Cyrano de Bergerac

“ When you yield to the Stronger, is it not that he should be obliged to you for a Victory which you cannot Dispute him? Why then should you submit to him, when Laziness hath softened his Muscles, weakened his Arteries, evaporated his Spirits, and suckt the Marrow out of his Bones? If you adore a Woman, is it not because of her Beauty? Why should you then continue your Cringes, when Old Age hath made her a Ghost, which only represents a hideous Picture of Death? ”

“ For when you think of that Nothing, you imagine it at least to be like Wind or Air, and that is a Being: But if you conceive not an Infinite in general, you comprehend it at least in particulars; seeing it is not difficult to fancy to our selves, beyond the Earth, Air, and Fire which we see, other Air, and other Earth, and other Fire. Now Infinitude is nothing else but a boundless Series of all these. But if you ask me, How these Worlds have been made, seeing Holy Scripture speaks only of one that God made? ”

“ For an Apple is in itself a little Universe; the Seed, hotter than the other parts thereof, is its Sun, which diffuses about it self that natural Heat which preserves its Globe: And in the Onion, the Germ is the little Sun of that little World, which vivifies and nourishes the vegetative Salt of that little mass. Having laid down this, then, for a ground, I say, That the Earth standing in need of the Light, Heat, and Influence of this great Fire, it turns round it, that it may receive in all parts alike that Virtue which keeps it in Being. ”

“ 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? 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. ”

“ I remember another time, when we were upon our Philosophy, for neither of us took pleasure to Discourse of mean things: "I am vexed," said he, "to see a Wit of your stamp infected with the Errors of the Vulgar. You must know then, in spight of the Pedantry of Aristotle with which your Schools in France still ring, That every thing is in every thing; that's to say, for instance, That in the Water there is Fire, in the Fire Water, in the Air Earth, and in the Earth Air: Though that Opinion makes Scholars open their Eyes as big as Sawcers, yet it is easier to prove it, than perswade it. ”

“ But not to trifle away time, in answering all their objections, I dare be bold to say, That if there were no Vacuity, there could be no Motion; or else a Penetration of Bodies must be admitted; for it would be a little too ridiculous to think, that when a Gnat pushes back a parcel of Air with its Wings, that parcel drives another before it, that other another still; and that so the stirring of the little Toe of a Flea should raise a bunch upon the Back of the Universe. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ During all this Discourse we went on with our Dinner; and as soon as we rose from Table, we went to take the Air in the Garden; where taking Occasion to speak of the Generation and Conception of things, he said to me, "You must know, that the Earth, converting it self into a Tree, from a Tree into a Hog, and from a Hog into a Man, is an Argument that all things in Nature aspire to be Men; since that is the most perfect Being, as being a Quintessence, and the best devised Mixture in the World; which alone unites the Animal and Rational Life into one. ”

“ And as for Judgment, he hath but little of that neither, though the people of your World make it the Portion of Old Age: But to undeceive them, they must know, That that which is called Prudence in an Old Man is no more but a panick Apprehension, and a mad Fear of acting any thing where there is danger: So that when he does not run a Risk, wherein a Young Man hath lost himself; it is not that he foresaw the Catastrophe, but because he had not Fire enough to kindle those noble Flashes, which make us dare: Whereas the Boldness of that Young Man was as a pledge of the good Success of his design ”

“ 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 annihilate it; but in killing a Man, you make him only change his Habitations Nay, I'll go farther with you still: since God doth equally cherish all his Works, and hath equally divided the Benefits betwixt Us and Plants, it is but just we should have an equal Esteem for Them as for our Selves. ”

“ You may very well force him to say, That the Moon is not a World, but he will not believe it for all that; for to believe a thing, some possibilities enclining more to the Yea than to the Nay, must offer to ones Imagination: And unless you furnish him that Probability, or his own mind hit upon it, he may very well tell you that he believes, but still remain an Infidel. ”

“ As for the Soul of Beasts, which is Corporeal, I do not wonder they Die; seeing the best Harmony of the four Qualities may be dissolved, the greatest force of Blood quelled, and the loveliest Proportion of Organs disconcerted; but I wonder very much, that our intellectual, incorporeal, and immortal Soul should be constrained to dislodge and leave us, by the same Cause that makes an Ox to perish. ”

“ For our Loss is, indeed, so great, that one would think, none but the declared Enemy of Mankind, would have had the Malice, to purloyn and stiffle those rare Discoveries, which our Author made in the Province of the Solar Philosophers; and which undoubtedly would have gone far, as to the settleing our Sublunary Philosophy, which, as well as Religion, is lamentably rent by Sects and Whimseys; and have convinced us, perhaps, that in our present Doubts and Perplexities, a little more, or a little less of either, would better serve our Turns, and more content our Minds. ”

“ None but a Pedant will deny me this, when we see that a Plumb-Tree, by the Heat of its Germ, as by a Mouth, sucks in and digests the Earth that's about it; that a Hog devours the Fruit of this Tree, and converts it into the Substance of it self; and that a Man feeding on that Hog, reconcocts that dead Flesh, unites it to himself, and makes that Animal to revive under a more Noble Species. ”

“ I prayed him to be so good as to let me imitate them.
"But withal," said I, "in what Machine shall we perform the Voyage, and what Orders do you think the Mathematician, who talked t'other day of joyning this Globe to ours, will give me?" "As to the Mathematician," said he, "let that be no hinderance to you; for he is a Man who promises much, and performs little or nothing. And as to the Machine that's to carry you back, it shall be the same which brought you to Court." "How," said I, "will the Air become as solid as the Earth, to bear your steps? ”

