 Preface of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Kilpatrick. Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard LeBovier de Fontanel. Translated by William Gardner. Mr. Fontanel's Preface. I am pretty much in the case of Cicero when he undertook to write a philosophy in his own tongue. There being then no books upon that subject, but what were written in Greek. He was told, as he informed us, that he would take pains to no purpose because such as were admirers of philosophy would make use of Greek authors and not read Latin ones, which treated of it but at second hand. And those who had no such relish for this science would never trouble their heads with either Greek or Latin. Cicero replied, it might have been quite otherwise. Forrest says he, the great ease people will find in reading Latin books will tempt those to be philosophers who are none. And they who already are philosophers by reading Greek books will be very glad to see how the subject is handled in Latin. Cicero might with good reason answer as he did because the excellency of his genius and the great reputation he had acquired warranted the success of all he wrote. But in a design not much unlike his I am far from having those grounds of confidence which he had. My purpose is to discourse a philosophy but not directly in a philosophical manner and to raise it to such a pitch that it shall not be too dry and insipid as subject to please gentlemen nor too mean and trifling to entertain scholars. Should I be told as Cicero was that such a discourse as this would not please the learned because it can teach them nothing nor the illiterate because they will have no mind to learn I will not answer as he did. It may be endeavoring to please everybody I have pleased nobody. Now to keep the middle between two extremes is so very difficult that I believe I shall never desire to put myself a second time to the like trouble. If I should acquaint those who were to read this book and have any knowledge of natural philosophy that I do not pretend to instruct but only to divert them by presenting to their view in a gay and pleasing dress what they have already seen in a more grave and solid habit not but they to whom the subject is new may be both diverted and instructed. The first will act contrary to my intention if they look for profit and the second if they seek for nothing but pleasure I have chosen that part of philosophy which is most like to excite curiosity for I think nothing can concern us more than to inquire how this world which we inhabit is made and whether there be any other worlds like it which are also inhabited as this is but after all to set everybody's discretion how far they will run their disquisitions they who have any thoughts to lose may throw them away upon such subjects as these but I suppose such as can spend their time better will not be it so vain and fruitless and expense. In these discourses I have introduced a lady to be instructed in things of which she never heard and I have made use of this fiction to render the book the more acceptable and to give encouragement to gentle women by the example of one of their own sex who without any supernatural parts or tincture of learning understands what is said to her but any confusion rightly apprehends what vortexes and other worlds are and why may not there be a woman like this imaginary countess since her conceptions are no other than such as she could not choose but have to penetrate into things either obscure in themselves or but darkly expressed requires deep meditation and an earnest application of the mind but here nothing more is requisite than to read and to imprint an idea of what is read in the fancy which will certainly be clear enough I shall desire no more of the fair sex than that they will peruse this system of philosophy with the same application that they do a romance or novel when they would retain the plot or find out all its beauties it is true that the ideas of this are less familiar to most ladies than those of romances but they are not more obscure for at most twice or thrice thinking will render them very perspicuous I have not composed an airy system which has no foundation at all I have made use of some true philosophical arguments and of as many as I thought necessary but it falls out very luckily in this subject that the physical ideas are in themselves very diverting and as they convince and satisfy reason so at the same time they present to the imagination a prospect which looks as if it were made on purpose to please it when I meet with any fragments which are not of this kind I put them into some pretty strange dress Virgil has done the like in his Georgics when his subject is very dry he adorns it with pleasant digressions Ovid has done the same in his art of love and though his subject be of itself very pleasing yet he thought it tedious to talk of nothing but love my subject has more need of digressions than his yet I have made use of him very sparingly and of such only as the natural liberty of conversation allows I have placed them only where I thought my readers would be pleased to meet with them the greatest part of them are in the beginning of the book because the mind cannot at first be so well acquainted with the principal ideas which are presented to it and in a word they are taken from the subject itself or are as near to it as is possible I have fancied nothing concerning the inhabitants of the many worlds which must have been wholly fabulous and shimmery I have said all that can be reasonably thought of them and the visions which I have added have some real foundation what is true and what is false are mingled together but so is to be easily distinguished I will not undertake to justify so fantastical and odd a composition which is the principal point of the work and yet for which I can give no very good reason there remains no more to be said in this preface but to a sort of people who perhaps will not be easily satisfied though I have good reasons to give them but because the best that can be given will not content them they are those scrupulous persons who imagine that the placing inhabitants anywhere but upon the earth will prove dangerous to religion I know how excessively tender some are in religious matters and therefore I am very unwilling to give any offense in what I publish to people whose opinion is contrary to that I maintain but religion can receive no prejudice by my system which fills an infinity of worlds with inhabitants if a little error of the imagination be but rectified when to said the moon is inhabited some presently fancy that there are such men there as we are and church men without any more ado than Kim and Atheist who is of that opinion none of Adam's posterity ever traveled so far as the moon nor were any colonies ever sent there there the men then that are in the moon are not the sons of Adam and here again theology would be puzzled if there should be men anywhere who never descended from him to say no more this is the great difficulty to which all others may be reduced to clear it by a larger explanation I must make use of terms which deserve greater respect than to put into a treatise so far from being serious as this is but perhaps there is no need of answering the objection for it concerns nobody but the men in the moon and I never yet said there are men there if any ask what the inhabitants there are if they be not men all I can say is that I never saw him and it is not because I have seen him that I speak of him let none now think that I say there are no men in the moon purposely to avoid the objection made against me for it appears to be impossible there should be any men there according to the idea I framed of that infinite diversity and variety which is to be observed in the works of nature this idea runs through the whole book and cannot be contradicted by any philosopher nay I believe I shall only hear this objection started by such as shall speak of these discourses without having read them but is this a point to be depended on no on the contrary I should more probably fear that the objection might be made to me from many passages the reader will find in this edition besides many improvements interspersed in the body of the work one new conversation in which I have put together those reasonings which I had omitted in the foregoing ones and have subjoined some late discoveries in the firmament several of which were never yet made public End of Preface Recording by Michelle Kilpatrick Introduction of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard LeBeauvier de Fontanelle translated by William Gartner This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Discourses on the Plurality of Worlds to Missour R To give you, sir, as you desire a full account how I pass my time at the countess of these country seat would make a large volume and what is yet worse, a volume of philosophy whereas the entertainments you expect are of another kind dancing, gaming, hunting instead of which you must take up with vortexes planets and new worlds these were the subject of our conversation Now as good luck would have it, you're a philosopher so that it will be no great disappointment Nay, I fancy you'll be pleased that I brought over the countess to our party We could not have gained a more considerable person for youth and beauty are ever in esteemable If wisdom would appear with success to mankind think you she could do it more effectually than in the person of the countess and yet was her company but half so agreeable I am persuaded all the world would run mad after wisdom but though I tell you all the discourse I had with the lady you must not expect miracles from me it is impossible without her wit to express her sentiments in the same manner she delivered them for my part I think her very learned from the great disposition she has to learning it is not pouring upon books that makes a man a scholar I know many who have done nothing else and yet I fancy or not one tittle the wiser but perhaps you expect before I enter upon my subject I should describe the situation and building of the countess's house many great palaces have been turned inside outward upon far less occasion but I intend to save you and myself that labor let it suffice that I tell you I found no company with the lady which I was not at all displeased with the two first days drain me of all the news I brought from Paris what I now send you is the rest of our conversation which I will divide into so many parts as we were evenings together end of introduction chapter one part one of conversations on the plurality of worlds by Bernard Le Beauvier de Fontenelle translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain the first evenings conversation that the earth is a planet which turns on itself and round the sun one evening after supper we went to take a turn in the park the air from the heat of the preceding day was extremely refreshing the moon was about an hour high and her luster between the trees made an agreeable mixture of light and shade the stars were arrayed in all their glory and not a cloud appeared throughout the azure sky I was musing on this awful prospect but who can think long of the moon or stars in the company of a pretty woman I am much mistaken if that's a time for contemplation well madam says I to the countess is not the night as pleasant as the day the day says she like a fair beauty is clear and dazzling but the night like a brown beauty more soft and moving you are generous madam replied I to prefer the brown you who have all the charms that belong to the fair but is there anything more beautiful in nature than the day the heroines of romances are generally fair and that beauty must be perfect which has all the advantages of imagination tell me not says she of perfect beauty nothing can be so that is not moving but since you talk of romances why do lovers in their songs and elegies address themselves to the night tis the night madam says I that crowns their joys and therefore deserves their thanks but tis the night says she that hears their complaints but how comes it to pass the day is so little trusted with their secrets I confess madam says I the night has somewhat a more melancholy air than the day we fancy the stars march more silently than the sun and our thoughts wander with the more liberty whilst we think all the world at rest but ourselves besides the day is more uniform we see nothing