The Man Who Called Himself Poe

by Sam Moskowitz

  I had been oftentimes dandled in early life, in whose society

  I had been intimate, and for whose character I had always

  entertained unbounded veneration and sincere attach-

  ment. He soon recognized me; and after the warmest salu-

  tations, we entered into an interesting conversation, and

  he promised to introduce me to the acquaintance of the

  most celebrated men with whom the city of Saturnia

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  THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  abounds. Here, said he, are assembled the great and good

  of all ages and nations; they unite the labours of their gen-

  ius in the structure of science, and the perfection of litera-

  ture and the arts. Thus they improve the happiness of the

  human family—bringing with them the wisdom and learning

  they had accumulated during the limited term of their

  residence in the lower world, as we here denominate it,

  they have been adding to their stores of knowledge from

  age to age. At length, they have attained an elevation in

  science which is truly wonderful. Here, he continued, with

  increasing vehemence, here genius of all kinds meets a sure

  and ample reward—here every motive is furnished to stim-

  ulate the human mind into honourable and useful exertion.

  In this admirable republic you will discover no traces of an

  unequal distribution of good and evil, of rewards and pun-

  ishments. Here the clouds that formerly hung over the ways

  of heaven are gradually dispersed, and its justice shines in

  its native lustre. Here, as far as human fallibility allows,

  rank, dignity, and station, are equally conferred upon tal-

  ents and worth, and virtue becomes, in practice, the only

  true nobility. All vices are adequately punished, all err ours

  and disorders rectified, and all virtues raised and rewarded.

  In short, he concluded, this is the state of things, after

  which in the former world, the philanthropist aspired, the

  patriot toiled, and the hero encountered sufferings and

  death, while its ideal image occupied the meditations of

  philosophers, the visions of poets, and the hopes of Chris-

  tians. Franklin here appeared animated by an enthusiasm

  which I had never before seen in him, and I caught the in-

  fection from his lips. Our conversation became more and

  more frank, cordial, and interesting, and the interview ter-

  minated in his informing me, that as he knew my devotion

  to scientific and literary pursuits, he would call upon me in

  the evening, and begin the task of introducing me to the

  illustrious men of the republic, by taking me to the hall of

  the Philosophical Society, and giving me an opportunity of

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  attending to their debates, and witnessing their proceed-

  ings. In order to the advancement of science in this city,

  said he, we have instituted societies whose labors are to be

  severally appropriated to the branches from which they re-

  ceive their designation. Thus the Philosophical Society, of

  which I have just spoken, is exclusively occupied with

  the departments of natural philosophy and mathematics,

  the Metaphysical Society with the science of the mind, the

  Institute of Moral Philosophy with ethics, and the Literary

  Society with the cultivation of literature. There are also,

  for similar purposes, theological, medical, chemical, geo-

  logical and botanical associations, as well as institutes of

  natural history and political economy, together with an

  academy of arts. I thanked him cordially for the information

  which he had been so good as to communicate, and ex-

  pressed the pleasure I anticipated from our projected visit

  to the society in the evening.

  After taking leave of Dr. Franklin for the time, I passed

  the morning in riding through the city in a vehicle like an

  omnibus, which by the same philosophical contrivance as

  that by which they propelled their vessels, seemed self-

  moving, and which advanced along the smooth pavement

  with admirable safety and velocity. I found the streets wide,

  and beautifully paved with smooth stones, and sidewalks of

  marble; the houses neat and magnificent, but built in a

  style of the greatest simplicity, and the inhabitants elegantly

  clad, but without useless or excessive decoration. W hen I

  had ascended the greatest elevations, I came to a square,

  in which was situated an observatory five hundred feet high,

  with which is connected the building in whose halls the

  several philosophical societies hold their sittings, while in

  the adjoining streets were neat and commodious dwellings,

  constructed in the several orders of architecture, for all the

  most celebrated philosophers of ancient and modem times.

  Here dwelt by each other's side, Newton, Locke, Bacon,

  Kepler, Gallileo, Gassindi, and the whole list of those who

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  THE M AN WH0 CALLED HIMSELF POE

  bad cultivated natural philosophy, and in due order, came

  those who had distinguished themselves in the other

  branches of science. When I cast my eyes over this sublime

  scene, and beheld in these residences so many monuments

  reared to the greatest geniuses of the world and benefactors

  of their race, I could not convince myself that I was not

  dreaming. In passing forward through other parts of the

  city, we next beheld still more magnificent structures,

  erected as the residences of the President of the republic

  and the different officers of the Government, who were ele-

  vated to their present situations on account of their former

  talents, virtues, and public services. Tyrants and con-

  querors, and all who had proved themselves traitors to

  their country and enemies of the human race, those scourges

  of the nations, were condemned to the most ignominious

  punishments, while Cicero, Cato, Titus, and the Antonines,

  Alfred, Henry the Fourth of France, Washington, and several

  of our Presidents, with a long list of others, who had been

  raised to the chair of supreme magistracy. Of these state

  officers, however, we shall give a more detailed account in

  the sequel, confining our attention at first to the scientific

  and literary institutions.

