Micromegas

  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 mightindicate the period in which _Micromegas_ was published. The engravedtitle of the edition that I believe to be the original displays nodate. Abbot Trublet, in his _Biography of Fontenelle_, does nothesitate to say that _Micromegas_ is directed against Fontenelle; butdoes not speak of the date of publication. I have therefore retainedthat given by the Kehl editions: 1752. However there is an editioncarrying the date of 1700. Is this date authentic? I would not makethis claim; far from it. I have therefore followed the Kehl editions,in which _Micromegas_ is preceded by this warning:

  This novel can be seen as an imitation of Gulliver's Travels. Itcontains many allusions. The dwarf of Saturn is Mr. Fontenelle.Despite his gentleness, his carefulness, his philosophy, all ofwhich should endear him to Mr. Voltaire, he is linked with theenemies of this great man, and appears to share, if not in theirhate, at least in their preemptive censures. He was deeply hurt bythe role he played in this novel, and perhaps even more so due tothe justness, though severe, of the critique; the strong praisegiven elsewhere in the novel only lends more weight to therebukes. The words that end this work do not soften the wounds,and the good that is said of the secretary of the academy of Parisdoes not console Mr. Fontenelle for the ridicule that is permittedto befall the one at the academy of Saturn.

  The notes without signature, and those indicated by letters, arewritten by Voltaire.

  The notes signed with a K have been written by the Kehl publishers,Mr. Condorcet and Mr. Decroix. It is impossible to rigorouslydistinguish between the additions made by these two.

  The additions that I have given to the notes of Voltaire or to thenotes of the Kehl publishers, are separated from the others by a --,and are, as they are mine, signed by the initial of my name.

  BEUCHOT

  October 4, 1829.

  CONTENTS

  I. Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn. II. Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn. III. Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn. IV. What happened on planet Earth. V. Experiments and reasonings of the two voyagers. VI. What happened to them among men. VII. Conversation with the men.

  MICROMEGAS,

  PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY

  CHAPTER I.

  Voyage of an inhabitant of the Sirius star to the planet Saturn.

  On one of the planets that orbits the star named Sirius there lived aspirited young man, who I had the honor of meeting on the last voyagehe made to our little ant hill. He was called Micromegas[1], afitting name for anyone so great. He was eight leagues tall, or24,000 geometric paces of five feet each.

  [1] From _micros_, small, and from _megas_, large. B.

  Certain geometers[2], always of use to the public, will immediatelytake up their pens, and will find that since Mr. Micromegas,inhabitant of the country of Sirius, is 24,000 paces tall, which isequivalent to 20,000 feet, and since we citizens of the earth arehardly five feet tall, and our sphere 9,000 leagues around; they willfind, I say, that it is absolutely necessary that the sphere thatproduced him was 21,600,000 times greater in circumference than ourlittle Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler or more orderly. Thesovereign states of Germany or Italy, which one can traverse in ahalf hour, compared to the empires of Turkey, Moscow, or China, areonly feeble reflections of the prodigious differences that nature hasplaced in all beings.

  [2] This is how the text reads in the first editions. Others, inplace of "geometers," put "algebraists." B.

  His excellency's size being as great as I have said, all oursculptors and all our painters will agree without protest that hisbelt would have been 50,000 feet around, which gives him very goodproportions.[3] His nose taking up one third of his attractiveface, and his attractive face taking up one seventh of his attractivebody, it must be admitted that the nose of the Sirian is 6,333 feetplus a fraction; which is manifest.

  [3] I restore this sentence in accordance with the first editions.B.