but the sun and light in the firmament whilst the night shoes us variety of objects and gives us ten thousand stars which inspire us with as many pleasant ideas she replied what you say is true I love the stars there is somewhat charming in them and I could almost be angry with the sun for a facing and I can't says I pardon him for keeping all those worlds from my sight what world says she looking earnestly upon me what worlds do you mean I beg your pardon madam says I you have put me upon my folly and I begin to rave what folly says she I discover none alas says I I am ashamed I must own it I have had a strong fancy that every star is a world I will not swear that it is true but must think so because it is so pleasant to believe it does a fancy come into my head which is very diverting if your folly be so diverting says the countess pray make me sensible of it provided the pleasure be so great I will believe as much of the stars as you would have me a diversion madam says I does a diversion I fear you won't relish does not like one of more years plays does a pleasure rather of the fancy than of the judgment I hope replied she you do not think me incapable of it teach me your stars I will show you the contrary no no replied I it shall never be said I was talking philosophy at ten o'clock at night to the most amiable creature in the universe find your philosophers somewhere else but vain were my excuses who could resist such charms I was forced to yield and yet I knew not where to begin for to a person who understood nothing of natural philosophy you must go a great way about to prove that the earth may be a planet the planet so many earths and all the stars worlds however to give her a general notion of philosophy at last I resolved on this method madam says I all philosophy is founded upon these two propositions one that we are too short-sighted or two we are too curious for if our eyes were better than they are we should soon see whether the stars were worlds or not and if on the other side we were less curious we should not care whether the stars are worlds or not which I think is much to the same purpose but the business is we have a mind to know more than we see and again if we could discern well what we do see it would be so much known to us but we see things quite otherwise than they are so that your true philosopher will not believe what he does see and is always conjecturing at what he doth not which I think is a life not much to be envied upon this I fancy to myself that nature very much resembles an opera where you stand you do not see the stage as it really is but as tis placed with advantage and all the wheels and movements hid to make the representation the more agreeable and do you trouble yourself how or by what means the machines are moved though certainly an engineer in the pit is affected with what does not touch you he is pleased with the motion and is demonstrating to himself on what it depends and how it comes to pass this engineer is like a philosopher though the difficulty be greater on the philosophers part the machines of the theater being nothing so curious as those of nature which disposes her wheels and springs so out of sight that we have been a long while guessing at the movement of the universe let us imagine some of the ancient sages to be at an opera the Pythagoras is the plateaus the Aristotle and all the wise men who have made such a noise in the world for these many ages we will suppose him at the representation of fate where they see the aspiring youth lifted up by the winds but do not discover the wires by which he mounts nor know they anything of what is done behind the scenes would you have all these philosophers own themselves to be stark fools and confess ingenuously they don't know how it comes to pass no no they are not called wise men for nothing though let me tell you most of their wisdom depends upon the ignorance of their neighbors every man presently gives his opinion and how improbable so ever there are fools enough of all sorts to believe him one tells you fate is drawn up by a hidden magnetic virtue no matter where it lies and perhaps the grave gentleman will take pet if you ask him the question another says fate is composed of certain numbers that make him mount and after all the philosopher knows no more of those numbers than a sucking child does of algebra a third tells you fate has a secret love for the top of the theater and like a true lover cannot be at rest out of his mistresses company within hundreds such extravagant fancies that a man must conclude the old sages were very good banterers but now comes Mr. Descartes with some of the moderns and they tell you fate in a sense because a greater weight than he descends so that now we do not believe a body can move without it is pushed and forced by another body and as it were drawn by cords so that nothing can rise or fall but by the means of a counter poise to see nature then as she really is one must stand behind the scenes of the opera I perceive says the countess philosophy has now become very mechanical yes madam says I so mechanical that I fear we shall quickly be ashamed of it they will have the world to be enlarge what a watch is in small which is very regular and depends only upon the just disposing of the several parts of the movement but pray tell me madam had you not formally a more sublime idea of the universe don't you think you then honored it more than it deserved for most people have the less esteem for it since they have pretended to know it I am not of their opinion says she I value it the more since I know it resembles a watch and the more plain and easy the whole order of nature seems to be to me it appears the more admirable I don't know says she who has inspired you with these solid notions but I am certain there are but few who have them besides yourself people generally admire what they do not comprehend they have a veneration for obscurity and look upon nature as a kind of magic while they don't understand her and despise her below ledger domain when once they are acquainted with her but I find you madam so much better disposed that I have nothing to do but to draw the curtain and show you the world that then which appears farthest from the earth where we reside is called the heavens that is your firmament where the stars are fastened like so many nails and are called fixed because they seem to have no other motion than that of their heaven which carries them with itself from east to west between the earth and this great vault as I may call it hang at different heights the sun and the moon with the other five stars Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which we call the planets not being fastened to the same heaven and having very unequal motions have diverse aspects and positions whereas the fixed stars in respect to one another are always in the same situation for example, Charles's wane which is composed of those seven stars has been an ever will be as it now is though the moon is sometimes nearer to the sun and sometimes farther from it and so it is with the rest of the planets thus things appear to the old Chaldean shepherds whose great leisure produced these first observations which have since been the foundation of astronomy which science had its birth in Chaldea as geometry sprung from Egypt where the inundation of the Nile confounding the bounds of their fields occasioned their inventing more exact measures to distinguish everyone's land from that of his neighbor so that astronomy was the daughter of idleness geometry, the daughter of interest and if we did but examine poetry we should certainly find her the daughter of love I am glad, says the lady I have learnt the genealogy of the sciences and I'm convinced I must stick to astronomy my soul is not mercenary enough for geometry nor is it tender enough for poetry but I have as much time to spare as astronomy requires besides we are now in the country and lead a kind of pastoral life all which suits best with astronomy don't deceive yourself madam, says I it is a true shepherd's life to talk of the stars and planets see if they pass their time so in aftria that sort of shepherd's craft, replied she is too dangerous for me to learn I love the honest chaldeans and you must teach me their rules if you'd have me improve in their science but let us proceed when they had ranked the heavens in the manner you tell me pray, what is the next question the next, says I is the disposing the several parts of the universe which the learned call making a system but before I expound the first system I would have you observed we are all naturally like the mad man at Athens all the ships that came into the Parian port belong to him nor is our folly less extravagant we believe all things in nature designed for our use and do but ask a philosopher to what purpose there is that prodigious company of fixed stars when a far less number would perform the service they do us he answers coldly they were made to please our sight upon this principle they imagine the earth rested in the center of the universe while all the celestial bodies which were made for it took the pains to turn round to give light to it they placed the moon above the earth mercury above the moon after Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn above all these they set the heaven of fixed stars the earth was just in the middle of those circles which contained the planets and the greater the circles were they were the farther distant from the earth and by consequence the farthest planets took up the most time in finishing their course which in effect is true but why, says the Countess interrupting me do you dislike the system it seems to me very clear and intelligible however, says I Madam I will make it plainer for should I give it you as it came from Ptolemy, its author or some others who have since studied it I should fright you, I fancy, instead of diverting you since the motions of the planets are not so regular but that sometimes they go faster sometimes slower, sometimes are nearer the earth and sometimes farther from it the ancients invented, I don't know how many orbs or circles involved one within another which they thought would solve all objections this confusion of circles was so great that at that time when they knew no better a certain king of Aragon, a great mathematician but not much troubled with religion said that had God consulted him when he made the world he would have told him how to have framed it better the saying was very atheistical and no doubt the instructions he would have given the Almighty was the suppressing those circles with which they had clogged the celestial motions and the taking away two or three superfluous heavens which they placed above the fixed stars for these philosophers to explain the motion of the celestial body the celestial bodies had above the uppermost heaven which we see found another of crystal to influence and give motion to the inferior heavens and wherever they heard of another motion they presently clapped up a crystal heaven which cost them nothing but why says the Countess must their heaven be of crystal would nothing else serve as well no no replied I nothing so well for the light was to come through them and yet they were to be solid Aristotle would have it so he had found solidity to be one of their excellencies and when he had once said it nobody would be so rude as to question it but it seems there were comments much higher than the philosophers expected which as they passed along broke the crystal heavens and confounded the universe but to make the best of a bad market they presently melted down their broken glass Aristotle's confusion made the heavens fluid and by the observations of these latter ages it is now out of doubt that Venus and Mercury turn round the sun and not round the earth according to the ancient system which is now everywhere exploded and all the authorities not worth a rush but that which I am going to lay down will solve all and is so clear that the King of Aragon himself may spare his advice End of Chapter 1 Part 1 Chapter 1 Part 2 of Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard Le Beauvier de Fontanel translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain recording by Michelle Kilpatrick Me Thinks says the Countess your philosophy is a kind of outcry where he that offers to do the work cheapest it from all the rest this says I is very true nature