“ To make good your Hypothesis, you are forced to have recourse to Spirits or Intelligences, that move and govern your Spheres. But for my part, without disturbing the repose of the supreme Being, who, without doubt, hath made Nature entirely perfect, and whose Wisdom ought so to have compleated her, that being perfect in one thing, she should not have been defective in another: I say, that the Beams and Influences of the Sun, darting Circularly upon the Earth, make it to turn as with a turn of the Hand we make a Globe to move ”

“ You ought not to be surprised at what I tell you; for though our Globe be very vast, and yours little, though we die not before the end of Four thousand Years, and you at the end of Fifty; yet know, that as there are not so many Stones as clods of Earth, nor so many Animals as Plants, nor so many Men as Beasts; just so there ought not to be so many Spirits as Men, by reason of the difficulties that occur in the Generation of a perfect Creature. ”

“ For we believe, that the Fire having separated the pure from the impure, the Heat by Sympathy reassembles the natural Heat which made the Soul, and gives it force to mount up till it arrive at some Star, the Country of certain people more immaterial and intellectual than us; because their Temper ought to suit with, and participate of the Globe which they inhabit. ”

“ A mountebank named Brioché had a theatre of marionnettes, near the Pont-Neuf, and used an ape called Fagotin, fantastically dressed, to attract spectators. Some enemy of Cyrano, perhaps Dassoucy, one day persuaded Brioché to dress his ape up in imitation of Cyrano, with long sword and nose as long. Cyrano, arriving and seeing this parody of himself exalted on a platform, unsheathes in blind rage, drives the crowd of lackeys and loafers right and left with the flat of his sword, and impales the poor ape who was holding out his sword in a posture of self-defence. ”

“ Hath she covenanted with our Body, that as soon as he should receive a prick with a Sword in the Heart, a Bullet in the Brain, or a Musket-shot through the Chest, she should pack up and be gone? And if that Soul were Spiritual, and of her self so Rational that being separated from our Mass she understood as well as when Clothed with a Body; why cannot Blind Men, born with all the fair advantages of that intellectual Soul, imagine what it is to see? ”

“ Moses, the greatest of Philosophers, who drew the Knowledge of Nature from the Fountain-Head, Nature her self, hinted this truth to us when he spoke of the Tree of Knowledge; and without doubt he intended to intimate to us under that Figure, that Plants, in Exclusion to Mankind, possess perfect Philosophy. ”

“ Seeing that great Man, who had a very clear Wit, assures us, That in his time the Earth was flat like the floor of an Oven, and that it floated upon the Water, like the half of an Orange: But if ever I have the honour to see you in France, I'll make you observe, by means of a most excellent Celescope, that some Obscurities, which from hence appear to be Spots, are Worlds a forming. ”

“ That cannot be, no not according to their own Principles, seeing there is no Penetration of Bodies: But that matter must have crowded together, and if you will, abridged it self, so that it hath filled some place which was empty before. To say that it is incomprehensible, that there should be a Nothing in the World, that we are in part made up of Nothing: Why not, pray? Is not the whole World wrapt up in Nothing? ”

“ And then the Vice-Roy told me, That he much wondered, how the Systeme of Ptolemy, being so improbable, should have been so universally received. "Sir," said I to him, "most part of Men, who judge of all things by the Senses, have suffered themselves to be perswaded by their Eyes; and as he who Sails along a Shoar thinks the Ship immoveable, and the Land in motion; even so Men turning with the Earth round the Sun have thought that it was the Sun that moved about them. To this may be added the unsupportable Pride of Mankind, who perswade themselves that Nature hath only been made for them ”

“ However, this thought, which because of its boldness suited my Humor, being confirmed by Contradiction, sunk so deep into my mind, that during the rest of the way I was big with Definitions of the Moon which I could not be delivered of: Insomuch that by striving to verifie this Comical Fancy by Reasons of appearing weight, I had almost perswaded my self already of the truth on't; when a Miracle, Accident, Providence, Fortune, or what, perhaps, some may call Vision, others Fiction, Whimsey, or (if you will) Folly, furnished me with an occasion that engaged me into this Discourse. ”

“ Now if you cannot easily conceive how so ponderous a Body can move; Pray, tell me, are the Stars and Heavens, which, in your Opinion, are so solid, any way lighter? Besides, it is not so difficult for us, who are assured of the Roundness of the Earth, to infer its motion from its Figure: But why do ye suppose the Heaven to be round, seeing you cannot know it, and that yet, if it hath not this Figure, it is impossible it can move? ”

“ I say then, that the first Obstacle that stops us short is the Eternity of the World; and the minds of men, not being able enough to conceive it, and being no more able to imagine, that this great Universe, so lovely and so well ordered, could have made it self, they have had their recourse to Creation: But like to him that would leap into a River for fear of being wet with Rain, they save themselves out of the Clutches of a Dwarf, by running into the Arms of a Giant ”

“ I came since into this World, for the Reasons I told you; and that which makes me continue here, is, because the Men are great lovers of Truth; and have no Pedants among them; that the Philosophers are never perswaded but by Reason, and that the Authority of a Doctor, or of a great number, is not preferred before the Opinion of a Thresher in a Barn, when he has right on his side. ”