might be made use of to torment it I was by good luck in the Province of the Trees when the disorders of the Salamander began those great Thunder-claps that you must have heard as well as I which guided me to their Field of Battel whither you came soon after but I was upon my return to the Province of Philosophers What said I to him are there Philosophers also then in the Sun Are there replied the good Man yes sure and they are the chief Inhabitants of the Sun and the very same whom Fame in your World doth celebrate with so full Mouth You may shortly converse with them provided you have the Courage to follow me for before Three Days be over I hope to be in their City I don't think you can possibly perceive the manner how these great Spirits are transported hither No certainly cried I for could so many others been hitherto so blind as not to find the way Or that after our Death we fall into the Hands of an Examiner of Spirits who according to our Capacity grants or refuses us our freedom in the Sun Nothing of that replied the old Man It 's by a Principle of Similitude that Souls attain to this mass of Light for this World is made up of nothing else but the Spirits of every thing that dies in the Circumambient Orbs such as Mercury Venus the Earth Mars Jupiter and Saturn Thus so soon as a Plant a Beast or a Man expire their Souls without extinction mount to its Sphere just as you see the flame of a Candle points up thither in spight of the Tallow that holds it by the Feet Now all these Souls being united to the source of Day and purged from the gross matter that pestered them exert far more noble Functions than those of Growing Feeling and Reasoning for they are employed in making the Blood and vital Spirits of the Sun that great and perfect Animal And therefore also you ought not to doubt but that the Sun acts by the Spirit more perfectly far than you do since it is by the heat of a Million of these Souls rectified whereof his own is an Elixir that he knows the secret of Life that he influences the matter of your Worlds with the power of Generation and that he makes Bodies sensible that they have a Being and in short that he renders himself and all things else visible Now it remains that I should clear to you why the Souls of Philosopers do not essentially join to the mass of the Sun as those of other Men. There are three orders of Spirits in all the Planets that is to say in the little Worlds which move about this The grosser serve only to repair the Plumpness of the Sun the subtile insinuate into the place of his Beams but those of Philosophers having contracted no Impurity in their exile arrive entire in the Sphere of Day to become its Inhabitants Now they are not as others a constituent part of its Mass because the matter that composes them in the point of their Generation is so exactly mixed that nothing can again dissolve it Like to that which forms Gold Diamonds and the Stars whereof all the parts are so closely interwoven and knit together that the strongest Dissolvent cannot separate the Mixture Now these Souls of Philsophers are so much in regard of other Souls what Gold Diamonds and the Stars are in respect of other Bodies that Epicurus in the Sun is the same Epicurus who heretofore lived in the Earth The pleasure which I received in hearing that great Man shortned my way and I often started curious Questions about which I importuned his opinion that I might be thereby instructed And really I never found so great goodness in any Man as in him for though by reason of the Agility of his Substance he might in a few Days have arrived in the Kingdom of Philosophers yet he chose rather to take the trouble of Jogging on with me than to leave me amidst vast Solitudes Nevertheless he was in great haste for I remember that having asked him why he returned before he had surveyed all the Regions of that great world He made answer that his Impatience to see one of his Friends who was newly arrived obliged him to break off his Travels I found by the sequel of his discourse that his Friend was that famous Philosopher of our time Monsieur des Cartes and that he made all haste to meet him He made answer also when I asked him what he thought of his natural Philosophy that it ought to be read with the same respect as Men listen to Oracles Not added he but that the Science of natural things hath need as other Sciences have to prepossess our Judgment with Axioms which it proves not But the Principles of his are simple and so natural that being once supposed there is nothing that more necessarily satisfies all Appearances I could not forbear to interrupt him in this place But methinks said I to him that that Philosopher hath always impugned the Vacuum And nevertheless though he was an Epicurean yet that he might have the honour of giving a Beginning to the Principles of Epicurus that 's to say to Atomes he hath supposed for the beginning of things a Chaos of matter throughly solid which God divided into an innumerable number of little Squares to every one of which he gave opposite Motions Now he will have these Cubes by rubbing one against another to have crumbled themselves into pieces of all sorts of Figures But how can he conceive that these square Peices could begin to turn separately without granting a Vacuity betwixt their Angles Must there not be necessarily a Void in the spaces which the Angles of these Squares were forced to leave that they might move And then could these Squares which only possessed a certain Extent before they turned move in a Circle unless in their Circumference they had possessed as much more Geometry tells us That that cannot be one half then of that space ought