“Of a very yellowish white,” said the Saturnian; “and when we split up one of its rays we find it contains seven colors.”
“Our sun,” remarked the Sirian, “is reddish, and we have thirty-nine primary colors. Of all the suns I have approached there are no two which are alike, just as with you there is no face which does not differ from all the other faces.”
After several questions of this kind, he inquired how many essentially different substances they counted in Saturn. He learned that they counted only about thirty, such as God, Space, Matter, substances which have Extension and Feeling, substances which have Extension, Feeling and Thought, substances which have Thought and no Extension; those which are self-conscious, those which are not self-conscious, and the rest. The Sirian, in whose world they counted three hundred, and who had discovered in his travels three thousand others, staggered the philosopher of Saturn. At last, after acquainting each other with a little of what they did know and a great deal of what they did not, after arguing during a complete revolution of the sun, they decided to make together a little philosophical journey.
CHAPTER III
Journey of the Two Inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn
Our two philosophers were ready to set forth into the atmosphere of Saturn, with a nice supply of mathematical instruments, when the Saturnian’s mistress, who had heard of their approaching departure, came in tears to protest. She was a pretty little dark girl who stood only six hundred and sixty fathoms; but she made amends for her small stature by many other charms. “Ah! cruel man,” she cried, “when after resisting you for fifteen hundred years I was beginning at last to give way, when I have passed barely a hundred years in your arms, you leave me to go on a journey with a giant from another world. Away with you! your intentions are not serious, you are nothing but a philanderer, you have never loved me: if you were a real Saturnian you would be faithful. Where are you going to gad about? What do you seek? Our five moons are less errant than you, our ring is less variable. One thing is certain! I shall never love anyone else.”
The philosopher kissed her, wept with her, for all that he was a philosopher, and the lady after having swooned went off to console herself with one of the dandies of the land.
Meanwhile, our two seekers after knowledge departed First they jumped on the ring; they found it to be fairly flat, as an illustrious inhabitant of our little globe has very well guessed. Thence they journeyed from moon to moon. A comet passed quite close to the last one they visited; with their servants and instruments they hurled themselves on it. When they had covered about a hundred and fifty million leagues they came upon the satellites of Jupiter. They came to Jupiter itself, and stayed there a year, during which time they learned some very wonderful secrets that would now be in the hands of the printers, had not my lords the inquisitors found some of the propositions rather tough. But I read the manuscript in the library of the illustrious archbishop of—, who with a generosity and kindness which cannot be sufficiently praised, allowed me to see his books.
But let us return to our travelers. When they left Jupiter they crossed a space about a hundred million leagues wide, and passed along the coast of Mars which, as we know, is five times smaller than our little globe. They saw two moons which serve this planet, and which have escaped the attention of our astronomers. I am well aware that Father Castel will decry, even with humor, the existence of these two moons, but I take my stand on those who reason by analogy. Those good philosophers know how difficult it would be for Mars, which is so far from the sun, to do without at least two moons. Whatever the facts are, our friends found Mars so small that they feared they might not have room enough to lay themselves down, and so they continued on their road like two travelers who scorn a miserable village inn, and push on to the nearest town. But the Sirian and his companion soon repented, for they traveled a long while without finding anything. At last they perceived a small glimmer: it was the earth, and it stirred the pity of the people coming from Jupiter. However, fearing that they might have to repent a second time, they decided to land. They passed along the tail of the comet and, finding an aurora borealis handy, climbed on the tail of the comet, and touched land on the northern coast of the Baltic Sea, the fifth of July, seventeen hundred and thirty-seven, new style.
CHAPTER IV
What Happened to Them on Earth
After a short rest, they ate for lunch two mountains which their attendants served up for them quite nicely, and then had a mind to explore the minute country in which they found themselves. They went first from north to south. The usual pace of the Sirian and his people measured about thirty-thousand king’s feet. The dwarf from Saturn followed at a distance, panting, for he had to take twelve paces to each of the other’s strides. Picture to yourself (if such a comparison be permitted) a very small lap-dog following a captain of the King of Prussia’s Guards.
As these foreigners moved rather quickly, they circled the world in thirty-six hours. The sun, or rather the earth, it is true, does a like journey in a day, but it must be remembered that it is easier to travel on one’s axis than on one’s feet. Here they are, then, returned to the point whence they started. They have seen the puddle, almost imperceptible to them, which we call the “Mediterranean,” and that other little pond which under the name of the “Great Ocean,” surrounds the molehill. The water had never come above the dwarfs knees, and the other had scarcely wet his heels. Moving above and below, they did their best to discover whether or no this globe was inhabited. They stooped, laid themselves down flat, and sounded everywhere; but as their eyes and their hands were in nowise adapted to the diminutive beings which crawl here, they perceived nothing which might make them suspect that we and our colleagues, the other dwellers on this earth, have the honor to exist.
The dwarf, who sometimes judged a little too hastily, decided at once that there was no one on the earth, his first reason being that he had seen no one. Micromegas politely made him feel that it was a poor enough reason. “With your little eyes,” he said, “you do not see certain stars of the fiftieth magnitude, which I perceive very distinctly. Do you conclude from your blindness that these stars do not exist?”
