not judge anything by its apparent size. Oh God! you who have
+given intelligence to substance that appears contemptible. The
+infinitely small costs you as little as the infinitely large; and if
+it is possible that there are such small beings as these, there may
+just as well be a spirit bigger than those of the superb animals that
+I have seen in the heavens, whose feet alone would cover this
+planet."
+
+One of the philosophers responded that he could certainly imagine
+that there are intelligent beings much smaller than man. He
+recounted, not every fabulous thing Virgil says about bees, but what
+Swammerdam discovered, and what Reaumur has anatomized. He explained
+finally 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 which
+they looked like atoms. Little by little the conversation became
+interesting, and Micromegas spoke thusly:
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Conversation with the men.
+
+
+"Oh intelligent atoms, in which the Eternal Being desired to make
+manifest his skill and his power, you must, no doubt, taste pure joys
+on your planet; for having so little matter, and appearing to be
+entirely spirit, you must live out your life thinking and loving, the
+veritable life of the mind. Nowhere have I seen true bliss, but it is
+here, without a doubt."
+
+At this all the philosophers shook their heads, and one of them, more
+frank than the others, avowed that if one excepts a small number of
+inhabitants held in poor regard, all the rest are an assembly of mad,
+vicious, and wretched people. "We have more substance than is
+necessary," he said, "to do evil, if evil comes from substance; and
+too much spirit, if evil comes from spirit. Did you know, for
+example, that as I am speaking with you[1], there are 100,000 madmen
+of our species wearing hats, killing 100,000 other animals wearing
+turbans, or being massacred by them, and that we have used almost
+surface of the Earth for this purpose since time immemorial?"
+
+
+[1] We saw, at the end of chapter III, that the story occurs in
+1737. Voltaire is referring to the war between the Turks and the
+Russians, from 1736 to 1739.  B.
+
+
+The Sirian shuddered, and asked the reason for these horrible
+quarrels between such puny animals.
+
+"It is a matter," said the philosopher, "of some piles of mud as big
+as your heel[2]. It is not that any of these millions of men that
+slit each other's throats care about this pile of mud. It is only a
+matter of determining if it should belong to a certain man who we
+call 'Sultan,' or to another who we call, for whatever reason,
+'Czar.' Neither one has ever seen nor will ever see the little piece
+of Earth, and almost none of these animals that mutually kill
+themselves have ever seen the animal for which they kill."
+
+
+[2] Crimea, which all the same was not reunited with Russia until
+1783.  B.
+
+
+"Oh! Cruel fate!" cried the Sirian with indignation, "who could
+conceive of this excess of maniacal rage! It makes me want to take
+three steps and crush this whole anthill of ridiculous assassins."
+
+"Do not waste your time," someone responded, "they are working
+towards ruin quickly enough. Know that after ten years only one
+hundredth of these scoundrels will be here. Know that even if they
+have not drawn swords, hunger, fatigue, or intemperance will overtake
+them. Furthermore, it is not they that should be punished, it is
+those sedentary barbarians who from the depths of their offices
+order, while they are digesting their last meal, the massacre of a
+million men, and who subsequently give solemn thanks to God."
+
+The voyager was moved with pity for the small human race, where he
+was discovering such surprising contrasts.
+
+"Since you are amongst the small number of wise men," he told these
+sirs, "and since apparently you do not kill anyone for money, tell
+me, I beg of you, what occupies your time."
+
+"We dissect flies," said the philosopher, "we measure lines, we
+gather figures; we agree with each other on two or three points that
+we do not understand."
+
+It suddenly took the Sirian and the Saturnian's fancy to question
+these thinking atoms, to learn what it was they agreed on.
+
+"What do you measure," said the Saturnian, "from the Dog Star to the
+great 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 air
+weighed around 900 times less than an identical volume of the purest
+water, and 19,000 times less than a gold ducat. The little dwarf from
+Saturn, surprised at their responses, was tempted to accuse of
+witchcraft the same people he had refused a soul fifteen minutes
+earlier.
+
+
+[3] The edition I believe to be original reads "put them off" in
+place of "caught them."
