 CHAPTER IV PART I OF CONVERSATIONS ON THE PLORALITY OF WORLDS CONVERSATIONS ON THE PLORALITY OF WORLDS By Bernard Le Beauvier de Fontenelle, translated by William Gardner. CHAPTER IV The Fourth Evening's Conversation Some particulars concerning the world of Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Her dreams were not very successful. They still represented to her objects such as we are acquainted with here on earth. And I had room to reproach the Countess, as those people do us, at the sight of our regular pictures, who themselves make only wild and grotesque paintings. Well, say they, this is only an imitation of men. There is no manner of fancy in it. We were therefore forced to conclude ourselves ignorant what sort of inhabitants all these planets had, and content ourselves only to guess at them, and continue the voyage we had begun through the worlds. We were come to Venus, and I told her that Venus certainly turned on itself, though nobody could tell in what time, and consequently were ignorant how long her day lasted. But her year was composed of eight months, because tiths in that time she turns round the sun, and seeing Venus is forty times less than the earth, the earth appears, to them in Venus, to be a planet forty times bigger than Venus appears to us on the earth. And as the moon is forty times lesser than the earth, so she seems to be just of the same magnitude to the inhabitants of Venus, as Venus seems here to us. I see then, says the Countess, that the earth is not to Venus what Venus is to the earth. I mean that the earth is too big to be the mother of love or the shepherd star to Venus. But the moon, which appears to Venus of the same bigness that Venus appears to us, is assigned to be the mother of love and shepherd star to Venus, for such names are only proper for a little brisk airy planet, bright and shining as the goddess herself. O blessed moon, how happy art thou to preside over the amorse of those inhabitants of Venus, who must be such masters of gallantry. O doubtless, says I, the very common people of Venus are all seledons and silvanders, their most trivial discourses are infinitely finer than any in Plilia. Their very climate inspires love. Venus is much nearer than the earth is to the sun, from whence she receives a more vigorous and active influence. I find, says the Countess, it is easy enough to guess at the inhabitants of Venus. They resemble what I have read of the moors of Granada, who were a little black people, scorched with the sun, witty, full of fire, very amorous, much inclined to music and poetry, and ever inventing masks and tournaments in honor of their mistresses. Pardon me, madam, says I, you are little acquainted with the planet. Granada, in all its glory, was a perfect Greenland to it, and your gallant moors, in comparison with that people, were as stupid as so many Laplanders. But what do you think, then, of the inhabitants of Mercury? They are yet nearer to the sun, and are so full of fire that they are absolutely mad. I fancy they have no memory at all, no more than most of the negroes, that they make no reflections, and what they do is by sudden starts and perfect haphazard. In short, Mercury is the bedlam of the universe. The sun appears to them much greater than it does to us, because they are much nearer to it than we. It sends them so vast and strong a light that the most glorious day here would be no more with them than a declining twilight. I know not if they can distinguish objects, but the heat to which they are accustomed is so excessive that they would be starved with cold in the torrid zone. Their year is but three months, but we know not the exact length of their day, because Mercury is so little and so near the sun. It is, as it were, lost in his rays, and is very hardly discovered by the astronomers, so that they cannot observe how it moves on its center. But because it is so small, they fancy it completes its motion in a little time. So that by consequence, the day there is very short, and the sun appears to them like a vast fiery furnace at a little distance, whose motion is prodigiously swift and rapid. This is so much the better for them, since tis evident they must long for night. And during their night, Venus and the Earth, which must appear considerably big, give light to them. As for the other planets which are beyond the Earth, towards the firmament, they appear less to them in Mercury than they do to us here, and they receive but little light from them, perhaps none at all. The fixed stars, likewise, seem less to them, and some of them totally disappear, which, where I there, I should esteem a very great loss. I should be very uneasy to see this large convex studded with but few stars, and those of the least magnitude and luster. What signifies the loss of a few fixed stars, says the Countess? I pity them for the excessive heat they endure. Let us give them some relief, and send Mercury a few of the refreshing showers they have sometimes four months together in the hottest countries during their greatest extremity. Your fancy is good, madam, replied I, but we will relieve them another way. In China there are countries which are extremely hot by their situation. Yet in July and August are so cold that the rivers are frozen. The reason is they are full of salt peter, which, being exhaled in great abundance by the excessive heat of the sun, makes a perfect winter at mid-summer. We will fill the little planet with salt peter, and let the sun shine as hot as he pleases. And yet, after all, who knows but the inhabitants of Mercury may have no occasion either for rain or salt peter. If it is a certain truth that nature never gives life to any creature, but where that creature may live, than through custom and ignorance of a better life, those people may live happily. After Mercury comes the sun, but there is no possibility of peopling it nor no room left for a wherefore. By the earth which is inhabited, we judge that other bodies of the same nature may be likewise inhabited. But the sun is a body not like the earth or any of the planets. The sun is the source or fountain of light, which though it is sent from one planet to another and receives several alterations by the way, yet all originally proceeds from the sun. He draws from himself that precious substance which he emits from all sides, and which reflects when it meets with a solid body, and spreads from one planet to another those long and vast trains of light which cross, strike through, and intermingle in a thousand different fashions, and make, if I may so say, the richest tissues in the world. The sun likewise is placed in the center, from whence with most convenience, he may equally distribute and animate by his heat. It is then a particular body, but what sort of body has often puzzled better heads than mine. It was thought formerly a body of pure fire, and that opinion passed current till the beginning of this age, when they perceived several spots on its surface. A little after they had discovered new planets, of which hereafter. These some said were the spots. For those planets moving round the sun, when they turned their dark half to us, must necessarily hide part of it, and had not the learned with these pretended planets made their court before to most of the princes in Europe, giving the name of this prince to one and of that prince to another planet, I believe they would have quarreled who should be master of these spots that they might have named them as they pleased. I cannot approve that notion. T'was but t'other day, says the Countess, you were describing the moon, and called several places by the names of the most famous astronomers. I was pleased with the fancy, for since the princes have seized on the earth, tis fit the philosophers, who are as proud as the best of them, should reserve the heavens for themselves without any competitors. O, says I, treble not yourself, the philosophers make the best advantage of their territories, and if they part with the least star, tis on very good terms. But the spots on the sun are fallen to nothing. It is now discovered that they are not planets, but clouds, streams, or dross which rise upon the sun, sometimes in a great quantity, sometimes in less, sometimes they are dark, sometimes clear, sometimes they continue a great while, and sometimes they disappear as long. It seems the sun is a liquid matter. Some think of melted gold, which boils over, as it were, continually, and by the force of its motion casts the scum or dross on its surface, where it is consumed and others arise. Imagine then what strange bodies these are, when some of them are as big as the earth. But a vast quantity must there be of this melted gold, and what must be the extent of this great sea of light and fire, which they call the sun. Others say the sun appears through their telescopes, full of mountains, which vomit fire continually, and are joined together like millions of edness. Yet there are those who say these burning mountains are pure vision, caused by a fault in the spectacles. But what shall we credit, if we must distrust our telescopes, to which we owe the knowledge of so many new objects? But let the sun be what it will, it cannot be at all proper for habitation. And what pity tis, for how pleasant would it be. You might then be at the center of the universe, where you would see all the planets turn regularly about you. But now we know nothing but extravagant fancies, because we don't stand in the proper place. There is but one place in the world where the study or knowledge of the stars is easily obtained, and what pity tis there is nobody there. You forget yourself, sure, says she, were you in the sun you would see nothing, neither planets nor fixed stars. Does not the sun efface all, so that could there be any inhabitants there they might justly think themselves the only people in nature. I own, says I, my mistake. I was thinking of the situation of the sun, and not of the effect of its light. I thank you for your correction, but must take the boldness to tell you that you are in an error as well as myself. For were there inhabitants in the sun they would not see at all, either they could not bear the strength of its light, or for want of a due distance they could not receive it, so that things well considered all the people there must be stark-blind, which is another reason why the sun cannot be inhabited. But let us pursue our voyage. We are now arrived at the center, which is always the bottom, or lowest place, of what is round. If we go on we must ascend. We shall find Mercury, Venus, the earth, the moon, all the planets we have already visited. The next is Mars, who has nothing curious that I know of. This day is not quite an hour longer than ours, but his year is twice as much as ours. He is a little less than the earth, and the sun seems not altogether so large and so bright to him, as it appears to us. But let us leave Mars, he is not worth our stay. But what a pretty thing is Jupiter, with his four moons, or Yeoman of the Guard. They are four little planets that turn round him, as