is a great husband she always makes use of what costs lease let the difference be never so inconsiderable and yet this frugality is accompanied with an extraordinary magnificence which shines through all her works that is she is magnificent in the design but frugal in the execution and what can be more praise worthy than a great design accomplished with a little expense but in our ideas we turn things topsy-turvy we place our thrift in the design and are at ten times more charge in workmanship than it requires which is very ridiculous imitate nature then says she in your system and give me as little trouble as you can to comprehend you Madam says I fear it not we've done with our impertnances imagine then a German called Copernicus confounding everything tearing in pieces the beloved circles of antiquity and shattering their crystal heavens like so many glass windows seized with the noble rage of astronomy he snatches up the earth from the center of the universe sends her packing and places the sun in the center to which it did more justly belong the planets no longer turn around the earth nor enclose it in the circles they describe if they give us light it is but by chance and as they meet us in their way all now goes round the sun even the earth herself and Copernicus to punish the earth for her former laziness makes her contribute all he can to the motion of the planets and heavens and now stripped of all the heavenly equipage with which she was so gloriously attended she has nothing left her but the moon which still turns round about her Farron softly says the Countess I fancy you yourself recedes with the noble fury of astronomy a little less rapture and I shall understand you better the sun you say is in the center of the universe and is immovable Mercury says I follows next he turns round the sun so that the sun is in the center of the circle where in Mercury moves above Mercury's Venus who turns all around the sun after comes the earth which being placed higher than Mercury and Venus makes a greater circle around the sun than either of them at last comes Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the same order I name them so that Saturn has the greatest circle around the sun which is the reason he has a longer time in making his revolution than any of the other planets you have forgot the moon says the Countess we shall quickly find her again says I the moon turns round the earth and does not leave her but as the earth advances in the circle she describes about the sun and if the moon turns round the sun it is because she won't quit the earth I understand you says she and I love the moon for staying with us when all the other planets abandon us nay I fear your German would have willingly taken her away too if he could for in all his proceedings I find he had a great spite to the earth it was well done of him says I to abate the vanity of mankind it is the best place in the universe and it pleases me to see the earth in the crowds of the planets sure says she you don't think their vanity extends itself so far as astronomy do you believe you have humbled me in telling me the earth goes round the sun for my part I don't think myself the worst for it I confess madam says I it is my belief that a fair lady would be much more concerned for her place at a ball than for her rank in the universe and the precedence of two planets will not make half such a noise in the world as that of two ambassadors however the same inclination which rains at a ceremony governs in a system and if you love the uppermost place in the one the philosopher desires the center and the other he flatters himself that all things were made for him and insensibly believes a matter of pure speculation to be a point of interest this is a calony as she you have invented against mankind why did they receive this system if it was so erroneous I know not says I but I am sure Copernicus himself distrusted the success of his opinion it was a long time before he would venture to publish it nor had he done it then without the importunity of his friends but do you know what became of him the very day they brought him the first printed sheet of his book he died he knew that he should never be able to clear all the contradictions and therefore very wisely slipped out of the way I would be just to all the world says the Countess but to his heart to fancy we move and yet see we do not change our place we find ourselves in the morning where we lay down at night perhaps you'll tell me the whole earth moves yes certainly says I to the same case as if you fell asleep in a boat upon the river when you wake you find yourself in the same place and the same situation in respect to all the parts of the boat it is true replied she but here's a great difference when I wake I find another shore and that shows me my boat has changed its place but is not the same with the earth I find all things as I left them no no says I there's another shore too you know that beyond the circles of the planets are fixed stars I am upon the earth and the earth makes a great circle around the sun I look for the center of the circle and see the sun there then I direct my sight beyond the sun in a right line and should certainly discover the fixed stars which answer to the sun but that the light of the sun effaces them but at night I easily perceive the stars that corresponded with him in the day which is exactly the same thing if the earth did not change its place in the circle where it is I should see the sun always against the same fixed stars but when the earth changes its place the sun must answer to other stars and there again is your shore which is always changing and seeing the earth makes her circle in a year I see the sun likewise in the space of a year answer successively to the whole circle of the fixed stars which circle is called the zodiac I'll draw you the figure of it please on the sand tis no matter says she I can do well enough without it besides it will give an air of learning to my park which I would not have in it for I've heard of a certain philosopher who being shipwrecked and cast upon an unknown island seeing several mathematical figures traced on the seashore cried out to those who followed him courage, courage my companions the isles inhabited behold the footsteps of men may spare your figures such footsteps are not decent here I confess madam says I the footsteps of lovers would better become this place that is your name in cipher cut on the trees by your adores tell me not says she of lovers and adores I am for my beloved sun in planets but how comes it to pass that the sun as to the fixed stars completes his course but in a year and yet goes over our lands every day did you never replied I observe a bull on the green it runs towards the block and at the same time turns very often round itself so that the parts which were above are below and those which were below are above just so it is with the earth at the same time that she advances on the circle which in a year space she makes round the sun in 24 hours she turns round herself so that in 24 hours every part of the earth loses the sun and recovers him again and as it turns towards the sun it seems to rise and as it turns from him it seems to fall it is very pleasant says she that the earth must take all upon herself and the sun do nothing and when the moon the other planets and a fixed stars seem to go over our heads every 24 hours you'll say that too is only fancy you're fancy says I which proceeds from the same cause for the planets complete their courses round the sun at unequal times according to their unequal distances and that which today we see answer to a certain point in the zodiac or circle of the fixed stars tomorrow will answer to another point because it is advanced on its own circle as well as we are advanced upon ours we move and the planets move too but with more or less more validity than we this puts us in different points of sight and respect to them and makes us think their courses are regular but there is no occasion of discoursing to you on that head it is sufficient to inform you that what seems irregular in the planets proceeds only from our motion when in truth they are all very regular I will suppose them so says the countess but I would not have their regularity put the earth to so great trouble but I would not have such activity from so ponderous amass but says I had you rather that the sun and all the stars which are vast great bodies should in 24 hours make a prodigious tour around the earth and that the fixed stars which are in a circle of infinite extent whose movement is always extreme should run in a day 300 millions of leagues and go farther than from hence to China in the time that you could say to China as they needs must if the earth did not turn around itself every 24 hours to say the truth it is much more reasonable to think that she should make the tour which at most is not above 9000 leagues you perceive plainly that to set 9000 leagues against 300 millions is no trifling difference oh says she the sun and the stars are all fire their motion is not very difficult and fancy is a little unwieldy that signifies nothing for what think you of a first rate ship which carries 150 guns and above 3000 men besides her provisions and other furniture one puff of wind you see sets it assailant because the water is liquid and being easily separated very little resists the motion of the ship or if she lie in the middle of a river she will without difficulty drive with the stringing there is nothing to oppose her course so the earth though never so weighty is as easily born up by the celestial matter which is a thousand times more fluid than the water and fills all that great space for the planet's float for how else would you have the earth fastened to resist the motion of the celestial matter and not be driven by it you may as well fancy a little block of wood can withstand the current of a river but pray says she how can the earth with all its weight be born up by your celestial matter which must be very light because it is so fluid it does not argue says I that what is most fluid is most light for what think you of the great vessel I mentioned just now which with all its burden is yet lighter than the water it floats on I'll have nothing to do with that great vessel says she with some warmth and I begin to apprehend myself in some danger upon such a whirl a gig as you have made of the earth there is no danger replied I but madam if your fears increase will have the earth supported by four elephants as the Indians believe it hey day cries she here's another system however I love those people for taking care of themselves they have a good foundation to trust to while we Copernicans are a little too venturous with the celestial matter and yet I fancy if the Indians thought the earth in the least danger of sinking they would double their number of elephants they do well says I laughing at her fancy who would sleep in fear and if you have occasion for him tonight we will put as many as you please in our system we can take him away again by degrees as you grow better confirmed I don't think I'm very necessary says she I have courage enough to turn you shall turn with pleasure madam says I shall find delightful ideas in the system for example sometimes I fancy myself suspended in the air without any motion while the earth turns round me in 24 hours I see I know not how many different faces pass under me some white some black and some tawny sometimes I see hats and sometimes turbines now heads with hair and then shaved paints here I see cities with steeples some with spires and crescents others with towers or porcelain and anon great countries with nothing but huts here I see vast oceans and their most horrible deserts in short I discover the infinite variety which is upon the surface of the earth I confess says she 24 hours with us be very well bestowed so that in the place where we are now I don't mean in the park but we will suppose ourselves in the air other people continually pass by who take up our place and at the end of 24 hours we return to it again Copernicus himself says I could not have comprehended it better first then might we see the English passing by us up to the ears and politics yet settling the nation no better than we do the world in the moon then follows a great sea and there perhaps some vessel not near in that tranquility as we are then comes some of