M. de Fontenelle

“ Beauty, answered my companion, is nothing, unless it interests our feelings. You will not deny that the finest day never had the power of inspiring so delightful a reverie as you were falling into just now in contemplating the loveliness of the evening. You are right, said I, but the loveliest night I ever beheld, with all it's shadowy beauty, would fail to give me such enchanting sensations as the contemplation of the fair face of the Marchioness de G——. ”

“ The stars appear to move with more silent progress than the sun: every object that decorates the heavens is soft, and attractive to the eye: in short, we resign ourselves more easily to reverie because we feel as if no other being was at that time enjoying the pensive pleasure that expands our soul. Perhaps, too, the uniformity of day, in which the sky presents no other object than the sun, is less favourable to the wild and pleasing illusions of fancy than the view of innumerable stars, scattered with sportive irregularity, over the boundless space. ”

“ You must call them the inhabitants of one of the planets, contained in one, out of the infinity of vortices. Surely the very idea of ourselves is as nothing when such a description is applied to us, when we are thus lost amongst millions of worlds. For my part, the earth begins to diminish into such a speck, that in future I shall hardly consider any object worthy of eager pursuit. Surely people, who form unnumbered schemes of aggrandizement, who are wearing themselves out in following up projects of ambition, are ignorant of the vortices. ”

“ Yes, she replied, the splendour of day resembles a fair and dazzling beauty, but the milder radiance of night may be compared to a woman of less brilliancy of complexion, and more sweetness of expression. You are very generous, resumed I, in giving the preference to the brunette, whilst you are so fair. It is however true, that an unclouded sun is the most glorious object in nature; and it is equally true, that the heroines of romance, the most beautiful objects imagination can depict, have almost invariably been represented with fair complexions. ”

“ They must be almost mad with vivacity. Like most of the negroes, they are without memory; never reflecting; acting by starts and at random: in short Mercury is the bedlam of the universe. The sun appears there nine times larger than it does to us: the light they receive is so brilliant that our finest days would be but twilight in comparison of theirs; perhaps they would find them so dark as not to be able to distinguish one thing from another. The heat to which they are accustomed is so intense, that they would be almost frozen in our Africa. ”

“ No, ages on ages of our duration would scarcely be any indication of immortality. Truly, said the Marchioness, I think these worlds can have no pretensions to it. I shall not do them the honour to compare them with the gardener who outlives so many transient flowers; they are but as those flowers themselves, springing up and fading away, one after another: for I suppose, if old stars disappear, new ones become visible; the species cannot otherwise be continued. Yes, answered I, we need not fear the extinction of the species. ”

“ Indeed, madam, I replied, the luminous quality of planets depends on less than you imagine. The sun alone is, in his nature, luminous; but the planets only reflect the light they receive from him. He enlightens the moon; the moon reflects his rays on the earth, and the earth is undoubtedly in the same manner a source of light to the moon; it is not farther from us to the moon, than from the moon to us.
But, enquired the Marchioness, is the earth equally capable of reflecting the sun's light? ”

“ When he is risen we can discern no other heavenly body: so, in another vortex, another sun eclipses ours, and permits it to appear only at night, with all the other suns, then visible. With them, fixed to the blue firmament, our sun forms a part of some imaginary figure. As to the planets that go round him, as they are not seen at so great a distance, they are not so much as thought of. Thus all the suns are daily luminaries to their own vortex, and nightly ones to all the other vortices. Each reigns alone in his own system ”

“ I am speaking of scrupulous people who may imagine religion is endangered by placing inhabitants any where but on the earth. I respect even an excessive scrupulosity when it arises from piety, nor would I willingly hurt the feelings of any one from whom I differed: but by rectifying a little error of the imagination we shall find that this objection cannot affect my system of giving inhabitants to an infinite number of worlds. When you are told that the moon is peopled, you immediately figure to yourself men like ourselves, and then a variety of theological difficulties occur. ”

“ We who always remain in our own have but a dull life. If the people in a comet have the sense to know the time at which they shall pass into our vortex, those who have already been the journey, are just before busily employed in describing to the rest what they will see. Speaking of Saturn, they say: "You will presently see a planet with a great ring round it. Then, you will discover one followed by four small planets." Some of these people, perhaps are set to watch the moment of entering our system: when it is arrived they cry new sun, new sun, as our sailors exclaim land, land. ”