our moon turns round us. But why, says she, interrupting me, must there be planets to turn round other planets that are no better than themselves? I should think it would be more regular and uniform, that all the planets, little and great, without any distinction, should have one and the same motion round the sun. I, madam, says I, if you did but know what Descartes' poral pools or vortexes were, whose name is terrible, but their idea pleasant, you would not ask as you do. Must my head, says she, smiling, turn round to comprehend them, or must I become a perfect fool to understand the mysteries of philosophy? Well, let the world say what it will. Go on with your poral pools. I will, says I, and you shall see the poral pools are worthy of these transports. That then, which we call a whirlpool, or vortex, is a mass of matter, whose parts are separated, or detached from one another, yet have all one uniform motion. And at the same time, every one is allowed, or has a particular motion of its own, provided it follows the general motion. Thus a vortex of wind, or whirlwind, is an infinity of little particles of air which turn round, all together, and involve whatever they meet with. You know the planets are born up by the celestial matter, which is prodigiously subtle and active, so that this great mass, or ocean of celestial matter, which flows as far as from the sun to the fixed stars, turns round and bears the planets along with it, making them all turn after the same manner round the sun, who possesses the center. But in a longer or a shorter time, according as they are farther or nearer in distance to it, there is nothing to the very sun which does not turn, but he turns on himself because he is just in the middle of this celestial matter. And you must know, by the way, that worthy earth in his place it must turn on itself as the sun does. This is the great vortex of which the sun is lord. But at the same time the planets make little particular vortexes in imitation of that of the sun, each of them in turning round the sun does at the same time turn round itself, and makes a certain quantity of celestial matter turn round it likewise, which is always prepared to follow the motion the planet gives it, provided it is not diverted from its general motion. This then is the particular vortex of the planet, which pushes it as far as the strength of its motion reaches. And if by chance a lesser planet falls into the vortex of a greater planet, it is immediately borne away by the greater, and is indispensable forced to turn round it, though at the same time the great planet, the little planet, and the vortex which encloses them, all turn round the sun, twas thus at the beginning of the world when we made the moon follow us, because she was within the reach of our vortex, and therefore wholly at our disposal. Jupiter was stronger or more fortunate than we. He had four little planets in his neighborhood, and he brought them all four under his subjection. And no doubt we, though a principal planet, had had the same fate had we been within the sphere of his activity. He is ninety times bigger than the earth, and would certainly have swallowed us into his vortex. We had then been no more than a moon in his family, when now we have one to wait on us, so that you see the advantage of situation decides often all our good fortune. But pray, says she, who can assure us we shall continue as we do now, if we should be such fools as to go near Jupiter, or he so ambitious as to approach us, what will become of us? For if, as you say, the celestial matter is continually under this great motion, it must needs agitate the planets irregularly, sometimes drive them together, and sometimes separate them. Luck is all, says I. We may win as well as lose, and who knows, but we should bring Mercury and Venus under our government. They are little planets and cannot resist us. But in this particular, madam, we need not hope or fear. The planets keep within their own bounds, and are obliged, as formerly the kings of China were, not to undertake new conquests. Have you not seen, when you put water and oil together, the oil swims atop, and if to these two liquors you add a very little liquor, the oil bears it up, and it will not sink to the water, but an heavier liquor of a just weight, and it will pass through the oil, which is too weak to sustain it, and sink till it comes to the water, which is strong enough to bear it up. So that in this liquor, composed of two liquors, which do not mingle, two bodies of an equal weight will naturally assume two different places. The one will never ascend, the other will never descend. If we put still other liquors, which do not mingle, and throw other bodies on them, it will be the same thing. Fancy then that the celestial matter which fills this great vortex has several resting places, one by another, whose weight are different, like that of oil, water, and other liquors. The planets, too, are of a different weight, and consequently every planet settles in that place which has a just strength to sustain and keep it equilibrate, so you see, till it is impossible it should ever go beyond. I apprehend very well, says the Countess, that these weights keep their stations regularly. Would to God our world were as well regulated, and every one among us knew their proper place. I am now in no fear of being overrun by Jupiter, and since he lets us alone in our vortex with our moon, I don't envy him the four which he has. Did you envy him, replied I, you would do him wrong, for he has no more than what he has occasion for. At the distance he is from the sun his moons receive and send him but a very weak light. It is true that as he turns upon himself in ten hours his nights by consequence are but five hours long. So one would think there is no great occasion for four moons, but there are other things to be considered. Here under the poles they have six months day and six months night, because the poles are the two extremities of the earth, the farthest removed from those places where the sun is overrun in a perpendicular line. The moon seems to keep almost the same course as the sun, and if the inhabitants of the pole see the sun during one half of his course of a year, and during the other half don't see him at all. They see the moon likewise during one half of her course of a month. That is, she appears to him fifteen days, but they don't see her during the other half. Each year is as much as twelve of hours, so that there must be two opposite extremities in that planet, where their night and their day are six years each. A night six years long is a little disconsolate, and tits for that reason I suppose they have four moons. That which, in regard to Jupiter, is uppermost, finishes its course about him in seventeen days, the second in seven, the third three days and a half, and the fourth in two and forty hours. And though they are so unfortunate as to have six years night, yet their course being exactly divided into halves, they never pass above one and twenty hours wherein they don't see at least the last moon, which is a great comfort in so tedious a darkness. So that be where you will, these four moons are sometimes the prettiest sight imaginable. Sometimes they rise all four together, and then separate according to the inequality of their course. Sometimes they are all in their meridian, ranged one above another. Sometimes you see them at equal distances on the horizon. Sometimes when two rise, the other two go down. O how I should love to see their perpetual sport of eclipses, for there is not a day passes but they eclipse the sun or one another. And they are so accustomed to these eclipses in that planet that they are certainly objects of diversion and not of fear as with us. CHAPTER IV. PART II. OF CONVERSATIONS ON THE PLARALITY OF WORLDS by Bernard Le Beauvier de Fontanel. TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GARTNER. THIS LIBERVOX RECORDING IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Well, says the Countess, I hope you will people these four moons, though you say they are but little secondary planets appointed to give light to another planet during its night. Don't doubt it, replied I. These planets are not a jot the worst to be inhabited for being forced to turn round another planet of greater consequence. I would have then, says she, the people of these four moons to be so many colonies under Jupiter's government. They should, if it were possible, receive their laws and customs from him and consequently render him a kind of homage and not view his great planet without deference. Would it not be convenient too, says I, that they should send deputies with addresses to him to assure him of their fidelity, for he is certainly a more absolute command over his moon than we have over ours, though his power after all is but imaginary and consists chiefly in making him afraid. For that moon which is nearest to him, sees that he is 350 times bigger than our moon appears to us. For in truth, he is so much bigger than she, he is also much nearer to them than our moon is to us, which makes him appear the greater. So that this formidable planet hangs continually over their heads at a very little distance, and if the Gauls were afraid here to fore that the heavens would fall on them, I think the inhabitants of that moon may well be apprehensive that Jupiter will at some time or other overwhelm them. I fancy, says she, they are possessed with that fear because they are not concerned that eclipses. Everyone has their peculiar folly. We are afraid of an eclipse, and they that Jupiter will fall on their heads. It is very true, says I, the inventor of the third system I told you of the other night, the famous Tycho Brahe, one of the greatest astronomers that ever was, did not apprehend the least danger from an eclipse when everybody else was under the greatest consternation. But what apprehensions do you think he entertained instead of them? This great man was so unaccountably superstitious that if inherit but did cross him, or an old woman bolt upon him first at his coming out, he presently looked upon his journey to be ominous, shut himself up for that day, and would not meddle with the least business. It would be very unreasonable, replied she, after such a man could not redeem himself from the fear of eclipses without falling into some other foible as troublesome, that the inhabitants of that moon of Jupiter, where we were talking, should come off upon easier terms. But we will give them no quarter. They shall come under the general rule, and if they are free from one error shall fall into another to put them upon equivalent. But as I don't trouble myself because I can't guess what, pray clear another difficulty to me, which has given me some pain for several minutes. Pray tell me if the earth be so little in comparison of Jupiter, whether his inhabitants do discover us. Indeed I believe not, says I, for if we appear to him ninety times less than he appears to us, judge you if there be any possibility. Yet this we may reasonably conjecture, that there are