“But,” said the dwarf, “I have searched well.”
“But,” replied the other, “you have seen badly.”
“But,” said the dwarf, “this globe is so badly constructed and so irregular; it is of a form which to me seems ridiculous! Everything here is in chaos, apparently. Do you see how none of those little brooks run straight? And those ponds which are neither round, square, oval, nor of any regular form? Look at all those little pointed things with which this world is studded; they have taken the skin off my feet! (He referred to the mountains.) Do you not observe the shape of the globe, how flat it is at the poles, and how clumsily it turns round the sun, with result that the polar regions are waste places? What really makes me think there is no one on the earth is that I cannot imagine any sensible people wanting to live here.”
“Well, welll” said Micromegas, “perhaps the people who live here are not sensible after all. But anyway there is an indication that the place was not made for nothing. You say that everything here looks irregular, because in Jupiter and Saturn everything is arranged in straight lines. Perhaps it is for that very reason there is something of a jumble here. Have I not told you that in my travels I have always observed variety?”
The Saturnian replied to all these arguments, and the discussion might never have finished, had not Micromegas become excited with talking, and by good luck broken the string of his diamond necklace. The diamonds fell to the ground. They were pretty little stones, but rather unequal; the biggest weighed four hundred pounds, the smallest fifty. The dwarf picked some of them up, and perceived when he put them to his eye that from the way they were cut they made first-rate magnifying-glasses. He took, therefore, one of these small magnifying-glasses, a hundred and sixty feet in diameter, and put it to his eye: Micromegas selected one of two thousand five hundre
d feet. They were excellent, but at first nothing could be seen by their aid; an adjustment was necessary. After a long time, the inhabitant of Saturn saw something almost imperceptible under water in the Baltic Sea: it was a whale. Very adroitly he picked it up with his little finger and, placing it on his thumbnail, showed it to the Sirian, who started laughing at the extreme smallness of the inhabitants of our globe. The Saturnian, satisfied that our world was inhabited after all, assumed immediately that all the inhabitants were whales, and as ne was a great reasoner wished to ascertain how so small an atom moved, if it had ideas, a will, self-direction. Micromegas was very embarrassed by his questions. He examined the animal with great patience, and finished by thinking it impossible that a soul lodged there. The two travelers were disposed to think, therefore, that there was no spirituality in our earthly abode. While they were considering the matter, they noticed with the aid of the magnifying-glass something bigger than a whale floating on the Baltic Sea.
It will be remembered that at that very time a bevy of philosophers were on their way back from the Arctic Circle, where they had gone to make observations of which nobody up to then had taken any notice. The papers said that their ship foundered on the shores of Bothnia, and that the philosophers had a very narrow escape. But in this world one never knows what goes on behind the scenes. What really happened I will relate quite simply and without adding one word of my own. And that is no small effort for a historian.
CHAPTER V
Experiences and Reasonings of the Two Travelers
Micromegas stretched forth his hand very gently toward the spot where the object appeared, and put out two fingers; withdrew them for fear of making a mistake, then opening and closing them, very adroitly took hold of the ship carrying these gentlemen, and placed it on his nail, without squeezing too much for fear of crushing it.
“This animal is quite different from the first one,” said the dwarf from Saturn, while the Sirian deposited the supposed animal in the hollow of his hand.
The passengers and the crew, who thought they had been swept up by a cyclone and cast on a kind of rock, started bustling. The sailors took some casks of wine, threw them overboard on Micromegas’ hand, and hurled themselves down after them. The geometers took their quadrants, their sectors, and two Lapp girls, and climbed down to the Sirian’s fingers. They made such a commotion that finally he felt something tickling him. It was an iron-shod pole which the philosophers were driving a foot deep into his forefinger. From the itching he judged that something had issued from the little animal he held, but at first he did not suspect anything further. The magnifying-glass which could scarcely discern a whale and a ship had perforce no cognizance of such diminutive creatures as men. I do not wish to offend here anyone’s vanity, but I feel obliged to ask self-important persons to note with me that, if the average height of a man be taken as five feet, we do not cut a better figure on this earth than would an animal about one six-hundred-thousandth of an inch high on a ball ten feet in circumference. Imagine a being which could hold the earth in its hand and which had organs in proportion to ours—and it is very likely there would be a great number of these beings: then conceive, I ask you, what they would think of those battles which let a conqueror win a village only to lose it in the sequel. I do not doubt that if some captain of giant grenadiers ever reads this work, he will increase by at least two feet the height of his soldiers’ forage-caps, but it will be in vain, I warn him: he and his will never be anything but infinitely little.