  As for his mind, it is one of the most cultivated that we have. Heknows many things. He invented some of them. He was not even 250years old when he studied, as is customary, at the most celebrated[4]colleges of his planet, where he managed to figure out by purewillpower more than 50 of Euclid's propositions. That makes 18 morethan Blaise Pascal, who, after having figured out 32 while screwingaround, according to his sister's reports, later became a fairlymediocre geometer[5] and a very bad metaphysician. Towards his 450thyear, near the end of his infancy, he dissected many small insects nomore than 100 feet in diameter, which would evade ordinarymicroscopes. He wrote a very curious book about this, and it gave himsome income. The mufti of his country, an extremely ignorantworrywart, found some suspicious, rash[6], disagreeable, andheretical propositions in the book, smelled heresy, and pursued itvigorously; it was a matter of finding out whether the substantialform of the fleas of Sirius were of the same nature as those of thesnails. Micromegas gave a spirited defense; he brought in some womento testify in his favor; the trial lasted 220 years. Finally themufti had the book condemned by jurisconsults who had not read it,and the author was ordered not to appear in court for 800 years[7].

  [4] In place of "the most celebrated" that one finds in the firstedition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit." B.

  [5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class asthose that contributed to the progress of science with greatdiscoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked amongthe geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K.

  [6] The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash,smelling heresy." The present text is dated 1756. B.

  [7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer forhaving stated in his _Letters on the English_ that our soulsdevelop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls ofanimals. K.

  He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from acourt that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. Hewrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latterhardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet inorder to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Thosethat travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprisedlearn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile ofmud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Ourvoyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all theother attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that,whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumpedfrom globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch tobranch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to repo
rtthat he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, thebeautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seenat the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham haspoor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makeshim a reliable witness, and I do not want to contradict anyone.Micromegas, after having toured around, arrived at the planet Saturn.As accustomed as he was to seeing new things, he could not, uponseeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himselffrom smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes thewisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger thanEarth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than athousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his menpoked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at themusic of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a goodheart, he understood very quickly that a thinking being is notnecessarily ridiculous just because he is only 6,000 feet tall. Hegot to know the Saturnians after their shock wore off. He built astrong friendship with the secretary of the academy of Saturn, aspirited man who had not invented anything, to tell the truth, butwho understood the inventions of others very well, and who wrote somepassable verses and carried out some complicated calculations. I willreport here, for the reader's satisfaction, a singular conversationthat Micromegas had with the secretary one day.

  [8] See my note, page 110. B. [this note, in Zadig, says: "Thisline is mostly written at the expense of Rollin, who often employsthese expressions in his _Treatise on Studies_. Voltaire returnsto it often: see, in the present volume, chapter I of Micromegas,and in volume XXXIV, chapter XI of _The Man of Forty Crowns_,chapter IX of _The White Bull_ and volume XI, the second verse ofsong VIII of _The Young Virgin_. B."]

  [9] English savant, author of _Astro-Theology_, and several otherworks that seek to prove the existence of God through detailingthe wonders of nature: unfortunately he and his imitators areoften mistaken in their explanation of these wonders; they raveabout the wisdom that is revealed in a phenomenon, but one soondiscovers that the phenomenon is completely different than theysupposed; so it is only their own fabrications that give them thisimpression of wisdom. This fault, common to all works of its type,discredited them. One knows too far in advance that the authorwill end up admiring whatever he has chosen to discuss.

  CHAPTER II.

  Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and that of Saturn.

  After his excellency laid himself down to rest the secretaryapproached him.

  "You have to admit," said Micromegas, "that nature is extremelyvaried."

  "Yes," said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed wherein theflowers--"

  "Ugh!" said the other, "leave off with flower beds."

  The secretary began again. "Nature is like an assembly of blonde andbrown-haired girls whose jewels--"

  "What am I supposed to do with your brown-haired girls?" said theother.

  "Then she is like a gallery of paintings whose features--"

  "Certainly not!" said the voyager. "I say again that nature is likenature. Why bother looking for comparisons?"

  "To please you," replied the Secretary.

  "I do not want to be pleased," answered the voyager. "I want to betaught. Tell me how many senses the men of your planet have."

  "We only have 72," said the academic, "and we always complain aboutit. Our imagination surpasses our needs. We find that with our 72senses, our ring, our five moons, we are too restricted; and in spiteof all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions thatresult from our 72 senses, we have plenty of time to get bored."