astronomers in Jupiter who after they have made the most curious telescopes and taken the clearest night for their observations, may have discovered a little planet in the heavens, which they never saw before. If they publish their discovery, most people know not what they mean, or laugh at them for fools. Nay, the philosophers themselves will not believe them, for fear of destroying their own opinions. Yet some few may be a little curious. They continue their observations, discover the little planet again, and are now assured it is no vision. Then they conclude it has a motion round the sun, and after a thousand observations find that it completes this motion in a year, and at last, thanks to the learned, they know in Jupiter that our earth is a world. Everybody runs to see it at the end of the telescope, though tis so little, tis hardly discover. It must be pleasant, says she, to see the astronomers of both planets leveling their tubes at one another, and mutually asking what world is that, what people inhabit it. Not so fast neither, replied I, for though they may from Jupiter discover our earth, yet they may not know us. That is, they don't in the least suspect it is inhabited, and should anyone there chance to have such a fancy, he might be sufficiently ridiculed if not prosecuted for it. For my part, I believe they have worked enough to make discoveries on their own planet, not to trouble their heads with ours. And it is so large that if they have any such thing as navigation, their Christopher Columbus could never want employment. Why, I warrant you, they have not yet discovered the hundredth part of their planet. But if Mercury is so little, they are all, as it were, near neighbors, and tis but taking a walk to go around that planet. But if we don't appear to him in Jupiter, they cannot certainly discover Venus and Mercury, which are much less than the earth, and at a greater distance. But in lieu of it, they see Mars, their own four moons, and Saturn with his. This, I think, is work enough for their astronomers, and nature has been so kind to conceal from them the rest of the universe. Do you think it a favor, then? says she. Yes, certainly, says I, for there are 16 planets in this great vortex. Nature saves us the trouble of studying the motions of them all, and shows us but seven, which I think is very obliging. Though we know not how to value the kindness, for we have recovered the other nine, which were hid from us, and surrender the science of astronomy much more difficult than nature designed it. If there are 16 planets, says she, Saturn must have five moons. It is very true, says I, and two of these five are but lately discovered, but there is somewhat that is more remarkable. Since his year is 30 of ours, and there are consequently in him some countries where their night is 15 years long, what can you imagine nature has invented to give light during so dreadful a night? Why, she has not only given Saturn five moons, but she has encompassed him round with a great circle or ring. This being placed beyond the reach of the shadow, which the body of that planet casts, reflects the light of the sun continually on those places where they cannot see the sun at all. I protest, says the Countess. This is very surprising, and yet all is contrived in such great order that it is impossible not to think, but nature took time to consider the necessities of all animate beings, and that the disposing of these moons was not a work of chance, for they are only divided among those planets which are farthest distant from the sun, the earth, Jupiter, Saturn. Indeed, it was not worthwhile to give any to Mercury or Venus. They have too much light already, and they account their nights as short as they are a greater blessing than their day. But pray, why has not Mars a moon too? It seems he has none, though he is much farther than the earth from the sun. It is very true, says I. No doubt, but he has other helps, though we don't know him. You have seen the phosphorus, both liquid and dry, how it receives and imbibes the rays of the sun, and what a great light it will cast in a dark place. Perhaps Mars has many great high rocks, which are so many natural phosphoreses, which in the day take in a certain provision of light, and return it again at night. What think you, madam, is it not very pleasant when the sun is down to see those lighted rocks, like so many glorious illuminations, made without any arc, and which can do no manner of hurt by their heat? Besides, there is a kind of bird in America that yields such a light you may read by it in the darkest night, and who knows but Mars may have great flocks of these birds, that as soon as it is night, disperse themselves into all parts and spread from their wings another day. I am not at all contented, says she, with your rocks or your birds. It is a pretty fancy indeed, but it is a sign that there should be moons in Mars, since nature has given so many to Saturn and Jupiter, and if all the other worlds that are distant from the sun have moons, why should Mars only be accepted? Ah, madam, says I, when you are a little more dipped in philosophy, you will find exceptions in the very best systems. There are always some things that agree extremely well, but then there are others that do not accord at all. Those you must leave as you found them, if ever you intend to make an end. We will do so by Mars, if you please, and say no more of him, but return to Saturn. What do you think of his great ring in the form of a semicircle that reaches from one end of the horizon to the other, which reflecting the light of the sun performs the office of a continual moon? And must we not inhabit this ring too? says she, smiling. I confess, says I, in the humor I am in, I could almost send colonies everywhere, and yet I can't well plant any there. It seems so irregular a habitation, but for the five little moons, they can't choose but be inhabited. Though some think this ring is a circle of moons, which follow close to one another, and have an equal motion, and that the five little moons fell out of the circle. How many worlds are there, then, in the vortex of Saturn? But let it be how it will, the people in Saturn live very miserably. To his true, this ring gives light to him, but it must be a very poor one, when the sun seems to him but a little pale star, whose light and heat cannot but be very weak at so great a distance. They say Greenland is a perfect banyo in comparison of that planet, and that they would expire with heat in our coldest countries. You give me, says she, such an idea of Saturn that makes me shake with cold, and that of Mercury puts me into a fever. It cannot be otherwise, replied I, for the two worlds which are the extremities of this great vortex must be opposite in all things. They must then, says she, be very wise in Saturn, for you told me they were all fools in Mercury. If they are not wise, says I, yet they have all the appearances of being very flimatic. They are people that know not what it is to laugh. They take the day's time to answer the least question you can ask them, and are so very great that were Cato living among them they would think him a merry Andrew. It is odd to consider, says she, that the inhabitants of Mercury are all life, and the inhabitants of Saturn quite contrary, but among us some are brisk and some are dull. It is, I suppose, because our Earth is placed in the middle of the other worlds, and so we participate of both extremes. There is no fixed or determined character. Some are made like the inhabitants of Mercury, some like those of Saturn. We are a mixture of the several kinds that are found in the rest of the planets. Why, says I, don't you approve of the idea? Me thinks it is pleasant to be composed of such a fantastical assembly that one would think we were collected out of different worlds. We need not travel when we see the other worlds in epitome at home. I am sure, says the Countess, we have one great convenience in the situation of our world. It is not so hot as Mercury and Venus, nor so cold as Jupiter or Saturn, and our country is so justly placed that we have no excess either of heat or cold. I have heard of a philosopher who gave thanks to nature that he was born a man and not a beast, a Greek and not a barbarian, and for my part I render thanks that I am seated in the most temperate planet of the universe and in one of the most temperate regions of that planet. You have more reason, says I, to give thanks that you were young and not old, that you were young and handsome and not young and ugly, that you were young, handsome and a French woman and not young, handsome and an Italian. These are other guest subjects for your thanks than the situation of your vortex or the temperature of your country. Praise her, says she, let me give thanks for all things to the very vortex in which I implanted. Our proportion of happiness is so very small that we should lose none but improve continually what we have and be grateful for everything though never so common or inconsiderable. If nothing but exquisite pleasure will serve us, we must wait a long time and be sure to pay too dear for it at last. I wish, says I, that philosophy was the pleasure you propose, that when you think of vortexes, you would not forget and humble servant of your ladyships. I esteem it a pleasure, says she, while it diverts me with something new, but no longer. I will engage for it till tomorrow, replied I, for the fixed stars are beyond what you have yet seen. End of chapter four, part two. Chapter five, part one of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. Translation by William Gardner. This library box recording is in the public domain. The fifth evening's conversation. That the fixed stars are so many suns, every one of which gives light to a world. The Countess was very impatient to know what would become of the fixed stars. Are they inhabited, says she, as the planets are, or are they not inhabited at all? Or in short, what shall we do with them? You may soon guess, says I, the fixed stars cannot be less distant from the earth than 50 millions of leagues. Nay, if you anger an astronomer, he will set them farther. The distance from the sun to the farthest planet is nothing in comparison of the distance from the sun or from the earth to the fixed stars. It is almost beyond arithmetic. You see, their light is bright and shining, and did they receive it from the sun? It must needs be very weak after a passage of 50 millions of leagues. Then judge how much it is wasted by reflection. For it comes back again as far to us, so that forwards and backwards, here are 100 millions of leagues for it to pass. And it is impossible it should be so clear and strong as the light of a fixed star, which cannot but perceive from itself. So that in a word, all the fixed stars are luminous bodies in themselves and so many suns. I perceive, says the Countess, where you would carry me. You were going to tell me that if the fixed stars are so many suns, and our sun, the center of a vortex that turns round him, why may not every fixed star be