“ Can we add to the perfection and grandeur of the universe? These ideas are expressed by Saussure, who in speaking of a traveller to Mont-blanc says: "if, during his meditations, the thought of the insignificant beings that move on the face of the earth offers itself to his mind, if he compares their duration with the grand epochs of nature, how great will be his astonishment that man, occupying so small a space, existing so short a time, can ever imagine that his being is the only end for which the universe was created." ”

“ Love is a strange thing, said she, laughing; it escapes every corrective; there is no system that can abate its influence. But answer me seriously; have you sufficient reason for believing this system? To me it appears to rest on an uncertain foundation. A fixed star is of a luminous nature like the sun, therefore you say it must, like the sun, be a centre to a vortex containing planets which travel round the sun. ”

“ We should be placed between the earth and the moon to form a just comparison; a spectator, not an inhabitant of the world. I shall be inconsolable for the injustice we do our world, said she, and the partial regard we have for the moon, unless you can assure me that the inhabitants of that planet are as ignorant of their advantages, and consider our globe a luminous body, without knowing that from their own we derive so much light. ”

“ They all turn around the sun; the earth itself not excepted; and as a punishment for the indolent repose it had been thought to enjoy, Copernicus made it take an ample share of the general activity: in short of all these celestial attendants, appointed for the service of our little globe, the moon alone is left to move round it. Stop a moment, said the Marchioness, your imagination is so elevated with your subject, you have explained it in such pompous language, that I believe I have scarcely understood you. The sun, you say, is immoveable in the centre of the universe ”

“ Some will tell you these new stars are only suns which re-approach us after having been for a long time at a distant part of the heavens. Others think they are suns that have broken through the crust that began to cover them. I easily conceive the possibility of all this; but I think it equally possible for new suns to be created. Why should not the matter that is fit to compose a sun, after having been dispersed in various places, be at length gathered together in one spot and then become the foundation of a new system of worlds? ”

“ Do I mistake, cried the Marchioness, or do I see your drift? Are you not going to say "the fixed stars are all suns: our sun is the centre of a vortex which turns around him; why should not each fixed star be also the centre of a vortex, turning round it? Our sun enlightens planets; why should not every fixed star likewise enlighten planets?" ”

“ By and by they examine again; they see the little planet a second time; they are then assured of its reality, and even begin to think it has a motion round the sun. After observing it a thousand times, they find out that this revolution is performed in a year: and at last, when the learned have been at great pains to investigate the subject, the inhabitants of Jupiter know that our world is in the universe. The curious eagerly look through their telescopes, and with all their looking, can scarcely discern it. ”

“ How, exclaimed the Marchioness, can a sun, a source of light, become darkened? With the greatest ease, answered I, if Descartes be in the right. He imagines that the spots on our sun, being impurities, or vapours, may grow thick, collect together, form themselves into a mass, and continue to encrust the sun till it is quite hid. If, the sun is a fire connected with a solid matter, serving as its aliment, we are not in a better condition; the solid matter may be consumed. ”

“ But a serious difficulty occurs to me respecting your system. If the earth turns, we every moment change our atmosphere, and respire that of a new climate. By no means, madam, I replied; the air which surrounds the earth rises only to a certain height, twenty leagues perhaps at farthest; [16] this atmosphere always turns with us. You have doubtless observed the sort of shell in which a silk-worm imprisons itself, and which it forms with such astonishing art. ”

“ Can we pretend to know every thing; to have made every possible discovery? Pray let us give posterity leave to make some improvements as well as ourselves. I won't give them leave, answered she, to break their necks by attempting to fly. Well, I replied, though flying be not perfected here, the inhabitants of the moon, may perhaps excel us; and it will be the same thing whether we go to them, or they come to us. We shall then be like the Americans who knew so little of navigation whilst it was thoroughly understood at the other side of the globe. Pugh! cried the Marchioness ”

“ Precisely so, madam, answered I; their unequal distances from the earth would produce an inequality in their revolutions round her: and the fixed stars, being so extremely remote from us, so far beyond all that could have a general movement round us, at least situated in a place where such a motion must be very feeble, is there any probability of their revolving round us in four-and-twenty hours, like the moon which is so near to us? ”