necessarily to have remained void seeing there were as yet no Atomes to fill it My Philosopher made me answer That Monsieur des Cartes himself would give us a reason for that and that being an obliging Gentleman as well as a Philosopher he would certainly be overjoyed to find a mortal Man in this World that he might clear him of an Hundred Doubts which his unexpected Death had constrained him to leave in the Earth that now he had forsaken That he did not think though there was any great difficulty to answer that objection according to his Principles which I had not examined but as far as the weakness of my Wit could permit me because said he the Works of that great Man are so full and so subtile that to understand them there is need of the attention of the Soul of a true and consummated Philosopher Which is the reason that there is not a Philosopher in the Sun but has a
to me at that instant For so soon as the Flame had devoured one tire of Squibs which were ranked by six and six by means of a Train that reached every half-dozen another tire went off and then another so that the Salt-Peter taking Fire put off the danger by encreasing it However all the combustible matter being spent there was a period put to the Fire-work and whilst I thought of nothing less than to knock my Head against the top of some Mountain I felt without the least stirring my elevation continuing and adieu Machine for I saw it fall down again towards the Earth That extraordinary Adventure puffed up my Heart with so uncommon a Gladness that ravished to see my self delivered from certain danger I had the impudence to philosophize upon it Whilst then with Eyes and Thought I cast about to find what might be the cause of it I perceived my flesh blown up and still greasy with the Marrow that I had daubed my self over with for the Bruises of my fall I knew that the Moon being then in the Wain and that it being usual for her in that Quarter to suck up the Marrow of Animals she drank up that wherewith I was anointed with so much the more force that her Globe was nearer to me and that no interposition of Clouds weakened her Attraction When I had according to the computation I made since advanced a good deal more than three quarters of the space that divided the Earth from the Moon all of a sudden I fell with my Heels up and Head down though I had made no Trip and indeed I had not been sensible of it had not I felt my Head loaded under the weight of my Body The truth is I knew very well that I was not falling again towards our World for though I found my self to be betwixt two Moons and easily observed that the nearer I drew to the one the farther I removed from the other yet I was certain that ours was the bigger Globe of the two Because after one or two days Journey the remote Refractions of the Sun confounding the diversity of Bodies and Climates it appeared to me only as a large Plate of Gold That made me imagine that I byassed towards the Moon and I was confirmed in that Opinion when I began to call to mind that I did not fall till I was past three quarters of the way For said I to my self that Mass being less than ours the Sphere of its Activity must be of less Extent also and by consequence it was later before I felt the force of its Center In fine after I had been a very long while in falling as I judged for the violence of my Precipitation hindered me from observing it more exactly The last thing I can remember is That I found my self under a Tree entangled with three or four pretty large Branches which I had broken off by my fall and my Face besmeared with an Apple that had dashed against it By good luck that place was as you shall know by and by So that you may very well conclude that had it not been for that Chance if I had had a thousand lives they had been all lost I have many times since reflected upon the vulgar Opinion That if one precipitate himself from a very high place his breath is out before he reach the ground and from my adventure I conclude it to be false or else that the efficacious Juyce of that Fruit which squirted into my mouth must needs have recalled my Soul that was not far from my Carcass which was still hot and in a disposition of exerting the Functions of Life The truth is so foon as I was upon the ground my pain was gone before I could think what it was and the Hunger which I felt during my Voyage was fully satisfied with the sense that I had lost it When I was got up I had hardly taken notice of the largest of Four great Rivers which by their conflux make a Lake when the Spirit or invisible Soul of Plants that breath upon that Country refreshed my Brain with a delightful smell And I found that the Stones there were neither hard nor rough but that they carefully softened themselves when one trode upon them I presently lighted upon a Walk with five Avenues in figure like to a Star the Trees whereof seemed to reach up to the Skie a green plot of lofty Boughs Casting up my Eyes from the root to the top and then making the same Survey downwards I was in doubt whether the Earth carried them or they the Earth hanging by their Roots Their high and stately Forehead seemed also to bend as it were by force under the weight of the Celestial Globes and one would say that their Sighs and out-stretched Arms wherewith they embraced the Firmament demanded of the Stars the bounty of their purer Influences before they had lost any thing of their Innocence in the contagious Bed of the Elements The Flowers there on all hands without the aid of any other Gardiner but Nature send out so sweet though wild a Perfume that it rouzes and delights the Smell There the incarnate of a Rose upon the Bush and the lively Azure