came from Heaven and might just as well have been sheathed in some
other scabbard. Your father might have been born your son as you
were born his. How do you know even that he did not prevent you from
inheriting a crown? Perhaps your spirit set out from Heaven with the
purpose of animating the King of the Romans in the Empress's womb; on
the way it chanced to meet your embryo and to shorten the journey took
up its abode there. No, no, God would not have blotted you from the sum
He had made of men if your father had died as a little boy. But who
knows whether you might not have been to-day the work of some valiant
captain who would have shared with you his glory as well as his goods!
So you are perhaps no more beholden to your father for the life he gave
you than you would be to a pirate who had put you in irons because he
fed you. And suppose he had begotten you a King--a present loses its
merit when it is made without consulting the person who receives it.
Caesar was given death; it was given likewise to Cassius; but Cassius
was under an obligation to the slave from whom he obtained it, but not
Caesar to his murderers because they forced him to take it. When your
father embraced your mother did he consult your wishes? Did he ask you
if you thought it good to see this century or to wait for another? If
you were content to be the son of a fool or if you had the ambition
to proceed from an honest man? Alas! in a matter which concerned you
alone, you were the only person whose opinion was not consulted!
Perhaps if you had then been enclosed somewhere in the womb of Nature's
ideas and it had been in your power to control your birth, you might
have said to Fate: 'My dear lady, take someone else's life spindle. I
have been in nothingness for a very long time and I prefer to remain
another hundred years without existing than to exist to-day and to
repent it to-morrow.' However you had to endure it; you might whimper
as you would to return to the long black house from which you had been
torn, they simply pretended to think you were asking to suckle.
"My son, these are approximately the reasons for the respect which
fathers give their children. I know I have leaned to the children's
side more than justice asks and that I have argued in their favour a
little against my conscience. But I desired to correct that insolent
pride with which fathers insult over the weakness of their offspring,
and therefore I was obliged to act like those who straighten a crooked
tree; they pull it to the other side so that between the two twistings
it grows straight again. In the same way I have made the fathers pay
that tyrannical deference they had usurped from others and I took from
them much which is due them, so that hereafter they should be content
with what they really deserve. I know my apology will have shocked all
old men, but let them remember that they were sons before they were
fathers and that I must have spoken to their advantage too, since they
were not found under a gooseberry bush. But whatever happens, even if
my enemies attack me, I shall be safe because I have served all men and
injured only half of them."
With these words he ceased speaking and our host's son began as follows:
"Permit me", said he, "since by your care I am informed of the Origin,
History, Customs and Philosophy of this little man's world, to add
something to what you have said and to prove that children are under no
obligation to their fathers for being begotten because their fathers
were conscientiously obliged to beget them.
"The narrowest Philosophy of their world admits that it is more
desirable to die than not to have been, because one must have lived in
order to die. Well, if I do not give being to this nothing, I place it
in a worse state than death, and in not producing it I am more guilty
than if I killed it. You would think, my little man, you had committed
an unpardonable parricide if you had throttled your son. Truly, it
would be an enormity; however it is more execrable not to give being
to that which could receive it, for the child you deprive of light
has nevertheless had the satisfaction of enjoying it a certain time.
Moreover we know that it is only deprived of light for a few centuries;
but there are forty poor little nothings, which you might make into
forty good soldiers for your King, and you maliciously prevent them
from seeing the daylight, letting them grow corrupt in your loins at
the risk of being stifled by an apoplexy.