  At the appointed hour in the evening Dr. Franklin, ac-

  cording to promise, called in his carriage at my hotel, and

  took me to the meeting of the Philosophical Society. We

  were introduced into a large hall, brilliancy illuminated, in

  which was presented to me a scene which all attempts to

  describe would be unavailing, but which threw me into a

  tumult of delightful emotion. At the upper end of the hall

  upon an elevated seat, sat Newton, who presided this eve-

  ning in his turn, although the same honour was shared in

  rotation with Kepler, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Gallileo,

  Des Cartes, La Place, Franklin, Rittenhouse, and all the

  most illustrious in this departm ent of science. There was a

  large assemblage upon this occasion; and the gallery was
/>   filled with celebrated ladies, some of whom were honorary

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  members, and were allowed the privilege of having their

  communications read to the society, when they had been

  previously examined and approved by a standing commit-

  tee, appointed for that purpose. The secretary at this time

  was the great Huygins, the inventor of the clock, who, I

  was told, had filled this office after Archimedes, Pythagoras,

  Dr. Halley, La Grange, and others. The first production

  which was read was written by Des Cartes, and consisted of

  an inquiry into the cause of gravitation, and the motions of

  the heavenly bodies. The process of reasoning by which Des

  Cartes endeavored to reach a definite conclusion upon this

  topic, was in substance the following: He remarked that

  there was a sufficient ground for the opinion that, in every

  part of nature, whether found in the earth or heavens, there

  were the same agents exerting their forces, and the same

  primordial principles or materials upon which they operate.

  Thus the motions of the heavenly bodies are, in all proba-

  bility, produced by the same agent as that by which the sap

  is made to rise in the tree, the air is set in motion, the fuel

  consumed in the grate, and the vicissitudes of the seasons

  are occasioned. Now, this universal agent he maintained

  to be the electric fluid, pervading the whole system of na-

  ture, and reaching to the very centre of the sun and planets,

  and constituting what Newton conjectured to be a thin

  elastic medium that might be the cause of gravity. In con-

  firmation of this theory, he referred us to a new planetarium,

  which he had erected in one of the halls of the observatory,

  in which he had contrived within a brazen sphere of forty

  feet diameter, to exhibit all the movements of the plane-

  tary system produced by the action of the electric fluid

  collected in it.

  After Des Cartes had finished the reading of his commu-

  nication, I thought I could perceive in the silence of the

  members a rather ominous signal of incredulity and dissatis-

  faction with the principle propounded in it, and the experi-

  ment by which their truth was tested. In a few moments,

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  however, a member dressed with unusual elegance, of a

  Grecian physiognomy, noble countenance, and penetrat-

  ing eye, who, Dr. Franklin informed me, was Aristotle,

  arose and proposed to refer the subject to the consideration

  of a committee consisting of three members, appointed by

  the president, and exclusively devoted to this branch of sci-

  ence; and in consequence Newton nominated Gallileo, La

  Place, and Dr. Franklin.

  The next contribution was a dissertation by Gallileo, in

  which he balanced the arguments in regard to the two theo-

  ries concerning light, the one maintaining, that light ema-

  nates from the sun as its source, the other, that light as a

  medium, is diffused through universal nature, and that the

  sun is the exciting cause which sets its particles in action,

  and renders objects visible. To the latter of these opinions,

  Gallileo seemed disposed to adhere. To make report upon

  this topic, a committee of three were appointed, as chair-

  man of which, at the suggestion of Dr. Halley, Newton was

  placed, while his two colleagues were Aristotle and Leib-

  nitz. While this affair was on the tapis, Aristotle took occa-

  sion to remark, that his doctrine concerning light had been

  greatly misunderstood by some of his commentators and

  interpreters, they supposing that he had asserted this fluid

  to be a property of bodies, while he had strenuously main-

  tained its distinct subsistence as a medium by the action of

  which upon the senses, objects are rendered visible. He

  allowed that a very serious objection to the doctrine of its

  emanation from the sun, is the inconceivable velocity with

  which under this scheme, it is presumed to travel from that

  luminary to the earth, and through all the regions of space.