of a Violet under the Rushes captivating the Choice make each of themselves to be judged the Fairest There the whole Year is a Spring there no poysonous Plant sprouts forth but is as soon destroyed there the Brooks by an agreeable murmuring relate their Travels to the Pebbles there Thousands of Quiristers make the Woods resound with their melodious Notes and the quavering Clubs of these divine Musicians are so universal that every Leaf of the Forest seems to have borrowed the Tongue and shape of a Nightingale nay and the Nymph Eccho is so delightful with their Airs that to hear her repeat one would say She were sollicitous to learn them On the sides of that Wood are Two Meadows whose continued Verdure seems an Emerauld reaching out of sight The various Colours which the Spring bestows upon the numerous little Flowers that grow there so delightfully confounds and mingles their Shadows that it is hard to be known whether these Flowers shaken with a gentle Breeze pursue themselves or fly rather from the Caresses of the Wanton Zephyrus one would likewise take that Meadow for an Ocean because as the Sea it presents no Shoar to the view insomuch that mine Eye fearing it might lose it self having roamed so long and discovered no Coast sent my Thoughts presently thither and my Thoughts imagining it to be the end of the World were willing to be perswaded that such charming places had perhaps forced the Heavens to descend and join the Earth there In the midst of that vast and pleasant Carpet a rustick Fountain bubbles up in Silver Purles crowning its enamelled Banks with Sets of Violets and multitudes of other little Flowers that seem to strive which shall first behold it self in that Chrystal Myrroir It is as
I know very well that I have inclined to the Childrens side more than in justice I ought and that in favour of them I have spoken a little against my Conscience But since I was willing to repress the Pride of some Parents who insult over the weakness of their little Ones I have been forced to do as they do who to make a crooked Tree streight bend it to the contrary side that betwixt two Conversions it may become even Thus I have made Fathers restore to their Children what they have taken from them by taking from them a great deal that belonged to them that so another time they may be content with their own I know very well also that by this Apology I have offended all Old men But let them remember that they were Children before they were Fathers and Young before they were Old and that I must needs have spoken a great deal to their advantage seeing they were not found in a Parsley-bed But in fine fall back fall edge though my Enemies draw up against my Friends it will go well enough still with me for I have obliged all men and only disobliged but one half With that he held his tongue and our Landlord's Son spake in this manner Give me leave said he to him since by your care I am informed of the Original History Customs and Philosophy of the World of this little Man to add something to what you have said and to prove that Children are not obliged to Parents for their Generation because their Parents were obliged in Conscience to procreate them The strictest Philosophy of their World acknowledges that it is better to dye since to dye one must have lived than not to have had a Being Now seeing by not giving a Being to that Nothing I leave it in a state worse than Death I am more guilty in not producing than in killing it In the mean time my little Man thou wouldst think thou hadst committed an unpardonable Parracide shouldst thou have cut thy Sons throat It would indeed be an enormous Crime but it is far more execrable not to give a Being to that which is capable of receiving it For that Child whom thou deprivest of life for ever hath had the satisfaction of having enjoyed it for some time Besides we know that it is but deprived of it but for some ages but these forty poor little Nothings which thou mightest have made forty good Souldiers for the King thou art so malicious as to deny them Life and lettest them corrupt in thy Reins to the danger of an Apoplexy which will stifle thee This Philosophy did not at all please me which made me three or four times shake my Head but our Preceptor held his tongue because Supper was mad to be gone We laid our selves along then upon very soft Quilts covered with large Carpets and a young man that waited on us taking the oldest of our Philosophers led him into a little arlour apart where my Spirit called to him to come back to us assoon as he had supped This humour of eating separately gave me the curiosity of asking the Cause of it He 'll not relish said he the steam of Meat nor yet of Herbs unless they die of themselves because he thinks they are sensible of Pain I wonder not so much replied I that he abstains from Flesh and all things that have had a sensitive Life For in our World the Pythagoreans and even some holy Anchorites have followed that Rule but not to dare for instance cut a Cabbage for fear of hurting it that seems to me altogether ridiculous And for my part answered my Spirit I find a great deal of probability in his Opinion For tell me Is not that Cabbage you speak of a Being existent in Nature as well as you Is not she the common Mother of you both Nay it would even seem that she hath taken more care of the Vegetable than of the Rational since she hath referred the Generation of a Man to the Caprices of his Father who may according as he has a mind to it beget him or not beget him A rigour wherewith she hath not treated the Cabbage for instead of remitting it to the discretion of the Father to generate the Son as if she had been more fearful