the Iroquois going to eat a prisoner for their breakfast who seems as little concerned as his devours after appear the women of the land of Fefo who spend all their time in dressing their husbands dinners and suppers and painting their lips and eyebrows blue only to please the greatest brutes in the world then the Tartars going devoutly on pilgrimage to their great Prestor John who never comes out of a gloomy apartment all hung with by the light of which they pay their adoration to him then the fair Circassians who make no scruples of granting everything to the first comer except what they think essentially belongs to their husbands then the inhabitants of little Tartary going to steal concubines from the Turks and Persians and at last our own dear countrymen it may be in some point as ridiculous as the best of them this says the Countess is very pleasant but to imagine you tell me though I were above and saw all this I would have the liberty to hasten or retard the motion of the earth according as the objects please me more or less and I assure you I should quickly send packing the politicians and managers but should have a great curiosity for the fair Circassians for me thinks they have a custom very particular but I have a difficulty to clear and you must be serious as the earth moves the air changes every moment so we breathe the air of another country not at all for the air which encompasses the earth does not extend above a certain height perhaps 20 leagues it follows us and turns with us have you not seen the work of a silkworm the shells which those little animals imprison themselves in and weave with so much art they are made of a silk very close but are covered with a down very loose and soft so the earth which is solid is covered from the surface 20 leagues upwards with a kind of down which is the air and all the shell of the silkworms turns at the same time beyond the air is the celestial matter incomparably more pure and subtle and much more agitated than the air your comparison says she is somewhat mean and yet what wonders are wrought what wars what changes in this little shell tis true replied I but nature takes no notice of such little particular motions but drives us along with the general motion as if she were at bowls me thinks says she tis very ridiculous to be upon a thing that turns and be in all this perplexity and yet not be well assured that it does turn and to tell you the truth I begin to distrust the reasons you give why we should not be sensible of the motion of the earth for is it possible there should not be some little mark left by which we might perceive it all motions says I the more common and natural they are are the less perceptible and this holds true even in morality the motion of self love is so natural to us that for the most part we are not sensible of it and we believe we act by other principles now says she are you moralizing to a question of natural philosophy which is running wide of the argument but enough this lecture is sufficient for this time let us now go home and meet here again tomorrow you with your systems and I with my ignorance in returning back to the castle that I might say all I could on the subject I told her of a third system invented by Tycho Brahe who had fixed the earth in the center of the world turned the sun around the earth and the rest of the planets around the sun for since the new discoveries there was no way left to have the planets turn around the earth the quickest apprehension replied she thought this too affected a system that among so many great bodies the earth only should be exempted from turning around the sun that was improper to make the sun turn around the earth when all the planets turn around the sun and that though this scheme was to prove the immobility of the earth yet she thought it very improbable so we resolved to stick to Copernicus whose opinion we thought most uniform probable and diverting in a word the simplicity of which convinces and the boldness surprises with pleasure end of chapter one part two chapter two part one of conversations on the plurality of worlds by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontanel translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain the second evening's conversation that the moon is an inhabited world the next morning as soon as anyone could get admittance I sent to the Countess's apartment to know how she had rested and whether the motion of the earth had not disturbed her she returned for answer she began to be accustomed to it and that Copernicus himself had not slept better sometime after there came some neighbors to dinner who stayed with her till the evening according to the tiresome custom in the country and they were very obliging in going then for the country likewise gives a privilege of extending their visit to the next morning if they are so disposed and have not the conscience to break up so the Countess and I found ourselves at Liberty in the evening we went again to the park and immediately fell upon our systems she so well retained what I told her the night before that she desired I would proceed without any repetition madam says I since the sun which is now immovable has left off being a planet and the earth which turns around him is now become one you'll not be surprised when you hear that the moon is an earth too and inhabitable world I confess says she I have often heard talk of the world in the moon but I always looked upon it as visionary and mere fancy and says I may be so still I am in this case as people in a civil war where the uncertainty of what may happen make some hold intelligence with the opposite party and correspond with their very enemies for though I verily believe the moon is inhabited I live civilly with those who do not believe it and I am like some honest gentleman in point of religion still ready to embrace the prevailing opinion but till the unbelievers have a more considerable advantage I declare for the inhabitants of the moon suppose there had never been any communication between Paris and st. Denis and a cockney who was never beyond the walls of his own city saw st. Denis from the towers of Notre Dame you ask him if he believes st. Denis is inhabited as Paris is he presently answers boldly no for says he I see very well the people at Paris that st. Denis I don't see at all nor did I ever hear of any there tis true you tell him that from the towers of Notre Dame he cannot perceive any inhabitants of st. Denis because of the distance but all that he does discover of st. Denis very much resembles what he sees at Paris the steeples, houses, walls so that it may very well be inhabited as Paris is all this signifies nothing my cockney still maintains that st. Denis is not inhabited because he sees nobody there the moon is our st. Denis and every one of us is like this Parisian cockney who never went out of his own city you are too severe, says she upon your fellow citizens we are not all sure so silly as your cockney since st. Denis is just like Paris he is a fool if he does not think it inhabited but the moon is not at all like the earth take care what you say madam replied I for if the moon resembles the earth you are under a necessity to believe it inhabited if it be so says she I own I cannot be dispensed from believing it and you seem so confident of it that I fear I must whether I will or no tis true the two motions of the earth which I could never imagine till now do a little stagger me as to all the rest yet how is it possible the earth shouldn't lighten as the moon does without which they cannot be alike if that be all says I the difference is not great for tis the sun which is the soul fountain of light that quality proceeds only from him and if the planets give light to us it is because they first receive it from the sun the sun sends light to the moon and she reflects it back on the earth the earth in the same manner receives light from the sun and sends it to the moon for the distance is the same between the earth and the moon as between the moon and the earth but says the countess is the earth is fit to send back the light of the sun as the moon is you are altogether for the moon says I she is much obliged to you but you must know that light is made up of certain little balls which rebound from what is solid but pass through what admits of entrance in a right line as air or glass so that what makes the moon enlighten us is that she is a firm and solid body from which the little balls rebound and we must deny our senses if we will not allow the earth the same solidity in short the difference is how we are seated for the moon being at so vast a distance from us we can only discover her to be a body of light and don't perceive that she is a great mass altogether like the earth whereas on the contrary because we are so near the earth we know her to be a great mass proper for the furnishing provision for animals but don't discover her to be a body of light for one of the due distance it is just so with us all says the countess we are dazzled with the quality and fortune of those who are above us when do but examine things nicely and we are all upon a level it's very true says I we would judge of all things but still stand in the wrong places we are too near to judge of ourselves and too far off to know others so that the true way to see things as they are is to be between the moon and the earth to be purely a spectator of this world and not an inhabitant I shall never be satisfied says she for the injustice we do the earth and the two favorable opinion we have of the moon till you assure me that the inhabitants of the moon are as little acquainted with their advantages as we are with ours and that they take our earth for a planet without knowing theirs is one too don't doubt it says I we appear to them to perform very regularly our function of a planet it is true they don't see us make a circle around them but that is no great matter that half of the moon which was turned towards us at the beginning of the world has been turned towards us ever since the eyes mouth and face which we have fancied of the spots in her are still the same and if the other opposite half should appear to us we should no doubt fancy another figure from the different spots that are in it not but that the moon turns upon herself and in the same time that she turns around the earth that is in a month but while she is making that turn around herself and that she should hide a cheek for example and appear somewhat else to us she makes a like part of her circle around the earth and still presents to us the same cheek so that the moon who in respect of the sun and stars turns around herself in respect of us does not turn at all they seem to her to rise and set in the space of 15 days but for our earth it appears to her to be held up in the same place in the heavens tis true this apparent immobility is not very agreeable to a body which should pass for a planet but it is not altogether perfect the moon has a kind of trembling which causes a little corner of her face to be sometimes hid from us and a little corner of the opposite half appears but then upon my words she attributes that trembling to us and fancies that we have in the heavens the motion of a pendulum which vibrates to and fro I find says the Countess the planets are just like us we cast that upon others which is in ourselves says the earth tis not I that turned tis the sun the moon says tis not I that shaked tis the earth there is a great deal of error everywhere but I would not advise you says I to undertake the reforming it you had better convince yourself of the entire resemblance of the earth and the moon imagine then these two great bowls held up in the heavens you know that the sun always enlightens the one half of a body that is round and the other half is in the shadow there is then one half of the earth and one half of the moon which is enlightened by the sun that is one half which is day and the other half which is night observe also that as a ball has less force after it has been struck against a wall and rebounds to the other side so is light weakened when it is reflected the pale light which comes to us from the moon is the very light of the sun but it cannot come to us from the moon but by reflection it has lost much of the force and luster it had when it came directly from the sun upon the moon and that bright light which shines directly upon us from the sun and which the earth reflects upon the moon is as pale and weak when it arrives there so that the light which appears to us in the moon and enlightens our nights is the part of the moon which has day and that part of the earth which has day when it is opposite to the part of the moon which has night gives light to it all depends upon how the moon and the earth behold one another at the beginning of the month we don't see the moon because she is between the sun and us that half of her which has day is then turned towards the sun and that half which has night turned towards us we can't see it then because it has no light upon it but that half of the moon which has night being turned to the half of the earth which has day sees us without being perceived and we then appear to them just as the full moon does to us so that as I may say the inhabitants of the moon have then a full earth but the moon being advanced upon her circle of a month comes from under the sun and begins to turn towards us a little corner of the half which is light there's the crescent then those parts of the moon which have night don't see all the half of the earth which has day and we are then in the wane to them I understand you perfectly says the countess without hesitation I can comprehend the rest at pleasure and I have nothing to do but think a moment and bring the moon upon her circle of a month I see in general that the inhabitants of the moon have a month quite contrary to us when we have a full moon their half of the moon which is light is turned to our half of the earth which is dark they don't see us at all and they have then a new earth this is plain I would not stand the reproach of requiring a long explication on so easy a point but now tell me how come the eclipses you may easily guess that says I when it is new moon that she is between the sun and us and all her dark half is turned towards us who have light that obscure shadow is cast upon us if the moon be directly under the sun that shadow hides him from us and at the same time obscures part of that half of the earth which is light which was seen by that half of the moon which was dark here then is an eclipse of the sun to us during our day and an eclipse of the earth to the moon during her night when it is full moon the earth is between her and the sun and all the dark half of the earth is turned towards all the light half of the moon the shadow then of the earth cast itself towards the moon and if it falls on the moon it obscures that light half which we see which then has day and hinders the sun from shining on it here then is an eclipse of the moon to us during our night and an eclipse of the sun to the moon during her day but the reason that we have not eclipses every time that the moon is between the sun and the earth or the earth between the sun and the moon is because these three bodies are not exactly placed in a right line and by consequence that which should make the eclipse casts its shadow a little beside that which should be obscured I am surprised says the Countess that there should be so little mystery in eclipses and that the whole world should not know the cause of them nor ever will says I as some people go about it in the East Indies when the sun and the moon are in eclipse they believe a certain devil who has black claws is seizing on those planets with his talons and during that time the rivers are covered with the heads of Indians who are up to the neck in water because they esteem it a very devout posture to implore the sun and the moon to defend them against the devil in America they are persuaded that the sun and the moon when eclipsed are angry and what is it they will not do to be reconciled with them the Greeks who were so refined also believe the moon was then enchanted and that the magicians forced her to descend from heaven and shed a malignant juice on the plants nay, what a panic fear were we and not above 40 years ago at an eclipse of the sun how many people hid themselves in cellars and all the philosophers who treated of its cause could not persuade them to come out so the eclipse was over in good faith says she to scandalous for men to be such cowards there ought to be a general law of mankind to prohibit the discoursing of eclipses that we might not call to mind the follies that have been said and done upon that subject your law then says I must abolish even the memory of all things and forbid us to speak at all for I know nothing in the world which is not a monument of the folly of man end of chapter 2 part 1 chapter 2 part 2 of conversations on the plurality of worlds by Bernard Lebovier de Fontanel translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain but what do you think says she of the inhabitants of the moon are they as fearful of an eclipse as we are it would be a very good jest to see the Indians there up to the neck and water that the American should believe the earth angry with them the Greeks fancy we were bewitched and would destroy their plants in short that we should cause the same consternation among them as they among us and why not says I I don't at all doubt it for why should the people in the moon have more wit than we what right have they to affright us and not we them for my part continued I laughing I believe that since a prodigious company of men have been and still are such fools to adore the moon there certainly are people in the moon that worship the earth and that we are upon our knees the one to the other she we don't pretend to send any influences to the moon and to give a crisis to her sick if the people have any wit in those parts they'll soon destroy the honor we flatter ourselves with and I fear we shall have the disadvantage madam says I don't fear that do you think we are the only fools of the universe is it not consistent with ignorance to spread itself everywhere is true we can only guess at the folly the people in the moon but I know more doubt it than I do the most authentic news that comes from thence what authentic news comes from thence says she that which the learned bring us replied I who traveled there every day with their tubes and telescopes they'll tell you of their discoveries of lands seas lakes high mountains and deep abysses indeed says she I fancy they may discover mountains and abysses because of the remarkable inequality but how do they distinguish lands and seas very easily says I for the waters letting part of the light pass through them send back but a very little so that they appear a far off like so many dark spots whereas the lands being solid reflect the whole light and appear to be more bright and shining the famous Mr. Cassini a man of the largest acquaintance in the world with the firmament discovered in the moon something which divided then reunited and sunk in a sort of wells we may with very much probability suppose this was a river nay they pretend to be so well acquainted with the several places that they have given them all names one they call Copernicus another Archimedes and a third Galileas there is the Caspian sea the black lake the porphyry right mountains in short they have published such exact descriptions of the moon that a very almanac maker will be no more to seek there than I am in Paris I must own then says the Countess they are very exact but what do they say to the inside of the country I would very faint know that it is impossible replied I the most learned astronomers of our age cannot inform you you must ask that of Alouiso who was carried into the moon by st. John I am going to tell you one of the agreeable follies of Ariosto which I am confident you will be well pleased to hear I must confess he had better have let alone st. John whose name is worthy of respect but his a poetical license and must be allowed the poem which is called Orlando Furioso is dedicated to a cardinal and a great pope has honored it with his approbation which is prefixed to several of the editions this is the argument Roland, nephew to Charlemagne falls mad because the fair Angelica prefers Medor before him Astolfo a knight errant finding himself one day in the terrestrial paradise which was upon the top of the very high mountain where he was carried by his flying horse meet st. John there who tells him if he would have Roland cured he must make a voyage with him into the moon Astolfo who had a great mind to see new countries to not stand much upon entreaty there immediately came a fiery chariot which carried the Apostle in the night up into the air Astolfo being no great philosopher was surprised to find the moon so much bigger than it appeared to him when he was upon the earth to see rivers, seas, mountains, cities, forests nay what would have surprised me too nymphs hunting in those forests but that which appeared most remarkable was a valley where you might find anything that was lost in our world of what nature soever crowns, riches, fame and an infinity of hopes the time we spend in play and in searching for the philosopher's stone the alms we give after our death the verses we present to great men and princes and the size of lovers I don't know says the Countess what became of the size of lovers in Ariosto's time but I fancy there are very few of them that send to the moon in our days ah madam replied I how many does your ladyship send there every day those that are addressed to you will make a considerable heap and I assure you the moon keeps all safe that is lost here below yet I must tell you Ariosto does but whisper it though everything is there even the donation of Constantine the popes have pretended to be masters of Rome and Italy by virtue of a donation which the emperor Constantine made Sylvester and the truth on it is nobody knows what's become of it but what do you think is not to be found in the moon folly all that ever was upon the earth is kept there still but in lieu of it it is not to be imagined how many wits if I may so call them the wits here are got up into the moon they are so many vials full of a very subtle liquor which evaporates immediately if it be not well stopped and upon every one of these vials the names are written to whom the wits belong I think Ariosto has heaped him upon one another a little confusedly but for order's sake we will fancy him placed upon shelves in a long gallery Astolfo wondered to see several vials full inscribed with the names of persons whom he thought considerable for their wisdom to confess the truth I begin to fear since I have entertained you with these philosophical and poetical visions mine there is not very empty however to some consolation to me that while you were so attentive you have a little glass full as well as your humble servant the good knight found his own wits among the rest and with the apostles he snuffed it all up his nose like so much hungry water but Ariosto said he did not carry it far it returned again to the moon a little after well he did not forget Roland's vial which was the occasion of his voyage but he was cursently plagued to carry it for hero's wits are naturally very heavy and there did not want one drop of it to conclude Ariosto according to his laudable custom of saying whatever he pleases addresses himself to his mistress in very beautiful verses fair mistress who for me to heaven shall fly to bring again from thence my wandering wit which I still lose since from that piercing eye the dark came forth that first my heart did hit nor of my loss at all complain would I might I but keep that which remaineth yet but if it still decrease within short space I doubt I shall be in Rolando's case yet well I want where to recover mine though not in paradise nor Cynthia's fear yet doubtless in a place no less divine in that sweet face of yours in that fair hair that ruby lip in those two star like I'm there is my wit I know it wanders there and with my lips if you would give me leave I there would search events would it receive is not this very pleasant to reason like Ariosto the safest way of losing our wits is to be in love for you see they don't go far from us we may recover them again at our lips but when we lose them by other means as for example by philosophizing they are gone with the jerk into the moon and there is no coming at him again when we would however says the countess our vials have an honorable station among the philosophers went his 40 to one but love fixes our wits on an object we cannot but be ashamed of but to take away mine entirely pray tell me very seriously if you believe there are any men in the moon for me things hitherto you have not been very positive for my part says I I don't believe there are men in the moon for do but how much the face of nature is changed between this and China other visages shapes manners may almost other principles of reason and therefore between us and the moon the alteration must be much more considerable in the lands that have been lately discovered we can scarce call the inhabitants men they are rather animals in human shape and that too sometimes very imperfect almost without human reason he therefore that will travel to the moon must not expect to find men there what sort of people are they then says the countess with an air of impatience truth madam replied I I don't know for put the case that we ourselves inhabited the moon and were not men but rational creatures could we imagine do you think such fantastical people upon the earth mankind is is it possible we should have an idea of so strange a composition a creature of such foolish passions and such wise reflections granted but such a span of life and yet pursuing views of such extent so learned in trifles and so stupidly ignorant matters of the greatest importance so much concern for liberty and yet such great inclinations to servitude so desirous of happiness and yet so very incapable of being so the people in the moon must be wise indeed to suppose all this of us but don't we see ourselves continually and can't so much as guess how we were made so that we are forced to say the gods when they created us were drunk with nectar and when they were sober again could not choose but laugh at their own handiwork well well says the countess we are safe enough then they in the moon know nothing of us but I could wish we were a little better acquainted with them for it troubles me that we should see the moon above us and yet not know what is done there why says I are you not as much concerned for that part of the earth which is not yet discovered what creatures inhabit it and what they do there for we and they are carried in the same vessel they possess the prow and we the poop and yet there is no manner of communication between us they don't know at one end of the ship who lives or what is done at the other end and you would know what passes in the moon which is another great vessel sailing in the heavens at a vast distance from us oh says she for the earth I reckon it all as good as discovered and can guess at the people though I never heard a word of them for to certain they all very much resemble us and we may know them better when we have a mind to it they'll stay where they are and is no more but going to see him but we can't get into the moon if we would so that I despair of knowing what they do there you'll laugh at me says I if I should answer you seriously perhaps I may deserve it and yet I fancy I can say a great deal to justify a ridiculous thought that is just now come into my head nay to use the fool's best argument I'll lay a wager I make you own in spite of reason that one of these days there may be a communication between the earth and the moon and who knows what great advantages we may reap by it do but consider America before it was discovered by Columbus how profoundly ignorant were those people they knew nothing at all of arts and sciences they went naked had no other arms but bows and arrows and did not apprehend they might be carried by animals they looked upon the sea as a wide space not for the use of men that it was joined to the heavens and beyond it was nothing tis true after having spent whole years in hollowing the trunks of great trees with sharp stones they put themselves to sea in these trunks and floated from land to land as the wind in waves drove them how often was their trough overset and they forced to recover it again by swimming so that except when they were on land it might be said they were continually swimming and yet had anyone but told them of another kind of navigation incomparably more perfect and useful than their own that would easily convey over that infinite space of water that they might stop in the middle of the waves and in some sense command the winds and make their vessel go fast or slow as they pleased in short that this impassable ocean should be no obstacle to their conversing with another different people do you think they'd have believed you and yet at last that day has come the unheard of and most surprising sight appears vast great bodies with white wings are seen to fly upon the sea to vomit fire from all parts and to cast on their shores and unknown people all sealed with iron who dispose and govern monsters as they please carry thunder in their hands and overthrow and destroy whoever resists them from whence came they who brought them over the sea who gave to them the disposal of the fire of heaven are they gods are they the offspring of the sun for certainly they are not men do you consider madam the surprise of the americans there can be nothing greater and after this will anyone say there shall never be a communication between the moon and the earth did the americans believe there would ever be any between them and europe till it came to pass tis true you must pass this great space of air and heaven which is between the earth and the moon but did not those vast seas seem at first as impassable to the americans you rave i think says she who denies it madam said i nay but i'll prove it replies she i don't care for your bear owning it did you not own the americans were so ignorant that they had not the least conception of crossing the sea but we who know a great deal more than they can imagine and fancy the going through the air though we are assured it is not to be done there is somewhat more than fancy replied i when it has been already practiced for several have found the secret of fastening wings which bear them up in the air to move them as they please and to fly over rivers and from steeple to steeple i can't say indeed that they have yet made an eagles flight or that it does not cost now and then a leg or an arm to one of these new birds but this may serve to represent the first planks that were launched on the water and which were the beginning of navigation there were no vessels then thought of to sail around the world and yet you see what great ships are grown by little and little from those rude planks the art of flying is but newly invented to will improve by degrees and in time grow perfect then we may fly as far as the moon we don't yet pretend to have discovered all things or that what we have discovered can receive no addition and therefore pray let us agree there are yet many things to be done in the ages to come were you to live a thousand years says the Countess i can never believe you'll fly but you must endanger your neck i will not reply die be so unmanly as to contradict a fair lady but though we can't learn the art here i hope you will allow they may fly better in the moon there's no great matter whether we go to them or they come to us we shall then be like the Americans who knew nothing of navigation and yet there were very good ships at the other end of the world were it so says she in a sort of passion the inhabitants of the moon would have been here before now all in good time says i the Europeans were not in America till about some 6000 years there was so long an improving navigation to the point of crossing the ocean the people in the moon have already made some short voyages in the air they are exercising continually and by degrees will be more expert then we shall see them and God knows how we shall be surprised it is unsufferable says she you should banter me at this rate and justify your ridiculous fancy by such false reasoning i'm going to demonstrate says i you reproach me very unjustly consider madam that the world is unfolded by degrees for the ancients were very positive that the torrid and frigid zones were not habitable by reason of their excessive heat and cold and in the time of the romans the general map of the world was but very little extended beyond that of their empire which though in one respect expressed much grander in another sense was a sign of as great ignorance however there were men found both in very hot and in very cold countries so that you see the world is already increased after that it was thought that the ocean covered the whole earth except what was then discovered there was no talk then of the antipodes not so much as a thought of them for who could fancy their heels at top and their heads at bottom and yet after all their fine reasoning the antipodes were discovered here's now another half of the world starts up and a new reformation of the map me thinks this madam should restrain us and teach us not to be so positive in our opinions the world will unfold itself more to us hereafter we shall then know the people in the moon as well as we do now the antipodes but all things must be done in order the whole earth must be discovered until we are perfectly acquainted with our own habitation we shall never know that of our neighbors without fooling says the Countess looking earnestly upon me you are so very profound in this point that I begin to think you are an earnest and believe what you say not so neither says I but I would show you how easy it is to maintain a shimmerical notion that may perplex a man of understanding but never convince him there is no persuasive like truth it has no need to exert all its proofs but enters naturally into our understanding and when once we have learned it we do nothing but think of it I think you then says she for imposing on me no longer for I confess your false reasoning disturbed me but now I shall sleep very quietly if you think fit to go home end of chapter 2 part 2 chapter 3 part 1 of conversations on the plurality of worlds by Bernard Le Beauvier de Frontenac translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain the third evening's conversation some particulars concerning the world in the moon and proofs of the other planets being likewise inhabited the countess was so intent upon her notions that she would feign have engaged me next day to go on where I left off but I told her since the moon and stars were become the subject of our discourse we should trust our chimeras with nobody else at night we went again into the park which was now dedicated to our learned conversation well madam says I I have great news for you that which I told you last night of the moons being inhabited may not be so now there is a new fancy got into my head which puts those people in great danger I can't suffer that says she yesterday you were preparing me to receive a visit from them and now there are no such folks in nature you must not trifle with me thus once you would have me believe the moon was inhabited I surmounted the difficulty I had you will now believe it you were a little too nimble replied I didn't I advise you never to be entirely convinced in things of this nature but to reserve half your understanding free and disengaged that you might admit of a contrary opinion if there should be any occasion I care not for your sentences says she are we not to consider the moon as St. Dennis? no says I resemble the earth as St. Dennis does Paris the sun draws vapors from the earth and exhalations from the water which mounting to a certain height in the air do their assemble and form the clouds these uncertain clouds are driven irregularly round the globe sometimes shadowing one country and sometimes another he then who beholds the earth from afar off will see frequent alterations upon its surface because a great country overcast with clouds will appear dark or light as the clouds stay or pass over it you'll see the spots on the earth often change their place and appear or disappear as the clouds remove but we see none of these changes wrought upon the moon which would certainly be the same where there but clouds about her but on the contrary all her spots are fixed and certain and her light parts continue where they were at first which indeed is a great misfortune for this reason the sun draws no exhalations or vapors above the moon so that it appears she is a body infinitely more hard and solid than the earth whose subtle parts are easily separated from the rest and mount upwards as soon as heat puts them in motion but it must be a heap of rock and marble where there is no evaporation besides exhalations are so natural and necessary where there is water that there can be no water at all where there is no evaporation and what sort of inhabitants must those be whose country affords no water is all rock and produces nothing very fine says she you have forgot since you assured me we might from hence distinguish seas in the moon pray what has become of your Caspian sea in your black lake all conjecture madam replied I though for your ladieship's sake I'm very sorry for it for those dark places we took to be seas may perhaps be nothing but large cavities it is hard to guess right at so great a distance but will this suffice then says she to extirpate the people in the moon not all together replied I we will neither determine for nor against them I must own my weakness if it be one says she I can't be so perfectly undetermined as you would have me to be but must believe one way or other therefore pray fix me quickly in my opinion as to the inhabitants of the moon preserve or annihilate them as you please and yet me thinks I have a strange inclination for him it would not have him destroyed if it were possible to save you know says I madam I can deny you nothing the moon shall be no longer a desert but to do you service we will re-people her since to all appearance the spots on the moon do not change I can't conceive there are any clouds about her that sometimes obscure one part and sometimes another yet this does not hinder but that the moon sends forth exhalations and vapors are clouds which we see in the air or nothing but exhalations and vapors which at their coming out of the earth were separated into such minute particles that they could not be discerned but as they ascend higher they are condensed by the cold and by the reunion of their parts are rendered after which they become great clouds which fluctuate in the air their improper region till they return back again and rain however these exhalations and vapors sometimes keep themselves so dispersed that they are imperceptible or if they do assemble it is informing such subtle dues that they cannot be discerned to fall from any cloud now for that it is incredible that the moon is such a mass that all its parts are of an equal validity all at rest one with another and all incapable of any alterations from the efficacy of the sun I'm sure we are yet unacquainted with such a body marble itself is of another nature and even that which is most solid is subject to change and alteration either from the secret and invisible motion it has within itself or from that which it receives from without it may so happen that the vapors which issue from the moon may not assemble around her in clouds and may not fall back again in rain but only in dues it is sufficient for this that the air with which the moon is envired for it is certain that the moon is encompassed with air as well as the earth be a little different from our air and the vapors of the moon a little different from those of the earth which is very probable here upon the matter being otherwise disposed in the moon than on the earth the effects must be different with no great consequence whether they are or no for from the moment we have found an inward motion in the parts of the moon or one produced by foreign causes here is enough for the new birth of its inhabitants and a sufficient and necessary fund for their subsistence this will furnish us with corn, fruit, water and what we please else I mean according to the customer manner of the moon which I do not pretend to know an all proportion to the wants and uses of the inhabitants with whom I pretend to be as little acquainted that is to say replied the Countess you know all is very well without knowing how it is so which is a great deal of ignorance upon a very little knowledge however I comfort myself that you have given the moon her inhabitants again and have wrapped her in an air of her own without which a planet would seem to me but very naked tis these two different airs says I that hinder the communication of the two planets if it was only flying as I told you yesterday who knows but we might improve it to perfection though I confess there is but little hopes of it the great distance between the moon and the earth is a difficulty not easily to be surmounted yet where the distance but inconsiderable and the two planets almost contiguous it would be still impossible to pass from the air of the one into the air of the other the water is the air of fishes they never pass into the air of the birds nor the birds into the air of the fish and yet tis not the distance that hinders them but both are imprisoned by the air they breathe in we find our air consists of thicker and grosser vapors than the air of the moon so that one of her inhabitants arriving at the confines of our world as soon as he enters our air will inevitably drown himself and we shall see him fall dead on the earth I should rejoice at a rat says the Countess of a good number of these lunar people how pleasant would it be to see him lie scattered on the ground where we might consider at our ease their extraordinary figures but what says I if they could swim on the outward surface of our air and be as curious to see us as you are to see them should they angle or cast a net for us as for so many fish as you why not for my part I would go into their nets of my own accord but for the pleasure to see such strange fisherman consider says I you would be very sick when you were drawn to the top of our air for it is not respirable in all its extent as may be seen on the tops of some very high mountains and I admire that they who have the folly to believe that our fairies whom they allow to be corporeal and have it the most pure and refined air don't tell us that the reason why they give us such short and seldom visits is that there are very few among them that can dive and those that can if it be possible to get through the thick air where we are cannot stay half so long in it as your diving fowls can in the water here then are natural barricades which defend the passage out of our world as well as the entry into that of the moon so that since we can only guess at that world let us fancy all we can of it for example I would suppose that we may see there the firmament the sun and the stars of another color than what they are here all these appear to us through a kind of natural spectacles which change and alter the objects these spectacles are our air mixed as it is with vapors and exhalations and which does not extend itself very high some of our modern philosophers pretend of itself it is blue as well as the water of the sea and that this color neither appears in the one nor in the other but at a great depth the firmament say they where the fixed stars are fastened has no peculiar light of its own and by consequence must appear black but we see it through the air which is blue and therefore to us it appears blue which if so the beams of the sun and stars cannot pass through the air without being tinged a little with its color and losing as much of their own yet where the air of no color it is very certain that through a great mist the light of a flamboy at some distance appears reddish though it be not its true natural color our air is nothing but a great mist which changes the true color of the sky of the sun and of the stars it belongs only to the celestial matter to bring us the light and colors as they really are in all their purity so that since the air of the moon is of another nature than our air or is stained of another color or at least is another kind of mist which causes other alterations to the colors of the celestial bodies in short as to the people of the moon their spectacles through which they see everything are changed if it be so says the Countess I prefer my abode before that of the moon for I can't believe the celestial colors are so well suited as they are here for instance let us put green stars on a red sky they can't be so agreeable as stars of gold on an azure firmament to hear you says I one would think you was choosing a petticoat or a suit of knots but believe me nature does not want fancy leave it to her to choose colors for the moon and I'll engage they shall be well sorted she will not fail to vary the prospect of the universe at every different point of sight and the alteration shall always be very agreeable I know very well says the Countess her skill in this point she is not at the charge of changing the objects but only the spectacles and has the credit of this great variety without being at any expense with a blue air she gives us a blue firmament and perhaps with a red air she gives to the inhabitants of the moon a red firmament still it is but the same firmament nay I am of opinion she has placed the sort of spectacles in our imagination through which we see all things and which to every particular man change the objects Alexander looked on the earth as a fit place to establish a great empire it seemed to sell a don a proper residence for astria and it appeared to a philosopher a great planet in the heavens covered with fools I don't believe the sites are more between the earth and the moon than they do between one man's fancy and another's this change in our imaginations says I is very surprising for they are still the same objects though they appear different when in the moon we may see other objects we do not see here or at least not see all there we do see here perhaps in that country they know nothing of the dawn and the twilight before the sun rises and after the sun sets the sun rises and is elevated above us receives the rays so that they can't strike on the earth and being gross stops some of them and sends them to us though indeed they were never naturally designed us so that the daybreak and the twilight are a favor which nature bestows on us they are a light which regularly we should not have and which she gives us over and above our dew but in the moon where apparently the air is more pure and so proper to send down the beams it receives from the sun before his rising and after his setting they have not that light of grace as I may call it which growing greater by degrees does more agreeably prepare them for the arrival of the sun and which growing weaker and diminishing by degrees does insensibly prepare them for the sun's departure but they are in a profound darkness where curtain as it were is drawn all on a sudden their eyes are immediately dazzled with the whole light of the sun in all its glory and brightness so likewise they are suddenly surprised with utter darkness the night and the day have no medium between them but they fall in a moment from one extreme into the other the rainbow likewise is not known to them in the moon for if the dawn is an effect of the grossness of the air and vapors the rainbow is formed in the clouds from whence the rain falls so that the most beautiful things in the world are produced by those things which have no beauty at all since then there are no vapors thick enough nor no clouds of rain about the moon farewell dawn a due rainbow what must lovers do for similes to liken their mistresses to in that country when such an inexhaustible magazine of comparisons is taken from them nay I shall never take the loss of their comparisons much to heart says the Countess I think them well enough recompense for the loss of our dawn and rainbow for by the same reason they have neither thunder nor lightning both which are formed in the clouds how glorious are their days the sun continually shining how pleasant their nights when not the least star is hid from them they never hear of storms or tempests which seem plain effects of the wrath of heaven do you think they stand in need of our pity for describing the moon like an enchanted residence but do you think it is so pleasant to have a scorching sun always over our head where the days are 15 times as long as ours and not the least cloud to moderate its heat though I fancy to this for this reason that nature has made great cavities in the moon we can discern them easily with our telescopes for they are not mountains but so many wells or vaults and what do we know but the inhabitants of the moon being continually broiled by the excessive heat of the sun do retire into those great wells perhaps they live nowhere else until there they build them cities for we still see in the ruins of old Rome that that part of the city which was underground was almost as large as that which was above ground we need to take that part away and the rest would remain like one of these lunar towns the whole people reside in wells and from one well to another there are subterranean passages for the communication of the inhabitants I perceive you laugh at me but you are at your liberty yet to deal freely with you you deserve it much better than I for you believe the people in the moon must live upon the surface of their planet because we do so upon ours but quite contrary since we dwell upon the superficies of our planet they should not dwell upon the superficies of their planet if things differ so much in this world what must they do in another end of chapter 3 part 1 chapter 3 part 2 of conversations on the plurality of worlds by Bernard Lebovier de Fontenelle translated by William Gardner this library box recording is in the public domain it is no matter says the Countess I can never suffer the inhabitants of the moon to live in perpetual darkness you will be more concerned for him replied I when I tell you that one of the ancient philosophers did long since discover the moon to be the abode of the blessed souls departed out of this life and that all their happiness consisted in hearing the harmony of the spheres which is made by the motion of the celestial bodies but because the philosopher pretends to know exactly all they do there he tells you that when the moon is obscured by the shadow of the earth they no longer hear the heavenly music but howl like so many souls in purgatory so that the moon taking pity on them makes all the hay she can to get into the light again me thinks then says she we should now and then see some of the blessed souls arrive here from the moon for certainly they are sent to us and between the two planets some think there is sufficient provision made by the simplicity of souls by their transportation into a new world I confess indeed says I it would be very pleasant to see different worlds such a voyage though but an imagination is very delightful but what would it be in effect it would be much better certainly than to go to Japan which at best is but crawling from one end of the world to the other and after all to see nothing but men well then says she let us travel over the planets as fast as we can what should hinder us let us place ourselves at all the different prospects and from then consider the universe but first have we any more to see in the moon yes replied I that world is not yet entirely exhausted you remember well that the two movements which turn the moon on herself and about us being equal the one always presents to our eyes that part which the other must consequently deprive us of and so she always wears the same face to us we have then but one moiety of her which looks on us and as the moon must be supposed not to turn on her own center in respect to us that moiety which sees us always and that fixed in the same point of the firmament when it is night with her and her nights are equal to 15 of our days she at first sees but a little corner of the earth seemed after that a larger spot and so almost by hourly gradations spread her light till it covers the whole face of the earth whereas these same changes do not appear to us to affect the moon but from one night to another because we lose her a long time out of our sight I would give anything that I could possibly divine the awkward reasonings of the philosophers of their world upon our earths appearing immovable to them when all the other celestial bodies rise and set over their heads within the compass of 15 days tis plain they attribute this immobility to her bigness for she is 40 times bigger than the moon and when their poets are in the mind to extol unactive and indolent princes I doubt not but they take care to compare their inactivity to this majestic repose of the earth however this opinion is attended with one difficulty they must very sensibly perceive in the moon that our earth turns upon her own center for instance imagine that our Europe Asia and America present themselves one after another to them in little and in different shapes and figures almost as we see them upon our maps now this sight must be a novelty to such travelers as past from that moiety of the moon which never sees us to that which always does good god how cautious would they be of believing the relation of the first travelers who should speak of it after their return to that great country to which we are so utterly unknown now I fancy says the countess that they make a sort of pilgrimage from one side of their country to the other for their disquisitions into our world and that there are certain honors and privileges assigned to such as have once in their lives had a view of our gross planet at least reply I those who have had this view have had the privilege of being better lighted during their nights the residents in the other moiety of the moon must have necessity be much less commodious in that respect but madam let us continue the journey we propose to take from one planet to another for we have now taken a pretty curious view of the moon coming out of the moon towards the sun we see Venus which puts me again in mind of st. Dennis Venus turns upon herself and round the sun as well as the moon they likewise discover by their telescopes that Venus like the moon if I may speak after the same manner is sometimes new sometimes full and sometimes in the way according to the different situations she is in in respect to the earth the moon to all appearance is inhabited why should not Venus be so too you are so full of your wise in your where force says she interrupting me that I fancy you are sending colonies to all the planets you may be certain so I will replied I for I see no reason to the contrary we find that all the planets are of the same nature all obscure bodies which received no light but from the sun and then send it to one another their motions are the same so that hitherto they are alike and yet if we are to believe that these vast bodies are not inhabited I think they were made but to little purpose why should nature be so partial as to accept only the earth but let who will say the contrary I must believe the planets are people as well as the earth I find says she you have been very well confirmed in your notions this pretty while towards but some moment since that the moon was a desert and you were no concern at it and at this instant I see you would be in a violent passion if anyone should presume to say that all the planets are not as well stocked with inhabitants as the earth his true says I at the instant you surprised me with your objections if you had disputed with me the inhabitants of the planets I should not only have maintained their existence but perhaps likewise have discourse to you on their creation we have our times for believing of things and I never believed them more firmly than at that juncture and even now and when my senses are somewhat cooler on the matter I can't help thinking it would be strange that the earth should be so well peopled and the other planets not inhabited at all for do you believe we discover as I may say all the inhabitants of the earth there are as many kinds of invisible as visible creatures we see from the elephant to the very hand worm beyond which our sight fails us and yet counting from that minute creature there are an infinity of lesser animals which would be imperceptible without the aid of glasses we see with magnifying glasses that the least drops of rainwater vinegar and all other liquids are full of little fishes or serpents which we could never have suspected there and there is some reason to suspect that the taste which these little liquids gives proceeds from the stingings and pungency of those little animals on the tongue and palate now mingling certain things with any one of these liquors and exposing them in the sun or letting them stand and corrupt will produce a new species of little animals several even of the most solid bodies are nothing but an immense swarm of imperceptible animals who find for their respective motions as much room and liberty as they require do you consider this little leaf why it is a great world inhabited by little invisible worms of a vast extent what abysses are there in it the insects of one side know no more of their fellow creatures on the other side than you and I can tell what they are now doing at the antipodes does it not stand more to reason then that a great planet should be inhabited in the hardest stones for example in marble there are an infinity of worms which fill up the vacuums and feed upon the substance of the stone fancy then millions of living creatures to subsist many years on a grain of sand so that were the moon but one continued rock I would sooner allow her to be gnawed by these invisible mites than not to be inhabited in short everything is animated imagine then those animals which are yet undiscovered and add them and those which are but lately discovered to those we have always seen you will find the earth's swarms with inhabitants and that nature has so liberally furnished it with animals that she is not at all concerned for our not seeing above one half of them why then should nature which is fruitful to an excess here be so very barren in the rest of the planets as to produce no living thing in them I must own says the Countess you have convinced my reason but you have confounded my fancy with such variety that I can't imagine how nature which hates repetitions should produce so many different kinds there is no need of fancy replied I do but trust your eyes and you will easily perceive how nature diversifies in these several worlds all human faces in general are of the same model and yet the Europeans and the Africans have two particular moles may commonly every family have a different form what secret then has nature to choose so much variety in the single face our world in respect to the universe is but a little family all whose faces have some resemblance in another planet there is another family whose faces have a different air and make the difference too increases with the distance for whoever should see an inhabitant of the moon and an inhabitant of the earth would soon perceive they were near neighbors than one of the earth and one of Saturn here for example we have the use of voice in another world they speak by signs and at a greater distance they do not speak at all here our reason is formed by experience in the next world experience contributes but little towards it and in the next to that old man know no more than children here we are troubled more with what is to come than with what is past in the next world they are more troubled for what's past than what's to come they are not concerned with either which by the way I think is much the better here tis thought we want a sixth sense which would teach us many things of which we are now ignorant this sixth sense is apparently in another world where they want one of the five which we enjoy nay perhaps there is a much greater number of senses but in the partition we have made of them with the inhabitants of the other planets there are but five fall into our share with which we are well contented being acquainted with the rest our sciences have bounds which the wit of man could never pass there is a point where they fail us on a sudden the rest is reserved for other worlds where somewhat which we know is unknown to them this planet enjoys the pleasures of love but lies desolate in several places by the fury of war in another planet they enjoy perpetual peace yet in the midst of that peace know nothing of love and time lies on their hands in a word that which nature practices here in little in distributing her gifts among mankind she does at large in other worlds where she makes use of the admirable secret she has to diversify all things and at the same time makes them equal by compensating for the inequality but is it not time madam to be serious how will you dispose of all these notions trouble not yourself says she fancy is a great traveler I already comprehend these several worlds and form to myself their different characters and customs some of them I assure you are very extraordinary I see at this moment a thousand different figures though I cannot well describe them oh leave them replied I to your dreams we shall know tomorrow whether they represent the matter faithfully and what they have taught you in relation to the inhabitants of any of the planets end of chapter three part two