the center of a vortex that turns round the fixed star? Our sun enlightens the planets. Why may not every fixed star have planets to which they give light? You have said it, replied I, and I will not contradict you. But you have made the universe so large, says she, that I know not where I am or what will become of me. What is it all to be divided into vortexes, confusedly, one among another? Is every star the center of a vortex as big as ours? Is that vast space which comprehends our sun and planets, but an inconsiderable part of the universe? And are there as many such spaces as there are fixed stars? I protested as dreadful, the idea confounds and overpowers me. And for my part, replied I, it gives me satisfaction. When the heavens were a little blue arch stuck with stars, me thought the universe was too straight and close. I was almost stifled for one of air. But now it is enlarged in height and breath. And a thousand and a thousand vortexes taken in, I begin to breathe with more freedom and think the universe to be incomparably more magnificent than it was before. Nature has spared no cost even to profuseness, and nothing can be so glorious as to see such a prodigious number of vortexes, whose several centers are possessed by a particular sun which makes the very planets turn round it. The inhabitants of a planet of one of these innumerable vortexes see on all sides these luminous centers of the vortex with which they are encompassed. But perhaps they don't see the planets, who receiving but a faint light from their sun can't send it beyond their own world. You present me with a kind of perspective of so vast a length that no eye can reach to the end of it. I plainly see the inhabitants of the earth, and you have made me discover those who dwell on the moon and in other planets of our vortex. These inhabitants indeed I conceive pretty plainly, but I don't see them so clearly as those of the earth. After these we come to the inhabitants of the planets which are in the other vortexes, but they are sunk into so great a depth that though I do all I can to see them, yet I must confess I can hardly perceive them. By the expression you use in speaking of them, they seem to be almost annihilated. You ought then to call them the inhabitants of one of those innumerable vortexes. We ourselves for whom the same expression serves must confess that we scarce know where we are. In the midst of so many worlds, from my own part I begin to see the earth so fearfully little that I believe from henceforth I shall never be concerned at all for anything. That we so eagerly desire to make ourselves great, that we are always designing, always troubling and harassing ourselves is certainly because we are ignorant what these vortexes are. But now I hope my new lights will in part justify my laziness, and when anyone reproaches me with my indolence I will answer, Ah did you but know what the fixed stars are? It was not fit, says I, that Alexander should know what they were. For a certain author who maintains that the moon is inhabited, very gravely tells us that Aristotle, from whom no truth could be long concealed, must necessarily be of an opinion backed with so much reason. But yet he never durst acquaint Alexander with the secret, lest he should run mad with despair when he knew there was another world which he could not conquer. With much more reason then was this mystery of vortexes and fixed stars kept secret in Alexander's time. For though they had been known in those days, yet it had been but an ill way of making his court to have said anything of them to that ambitious prince. For my part, I that know him, am not a little trouble to find myself not one jot the wiser for all the knowledge I have of them. The most they can do according to your way of reasoning is but to cure people of their ambition and their unquiet restless humor, which are diseases I am not at all troubled with. I confess I am guilty of so much weakness as to be in love with what is beautiful. That's my distemper, and I am confident the vortexes can never cure it. What if the other worlds render ours so very little? They cannot spoil fine eyes or a pretty mouth. Their value is still the same in spite of all the worlds that can possibly exist. This love, replied the Countess, smiling, is a strange thing. Let the world go how twill, till never in danger. There is no system can do it any harm. But tell me freely, is your system true? Pray conceal nothing from me. I will keep your secret very faithfully. It seems to have for its foundation but a slight probability, which is that if a fixed star be in itself a luminous body, like the sun, then by consequence it must, as the sun is, be the center and soul of a world and have its planets turning round about it. But is there an absolute necessity it must be so? Hear me, madam, says I. Since we are in the humor of mingling amorous follies with our most serious discourse, I must tell you that in love and the mathematics, people reason alike. Allow never so little to a lover, yet presently after you must grant him more. Nay, more and more, which will at last go a great way. In like manner, grant but a mathematician one little principle, he immediately draws a consequence from it, to which you must necessarily assent, and from this consequence another, till he leads you so far, whether you will or know, that you have much adieu to believe him. These two sorts of people, lovers and mathematicians, will always take more than you give them. You grant that when two things are like in one another in all visible respects, it is possible they may be like one another in those respects that are not visible, if you have not some good reason to believe otherwise. Now this way of arguing have I made use of. The moon, says I, is inhabited, because she is like the earth, and the other planets are inhabited because they are like the moon. I find the fixed stars to be like our sun, therefore I attribute to them what is proper to that. You are now gone too far to be able to retreat, therefore you must go forward with a good grace. But, says the Countess, if you build upon this resemblance or likeness, which is between our sun and the fixed stars, then to the people of another great vortex, our sun must appear no bigger than a small fixed star, and can be seen only when tis night with them. Without doubt madam, says I, it must be so. Our sun is much nearer to us than the suns of other vortexes, and therefore its light makes a much greater impression on our eyes than theirs do. We see nothing but the light of our own sun, and when we see that, it darkens and hinders us from seeing any other light. But in another great vortex, there is another sun which rules and governs, and in its turn extinguishes the light of our sun, which is never seen there but in the night with the rest of the other suns. That is the fixed stars. With them, our sun is fastened to the great arched roof of heaven, where it makes a part of some bear or bull. For the planets which turn round about it, are earth for example, as they are not seen at so vast a distance, so nobody doth so much as dream of them. All the suns then are day suns in their own vortexes, but night suns in other vortexes. In his own world or sphere, every sun is single, and there is but one to be seen, but everywhere else they serve only to make a number. May not the worlds, reply the Countess, notwithstanding this great resemblance between them, differ in a thousand other things, for though they may be alike in one particular, they may differ infinitely in others. It is certainly true, says I, but the difficulty is to know where in they differ. One vortex has many planets that turn round about its sun. Another vortex has but a few. In one vortex there are inferior or less planets, which turn about those that are greater. In another perhaps there are no inferior planets. Here all the planets are got round about their sun in form of a little squadron, beyond which is a great void space which reaches the neighboring vortexes. In another place, the planets take their course towards the outside of their vortex and leave the middle void. There may be vortexes also quite void, without any planets at all. Others may have their sun not exactly in their center, and that sun may so move as to carry its planets along with it. Others may have planets which in regard of their sun, ascend and descend according to the change of their equilibration, which keeps them suspended. In short, what variety can you wish for? But I think I've said enough for a man that was never out of his own vortex. It is not so much, replied the Countess, considering what a multitude of worlds there are. What you have said is sufficient for five or six, and from hence I see thousands. What would you say, Madam, if I should tell you there are many more fixed stars than those you see, and that an infinite number discovered with glasses which are not perceptible to our eyesight, in only one constellation where it may be we count 12 or 15, there are as many to be found as usually appear in the whole hemisphere. I submit, says the Countess, and beg your pardon. You quite confound me with worlds and vortexes. Oh, Madam, I have a great deal more to tell you, replied I. You see that whiteness in the sky which some call the Milky Way. Can you imagine what that is? It is nothing but an infinity of small stars, not to be seen by our eyes, because they are so very little, and they are sewn so thick, one by another, that they seem to be one continued whiteness. I wish you had a glass to see this ant hill of stars, and this cluster of worlds, if I may so call them. They are in some sort like the Maldives Islands, those 12,000 banks of sand separated only by narrow channels of the sea, which a man may as easily leap over as a ditch. So near together are the vortexes of the Milky Way, that I presume the people in one world may talk and shake hands with those of another. At least I believe the birds of one world may easily fly into its other, and that pigeons may be trained up to carry letters as they do in the Levant. These little worlds are accepted out of that general rule by which one son in his own vortex, as soon as he appears, effaces the light of all other foreign sons. If you were in one of these little vortexes of the Milky Way, your son would not be much nearer to you, and consequently, would not make any much more sensible impression on your eyes than 100,000 other sons of the neighboring vortexes. You would then see your heaven shine bright with an infinite number of fires, close to one another, and but a little distant from you, so that though you should lose the light of your own particular son, yet there would still remain visible sons enough beside your own to make your night as light as day. At least the difference would hardly be perceived, for the truth is you would never have any night at all. The inhabitants of these worlds accustomed to perpetual brightness would be strangely astonished if they should be told that there are miserable sort of people who where they live have very dark nights, and