least the Race of Cabbage should perish than that of Man she forces them whether they will or no to give a Being to another and not so as Men who engender not but according to their Whimseys and who during their whole life cannot procreate above a Score whereas Cabbages can produce many Thousands a Head. Yet the Opinion that Nature is kinder to Mankind than to Cabbage-kind tickles and makes us laugh But seeing she is incapable of Passion she can neither love nor hate any thing and were she susceptible of Love she would rather bestow her affection upon this Cabbage which you grant cannot offend her than upon that Man who would destroy her if it lay in his power And moreover Man cannot be born Innocent being a Part of the first Offendor But we know very well that the first Cabbage did not offend its Creator If it be said that we are made after the Image of the Supreme Being and so is not the Cabbage grant that to be true yet by polluting our Soul wherein we resembled Him we have effaced that Likeness seeing nothing is more contrary to God than Sin. If then our Soul be no longer his Image we resemble him no more in our Feet Hands Mouth Forehead and Ears than a Cabbage in its Leaves Flowers Stalk Pith and Head Do not you really think that if this poor Plant could speak when one cuts it it would not say Dear Brother Man what have I done to thee that deserves Death I never grow but in Gardens and am never to be found in desart places where I might live in Security I disdain all other company but thine and scarcely am I sowed in thy Garden when to shew thee my Good-will I blow stretch out my Arms to thee offer thee my Children in Grain and as a requital for my civility thou causest my Head to be chopt off Thus would a Cabbage discourse if it could speak Well and because it cannot complain may we therefore justly do it all the Wrong which it cannot hinder If I find a Wretch bound Hand and Foot may I lawfully kill him because he cannot defend himself so far from that that his Weakness would aggravate my Cruelty And though this wretched Creature be poor and destitute of all the advantages which we have yet it deserves not Death and when of all the Benefits of a Being it hath only that of Encrease we ought not cruelly to snatch that away from it To massacre a Man is not so great Sin as to cut and kill a Cabbage because one day the Man will rise again but the Cabbage has no other Life to hope for By putting to death a Cabbage you
the Monk brought up the piece nay and the Women came in for a share too every Family was divided and the Interests of that quarrel went so far that the whole City broke into two the Lunar and Antilunar Factions Thus was the War carried on by Skirmishings when one Morning I perceived nine or ten Beards of the long Robe enter Colignac's Chamber who presently spoke to him to this purpose Sir you know that there is not one of us here who is not your Allie Kinsman or Friend and that by consequence no Disgrace can befal you but what must reflect upon us Nevertheless we are informed from good hands that you entertain a Sorcerer in your House A Sorcerer cried Colignac Good God! Name him to me and I 'll deliver him up into your Hands but you must have a care it be not a Calumny How Sir said one of the most venerable interrupting him is there any Parliament more skilled in Wizards than ours In a word Dear Nephew that we may hold you no longer in suspence the Sorcerer whom we accuse is the Author of the States and Empires of the Moon He cannot deny having confessed what he has done but that he is the greatest Magician in Europe How is it possible to mount up to the Moon without the help of I dare not name the Beast for in short tell me what went he about to do in the Moon A pretty question said another interrupting he went to be present at a meeting that possibly was kept there that day And indeed you see he was acquainted with the Demon of Socrates Are you surprized then that the Devil as he saith brought him back again into this World But however it be look ye so many Moons so many Progresses and Voyages through the Air are good for nothing I say nothing at all and betwixt you and me at these words he put his Mouth to the others Ear I never knew a Sorcerer but had Commerce with the Moon After these good Counsels they held their peace and Colignac stood so amazed at their Common Extravagance that he could not speak one word Which a grave Coxcomb who had said nothing as yet perceiving Look you says he Cousin we know where the matter pinches the Magician is a person whom you love but be not startled for your sake favour shall be shewn him only deliver him fairly over to us and in consideration of you we engage our Honour to have him burnt without Scandal Colignac at these words though he held his sides could not hold but burst out into a fit of Laughter which did not a little offend the Gentlemen his Kinsmen insomuch that he had no power to make answer to any point of their Harangue but by haaaa's or hoooo's which so scandalized his worthy Relations that they departed with shame enough to carry back with them to Thoulouse When they were gone I drew Colignac into his Closet where so soon as I had shut the Door Count said I to him These long-bearded Ambassadours I don't like they seem to me to be blazing Stars I 'm afraid the noise they have made may be the clap of the Thunder-bolt that 's ready to fall Though their Accusation be ridiculous and perhaps an effect of their Stupidity yet I shall be no less a dead Man though a dozen Men of Sense who may see me roasted should say that my Judges are Sots all the Arguments they might use to prove my Innocence would not bring me to life again