+
+
+Finally Micromegas said to them, "Since you know what is exterior to
+you so well, you must know what is interior even better. Tell me what
+your soul is, and how you form ideas." The philosophers spoke all at
+once as before, but they were of different views. The oldest cited
+Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes; this one here,
+Malebranche; another Leibnitz; another Locke. An old peripatetic
+spoke up with confidence: "The soul is an entelechy, and a reason
+gives it the power to be what it is." This is what Aristotle
+expressly declares, page 633 of the Louvre edition. He cited the
+passage[4].
+
+[4] Here is the passage such as it is transcribed in the edition
+dated 1750: "Entele'xeia' tis esi kai' lo'gos tou dy'namin
+e'xontos toude' ei'nai."
+
+This passage of Aristotle, _On the Soul_, book II, chapter II, is
+translated thusly by Casaubon: _Anima quaedam perfectio et actus
+ac 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 named
+Aristotle in the Greek?"
+
+"Because," replied the savant, "one should always cite what one does
+not understand at all in the language one understands the least."
+
+The Cartesian took the floor and said: "The soul is a pure spirit
+that has received in the belly of its mother all metaphysical ideas,
+and which, leaving that place, is obliged to go to school, and to
+learn all over again what it already knew, and will not know again."
+
+"It is not worth the trouble," responded the animal with the height
+of eight leagues, "for your soul to be so knowledgeable in its
+mother's stomach, only to be so ignorant when you have hair on your
+chin. But what do you understand by the mind?"
+
+"You are asking me?" said the reasoner. "I have no idea. We say that
+it is not matter--"
+
+"But do you at least know what matter is?"
+
+"Certainly," replied the man. "For example this stone is grey, has
+such and such a form, has three dimensions, is heavy and divisible."
+
+"Well!" said the Sirian, "this thing that appears to you to be
+divisible, heavy, and grey, will you tell me what it is? You see some
+attributes, 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, asked
+what his soul was, and what it did.
+
+"Nothing at all," said the Malebranchist philosopher[5]. "God does
+everything 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, "what
+is your soul?"
+
+"It is," answered the Leibnitzian, "the hand of a clock that tells
+the time while my body rings out. Or, if you like, it is my soul that
+rings out while my body tells the time, or my soul is the mirror of
+the universe, and my body is the border of the mirror. All that is
+clear."
+
+A small partisan of Locke was nearby, and when he was finally given
+the floor: "I do not know," said he, "how I think, but I know that I
+have only ever thought through my senses. That there are immaterial
+and intelligent substances I do not doubt, but that it is impossible
+for God to communicate thought to matter I doubt very much. I revere
+the eternal power. It is not my place to limit it. I affirm nothing,
+and content myself with believing that many more things are possible
+than one would think."
+
+The animal from Sirius smiled. He did not find this the least bit
+sage, while the dwarf from Saturn would have kissed the sectarian of
+Locke were it not for the extreme disproportion. But there was,
+unfortunately, a little animalcule in a square hat who interrupted
+all the other animalcule philosophers. He said that he knew the
+secret: that everything would be found in the _Summa_ of Saint
+Thomas. He looked the two celestial inhabitants up and down. He
+argued that their people, their worlds, their suns, their stars, had
+all been made uniquely for mankind. At this speech, our two voyagers
+nearly fell over with that inextinguishable laughter which, according
+to Homer[6], is shared with the gods. Their shoulders and their
+stomachs heaved up and down, and in these convulsions the vessel that
+the Sirian had on his nail fell into one of the Saturnian's trouser
+pockets. These two good men searched for it a long time, found it
+finally, and tidied it up neatly. The Sirian resumed his discussion
+with the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, although
+in the depths of his heart he was a little angry that the infinitely
+small had an almost infinitely great pride. He promised to make them
+a beautiful philosophical book[7], written very small for their
+usage, and said that in this book they would see the point of
+everything. Indeed, he gave them this book before leaving. It was
+taken 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 dated
+1750, reads, "philosophical book, that would teach them of
+admirable things, and show them the goodness of things."
+
+[8] Although this scene occurs in 1737, as one saw in pages 177 to
+188, one could assign the epithet of "old" to Fontenelle, who was
+80 at that point, and who died 20 years later. In 1740 he resigned
+from his position as perpetual secretary.
+
+
+
+
+                END OF THE HISTORY OF MICROMEGAS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Romans -- Volume 3: Micromegas, by Voltaire
+
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