when to his day with them, they never see more than one son. Certainly, they would think nature had very little kindness for us, and would tremble with heart to think what a sad condition we are in. I don't ask you, says the Countess, whether in those worlds of the Milky Way there are any moons. I see they would be of no use to those principal planets which have no night, and move in spaces too straight and narrow to cummer themselves with the baggage of inferior planets. Yet pray take notice that by your liberal multiplication of worlds, you have started an objection not easily answered. The vortexes whose sons we see touch the vortex in which we are, and if it be true that vortexes are round, how then can so many bowls or globes all touch one single one? I would faint imagine how this may be done, but cannot reconcile it to myself. Madam, says I, you show a great deal of wit in raising this doubt, and likewise in not being able to resolve it, for in itself the thing is extreme difficult, and in the same manner you conceive it, no answer can be given to it, and he must be a fool who goes about to find answers to objections which are unanswerable. If our vortex had the form of a die, it would have six squares or flat faces, and would be far from being round, and upon every one of these squares might be placed a vortex of the same figure. But if instead of these six square faces, it had 20, 50, or a thousand, then might a thousand vortexes be placed upon it, one upon every flat. And you know very well that the more flat faces any body has on its outside, the nearer it approaches to roundness. Just as a diamond cut face-wise on every side, if the faces be very many and little, it will look as round as a pearl of the same bigness. Tis in this manner that the vortexes are round, they have an infinite number of faces on their outside, and every one of them has upon it another vortex. These faces are not all equal and alike, but here some are greater, and there are some less. The least faces of our vortex, for example, answer to the Milky Way and sustain all those little worlds. When two vortexes are supported by the two next flats on which they stand, if they leave beneath any void space between them, as it must often happen, nature, who is an excellent huswife and suffers nothing to be useless, presently fills up this void space with a little vortex or two, perhaps with a thousand, which never incommode the others. And become one, two, or a thousand worlds more, so that there may be many more worlds than our vortex has flat faces to hear of. I will lay a good wager that though these little worlds were made only to be thrown into the corners of the universe, which otherwise would have been void and useless, and though they are unknown to other worlds which they touch, yet they are well satisfied with their being what they are. These are the little worlds whose sons are not to be discovered but with a telescope, and whose number is prodigious. To conclude, all these vortexes are joined to one another in so admirable a manner that everyone turns round about his son without changing place. Everyone has such a turn as is most easy and agreeable to its own situation. They take hold of one another, like the wheels of a watch, and mutually help one another's motion. And yet to is true that they act contrary to one another. Every world, as some say, is like a football, made of a bladder covered with leather which sometimes swells of its own accord and would extend itself if it were not hindered. But this swelling world, being pressed by the next to it, returns to its first figure, then swells again and is again depressed. And some affirm that the reason why the fixed stars give a twinkling and trembling light and sometimes seem not to shine at all is because their vortexes perpetually push and press our vortex and ours again continually repulses theirs. End of Chapter 5 Part 1 Chapter 5 Part 2 of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontanel Translated by William Gardner This lipovox recording is in the public domain. I am in love with these fancies, says the Countess. I am pleased with these footballs which swell every moment and sink again and with these worlds which are continually striving and pushing one another. But above all, I am pleased to see how this jostling keeps up the trade of light, which is certainly the only correspondence that is between them. No, no, madam, says I. Light is not their sole commerce. The neighboring worlds sometimes send visits to us, and that in a very magnificent and splendid manner. There come comments to us from them, adorned with bright shining hair, venerable beards, or majestic tails. These, says the Countess, are ambassadors, whose visits may be well spared since they serve only to fright us. They scare only children, says I, with their extraordinary trains. But indeed, the number of such children is nowadays very great. Comments are nothing but planets which belong to a neighboring vortex. They move towards the outside of it. But perhaps this vortex, being differently pressed by those vortexes which encompass it above, it is rounder than below, and the lower part is still towards us. These planets which have begun to move in a circle above are not aware that below their vortex will fail them, because it is, as it were, broken. Therefore, to continue the circular motion, it is necessary that they enter into another vortex, which we will suppose is ours, and that they cut through the outsides of it. They appear to us very high and are much higher than Saturn, and according to our system, it is absolutely necessary they should be so high, for reasons that signify nothing to our present subject. From Saturn downwards to the other side of our vortex, there is a great void space without any planets. Our adversaries often ask us to what purpose this void space serves, but let them not trouble themselves any more, I have found a use for it, tis the apartment of those strange planets which come into our world. I understand you, says she. We don't suffer them to come into the heart of our vortex, among our own planets, but we receive them as the grand senior does the ambassadors that are sent to him. He will not shoe them so much respect as to let them lodge in Constantinople, but courtes them in one of the suburbs of the city. Madam, says I, we in the Ottomans agree likewise in this, that as we receive ambassadors, but never send any, so we never send any of our planets into the worlds that are next us. By this, says she, it appears that we are very proud. However, I don't yet very well know what I am to believe. These foreign planets with their tails and their beards have a terrible countenance. It may be they are sent to affront us, but ours that are of another make, if they should get into other worlds, are not so proper to make people afraid. Their beards and their tails, madam, says I, are not real, they are phenomena, and but mere appearances. These foreign planets differ in nothing from ours, but entering into our vortex, they seem to us to have tails or beards, by a certain sort of illumination which they receive from the sun, and which has not been yet well explained, but is certain that is but a kind of illumination, and when I am able, I will tell you how it is done. I wish then, says she, that our Saturn would go take a tail and beard in another vortex and fright all the inhabitants of it. That done, I would have him come back again, leaving his terrible accoutrements behind him, and taking his usual place amongst our other planets fall to his ordinary business. Tis better for him, says I, not to go out of our vortex. I have told you how rude and violent the shock is when two vortexes jostle one another. A poor planet must need to be terribly shaken, and its inhabitants in no better condition. We think ourselves very unhappy when a comet appears, but tis the comet that is in an ill case. I don't believe that, says she. It brings all its inhabitants with it in very good health. There can be nothing so diverting as to change vortexes. We that never go out of our own lead but a dull life. If the inhabitants of a comet had but the wit to foresee the time when they were to come into our world, they that had already made the voyage could tell their neighbors beforehand what they would see. They could tell them that they would discover a planet with a great ring about it, meaning our Saturn. They would also say you shall see another planet which has four little ones to wait on it, and perhaps some of them resolved to observe the very moment of their entering into our world would presently cry out, a new sun, a new sun. As sailors used to cry, land, land. You have no reason then, says I, to pity the inhabitants of a comet. Yet I suppose you will think their condition lamentable, that inhabit of vortex whose sun comes in time to be quite extinguished, and consequently who live in eternal night. How, cried the Countess, can suns be put out? Yes, without doubt, says I. For people some thousand years ago saw fixed stars in the sky, which are now no more to be seen. These were suns which have lost their light, and certainly there must be a strange desolation in their vortexes. And a general mortality over all the planets, for what can people do without a sun? This is a dismal fancy, says the Countess. I would not, if I could help it, let it come into my head. I will tell you if you please, replied I, what is the opinion of learned astronomers as to this particular? They think that the fixed stars which have disappeared are not quite extinguished, but that they are half suns. That is, they have one half dark and the other half light, and turning round upon their own axis or center, they sometimes shoo us their light side, and afterwards turning to us their dark side, we see them no more. To oblige you, madam, I will be of this opinion, because it is not so harsh as the other, though I cannot make it good but in relation to some certain stars, because as some have lately observed, those stars have their regulated times of appearing and disappearing, otherwise there could be no such things as half suns. But what shall we say of stars which totally disappear and never shoo themselves again after they have finished their course of turning round upon their own axis? You were too just, madam, to oblige me to believe that stars are half suns. However, I will try once more what I can do in favor of your opinion. The suns are not extinct, they are only sunk so low into the immense depth of heaven that we cannot possibly see them. In this case, the vortex follows his sun and alls well again. Tis true that the greatest part of the fixed stars have not this motion by which they remove themselves so far from us, because at other times they might return again nearer to us, and we should see them sometimes greater and sometimes less, which never happens. But we will suppose that none but the little light and most active vortexes which slip between the others make certain voyages after which they return again, while the main body of vortexes remain