The Road to Science Fiction

by James Gunn

  CHAPTER 5. THE TRAVELLERS CAPTURE A VESSEL

  Micromegas stretched out his hand gently toward the place where the object appeared, and advanced two fingers, which he instantly pulled back, for fear of being disappointed; then opening softly and shutting them all at once, he very dextrously seized the ship that contained those gentlemen, and placed it on his nail, avoiding too much pressure, which might have crushed the whole in pieces.

  “This,” said Saturnian dwarf, “is a creature very different from the former.”

  Upon which the Sirian, placing the supposed animal in the hollow of his hand, the passengers and crew, who believed themselves thrown by a hurricane upon some rock, began to put themselves in motion. The sailors having hoisted out some casks of wine, jumped after them into the hand of Micromegas; the mathematicians having secured their quadrants, sectors, and Lapland servants, went overboard at a different place, and made such a bustle in their descent that the Sirian at length felt his fingers tickled by something that seemed to move. An iron bar chanced to penetrate about a foot deep into his forefinger; and from this prick he concluded that something had issued from the little animal he held in his hand; but at first he suspected nothing more, for the microscope, that scarce rendered a whale and a ship visible, had no effect upon an object so imperceptible as man.

  I do not intend to shock the vanity of any person whatever; but here I am obliged to request people of importance to consider that, supposing the stature of a man to be about five feet, we mortals make just such a figure upon the earth as an animal the sixty thousandth part of a foot in height would exhibit upon a bowl ten feet in circumference. When you reflect upon a being who could hold this whole earth in the palm of his hand, and is provided with organs proportioned to those we possess, you will easily conceive that there must be a great variety of created substances—and pray, what must such beings think of those battles by which a conqueror gains a small village, to lose it again in the sequel?

  I do not at all doubt but if some captain of grenadiers should chance to read this work, he would add two large feet at least to the caps of his company; but I assure him his labor will be in vain, for, do what he will, he and his soldiers will never be other than infinitely diminutive and inconsiderable.

  What wonderful address must have been inherent in our Sirian philosopher that enabled him to perceive these atoms of which we have been speaking. When Leuwenhoek and Hartsoeker observed the first rudiments of which we are formed, they did not make such an astonishing discovery. What pleasure, therefore, was the portion of Micromegas in observing the motion of those little machines, in examining all their pranks, and following them in all their operations! With what joy did he put his microscope into his companion’s hand; and with what transport did they both at once exclaim:

  “I see them distinctly—don’t you see them carrying burdens, lying down and rising up again?”

  So saying, their hands shook with eagerness to see and apprehension to lose such uncommon objects. The Saturnian, making a sudden transition from the most cautious distrust to the most excessive credulity, imagined he saw them engaged in their devotions, and cried aloud in astonishment.

  Nevertheless, he was deceived by appearances; a case too common, whether we do or do not make use of microscopes.

  CHAPTER 6. WHAT HAPPENED IN THEIR INTERCOURSE WITH MEN

  Micromegas being a much better observer than the dwarf, perceived distinctly that those atoms spoke; and made the remark to his companion, who was so much ashamed of being mistaken in his first suggestion that he would not believe such a puny species could possibly communicate their ideas, for, though he had the gift of tongues, as well as his companion, he could not hear those particles speak, and, therefore, supposed they had no language.

  “Besides, how should such imperceptible beings have the organs of speech? and what in the name of Jove can they say to one another? In order to speak, they must have something like thought, and if they think, they must surely have something equivalent to a soul. Now, to attribute anything like a soul to such an insect species appears a mere absurdity.”

  “But just now,” replied the Sirian, “you believed they were engaged in devotional exercises; and do you think this could be done without thinking, without using some sort of language, or at least some way of making themselves understood? Or do you suppose it is more difficult to advance an argument than to engage in physical exercise? For my own part, I look upon all faculties as alike mysterious.”