  "I believe it," said Micromegas, "for on our planet we have almost1,000 senses; and yet we still have a kind of vague feeling, a sortof worry, that warns us that there are even more perfect beings. Ihave traveled a bit; and I have seen mortals that surpass us, somefar superior. But I have not seen any that desire only what theytruly need, and who need only what they indulge in. Maybe someday Iwill happen upon a country that lacks nothing; but so far no one hasgiven me any word of a place like that."

  The Saturnian and the Sirian proceeded to wear themselves out inspeculating; but after a lot of very ingenious and very dubiousreasoning, it was necessary to return to the facts.

  "How long do you live?" said the Sirian.

  "Oh! For a very short time," replied the small man from Saturn.

  "Same with us," said the Sirian. "we always complain about it. Itmust be a universal law of nature."

  "Alas! We only live through 500 revolutions around the sun," said theSaturnian. (This translates to about 15,000 years, by our standards.)"You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one isborn; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planetan atom. Hardly do we begin to learn a little when death arrives,before we get any experience. As for me, I do not dare make anyplans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I amashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in thisworld."

  Micromegas replied, "If you were not a philosopher, I would fearburdening you by telling you that our lifespan is 700 times longerthan yours; but you know very well when it is necessary to returnyour body to the elements, and reanimate nature in another form,which we call death. When this moment of metamorphosis comes, to havelived an eternity or to have lived a day amounts to precisely thesame thing. I have been to countries where they live a thousand timeslonger than we do, and they also die. But people everywhere have thegood sense to know their role and to thank the Author of nature. Hehas scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with akind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beingsare different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thoughtand desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has differentproperties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you countin yours?"

  "If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which webelieve that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 ofthem, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity,divisibility, and the rest."

  "Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices forwhat the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdomin everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion.Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have fewsensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work ofProvidence. What color is your sun upon examination?"

  "A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide oneof its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."

  "Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primarycolors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close tothat resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that isidentical to the others."

  After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how manyessentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned thatthere were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beingswith extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense andthink, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that arepenetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose homecontained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages,prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, afterhaving told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of whatthey did not know, after having reasoned over the course of arevolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a smallphilosophical voyage together.

  CHAPTER III.

  Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.

  Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn'satmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument whenthe ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came intears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with manyother charms.

  "Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1,500 years, just whenI was beginning to come around, when I'd spent hardly a hundred[1]years in your arms, you leave me to go on a voya
ge with a giant fromanother world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: ifyou were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are yourunning off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant thanyou, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyoneever again."

  The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that hewas; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself withthe help of one of the dandies of the country.

  [1] The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all theearlier editions read: "two hundred." B.

  Our two explorers left all the same; they alighted first on the ring,which they found to be fairly flat, as conjectured by an illustriousinhabitant of our little sphere[2]; from there they went easily frommoon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it withtheir servants and their instruments. When they had traveled aboutone hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites ofJupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during whichtime they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have beenforthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some ofthe propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscriptin the library of the illustrious archbishop of...., who with agenerosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me tosee his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition ofMoreri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a greathope of perpetuating the race of their illustrious father.

  [2] Huygens. See volume XXVI, page 398. B.

  But let us now return to our travelers. Upon leaving Jupiter theytraversed a space of around one hundred million leagues andapproached the planet Mars, which, as we know, is five times smallerthan our own; they swung by two moons that cater to this planet buthave escaped the notice of our astronomers. I know very well thatFather Castel will write, perhaps even agreeably enough, against theexistence of these two moons; but I rely on those who reason byanalogy. These good philosophers know how unlikely it would be forMars, so far from the sun, to have gotten by with less than twomoons. Whatever the case may be, our explorers found it so small thatthey feared not being able to land on it, and they passed it by liketwo travelers disdainful of a bad village cabaret, pressing ontowards a neighboring city. But the Sirian and his companion soonregretted it. They traveled a long time without finding anything.Finally they perceived a small candle, it was earth; this was apitiful sight to those who had just left Jupiter. Nevertheless, fromfear of further regret, they resolved to touch down. Carried by thetail of a comet, and finding an aurora borealis at the ready, theystarted towards it, and arrived at Earth on the northern coast of theBaltic sea, July 5, 1737, new style.