and my Ashes would be every jot as cold in a Grave as in the open Air. And therefore with Submission to your better Judgment I should joyfully consent to a Temptation which suggests to me not to leave them any thing in this Province but my Picture For it would make me stark-staring mad to die for a thing which I don't believe Colignac had hardly the Patience to hear me out However at first he did but railly me but when he saw that I was in earnest Ha! s'death cried he before they touch a hair of your Head I my self my Friends Vassals and all that respect me shall perish first My House cannot be Fired without Cannon it stands advantagiously and is well flanked But I 'm a Fool continued he to caution my self against the thunder of Parchment It 's sometimes more to be feared replied I than the Thunder of the second Region of the Air. From that time forward we talked of nothing but diverting our selves One day we hunted another we walkt and took the Air sometimes we received Visits and sometimes we rendred them In a word we always changed our Recreations before they became tiresome The Marquess of Cussan a Man who understands the World was commonly with us and we with him and to render the places of our abode the more agreeable by vicissitude we went from Colignac to Cussan and returned from Cussan to Colignac The innocent Pleasures which refresh the Body made but the least part of ours We wanted none of those that the mind can find in Study and Conversation and our Libraries uniting like our minds brought all the Learned into our Society We mingled reading with Conversation Conversation with good Cheer that with Fishing Hunting or Walking and in a word I may say we injoyed our selves and whatever Nature hath produced for the Pleasure of Life and used our Reason only to limit our Desires In the mean time to the prejudice of my repose my Reputation spread it self in the Neighbouring Villages nay and in the Towns and Cities of the Province all Men being invited by the current Report made a pretext of coming to see the Lord that they might see the Sorcerer When I went abroad not only Women and Children but the Men also stared at me as if I had been the Beast Especially the Pastor of Colignac who whether out of Malice or Ignorance was in secret my greatest Enemy That Man being in appearance simple and of a low and plain Spirit which made him very pleasant in a kind of natural Bluntness was in reality a very wicked Fellow He was revengeful even to Fury a Backbitter somewhat more than a Norman and so great a Barretter that the love of Wrangling and going to law was his predominate Passion Having been a long time at Law with his Lord whom he hated the more as that he had found him firm against all his Attacks he feared his Resentment and that he might avoid it had offered to exchange his Living But whether he had changed his Design or had only deserred it to be revenged on Colignac in my Person during the time that he continued in his place he strove to perswade the contrary though the frequent Journeys he made to Thoulouse gave grounds to suspect it There he told a Thousand ridiculous stories of my Enchantments and the Suggestions of that malicious Man concurring with the Voice of the simple and ignorant People made my Name accursed in that place
Globular Figure but very large the Orifice whereof joyned exactly to and was enchaced in the hole I had made in the head The Vessel was purposely made with many Angles and in form of an Icosaedron to the end that every Facet being convex and concave my Boul might produce the effect of a Burning-Glass The Goaler and his Turn-keys never came up to my Chamber but they found me employed in this work but they were not at all surprised at it because of the many Mechanick Knacks which they met with in my Chamber whereof I told them I was the Inventor Amongst others there was a Wind-Clock an Artificial Eye wherewith one might see by night and a Sphere wherein all the Stars followed the regular motion that they have in the Heavens By these things they were perswaded that the Machine I was a making was a Curiosity of the like Nature and besides the Money wherewith Colignac greased their fists made them go fair and soft Now it was about nine in the Morning my Keeper was gone down and the Skie was hazy when I placed this Machine on the top of my Tower that 's to say on the openest place of my Terrass walk It shut so close that a grain of Air could not enter it except by the two openings and I had placed a little very light Board within for my self to sit upon Things being ordered in this manner I shut my self in and waited there almost an hour expecting what it might please Fortune to do with me When the Sun breaking out from under the Clouds began to shine upon my Machine that transparent Icosaedron which through its Facets received the Treasures of the Sun diffused by it's Orifice the light of them into my Cell and seeing that splendor grew fainter because of the Beams that could not reach me without many Refractions that tempered vigour of light converted my Case into a little Purple Firmament enameled with Gold. With extasie I admired the Beauty of such a mixture of Colours when all of a sudden I found my Bowels to move in the same manner as one finds them that is tossed in a swing I was about to open my Wicket to know the cause of that emotion but as I was stretching out my Hand through the hole of the Floor of my Box I perceived my Tower already very low beneath me and my little Castle in the Air pushing my Feet upwards in a trice shew'd me Thoulouse sinking into the Earth That Prodigy surprised me not at all by reason of so sudden a soaring but because of