  A third piece was read by the great Leibnitz, the Newton

  of Germany, in which he proposed to ascertain upon philo-

  sophical principles whether the same laws of production,

  decay, and dissolution to which all animal and vegetable

  nature are liable upon this earth, are also applicable to the

  planetary system, and whether that system does not contain

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  within itself the seeds of its own perpetual revivescence

  and renovation, insomuch that it can come to destruction

  only by the fiat of that Omnipotence who created it? In

  this treatise, Leibnitz held, that the system of nature main-

  tains, at all times, an invariable identity, that the same ma-

  terials are always comprised within its sphere, the same

  forces exerted, and the same laws prevalent. That while

  some of the minuter parts rise, decay and perish, or rather

  undergo a dissolution, the whole remains unchangeable and

  eternal, dissolvable only by Him who gave existence to it,

  and moreover, inasmuch as the immutable attributes of

  God would prevent him from utterly destroying so beautiful

  a system as the Solar, it never can and never will be de-

  stroyed. In vindicating this doctrine from what some might

  regard as its hostility to revelation, he maintained that the

  dogma of the gospel in relation to the great catastrophe of

  the world, does not imply the destruction, but some grand

  renovation, or transfiguration which the system is to undergo

  prior to the appearance of that new heaven and new earth

  which is to be the consummation of the present order of

  things. This treatise was referred to the examination of

  Bacon, Locke and M. Pascal.

  After these treatises were disposed of, Dr. Halley read

  a short disquisition by Newton, in which he essayed to

  demonstrate the existence of God from the wise adjust-

  ments and select laws indicative of contrivance in the plane-

  tary system. This was referred to the consideration of Cic-

  ero, Paley and Sir Robert Boyle.

  Lord Bacon, next, read a tract intended to prove the utter

  fallacy, and incompatibility with the true method of phi-

  losophizing, of all attempts to ascertain the mode in which

  the universe is formed, or the process by which it originated,

  and has continued to advance to its present state. He threw

  the whole assembly into repeated flashes of merriment,

  when he exposed to contempt and ridicule, the dancing

  atoms of Democritus and Epicurus, the whirling vortices of

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  ׳THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE

  Des Cartes and the still more whimsical theory of the Count

  de Buffon, who ascribed the formation of planets to the con-

  cussions of comets against the sun, and in their eccentric

  movements, striking off fragments from this orb. Nor did

  he treat with much less severity, the sche
mes of Burnet and

  his followers, and of those numerous philosophical romanc-

  ers who imagine that they can trace the earth to an aque-

  ous or incandescent state, and amidst the various forms of

  its fossil remains, both in the animal and vegetable king-

  doms, presume to discover indications of progressive stages

  in improvement, during the successive generations of men

  and animals. Bacon maintained in this treatise, that upon

  no principles of the inductive philosophy, have we reason

  to conclude that the order of nature and its laws were ever

  materially different from what they are at present. The only

  method, said he, by which we could ever arrive at a knowl-

  edge of the process through which this world was elab-

  orated, would be from analogy, or actual observation of the

  origin and progress of similar systems. And as this experi-

  ence is impossible, there are no facts presented by which

  we can be led back to the conclusion, that the earth pre-

  sented any specific form, or series of phenomena at its

  creation by the Almighty. He declared all cosmogonies,

  therefore, to be nothing better than the unsubstantial visions

  of ingenious men, or philosophical air bubbles. This work

  was committed to the scrutiny of Plato, Dr. Samuel Clarke

  and Bishop Butler.

  The proceedings of this meeting, were concluded by the

  presentation to the society of a piece by Maupertius, in

  which this French philosopher, adhering to his old whim-

  sies, endeavoured to show, that the most effectual expedient

  by which the theory of gravitation might be demonstrated,

  would be to dig a hole to the centre of the earth, and more-

  over, that the science of the mind may be most successfully

  cultivated by anatomical dissections of the heads of giants.

  The reading of this whimsical production, again threw the

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  whole assemblage into an agreeable train of merriment and

  pleasantry, and in the midst of this comic sensation, the

  meeting was adjourned, after entrusting Maupertius’ intel-

  lectual offspring to the scrutiny of Voltaire, Frederick of

  Prussia, and Archimedes.

  Thus passed my second evening in the renowned city of

  Saturnia and in the republic of Atlantis. W hen I cast my

  eyes around upon this illustrious assembly, I felt like the