What marvelous perspicacity would not our Sirian philosopher need, then, to descry the atoms of which I have just spoken? When Leuwenhock and Hartsoeker were the first to see, or think that they saw, the germ of which we are fashioned, they did not, by a long way, make such an astonishing discovery. What pleasure Micromegas experienced in seeing these little machines move, in examining all their tricks, in following all their performances! How he cried out with glee! With what joy did he hand one of his magnifying-glasses to his traveling companion! “I see them!” they exclaimed in concert. “Do you not see them carrying bundles, stooping and standing up again?” As they spoke, their hands trembled, both in delight at seeing such novel objects and in fear of losing them. The Saturnian, passing rapidly from an excess of doubt to an excess of credulous-ness, thought he observed them to be propagatirg their species. “Ah!’ he said. ”I have caught nature redhanded.” But he was deceived by appearances—which happens only too often, whether one uses a magnifying-glass or not.
CHAPTER VI
What Befell Them with the Men
Micromegas, who was a much closer observer than his dwarf, saw clearly that the atoms were talking to each other, and drew his companion’s attention thereto. The dwarf, ashamed at having been mistaken on the subject of procreation, was not disposed to believe that such species had the power of intercommunication of ideas. With the Sirian he enjoyed the gift of tongues; he had not heard our atoms speak at all, and he assumed they did not speak. Besides, how should such diminutive creatures have organs of speech, and what should they have to talk about? In order to speak, one must think, or very nearly; but if they thought, they would have the equivalent of a soul; attribute to this species the equivalent of a soul? it seemed absurd.
“But,” said the Sirian, “you thought just now they were making love to each other; do you think it possible to make love without thinking and without uttering a word, or at least without making one’s self understood? Do you suppose, further, that it is more difficult to produce an argument than an infant? To me they both appear great mysteries.”
“I dare no longer either believe or disbelieve,” said the dwarf. “I cease to have an opinion. We must try to examine these insects: we will argue afterward.”
“That is well said,” returned Micromegas, and pulled out a pair of scissors with which he cut his nails. With a paring from his thumbnail he made on the spot a kind of huge speaking-trumpet, like an immense funnel, and placed the small end in his ear. The outer edge of the funnel surrounded the ship and all the crew. The faintest sound entered the circular fibers of the nail, with result that thanks to his ingenuity the philosopher of the world above heard perfectly the buzzing of our insects in this world below. In a very short time he managed to distinguish words, and finally to understand French. As did the dwarf, although with greater difficulty.
The travelers’ astonishment increased with each moment. They heard maggots talking tolerably good sense, and this trick of nature seemed inexplicable to them. You can well believe that the Sirian and his dwarf burned with impatience to engage the atoms in conversation. The dwarf feared that the thunder of his voice, and particularly of the voice of Micromegas, might deafen the maggots without their understanding that it was a voice. The strength must be reduced. They put in their mouths a sort of small toothpick of which the very fine end reached close to the ship. The Sirian held the dwarf on his knees and the ship with its crew on one of his nails. He bent his head, and spoke in a low voice. At last, with the help of all these precautions and many others beside, he started to speak; and this is what he said:
“Invisible insects who the Creator has pleased should be born in this abyss of the infinitely little, I thank Him for having deigned to let me discover secrets which seemed unfathomable. At my court, maybe, they would not condescend to look at you, but I despise no one, and I offer you my protection.”
If ever anyone was astonished, it was the people who heard these words. They could not imagine whence they came. The ship’s chaplain repeated the prayers for casting out devils, the sailors cursed, and the philosophers on board propounded hypotheses; but no matter what hypothesis they propounded they could never guess who was speaking to them. The dwarf from Saturn, whose voice was softer than Micromegas’, then told them briefly with what sort of people they had to deal. He related the journey from Saturn, made them aware who Mr. Micromegas was, and, after sympathizing with them for being so small, asked if they had always enjoyed this miserable state so close
to complete nonexistence, what their function was in a world which appeared to belong to whales, if they were happy, if they multiplied, if they had souls, and a hundred other questions of a like nature.
One reasoner in the party, bolder than the others, and shocked that anyone should doubt he had a soul, sighted his interlocutor through the eyelet-hole on a quadrant, made two observations, and at the third said: “You assume, sir, that because you measure a thousand fathoms from head to foot you are a—”
“A thousand fathoms!” cried the dwarf. “Holy Heaven! How can he know my height? A thousand fathoms! he is not an inch out! What, this atom has measured me! He is a mathematician, he knows my height! And I who cannot see him at all save through a magnifying-glass, I do not yet know his!”
“Yes, I have measured you,” said the physicist, “and what is more I shall measure your big friend too.”
The suggestion was accepted, and his Excellency stretched himself out at full length: which was necessary because, if he had remained standing, his head would have been too far above the clouds. Our philosophers planted in him a big tree on a spot which Dr. Swift would specify, but which I refrain from calling by name out of respect for the ladies. Then, by forming a network of triangles they came to the conclusion that what they saw was in reality a young man one hundred and twenty thousand royal feet long.
At this point Micromegas spoke. “I see more than ever,” he said, “that nothing must be judged by its apparent size. O God, who has given intelligence to beings which appear so contemptible, the infinitely small costs Thee as little effort as the infinitely great, and if there can possibly be creatures smaller than these, they may still have souls superior to those of the splendid animals I have seen in the sky, whose foot alone would cover the world to which I have come.”
The Portable Voltaire (Portable Library) Page 39