  “I will no longer venture to believe or deny,” answered the dwarf, “in short, I have no opinion at all. Let us endeavor to examine these insects, and we will reason upon them afterward.”

  “With all my heart,” said Micromegas, who, taking out a pair of scissors which he kept for paring his nails, cut off a paring from his thumb nail, of which he immediately formed a large kind of speaking trumpet, like a vast tunnel, and clapped the pipe to his ear; as the circumference of this machine included the ship and all the crew, the most feeble voice was conveyed along the circular fibres of the nail; so that, thanks to his industry, the philosopher could distinctly hear the buzzing of our insects that were below. In a few hours he distinguished articulate sounds, and at last plainly understood the French language. The dwarf heard the same, though with more difficulty.

  The astonishment of our travellers increased every instant. They heard a nest of mites talk in a very sensible strain: and that lusus naturœ seemed to them inexplicable. You need not doubt but the Sirian and his dwarf glowed with impatience to enter into conversation with such atoms. Micromegas being afraid that his voice, like thunder, would deafen and confound the mites, without being understood by them, saw the necessity of diminishing the sound; each, therefore, put into his mouth a sort of small toothpick, the slender end of which reached to the vessel. The Sirian setting the dwarf upon his knees, and the ship and crew upon his nail, held down his head and spoke softly. In fine, having taken these and a great many more precautions, he addressed himself to them in these words:

  “O ye invisible insects, whom the hand of the Creator hath designed to produce in the abyss of infinite littleness! I give praise to His goodness, in that He hath been pleased to disclose unto me those secrets that seemed to be impenetrable.”

  If ever these was such a thing as astonishment, it seized upon the people who heard this address, and who could not conceive from whence it proceeded. The chaplain of the ship repeated exorcisms, the sailors swore, and the philosophers formed a system; but, notwithstanding all their systems, they could not divine who the person was that spoke to them. Then the dwarf of Saturn, whose voice was softer than that of Micromegas, gave them briefly to understand what species of beings they had to do with. He related the particulars of their voyage from Saturn, made them acquainted with the rank and quality of Monsieur Micromegas, and, after having pitied their smallness, asked if they had always been in that miserable state so near akin to annihilation; and what their business was upon that globe which seemed to be the property of whales. He also desired to know if they were happy in their situation? if they were inspired with souls? and put a hundred questions of the like nature.

  A certain mathematician on board, braver than the rest and shocked to hear his soul called in question, planted his quadrant, and having taken two observations of this interlocutor, said: “You believe then, Mr. what’s your name, that because you measure from head to foot a thousand fathoms—”

  “A thousand fathoms!” cried the dwarf, “good heavens! How should he know the height of my nature. A thousand fathoms! My very dimensions to a hair. What, measured by a mite! This atom, forsooth, is a geometrician, and knows exactly how tall I am; while I, who can scarce perceive him through a microscope, am utterly ignorant of his extent!”

  “Yes, I have taken your measure,” answered the philosopher, “and I will now do the same by your tall companion.”

  The proposal was embraced; his excellency reclined upon his side, for, had he stood upright, his he
ad would have reached too far above the clouds. Our mathematicians planted a tall tree near him, and then, by a series of triangles joined together, they discovered that the object of their observation was a strapping youth, exactly one hundred and twenty thousand royal feet in length. In consequence of this calculation, Micromegas uttered this words:

  “I am now more than ever convinced that we ought to judge of nothing by its external magnitude. O God! Who hast bestowed understanding upon such contemptible substances, Thou canst with equal ease produce that which is infinitely small, as that which is incredibly great; and if it be possible that among Thy works there are beings still more diminutive that these, they may, nevertheless, be undued with understanding superior to the intelligence of those stupendous animals I have seen in heaven, a single foot of whom is larger than this whole globe on which I have alighted.”