"Do not answer me with panegyrics of virginity. This virtue is only a
smoke, for all the respect with which it is commonly idolised is, even
among you, merely an advice, not to kill, but to refrain from making,
one's son; and hence to make him more unfortunate than a dead man. It
is a commandment; but since in the world whence you come chastity is
considered so preferable to carnal propagation I marvel that God did
not cause you to be born like mushrooms from the dew of May, or, at
least, like crocodiles from thick mud heated by the sun. Yet it is
only by accident that He sends eunuchs among you and He does not tear
the genitals from your monks, your priests or your cardinals. You will
say these were bestowed on them by Nature. Yes, but He is Nature's
Master and if He had recognised that this piece was harmful to their
salvation He would have ordered them to cut it off, as by the old law
He commanded the Jews to cut off their foreskins. But these fancies are
too ridiculous. On your honour, is there any part of your body more
sacred or more profane than another? Why should I be a sin when I touch
my centre-piece and not when I touch my ear or my heel? Is it because
there is a tickling sensation? Why then I should not purge myself in
the privy, for that cannot be done without some sort of pleasure; and
pious men should not raise themselves to the contemplation of God,
since thereby they enjoy a great pleasure in the imagination. Truly,
seeing how much the religion of your country is contrary to Nature and
how jealous it is of man's enjoyments, I am surprised your priests have
not made it a crime to scratch oneself, on account of the agreeable
sensation one feels from it. On the other hand I have noticed that
far-seeing Nature has made all great, valiant and witty persons lean
towards the delicate pleasures of love, as, for example, Samson, David,
Hercules, Caesar, Hannibal and Charlemagne. Was this done for them to
reap this organ of pleasure with a blow from a sickle? Alas, even in
a tub Nature found out and debauched Diogenes, thin, ugly, and lousy;
and forced him to make the breath that cooled his carrots into sighs
for Lais. Doubtless Nature acted in this way for fear lest honest men
should cease in the world. Let us conclude from this that your father
was conscientiously obliged to set you free to the light and, when he
imagines you are greatly obliged to him for his having made you by
tickling himself, he actually has only given you what an ordinary bull
gives his calves ten times every day for his amusement."
"You are wrong", interrupted my demon, "to try to regulate God's
wisdom. It is true that He has forbidden us excess in this pleasure,
but how do you know that He has not so willed it in order that the
difficulties we find in compassing this passion may fit us for the
glory He is preparing for us? How do you know that it was not to
sharpen appetite by forbidding it? How do you know that He did not
foresee that if youth gave itself up to the impetuosities of the flesh,
too frequent enjoyment would enfeeble their seed and bring about the
end of the world at the grandsons of the first man? How do you know He
did not wish to prevent too many hungry generations from finding the
fertility of the earth insufficient for their needs? Finally, how do
you know He has not willed to act against all appearance of reason in
order to reward fully those who have believed in His word against all
appearance of reason?"
It seemed to me that this reply did not satisfy our young host, for
he shook his head two or three times; but our mutual instructor
was silent, because the meal was about to be carried in. We
stretched ourselves out upon very soft mattresses covered with wide
embroideries, where the vapours came to us as they had done before at
the inn. A young servant took the elder of our two philosophers and
led him into another little room. "Come back to us here", cried my
instructor, "as soon as you have eaten." He promised to do so.
This fantasy of eating alone gave me the curiosity to ask the reason.
"He does not taste", said he, "the odour of meat or even of herbs
unless they have died naturally, because he thinks them capable of
pain."
"I am not greatly surprised", I replied, "that he should abstain from
flesh and everything which has a sensitive life. In our world the
Pythagoreans and even certain holy Anchorites observed this regime. But
it seems to me altogether ridiculous not to cut a cabbage, for example,
for fear of hurting it."