that dreadful transport of Humane Reason at the Success of a design which even frightned me in the Project The rest did not at all Startle me for I foresaw very well that the Vacuity that would happen in the Icosaedron by reason of the Sun-beams united by the concave Glasses would to fill up the space attract a great abundance of Air whereby my Box would be carried up and that proportionably as I mounted the rushing wind that should force it through the Hole could not rise to the roof but that furiously penetrating the Machine it must needs force it up on high Though my design was very cautiously projected yet I was mistaken in one circumstance because I was not confident enough of my Glasses I had prepared round my Box a little Sail easie to be turned with a Line that passed through the Orifice of the Vessel and which I held by the end I had fancied to my self that when I should be in the Air I might thus make use of as much wind as might serve to convey me to Colignac But in the twinkling of an Eye the Sun which beat perpendicularly and obliquely upon the Burning-Glasses of the Icosaedron hoisted me up so high that I lost sight of Thoulouse That made me let go my sheet and soon after I perceived through one of the Glasses which I had put in the four sides of the Machine my Sail flying in the Air and tossed to and fro by a Whirl-wind that had got within it I remember that in less than an hour I was got above the Middle Region and I soon perceived it because I saw it hail and rain below me It may be asked perhaps whence then came that wind without which my Box could not mount in a story in the Sky exempt from Meteors but provided I may have a hearing I 'll answer that Objection I have told you that the Sun which beat vigorously upon my Concave Glasses uniting his Rayes in the middle of the Vessel by his heat drove out the Air it was full of through the upper Conduit and that so the Vessel being void Nature which abhors Vacuity made it suck in by the opening below other Air to fill it again If it lost much it regained as much and so one is not to wonder that in a Region above the middle where the winds are I continued to mount up because the Aether became wind by the furious Rapidity wherewith it forced in to hinder a Vacuity and by consequence ought incessantly push up my Machine I felt little or no Hunger except when I passed that Middle Region of the Air for in reality the coldness of the Climate made me see it at a distance I say at a distance because a Bottle of Spirits which I carried always about me whereof I now and then took a dram kept it from approaching me During the rest of my Voyage I felt not the least touch of it on the contrary the more I advanced towards that enflamed World the stronger I found my self I selt my Face to be a little hotter and more gay than ordinary my Hands appeared to be of an agreable Vermilion Colour and I know not what Gladness mingled with my Blood which put me beyond my self I remember that reflecting once on this Adventure I reasoned thus with my self Hunger without doubt cannot reach me because that pain being but an Instinct of Nature which prompts Animals to repair by Nourishment what they lose of their Substance At present when she finds that the Sun by his pure continual and neighbouring Irradiation stocks me with more natural Heat than I lose she gives me no more that Desire which would be useless Nevertheless I objected against those Reasons that seeing the Temperament which maketh Life consisted not only in natural Heat but also in radical Moisture on which that heat is to feed as the Flame in the Oyl of a Lamp The sole Rays of that vital Fire could not make Life unless they encountered some unctuous Matter that should fix them But I presently overcame that difficulty when I had observed that in our Bodies the radical Moisture and natural Heat are but one and the self same thing for that which is called Moisture whether in Animals or in the Sun that great Soul of the World is but a flux of Sparkles more continuous because of their Mobility and that which we name Heat a
from being ashamed of my Friendship I made answer again on my part with all the transports tenderness and softness of so touching a Passion that I perceiv'd her three or four times ready to die of Love upon the Branch The Truth is I mingled so much Art with the Sweetness of my Voice and surprized her Ear with such quaint Touches and by ways so unusual to those of her Kind that I raised in her pretty Soul what Passion soever I pleased In this Exercise we spent four and twenty Hours and I believe we had never given over making of Love had not our Throats denied us any more Voice That was the only Obstacle that hindred us from proceeding For perceiving that the Pains I took began to tear my Throat and that I could hold out no longer without falling into a Swoon I made her a sign to draw near to me The danger she thought me to be in amidst so many Eagles perswaded her that I called her to my aid She came flieing immediately to my Assistance and resolving to give me a Glorious Instance that she could for a Friend brave Death even upon his Throne she boldly lighted upon the great crooked Beak of the Eagle where I was perched Really so strong a Courage in so weak a Creature affected me with some Veneration for grant I had implored her aid as she fancied and that it be a Law amongst Animals of the same kind to assist the unfortunate yet the Instinct of her timorous Nature ought to have made her waver and nevertheless she boggled not in the least On the contrary she made so much haste that I cannot tell which flew first the Signal or the Nightingale Proud to see under her Feet the Head