unmoved. Tis likewise very strange that some fixed stars shoo themselves to us, spending a great deal of time in appearing and disappearing, and at last totally and entirely disappear. Half suns would appear again at their set and regulated time, but suns which should be sunk low into the depths of heaven would disappear but once, and not appear again for a vast space of time. Now, madam, declare your opinion boldly. Must not these stars of necessity be suns which are so much darkened as not to be visible to us, yet afterwards shine again, and at last are wholly extinct? How can a sun, says the Countess, be darkened and quite extinguished when it is in its own nature a foundation of light? It may be done, madam, says I, with all the ease in the world. If Descartes' opinion be true that our sun has spots, not whether these spots be scum or thick mists or what you please, they may thicken and unite, till at last they cover the sun with a crust which daily grows thicker and then farewell sun. We have hitherto escaped pretty well, but Tis said that the sun for some whole years together has looked very pale. For example, the year after Caesar's death, it was this crust that then began to grow, but the force of the sun broke through and dissipated it. Had it continued, we had been all lost people. You make me tremble, replied the Countess, and now I know the fatal consequences of the sun's paleness. I believe instead of going every morning to the glass to see how I look myself, I shall cast my eyes up to heaven to see whether or no the sun looks pale. Oh, madam, says I, there is a great deal of time required to ruin a world. I grant it, says she, yet Tis but time that is required. I confess it, says I. All this immense mass of matter that composes the universe is in perpetual motion, no part of it accepted. And since every part is moved, you may be sure that changes must happen sooner or later, but still in time's proportion to the effect. The ancients were pleasant gentlemen to imagine that the celestial bodies were in their own nature unchangeable because they observed no alteration in them, but they did not live long enough to confirm their opinion by their own experience. They were boys in comparison of us. Give me leave, madam, to explain myself by an allegory. If roses, which last but a day, could write histories and leave memoirs one to another, and if the first rose should draw an exact picture of his gardener, and after 15,000 rose ages, it should be left to other roses, and so on, still to those that should succeed without any change in it, should the roses hereupon say, We have every day seen the same gardener, and in the memory of roses none ever saw any gardener but this. He is still the same he was, and therefore certainly he will die as we do, for there is no change at all in him. Would not these roses, madam, talk very foolishly? And yet there would be more reason in their discourse than there was in what the ancients said concerning celestial bodies. And though even to this very day, there should appear no visible change in the heavens, and the matter of which they are made should have all the signs of an eternal duration without any change, yet I would not believe them unchangeable till I had the experience of many more ages. Ought we, who last but a moment, to make our continuance the mensurant duration of any other being, to is not so easy a matter to be eternal, to have lasted many ages of men one after another is no sign of immortality. Truly, says the Countess, I find the worlds are far from being able to pretend to it. I will not do him so much honor as to compare him to the gardener that lives so much longer than the roses. I begin to think of him like the roses themselves, which blow one day and die the next. For now I understand that if old stars disappear, new ones will come in their room because every species must preserve itself. No species, madam, says I, can totally perish. Some perhaps will tell you that such new stars are suns, which return to our sight again after they have been a long time hid from us in the profundity of heaven. Others may tell you they are suns cleared from that thick crust which once covered them. If I should think all this possible, yet I likewise believe that the universe may be framed in such a manner that from time to time it may produce new suns. Why may not that matter which is proper to make a sun be dispersed here and there and gather itself again at long run into one certain place and lay the foundation of a new world? I am very much inclined to believe such new productions because they suit with that glorious and admirable idea which I have of the works of nature. Can we think that wise nature knows no more than the secret of making herbs and plants live and die by a continual revolution? I am verily persuaded and are not you so too, madam, that nature, without much cost or pains, can put the same secret in practice upon the worlds. I now find, says the Countess, the worlds, the heavens, and celestial bodies so subject to change that I am come to myself again. To recover ourselves the better, replied I, let us say no more of these matters. We are arrived at the very roof in top of all the heavens and to tell you whether there be any stars beyond it you must have an abler astronomer than I am. You may place worlds there or no worlds as you please. It is the philosopher's empire to describe those vast and visible countries which are and are not or are such as he pleases to make them. It is enough for me to have carried your mind as far as you can see with your eyes. Well I have now, says the Countess, the system of the universe in my head. How learned am I become? Indeed, madam, says I, you are pretty knowing and with this advantage of believing or disbelieving anything I have said, all the recompense I desire for the pains I have taken is that you would never look upon the sun, the heaven, or the stars, without thinking on me. End of Chapter 5, Part 2 Chapter 6, Part 1 of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds The Sixth Evening's Conversation, never before translated. Some new observations which confirm those in the preceding discourses and several late discoveries which have been made in the heavens. It was a considerable time since the Countess and I had any talk of the planetary worlds and it was so long indeed that we began to forget we ever had held any discourse on that subject. When I went one day to visit her, I came in just as two gentlemen of wit and character in the world had taken their leaves of her. Well, says she, the very moment she perceived me, you see what a visit I have been receiving and I protest it has given me some room to suspect that it has been in your power to impose upon my judgment. I should be very proud, madam, replied I, if I could flatter myself with such a power, because I look upon it to be the hardest task anyone could attempt. As hard as it is, says the Countess, I am afraid you have done it. I do not know how it came about, but the conversation turned upon the plurality of worlds with my two friends who are just gone. I am not certain if they did not introduce the discourse with a malicious design. I made no scruple to tell them directly that all the planets were inhabited. One of them replied he was very well satisfied I did not believe a word of it, and I, with all the simplicity imaginable, maintained that it was my real opinion. He still looked upon it as a piece of dissimulation designed to diverge the company, and I thought what made him so positive that I did not believe my own sentiments was that he had too high an opinion of me to conceive that I could entertain so extravagant a notion. As for the other gentlemen who had not altogether had esteem for me, they took me at my word. For God's sake, why did you put a thing in my head which people that value me cannot think I maintain seriously? Nay, madam, says I, but why would you maintain it seriously among a set of people who I am sure never entered into a way of reasoning which had the least cast of seriousness? Must we entrust the inhabitants of the planets so lightly? We should content ourselves with being a little select number of advocates for them and not communicate our mysteries to the vulgar. How, says the Countess, do you call my two last visitants the vulgar? They may have wit enough, says I, but they never reason at all. And your reasoners who are a severe set of people will make no difficulty of sorting them with the vulgar. On the other side, these men of fire revenge themselves by ridiculing the reasoners and think it is a very just principle in nature that every species despises what it wants. It were right if it was possible to conform ourselves to every species, and it had been much better for you to have rallied on the inhabitants of the planets with your two friends because they are better at railery than reasoning which they never make use of. You had then come off with their joint esteem and the planets had not lost a single inhabitant by it. Would you have had me sacrifice the truth to a jest? replied the Countess. And is that all the conscience you have? I own to you, says I, that I have no great zeal for these sorts of truths, and I will sacrifice them with all my soul to the last conveniences of company. For instance, I see what is and always will be the reason why the opinion of the planets being inhabited is not received so probable as it really is. The planets always present themselves to our view as bodies which emit light, and not at all like great planes and meadows. We should readily agree that planes and meadows were inhabited, but for luminous bodies to be so too, there is no ground to believe it. Reason may come and tell us over and over that there are planes and meadows in these planets, but reason comes a day too late. One glance of our eyes has had its effect before her. We will not hear a word, she says. The planets must be luminous bodies, and what sort of inhabitants should they have? Our imagination, of course, would presently represent their figures to us. It is what she cannot do, and the shortest way is to believe that there are no such beings. Would you have me for the establishment of these planetary people whose interests are far from touching me go to attack those formidable powers called senses and imagination? It is an enterprise would require a good stock of courage, and we cannot easily prevail on men to substitute their reason in the place of their eyes. I sometimes meet with reasonable people enough, who are willing, after a thousand demonstrations, to believe that the planets are so many earths, but their belief is not such as it would be, if they had not seen them under a different appearance, they still remember the first idea they entertained, and they cannot well recover themselves from it. It is these sort of people who, in believing our opinion, seem to do it a courtesy, and only favour it for the sake of a certain pleasure, which its singularity gives them. Well, says the Countess, interrupting me, and is not this enough for an opinion, which is