  One of the philosophers assured him that there were intelligent beings much smaller than men, and recounted not only Virgil’s whole fable of the bees, but also described all that Swammerdam hath discovered and Reaumur dissected. In a word, he informed him that there are animals which bear the same proportion to bees that bees bear to man, the same as the Sirian himself compared to those vast beings whom he had mentioned, and as those huge animals are to other substances, before whom they would appear like so many particles of dust. Here the conversation became very interesting, and Micromegas proceeded in these words:

  “O ye intelligent atoms, in whom the Supreme Being hath been pleased to manifest his omniscience and power, without all doubt your joys on this earth must be pure and exquisite; for, being unencumbered with matter, and, to all appearance, little else than soul, you must spend your lives in the delights of pleasure and reflection, which are the true enjoyments of a perfect spirit. True happiness I have nowhere found; but certainly here it dwells.”

  At this harangue all the philosophers shook their heads, and one among them, more candid than his brethren, frankly owned that, excepting a very small number of inhabitants who were very little esteemed by their fellows, all the rest were a parcel of knaves, fools, and miserable wretches.

  “We have matter enough,” said he, “to do abundance of mischief, if mischief comes from matter; and too much understanding, if evil flows from understanding. You must know, for example, that at this very moment, while I am speaking, there are one hundred thousand animals of our own species, covered with hats, slaying an equal number of their fellow-creatures who wear turbans; at least they are either slaying or being slain; and this hath usually been the case all over the earth from time immemorial.”

  The Sirian, shuddering at this information, begged to know the cause of those horrible quarrels among such a puny race, and was given to understand that the subject of the dispute was a pitiful mole-hill (called Palestine), no larger than his heel. Not that any one of those millions who cut one another’s throats pretends to have the least claim to the smallest particle of that clod. The question is, whether it shall belong to a certain person who is known by the name of Sultan, or to another whom (for what reason I know not) they dignify with the appellation of Pope. Neither the one nor the other has seen or ever will see the pitiful corner in question; and probably none of these wretches, who so madly destroy each other, ever beheld the ruler on whose account they are so mercilessly sacrificed!

  “Ah, miscreants!” cried the indignant Sirian, “such excess of desperate rage is beyond conception. I have a good mind to take two or three steps, and trample the whole nest of such ridiculous assassins under my feet.”

  “Don’t give yourself the trouble,” replied the philosopher; “they are industrious enough in procuring their own destruction. At the end of ten years the hundredth part of those wretches will not survive; for you must know that, though they should not draw a sword in the cause they have espoused, famine, fatigue, and intemperance would sweep almost all of them from the face of the earth. Besides, the punishment should not be inflicted upon them, but upon those sedentary and slothful barbarians, who, from their palaces, give orders for murdering a million of men and then solemnly thank God for their success.”

  Our traveller was moved with compassion for the entire human race, in which he discovered such astonishing contrasts. “Since you are of the small number of the wise,” said he, “and in all likelihood do not engage yourselves in the trade of murder for hire, be so good as to tell me your occupation.”

  “We anatomize flies,” replied the philosopher, “we measure lines, we make calculations, we agree upon two or three points which we understand, and dispute upon two or three thousand that are beyond our comprehension.”

  “How far,” said the Sirian, “do you reckon the distance between the great star of the constellation Gemini and that called Canicula?”

  To this question all of them answered with one voice: “Thirty-two degrees and a half.”

  “And what is the distance from thence to the moon?”

  “Sixty semi-diameters of the earth.”

  He then thought to puzzle them by asking the weight of the air; but they answered distinctly that common air is about nine hundred times specifically lighter than an equal column of the lightest water, and nineteen hundred times lighter than current gold. The little dwarf of Saturn, astonished at their answers, was now tempted to believe those people sorcerers who, but a quarter of an hour before, he would not allow were inspired with souls.

  “Well,” said Micromegas, “since you know so well what is without you, doubtless you are still more perfectly acquainted with that which is within. Tell me what is the soul, and how do your ideas orginate?”