of her Tyrant and ravished to think that for my sake she was to be Sacrificed almost under my Wings and that some happy drops of her Blood might perhaps Jert upon my Feathers she gently turned her Eyes to me and having bid me adieu as it were by a Glance which seemed to ask me leave to die she struck so briskly her little Beak into the Eyes of the Eagle that they seemed to me to be out before the peck was given When my Bird perceived it self to be blind it formed to it self another sight of new I gently rebuked the Nightingale for her too rash Action and thinking it would be dangerous to conceal our real Being any longer from her I told her who we were but the poor little thing prepossessed with an Opinion that these Barbarians whose Prisoner I was forced me to devise that Tale gave no credit to all that I could say to her When I found that all the Reasons whereby I thought to convince her proved ineffectual I gave private Orders to ten or twelve thousand of my Subjects and immediately the Nightingale perceived under her Feet a River running under a Boat and the Boat floating upon it the Boat was no bigger than was sufficient to hold me and another of my Size At the first Signal given my Eagles flew away and I threw my self into the Skiff from whence I called to the Nightingale that if she could not as yet resolve to leave me so soon she should embark with me So soon as she was come in I commanded the River to take its course towards the Region whither my People flew but the fluidity of the Water being inferiour to that of the Air and by consequence the Rapidity of their flight greater than that of ours we were left a little behind During the whole Voyage I made it my Business to undeceive my little Passenger I told her that she ought not to expect any fruit of her Passion since we were not of the same Kind that she might very well have perceived that when the Eagle whose Eyes she had struck out framed to it self new ones in her presence and when at my command twelve thousand of my Subjects had Metamorphosed themselves into that River and Boat which carried us My Remonstrances had not the least Success She made me answer that as for the Eagle who I would have it believed had formed to it self Eyes it had no need of them because she had not struck her Beak right into the Ball of its Eye and as to the River and Boat which I said to have been begot only of a Metamorphosis of my People they were in the Wood from the Creation of the World though they had not been minded Perceiving her so Ingenious in deceiving her self I agreed with her that my Vassals and I should Metamorphose our selves to her view into what she pleased provided that after that she would return to her own Country Sometime she desired it should be into a Tree sometime she wished it might be into a Flower sometime into Fruit sometime into Metal and sometime into Stone In fine that I might at once satisfie all her Desires when we arrived at my Court where I ordered her to expect me we Metamorphosed our selves to the Eyes of the Nightingale into that precious Tree thou foundest upon the Road of which we have just now abandoned the form Now after all that I see that little Bird resolved to return into her own Country my Subjects and I are about to resume our Figure and the right way of our Journey But it is but reasonable that I should first discover to thee that we are Natives and Aborigenes of the Sun in the bright part thereof for there is a very remarkable Difference betwixt the People which the Luminous Region produces and the People of the obscure Country We are they whom in the World of the Earth ye call Spirits and your presumptuous stupidity hath given us that Name because imagining no Animal more perfect than Man and perceiving that some Creatures perform things above Humane Power you have taken these Animals for Spirits You are mistaken though we are Animals as well as you For although when we please we give to our Matter as you have just now seen the essential Figure and Form of the things into which we have a mind to transform our selves that does not infer that we are Spirits But listen and I 'll discover to thee how all these Transformations which seem to thee to be so many Miracles are no more but pure natural Effects Thou must know that being born Inhabitants of the bright part of this great World where it is the Principle of Matter to be in Action we ought to have the Imagination far more active than those of the obscure Regions and the Substance of Body far more subtil also Now this being supposed it must needs be that our Imagination meeting with no Obstacle in the matter that composes us it disposes the same as it pleases and becoming Mistress of all our Mass makes it by moving all its Particles to pass into the order necessary for constituting that great thing which it had formed in little So that every one of us having imagined