but rarely probable? You would be very much surprised, says I, if I should tell you, probable is a very modest term. Is it simply probable that such a one as Alexander ever was? You hold it very certain that there was, and upon what is this certainty founded? Because you have all the proofs which you could desire in a like matter, and there does not the least subject for doubt present itself, to suspend or arrest your determination, for else you never could see this Alexander, and you have not one mathematical demonstration, that there ever was such a man. Now, what would you say, if the inhabitants of the planets were almost in the very same case? We cannot pretend to make you see them, and you cannot insist upon the demonstration here, as you would in a mathematical question. But you have all the proofs you could desire in a like matter, the entire resemblance of the planets with the earth, which is inhabited, the impossibility of conceiving any other use for which they were created, the fecundity and magnificence of nature, the certain regards she seems to have had to the necessities of their inhabitants, as in giving moons to those planets remote from the sun, and more moons still to those yet more remote, and what is still very material, there are all things to be said on this side, and nothing on the other, and you cannot comprehend the least subject for a doubt, unless you will take the eyes and understanding of the vulgar. In short, supposing that these inhabitants of the planets really are, they could not declare themselves by more marks, or marks more sensible, and after this you are to consider whether you are willing not to take their case to be more than purely probable. But you would not have me, replies the Countess, look upon this to be as certain as that there was such a man as Alexander? Not all together, madam, says I, for though we have as many proofs touching the inhabitants of the planets as we can have in the situation we are, yet the number of these proofs is not great. I must renounce these planetary inhabitants, replies she, interrupting me, for I can't conceive how to rank them in my imagination. There is no absolute certainty of them, and yet there is more than a probability. So that I am confounded in my notions. Ah, madam, says I, never put yourself out of conceit with them for that. The most common and ordinary clocks show the hours, but those are wrought with more art and nicety, which show the minutes. Just so your ordinary capacities are sensible of the difference betwixt of simple probability and a complete certainty, but is only your fine spirits that discern the exact proportions of certainty or probability, and can mark, if I may use the phrase, the minutes in their sentiments. Now place the inhabitants of the planets a little below Alexander, but above I can't tell how many points of history which are not so clearly proved. I believe this position will do well. I love order, says the Countess, and you oblige me in ranging my ideas for me, but pray, why didn't you take this care before? Because, says I, should you believe the inhabitants of the planets either a little more or less than they deserve, there will be no great damage in it. I am sure that you don't believe the motion of the earth so fully as it ought to be believed, and have you much reason to complain on that score? Oh, for that matter, replies she, I have discharged myself well. You have nothing to reproach me with on that account, for I firmly believe that the earth turns. And yet, says I, Madam, I have not given you the strongest reasons in proving it. Ah, traitor, replies the Countess, to make me believe things upon feeble proofs. Then you did not think me worthy of believing upon substantial reasons? I only proved things, said I, upon little engaging reasons, and such as were adapted to your peculiar use. Should I have conjured up a strong and solid argument as if I had been to attack a doctor in the science? Yes, says the Countess, pray take me for a doctor from this moment, and let me have your additional demonstrations of the earth's moving. With all my heart, says I, Madam, and I own the proof pleases me strangely, perhaps because I think it was of my own finding. Yet it is so good and natural that I must not presume positively to have been the inventor of it. It is most certain that if a learned man was puzzled and desired to make replications to it, he would be obliged to hold forth at large, which is the only method in the world to confound a learned man. We must grant that all the celestial bodies in four and twenty hours turn round the earth, or that the earth turning on itself imparts this motion to all the celestial bodies. But that they really have this revolution in four and twenty hours round the earth is a matter which has the least appearance in the world, though the absurdity does not presently appear to our view. All the planets certainly make their great revolution about the sun, but these revolutions of theirs are unequal according to the distances of the respective planets from the sun, for the most remote ones make their course in larger time, which is most agreeable to nature. The same order is observed among the little secondary planets in turning about a great one. The four moons of Jupiter and the Five of Saturn make their circles in more or less time round their great planet, according as they are more or less remote. Besides, it is certain that the planets have motions upon their own centers, and these motions likewise are unequal, we cannot well tell how to account for this inequality, whether it proceeds from the different magnitudes of the planets, or on the different swiftness of the particular vortexes which enclose them, and the liquid matters in which they are sustained. But, in short, the inequality is most undoubted, and such is the order of nature in general, that whatever is common to many things is found at the same time to vary in some different particulars. I understand you, says the Countess, interrupting me, and I think there's a great deal of reason in what you say. I'm entirely of your mind. If the planets turned about the earth, they would do it in unequal spaces of time, according to their distances, as they do about the sun. Is not that the meaning of what you are saying? Exactly, madam, says I, their unequal distances with respect to the earth, their different magnitudes, and the different rapidity of the particular vortexes enclosing them should consequently produce differences in their pretended motion round the earth, as well as in all their other motions. And the fixed stars, which are at such a prodigious distance from us, and so much elevated above everything that can take a general motion round us, at least which are situated in a place when this motion should be very much weakened, would there not be a very great appearance that they did not turn at all about us in four and twenty hours, as the moon does, who is so near us, and should not comets, which are strangers in our vortex, and which run courses so differing one from another, and with such unequal rapidity be excused from turning round us in the same space of four and twenty hours? But no matter, fixed stars and comets, and all must turn round the earth in four and twenty hours. Yet, if there were some minutes of difference in these motions, we might be contented, and they all must make them with the most exact equality, or rather the only exact equality which is in the world, and not one minute more or less allowed. In reality, this matter is strangely to be suspected. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Bouvier de Fontenelle, translated by William Gardiner. Chapter 6, Part 2. Oh! says the Countess, since it is possible that this grand equality should be only in our imagination, I am entirely convinced it is derived only from thence. I am very well pleased that any which is against the genius of nature should fall entirely upon ourselves, and that she should stand discharged, though at our expense. For my part, says I, I am such a foe to a perfect equality that I cannot even allow that all the turns which the earth every day makes on herself should be precisely in four and twenty hours, and always equal one to another. I should be very much inclined to think that there are differences. Differences, cried the Countess, why do not our pendulums mark an entire equality? Oh! says I, to your pendulums I must object, for they cannot be altogether just. And sometimes, when they are, in showing us that one circuit of twenty-four hours is longer or shorter than another, we should rather be inclined to believe them irregular than to suspect the earth of any irregularity in her revolutions. What a pleasant respect is this we have for her, I would no more depend on the earth than on a pendulum. And the very same casualties almost which will disorder the one will make the other irregular. Only, I believe, there must be some more time allowed for the earth than a pendulum to be visibly put out of order, and that's all the advantage we can give on her side. But might she not by degrees draw nearer to the sun? And they are finding herself in a situation where the matter is more agitated and the motion more rapid, she will in less time make her double revolution more about the sun and herself, so consequently her years and days will be much shortened, but not to be perceived, because we must still go on to divide the years into three hundred and sixty-five days, and the days into twenty-four hours. So that without living longer than we do now, we shall live more years, and on the other hand, as the earth shall withdraw from the sun, we shall live fewer years than we do now, and yet have our lives of the same extent. There is a great deal of probability, says the Countess, that whenever it falls out so, long successions of ages will make but very little differences. I agree with you, madam, replied I. The conduct of nature is very nice, and she has a method of bringing about all things by degrees, which are not sensible, but in very obvious and easy changes. We are scarce able to perceive the change of the seasons, and for some others, which are made with a certain deliberation, they do not fail to escape our observance. However, all is in a perpetual whirl, and not so much as the ladies face in the moon, which was discovered with telescope, within this twenty years, but what is grown considerably old. She had good tolerable countenance, but now her cheeks are sunk, her nose grown long, and her chin and forehead meet, so that all her graces are vanished, and age has made her a terrible spectacle. What a story do you tell me, says the Countess, interrupting me. To snow in position, madam, replied I, they have perceived in the moon a particular figure, which had the air of a woman's head jetting out of rocks, and it is owing to some changes that have happened there. Some pieces of mountains have moulded away, and left us to discover three points, which can only serve to make up the forehead, nose, and chin of an old woman. Well, says she, but don't you think it