"For my part", replied my demon, "I see a good deal of probability in
his opinion. Is not the cabbage you speak of as much a creation of God
as yourself? Have you not both equally God and want for father and
mother? Has not God's intellect been occupied from all eternity with
its birth as well as yours? Moreover it seems He has provided more
necessarily for the birth of vegetable than of reasonable life, since
He has committed the generation of man to the caprice of his father,
who can beget or not beget at his pleasure. But God has not treated the
cabbage with such rigour, for He seems to have been more concerned lest
the race of cabbages should perish than the race of men, and instead of
permitting the father the option of begetting the son He forces them
willy-nilly to give birth to others. And while men can at most beget
a score in their lifetime, cabbages produce four hundred thousand a
head. And to say that God loves man more than a cabbage is to tickle
ourselves to make ourselves laugh; He is incapable of passion and
therefore cannot love or hate anybody; and if He were capable of love
He would rather feel tenderness for the cabbage you are holding (which
cannot offend Him) than for a man when He already has before His eyes
the wrongs the man is fated to commit. Add to this that a man cannot be
born without sin, for he is a part of the first man who rendered him
guilty, but we know very well that the first cabbage did not offend
its Creator in the Earthly Paradise. Will it be said that we are made
in the image of the Sovereign Being and that cabbages are not? Suppose
that were true, by polluting in ourselves the soul whereby we resembled
Him we have effaced the resemblance, for nothing is more contrary to
God than sin. Then if our soul is no longer His portrait, we no more
resemble Him through our hands, our feet, our mouth, our forehead and
ears than a cabbage through its leaves, its flowers, its stalk, its
heart and its head. If this poor plant could speak when you cut it do
you not think it would say:
"'Man, my dear brother, what have I done to you to merit death? I grow
only in your gardens, I am never found in wild places where I should
live safely; I scorn to be the work of any hands but yours and I have
scarcely left them when I lift myself from the ground to return to
them. I spread out, I hold out my arms to you, I offer you the seeds my
children, and to reward my courtesy you have my head cut off!'
"This is what a cabbage would say if it could express itself, and,
because it cannot complain, does that mean that we have the right to
do it all the ill it cannot prevent? If I find a wretch in fetters am
I guiltless if I kill him, merely because he cannot defend himself?
On the contrary, my cruelty is rendered worse by his weakness; however
poor, however lacking in all advantages this hapless cabbage may be, it
does not merit death on that account. What! Of all the goods of life
it has none but that of vegetating and we deprive it of this? The sin
of murdering a man is not so great as to cut a cabbage and to deprive
it of life, because one day the man will live again while the cabbage
has no other life to hope for. By killing a cabbage you annihilate its
soul; but by killing a man you simply make him change his domicile. And
I go further. Since God, the common Father of all things, cherishes
equally all His works, is it not reasonable that He should have shared
His benefits equally between us and plants? True, we were born first,
but in God's family there is no right of primogeniture. If then
cabbages did not share with us the fief of immortality, doubtless they
received some other advantage, the briefness of whose existence is
compensated for by its grandeur. This may be an universal intellect,
a perfect knowledge of all things in their causes; for this reason it
may be that the wise Contriver did not fashion them organs like ours,
whose effect is only a simple, weak and often deceitful reasoning, but
gave them organs that are stronger, more numerous and more skilfully
elaborated to serve the purposes of their speculative conversations?
Perhaps you will ask me why they have never communicated these great
thoughts to us? But tell me, have you ever been taught by the Angels
any more than by them? Since there is no proportion, no relation and
no harmony between man's imbecile faculties and those of these divine
creatures, these intellectual cabbages may try their best to make us
understand the hidden cause of all miraculous events, we still lack
senses capable of perceiving these fine points.
"Moses, the greatest of all philosophers, since according to what you
say he gathered his knowledge of Nature from the source of Nature
itself, indicated this truth when he spoke of the Tree of Knowledge.
Under this enigma he wished to teach us that plants possess perfect
philosophy. Remember then, O proudest of all animals, that although
the cabbage you cut says not a word, it thinks none the less. The poor
vegetable has no organs like ours to howl, to wriggle and to weep, but
it has others to complain of the trick we play upon it, to draw down
upon us the vengeance of Heaven. And if you ask me how I know that
cabbages have these fine thoughts I ask you how you know that they do
not have them? And how do you know that they do not say at night when
they close up, in imitation of you: 'Master Curly-cabbage, I am your
most humble servant, Savoy-Cabbage.'"
He was at this point of his discourse when the young man who had
carried off our philosopher brought him back. "What! Already dined?"
exclaimed my demon. He answered that he had, except for dessert, as the
Physionome had permitted him to taste ours. Our young host did not wait
for me to ask him the explanation of this mystery.
"I perceive", said he, "that this manner of living astonishes you.