cannot be without it this without doubt is come to set some of our Trees on Fire We sent for the Animal Frozen-nose to come to our Assistance however is not as yet arrived But farewel I have no time to talk we must look to the publick Safety nay do you look to your self also and fly for it else you 'll be in danger of being involved in our destruction I followed the counsel but without much straining because I knew my Legs In the mean time I was so ill acquainted with the Geopraphy of the Country that at the end of Eighteen hours I found my self at the back of the Forest that I thought I fled from and to add to my fear a hundred dreadful Thunder-claps stunned my Brains whilst the ghastly and pale Glimpses of a Thousand flashes of Lightning put out my Eye-sight These Claps redoubled from time to time with so much fury that one would have said The Foundations of the World were about to be over-turned and nevertheless the Heavens never appeared more serene Though I was at my wits end yet the desire of knowing the Cause of such an extraordinary Accident made me go towards the place from whence the noise seemed to proceed I had advanced about four hundred Furlongs when I perceived in the middle of a great Plain as it were two Bowls which having rustled and turned along time round one another approached and then recoyled And I observed that when they knocked one against the other then were these great Claps heard but going a little farther on I found that what at a distance I had taken for two Bowls were two Animals one of which tho round below formed a Triangle about the middle and his lofty Head with ruddy Locks which floated upwards spired into a Pyramide his Body was bored like a Sieve and through these little holes that served him for Pores thin flames glided which seemed to cover him with a Plume of Fires Walking about there I met with a very venerable old Man who observed that famous conflict with no less curiosity than my self He made me a sign to draw nigh I obeyed and we sat down by one another I had a design to have asked him the motive that had brought him into that Country but he stopt my Mouth with these words Well then you shall know the motive that brought me into this Country And thereupon he gave me a full account of all the particulars of his Voyage I leave it to you to judge in what amazement I was In the mean while to increase my consternation as I was boyling with desire to ask him what Spirit revealed my thoughts to him No no cryed he it 's no Spirit that reveals your thoughts to me This new hit of Divination made me observe him with greater attention than before and I perceived that he acted my Carriage my Gestures and Looks that he postured all his Members and shaped all the parts of his Countenance according to the pattern of mine in a word my Shadow in relief could not have represented me better I see said he you are in pain to know why I counterfeit you and I am willing to tell you Know then that to the end I might know your inside I dispofed all the parts of my Body into the same Order I saw yours in for being in all parts scituated like you by that disposition of matter I excite in my self the same thought that the same disposition of matter raises in you You will judge this to be a thing possible if heretofore you have observed that Twins who are like have commonly the like Mind Passions and Will insomuch that there were two Twins at Paris who always had the same Sicknesses and the same Health married without knowing one anothers design the same day and at the same hour wrote Letters mutually to one another in the same Sense Words and Stile and in short have upon the same Subject composed a Copy of the same kind of Verse with the same Stops Words and Order Now don't you see that it was impossible but that the Composition of the Organs of their Bodies being in all Circumstances alike they must act in a like manner seeing two like Instruments alike touched ought to render a like Harmony And that so I having conformed my Body wholly to yours and become if I may say so your Twin it is impossible but that the same Agitation of Matter must cause in both of us the same Agitation of Mind Having said so he fell a counterfeiting me again and thus went on You are at present in great pain to know the Original of the Conflict of these two Monsters but I will inform you of it Know then that the Trees of the Forest behind us being unable with their blowing to repel the attempts of the fiery Beast have had their recourse to the Animal Frozen-Nose I never heard of these Animals said I to him but from an Oak of this Country and that in great haste too because it was sollicitous for its own safety and therefore I would beg of you to give me some account of them He thereupon spake to me in this manner In this Globe where we are we should see the Woods very thin sow'n by reason of the great number of the fiery Beasts that destroy them were it not for the Animals Frozen-Noses which at the desire of the Forests their Friends come daily to cure the Sick Trees I say cure for no sooner have they from their Icy Mouth blown upon the coals of that Plague but they put it out In the World of the Earth from whence both you and I are come the fiery Beast is called the Salamander and the Animal Frozen-Nose is known by the name of Remora Now you must know that the Remoras live towards the extremity of the Pole at the bottom of the Mare Glaciale and it is the cold of these Fishes evaporated through their Scales which makes the Sea-Water in those quarters to freeze though it be Salt. Most Navigators who have Sailed for the discovery of Green-land have at length experienced that in certain Seasons they found none of the Ice which at other times had stopt them Now though that Sea was open at the time when it is bitterest Winter there yet they have attributed the cause of it to some secret Heat that had thawed it but it is far more probable that the Remoras who only feed upon Ice had at that time devoured the whole stock Besides you are to know that some Months after they have filled their Bellies that strange Food of uneasy digestion so chills their Stomack that their very blowing of their Breath freezes again all the Sea under the Pole. When they come on Land for they live in both Elements they fill their Paunch only with Hemlock Wolf-bane Opium and Mandrakes It 's wondred at in our World whence proceed those piercing North-Winds that always bring Frost with them but if our