is some destiny that had a particular spite to beauty? And very justly it was this female head which she would attack above all the moon. Perhaps in recompense, replied I, the changes which happen upon our earth dress out some face which the people in the moon see. I mean something like what we conceive a face in the moon, for everyone bestows on objects those ideas of which they themselves are full. Our astronomers see on the surface of the moon the faces of women, and maybe, if the ladies were to make their speculations, they would discern the resemblance of fine men's faces. For my part, madam, I don't know whether I should not fancy your ladieship's charms there. I protest, says she, I can't help being obliged to anyone who should find me there. But to come back to what you were mentioning just now, do any considerable changes affect the earth? In all appearance they do, replied I. Our fables tell us that Hercules with his hands split asunder the two mountains, called Kelpie and Abila, which stand betwixt Africa and Spain, stopped the ocean from flowing there, and that immediately the sea rushed with violence over the land, and made that great gulf which we call the Mediterranean. Now this is not wholly fabulous, but a history of those remote times which has been disguised, either from the ignorance of the people, or through the love they had for the marvellous, the two most ancient frailties of mankind. That Hercules should separate two mountains with his two hands is absolutely incredible, but that in the time of one Hercules or other, for there were fifty of that name, the ocean should force down two mountains, not so strong as others in the world, and perhaps through the assistance of some earthquake, and so take his course betwixt Europe and Africa, gives me no manner of pain to believe. What a notable spot might the lunar inhabitants all of the sudden discover on our earth, for you know, madam, that seas are spots. It is not less the common opinion that Sicily was disjoint from Italy and Cyprus from Syria. There are sometimes new islands formed in the seas, earthquakes have swallowed up mountains, others have rose and have altered the course of the planets. The philosophers give us apprehensions that the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, which our countries laid upon great subterranean vaults full of sulphur, will one day sink in, when those vaults shall no longer be able to resist the flames which they contain, and that this time exhale at vents to Wit, Vesuvius and Etna. Is not here enough to diversify the sight which we give to the people in the moon? I had much rather, says the Countess, that we disgusted them with the same object always, than diverted them with the swallowing up of provinces. I don't know, replied I, if within this little time there have not been several burnt up in Jupiter. What? Provinces burnt up in Jupiter? cries the Countess. Upon my word that would be considerable news. Very considerable, says I, madame. We have remarked this year in Jupiter a long trail of light, more glaring than the rest of that planet's body. We have here had deluges. Perhaps they may have suffered great conflagrations in Jupiter. How do we know to the contrary? Jupiter is ninety times bigger than the earth and turns on his one center in ten hours, whereas we don't turn in less than four and twenty, which implies that his motion is two hundred and sixteen times stronger than ours. May it not be possible, that in so rapid a circulation, its most dry and combustible parts should take fire, as we see the axle trees in wheels, from the force of motion, will perfectly flame? But however it is, this light of Jupiter is by no means comparable to another, which in all probability is as ancient as the world, and yet we have never seen it. How does a light order it to be concealed? says the Countess. There must be some singular address to compass this point. This light, replied I, never appears but a twilight, which is often strong enough to drown it, and even when twilight suffers it to appear, either the vapours of the horizon rob us of it, or it is so very faint and hard to be perceived, that for want of exactness in our knowledge we mistake it for the twilight. But in short, for these last fifteen years they have with much certainty distinguished it, and it has been for some time the delight of the astronomers, whose curiosity wanted waking by some novelty, and they could not well have been more touched if they had discovered some new secondary planets. The two-letter moons of Saturn, for instance, did not ravish them to that degree which the guards or moons of Jupiter did, but now we are fully accustomed to it. We see, one month before, and after the vernal equinoctial, when the sun's set and the twilight over, a certain whitish light resembling the tail of a comet. We see the same before sunrise and before the twilight, towards the autumnal equinoctal, and towards the winter solstice we see at night and morning, except that these times it can't, as I but now observed, disengage itself from the twilight, which are too strong and lasting, for we suppose it to be a continued light, and in all probability it is so. We have begun to conjecture that it is produced from some prodigious quantity of matter crowded together, which circles around the sun to a certain extent. The greatest part of his rays pierce through his gross circuit and come down to us in a right line, but some resting on the inner surface of this matter are from thence reflected to us and come with direct rays, or else we can't have them either morning or evening. Now, as these reflected rays are shot from a greater height than those which are direct, we must consequently have them sooner and keep them longer. On this foot I must acquiesce in what I have already mentioned, that the moon must have no twilight for want of being surrounded by such a gross air as the earth, but she can be no loser. Her twilights will proceed from that kind of gross air which surrounds the sun and reflects his rays on places which his direct ones cannot reach. But pray let me know, says the Countess, are not there twilights settled for all the planets, who will not need everyone to be clothed with a distinct gross air, because that which surrounds the sun alone may have one general effect for all the planets in the vortex? I am mighty willing to think that nature, agreeable to that inclination which I know she has to economy and good management, should make that single means answer her purpose. Yet, replied I, notwithstanding that supposed economy, she must have, with respect to our earth, two causes for twilight, one whereof, which is the thick air about the sun, will be pretty useless and can only be an object of curiosity for the academy students. But not to conceal anything, it is possible that only the earth sends out from herself vapours and exhalations gross enough to produce twilights, and that nature had reason to provide by one general means for the necessities of all the other planets, which are, if I may so say, of a purer mould, and their evaporations consequently more subtle. We are perhaps those among all the inhabitants of the worlds in our vortex, who required to have a more gross and thick air given us to breathe in. With what contempt would the inhabitants of the other planets consider us if they knew this? They would be out in their reasoning, says the Countess, were not to be despised for being wrapped about with a thick air, since the sun himself is so surrounded. Pray, tell me, is not this air produced by certain vapours, which you have formally told me issued from the sun, and does it not serve to break the first force of his rays, which had else probably been to excess? I conceive that the sun may be veiled by nature to be more proportioned to our use. Well, madame, replied I, this is some small opening to a system which you have started very happily. We may add that these vapours may produce a kind of rain, which falling back upon the sun may cool and refresh it, as we sometimes throw water into a forge when the fire is too fierce. There is nothing which we may not presume to help out nature's address, but she has another kind of address very particular, which is to conceal herself from us, and we should not willingly be confident that we have found out her method of acting on her designs in it. In case of new discoveries, we should not be too importunate in our reasonings, though we are always fond enough to do it. And your true philosophers are like elephants, who, as they go, never put their second foot to the ground till their first be well fixed. The comparison seems to more just to me, says she, as the merit of those two species of animals, elephants and philosophers, does not at all consist in exterior agreements. I am willing to mistake the judgment of both. Now, teach me some of the latter discoveries, and I promise you not to make any rash systems. I'll tell you, madam, replied I, all the news I know from the firmament, and I believe the freshest advices you can have. I am sorry they are not as surprising and wonderful as some observations which I read t'other day in an abridgment of the Chinese annals written in Latin and published lately. They see a thousand stars at a time which fall from the sky into the sea with a prodigious noise, or are dissolved and melt into rains, and these are things which have been seen more than once in China. I met with this observation at two several times pretty distant from each other, without reckoning a certain star which goes eastward and bursts like a squib, always with a great noise. It is great pity that these sort of phenomena should be reserved for China, and that our countries should never have their share of these sites. It is not long since our philosophers thought they might affirm on good grounds that the heavens and all the celestial bodies were incorruptible, and therefore incapable of change. And yet, at the same time, there were other men in the other part of the earth who saw stars dissolve by thousands, which must produce a very different opinion. But, says the Countess, did we ever hear it allowed that the Chinese were such great astronomers? Tis true we did not, says I, but the Chinese have an advantage from being divided from us by such a prodigious tract of earth as the Greeks head over the Romans by being so much prior in time. Distances of every sort pretend a right of imposing on us. In reality, I think still more and more that there is a certain genius which has never yet been out of the limits of Europe, or at least not much beyond them. Perhaps he may not permitted to spread over any great extent of the earth at once, and that some fatality prescribes him very narrow bounds. Let us indulge him whilst we have him. The best of it is, he is not fettered up to the sciences and dry speculations, but launches out with as much success into subjects of pleasure in which point I question whether any people equal us. These are subjects, madam, that ought to give you entertainment, and make up your whole system of philosophy.