  Here the philosophers spoke altogether as before; but each was of a different opinion. The eldest quoted Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes, a third mentioned Malebranche, a fourth Leibnitz, and a fifth Locke. An old peripatetical lifting up his voice, exclaimed with an air of confidence: “The soul is perfection and reason, having power to be such as it is, as Aristotle expressly declares, page 633, of the Louvre edition:

  “Eντελεχεά τις ἐστí καì λóγος το δύναμιυ ἔχοντος τσιο δι ε τα.”

  “I am not very well versed in Greek,” said the giant.

  “Nor I, either,” replied the philosophical mite.

  “Why, then, do you quote that same Aristotle in Greek,” resumed the Sirian.

  “Because,” answered the other, “it is but reasonable we should quote what we do not comprehend in a language we do not understand.”

  Here the Cartesian interposing: “The soul,” said he, “is a pure spirit or intelligence, which hath received before birth all the metaphysical ideas; but after that event it is obliged to go to school and learn anew the knowledge which it hath lost.”

  “So it is necessary,” replied the animal of eight leagues, “that thy soul should be learned before birth, in order to be so ignorant when thou hast got a beard upon thy chin. But what dost thou understand by spirit?”

  “I have no idea of it,” said the philosopher; “indeed, it is supposed to be immaterial.”

  “At least, thou knowest what matter is?” resumed the Sirian.

  “Perfectly well,” answered the other. “For example: that stone is gray, is of a certain figure, has three dimensions, specific weight, and divisibility.”

  “I want to know,” said the giant, “what that object is, which, according to thy observation, hath a gray color, weight, and divisibility. Thou seest a few qualities, but dost thou know the nature of the thing itself?”

  “Not I, truly,” answered the Cartesian.

  Upon which the Sirian admitted that he also was ignorant in regard to this subject. Then addressing himself to another sage, who stood upon his thumb, he asked: “What is the soul? and what are its functions?”

  “Nothing at all,” replied this disciple of Malebranche; “God hath made everything for my convenience. In Him I see everything, by Him I act; He is the universal agent, and I never meddle in His work.”

>   “That is being a nonentity indeed,” said the Sirian sage; and then, turning to a follower of Leibnitz, he exclaimed: “Hark ye, friend, what is thy opinion of the soul?”

  “In my opinion,” answered this metaphysician, “the soul is the hand that points at the hour, while my body does the office of the clock; or, if you please, the soul is the clock, and the body is the pointer; or again, my soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body the frame. All this is clear and uncontrovertible.”

  A little partisan of Locke, who chanced to be present, being asked his opinion on the same subject, said: “I do not know by what power I think; but well I know that I should never have thought without the assistance of my senses. That there are immaterial and intelligent substances I do not at all doubt; but that it is impossible for God to communicate the faculty of thinking to matter, I doubt very much. I revere the Eternal Power, to which it would ill become me to prescribe bounds. I affirm nothing, and am contented to believe that many more things are possible than are usually thought so.”

  The Sirian smiled at this declaration, and did not look upon the author as the least sagacious of the company; and as for the dwarf of Saturn, he would have embraced this adherent of Locke, had it not been for the extreme disproportion in their respective sizes. But unluckily there was another animalcule in a square cap, who, taking the word from all his philosophical brethren, affirmed that he knew the whole secret, which was contained in the abridgment of St. Thomas. He surveyed the two celestial strangers from top to toe, and maintained to their faces that their persons, their fashions, their suns, and their stars were created solely for the use of man. At this wild assertion our two travellers were seized with a fit of that uncontrollable laughter, which (according to Homer) is the portion of the immortal gods; their bellies quivered, their shoulders rose and fell, and, during these convulsions, the vessel fell from the Sirian’s nail into the Saturnian’s pocket, where these worthy people searched for it a long time with great diligence. At length, having found the ship and set everything to rights again, the Sirian resumed the discourse with those diminutive mites, and promised to compose for them a choice book of philosophy which would demonstrate the very essence of things. Accordingly, before his departure, he made them a present of the book, which was brought to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, but when the old secretary came to open it he saw nothing but blank paper, upon which—