“ The air that surrounds us, rises to some height, receives the rays of light that would not reach the earth, and by its density, detains, and conveys to us a part of this light which was apparently not destined for us: thus you see the dawn and twilight are particular favours conferred on us by nature; they are degrees of light to which we are not regularly entitled, and which are bestowed on us in addition to our share. But the atmosphere of the moon, being purer than ours, is probably not so well calculated to reflect the rays which it receives before the sun is risen, or after it is set. ”

“ I need not say that of all philosophical subjects I have chosen that which is most calculated to excite curiosity: surely nothing ought to interest us more than to know how our own world is formed; and whether there be other worlds similar to it, and inhabited in the same way: but let no one be disquieted if unable to answer these enquiries; they who have time to spare may examine such subjects; many have it not in their power. ”

“ When in the morning we turn towards the sun, it seems to rise; and when, by continued rotation, we again are more distant from it, it appears to descend. That's curious enough, said she; the earth undertakes every thing, and the sun does nothing at all: and when the moon, the other planets, and the fixed stars appear to pass over us in four-and-twenty hours, it is merely imagination. Exactly so, I replied, and produced by the same cause. The planets perform their revolutions round the sun in unequal periods of time, in consequence of their different distances from it ”

“ Listen to me, said the Marchioness: let us be just to every body: it certainly is difficult to imagine we turn round the sun, for we never change places; we rise in the morning where we went to rest at night——I see from your look that you are going to tell me, that as the earth moves altogether——. ”

“ We compute, from the number seen through Herschel's telescopes in one region of the sky, that there are a hundred millions. Imagination pierces beyond the extent of vision, beholding multitudes of unknown worlds, infinitely more in number than those which are visible to our sight; and ranges unrestrained in the boundless space of creation.
Our only difficulty with respect to the inhabitants of so many millions of planets, is the obscurity of the final causes, which it is difficult to admit when we see into what errors the greatest philosophers have fallen ”

“ I thought this fiction would enable me to give the subject more ornament, and would encourage the female sex in the pursuit of knowledge, by the example of a woman who though ignorant of the sciences, is capable of understanding all she is told, and arranging in her ideas the worlds and vortices. Why should any woman allow the superiority of this imaginary Marchioness, who only believes what she could not avoid understanding? ”

“ How astonishing is the power of nature in giving such variety to so simple an object! In the universe we are but as a little family whose faces resemble each other; the next planet contains another family who have a different - 78 - style of countenance. Probably the variations are greater in proportion to the distance, and could we compare the inhabitants of the earth and moon, we should easily see that they were nearer neighbours than those of the earth and of Saturn. Here, for instance, our thoughts are made vocal; the people in another planet only express themselves by gestures ”

“ I suppose you will not dispute the hardness and solidity of the earth. See then the effect of an advantageous situation—because the moon is at a distance we only view her as a luminous body instead of a large mass of matter similar to the earth. Our globe, on the contrary, from having the ill luck to be more closely inspected, appears only a mass of dark soil, fit for nothing but to produce food for animals; we do not perceive the splendour of her light, because we cannot remove to a distance from her. ”

“ I begin to tremble lest we should be foolish enough to approach such an enterprizing planet as Jupiter, or that he should come to us, for the sake of drawing us into his vortex; for I can't help thinking, from your description of the agitated state of this celestial fluid, that it must move the planets irregularly, sometimes urging them nearer together, sometimes sending them to a greater distance. We may as well expect to gain as to lose by such an eccentric motion, said I; perhaps we may make a conquest of Mercury or Mars, which are smaller planets, and incapable of resisting us. ”

“ I don't like their plan, said the Marchioness. You told me, the other day, that the different parts of the moon were named after learned men; I thought that very proper: as princes monopolize the earth, it is but fair that astronomers should have the sky for their share, and not suffer princes to intrude on their domain. Allow them, however, I replied, if territory should be wanting, to consign to them some planet, or some part of the moon. As to these spots on the sun, they can make no use of them; for instead of planets, we find they are only clouds of smoke or dross arising from the sun. ”

“ I should like to hear the mistakes which the philosophers of that world fall into from the apparent immobility of our earth, whilst all the other heavenly bodies rise and set in the space of a fortnight. Probably they consider the earth immovable in consequence of her enormous size, being sixty times larger than the moon; and when the poets are disposed to flatter indolent princes, I have no doubt but they compare them to this orb in her state of majestic repose. It does not however appear an entire immobility. From the moon they must see the earth turn on her axis. ”