Know then that although health is regulated more carelessly in your
world, the regime in this is not to be scorned. In every house there
is a Physionome supported by the state who is approximately what would
be called with you a doctor, except that he only treats healthy people
and that he decides upon the different methods of treating us from the
proportion, shape and symmetry of our limbs, from the features of the
face, the colour of the flesh, the delicacy of the skin, the agility of
the whole body, the sound of the voice, the complexion, the strength
and hardness of the hair. Did you not notice just now a rather short
man who gazed at you so long? He was the Physionome of this house.
Be sure that he has varied the fumes of your dinner according to his
observation of your appearance. Notice how far from our beds he placed
the mattress for you to lie on. No doubt he decided your constitution
was very different from ours, since he was afraid the odour which flows
from these little taps under your nose should spread to us or that ours
should smoke in your direction. To-night you will see he chooses the
flowers for your bed with the same precautions."
While he was speaking I signed to my host to try to bring these
philosophers on to speaking about some part of the science which they
professed. He was too much my friend not to create an opportunity at
once. I will not tell you the talk or the requests which were the
ambassador to this treaty, the transition from the ridiculous to the
serious was too imperceptible to be imitated. The last-comer of these
doctors, after touching on other matters continued thus:
"It remains for me to prove to you that there are infinite worlds in
an infinite world. Conceive, then, the Universe as a large animal,
the stars (which are Worlds) as other animals within it, which in
turn serve as worlds to other creatures, like ourselves, horses and
elephants; in our turn we are also the worlds of certain yet smaller
creatures, like boils, lice, worms, and mites. And these are the earth
of other imperceptibles, just as we appear a great world to these
little things. Perhaps our flesh, our blood and our vital principles
are nothing but a texture of little animals holding together, lending
us movement from their own and blindly allowing our will to drive them
like a coachman, yet drive us too and all together produce that action
we call life. Tell me, I beseech you, is it very hard to believe that
a louse takes your body for a World, and that when one of them has
travelled from one of your ears to the other, his companions should say
of him that he has been to the ends of the world or that he has passed
from one pole to the other? Yes, no doubt this little nation takes your
hair for the forests of its country, the pores full of moisture for
fountains, pimples for lakes and ponds, abscesses for seas, fluxions
for deluges; and when you comb your hair backwards and forwards they
take this movement for the ebb and flow of the ocean. Does not itching
prove what I say? Is the mite which produces it anything but one of
these little animals which has detached itself from civil society to
set itself up as a tyrant in its country? If you ask me how it is
that they are larger than other little imperceptibles, I ask you why
elephants are larger than we are, and Irishmen than Spaniards? As to
the breaking-out and the scabs, whose cause you do not know, they must
happen either from the corruption of the bodies of enemies massacred
by these little giants, or because the plague produced by the scarcity
of food which these rebels have devoured has left heaps of bodies
decaying in the country, or because the tyrant, having driven away from
him his companions, whose bodies stopped up the pores of our body,
has thus opened a passage to the moisture which has become corrupted
by extravasation from the sphere of the circulation of our blood.
Perhaps you will ask me why one mite produces a hundred others. That
is not difficult to understand, for, as one revolt awakens another,
so each of these little creatures, urged by the bad example of their
rebellious companions, aspires to rule, and kindles everywhere war,
slaughter and famine. But, you will say, some persons are much less
subject to itch than others, yet each of us is equally filled with
these animals if, as you declare, they make life. It is true, as we
perceive, that phlegmatic subjects are less liable to the itch than
those of a bilious temperament, because this people sympathises with
the climate it inhabits and is more sluggish in a cold body than
another which is heated by the temperature of its region, ferments,
moves about and cannot remain in one place. Thus, a bilious man is
more delicate than a phlegmatic, because he is stimulated in many more
parts, and as the soul is only the action of these little beasts, he
is able to feel in every place where these cattle are moving, while
the phlegmatic is only hot enough to make them act in a few places.
And to prove this universal mitedom you have only to consider how the
blood flows to a gash when you are wounded. Your doctors say that it
is guided by far-seeing Nature, who wishes to succour damaged parts.
But this is chimerical. For there would have to be besides Soul and
Spirit a third intellectual substance in us with its own functions and
organs. It is much more probable that these little animals, feeling
themselves attacked, send to their neighbours for help; they pour in
from all sides: the country cannot contain so many people, and so
they die stifled in the throng, or of hunger. This mortality happens
when the abscess is ripe. To show that these animals of life are then
extinguished, notice that corrupted flesh becomes insensible; and if
cupping, which is ordered for the purpose of averting the fluxion, is
successful, the reason is that these little animals have had heavy
casualties in trying to close this opening, and therefore refuse to
assist their allies, having only a mean strength to defend themselves."
He ceased speaking and when the second philosopher perceived our eyes
were directed upon his and were urging him to speak in his turn, he
said:
"Men, I see you are anxious to teach this little animal, who resembles
us, something of the science we profess. I am at present dictating a
treatise which I should be very glad to show him because of the light
it throws upon the understanding of our physics. It is an explanation
of the eternal origin of the world, but I am in a hurry to work my
bellows; for to-morrow without fail the Town moves off. You will excuse
me this time if I promise that as soon as the Town arrives at its
destination, I will satisfy you."
At these words the host's son called for his father, and when he came
the company asked him the time; the goodman answered that it was eight
o'clock. His son then said in a rage:
"Hey! Come hither, varlet, did I not order you to warn us at seven? You
know that the houses are going to-morrow, that the walls have already
left, and yet your idleness even locks up your mouth."
"Sir", replied the goodman, "it has just been announced, while you were
at table, that it is strictly forbidden to start until after to-morrow."
"No matter", replied he, lending him a buffet, "you should obey
blindly, not try to understand my orders, but simply remember what I
have bidden you. Quick, go and get your effigy."
When he had brought it, the young man seized it by the arm and whipped
it for a long quarter of an hour.
"Now, rascal", he continued, "as a punishment for your disobedience you
shall be a laughing stock to everybody for the rest of the day and so
I order you to walk on two feet only all day."
The poor old man went out very mournfully and his son continued:
"Gentlemen, I beseech you to excuse the rogueries of this hot-head.
I hoped to make something good of him, but he takes advantage of my
kindness. For my part I think the rogue will be the death of me; indeed
on more than ten occasions I have been on the point of giving him my
malediction."
Although I bit my lips I had great difficulty to keep myself from
laughing at this world upside down. To break off this burlesque
pedagogy, which no doubt would have made me burst forth in the end, I
begged him to tell me what he meant by the journey of the Town he had
just spoken of, whether the houses and the walls could move. He replied:
"My dear friend, our cities are divided into the mobile and the
sedentary. The mobile, like that in which we are now, are constructed
as follows: the architect builds each palace, as you see, of very light
wood and inserts four wheels underneath it. In the thickness of one of
the walls he places large and numerous bellows, whose nozzles pass in
a horizontal line through the upper story from one gable to the other.
When it is desired to move the town somewhere (for we change our air at
every season), each one hangs out a number of large sails from one side
of his house in front of the bellows; then he winds up a spring to make
them play and in less than eight days the continuous blasts vomited
by these windy monsters against the sails carry their houses, if they
wish, more than a hundred leagues.
"The architecture of the second kind, which we call sedentary, is as
follows: the houses are almost like your towers, except that they are
made of wood and that in the middle they have a large strong screw
which goes from the cellar to the roof to raise or lower them at will.
Well, the earth underneath is hollowed out as deep as the building
is high, and the whole thing is constructed in this manner so that
when the frosts begin to fall cold from the sky, they can lower their
houses to the bottom of the hole by turning them; and then they cover
the tower and the hollow part about it with large skins and so shelter
themselves from the inclemency of the air. But as soon as the soft
breath of Spring makes the air milder, they return to the daylight by
means of the large screw of which I spoke."
I think he wished to stop speaking there, but I began thus: