he alluded to the mountains-" Observe too the shape of the globe as a whole, how it is flat at the poles, how it turns round the sun in a clumsily slanting manner, so that the polar climes are necessarily mere wastes. In truth, what chiefly makes me think that there is nobody here, is that I cannot suppose any people of sense would wish to occupy such a dwelling."

"Well," said Micromegas, "perhaps the people who inhabit it are not people of sense. But in point of fact there are some signs of its not having been made for nothing. Everything here seems to you irregular, you say; that is because everything is measured by the line of Saturn and Jupiter. Ay, perhaps it is for that very reason that there is so much apparent confusion here. Have I not told you that in the course of my travels I have always remarked the presence of variety ?" The Saturnian had answers to meet all these arguments, and the dispute might never have ended, if Micromegas, in the heat of discussion, had not luckily broken the thread which bound together his collar of diamonds, so that they fell to the ground; pretty little stones they were, of rather unequal size, the largest of which weighed four hundred pounds, and the smallest not more than fifty. The dwarf, who picked up some of them, perceived, on bringing them near his eyes, that these diamonds, from the fashion in which they were cut, made capital microscopes. He, accordingly, took up a little magnifier of one hundred and sixty feet in diameter, which he applied to his eye; and Micromegas selected one of two thousand five hundred feet across. They were of high power, but at first nothing was revealed by their help, so the focus had to be adjusted. At last the inhabitant of Saturn saw something almost imperceptible, which moved half under water in the Baltic sea; it was a whale. He caught it very cleverly with his little finger, and placing it on his thumb nail, showed it to the

Sirian, who burst out laughing a second time at the extreme minuteness of the inhabitants of our system. The Saturnian, now convinced that our world was inhabited, rushed immediately to the conclusion that whales were the only creatures to be found there; and, as speculation was his strong point, he pleased himself with conjectures as to the origin of so insignificant an atom and the source of its movement, whether it had ideas and free will. Micromegas was a good deal puzzled about it; he examined the creature very patiently, and the result of his investigation was that he had no grounds for supposing that it had a soul lodged in its body. The two travellers then were inclined to think that there was no being possessed of intelligence in this habitation of ours, when with the aid of the microscope they detected something as big as a whale, floating on the Baltic sea. We know that at that very time a flock of philosphere were returning from the polar circle, whither they had gone to make observations which no one had attempted before. The newspapers say that their vessel ran aground in the gulf of Bothnia, and that they had great difficulty in saving their lives; but we never know in this world the real truth about anything. I am going to relate honestly what took place, without adding anything of my own invention, a task which demands no small effort on the part of an historian.

CHAPTER V.

EXPERIENCES AND CONJECTURES OF THE TWO TRAVELLERS.

MICROMEGAS stretched out his hand very gently towards the place where the object appeared; thrusting forward two fingers, he quickly drew them back lest his hopes should be defeated; then, cautiously opening and closing them, he seized with great dexterity the ship which carried those gentlemen, and placed it likewise on his nail without squeezing it too much, for fear of crushing it.

"Here is an animal quite different from the first," said the Saturnian dwarf. The Sirian placed the supposed animal in the hollow of his hand. The passengers and crew, who thought that they had been whirled aloft by a tempest, and supposed that they had struck upon some kind of rock, began to bestir themselves; the sailors seized casks of wine, threw them overboard on Micromegas's hand, and afterwards jumped down themselves, while the geometers seized their quadrants, their sectors, and a pair of Lapland girls, and descended on the Sirian's fingers. They made such a commotion, that at last he felt something tickling him; it was a pole with an iron point being driven a foot deep into his forefinger. He judged from this prick that it had proceeded somehow from the little animal that he was holding; but at first he perceived nothing The magnifier, which scarcely enabled them to discern a whale and a ship, had no effect upon a being so insignificant as man. I have no wish to shock the vanity of anyone, but here I am obliged to beg those who are sensitive about their own importance to consider what I have to say on this subject. Taking the average stature

more.

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of mankind at five feet, we make no greater figure on the earth than an insect not quite the six hundred thousandth part of an inch in height would do upon a bowl ten feet round. Figure to yourselves a being who could hold the earth in his hand, and who had organs of sense proportionate to our own,-and it may well be conceived that there are a great number of such beings,-consider then, I pray you, what they would think of those battles which give the conqueror possession of some village, to be lost again soon afterwards.

I have no doubt that if some captain of tall grenadiers ever reads this work, he will raise the caps of his company at least a couple of feet; but I warn him that it will be all in vain, that he and his men will never be anything but the merest mites.

What marvellous skill then must our philosopher from Sirius have possessed, in order to perceive those atoms of which I have been speaking! When Leuwenhoek and Hartsoeker first saw, or thought they saw, the minute speck out of which we are formed, they did not make nearly so surprising a discovery.' What pleasure then did Micromegas feel in watching the movements of those little machines, in examining all their feats, in following all their operations! How he shouted for joy, as he placed one of his microscopes in his companion's hand! "do you

"I see them," they exclaimed both at once; not observe how they are carrying burdens, how they stoop down and rise up?"

As they spoke, their hands trembled with delight at beholding objects so unusual, and with fear lest they might lose them. The Saturnian, passing from the one

1 Buffon in his "Histoire Naturelle," the first three volumes of which were published at Paris in 1749, had fully discussed these observations of Leuwenhoek and others.

extreme of scepticism to an equal degree of credulity, fancied that he saw them engaged in the work of propagation.

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"Ah!" said he, "I have surprised nature in the very act."

1

But he was deceived by appearances, an accident to which we are only too liable, whether we make use of microscopes or not.

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT COMMUNICATION THEY HELD WITH MEN.

MICROMEGAS, a much better observer than his dwarf,

perceived clearly that the atoms were speaking to each other, and he called his companion's attention to the circumstance; but he, ashamed as he was of having made a mistake on the subject of generation, was indisposed to believe that such creatures as they could have any means of communicating ideas. He had the gift of tongues as well as the Sirian; he did not hear the atoms speak, so he concluded that they did not do so; besides, how could those imperceptible beings have vocal organs, and what could they have to say? To be able to speak, one must think, or at least make some approach to thought; but if those creatures could think, then they must have something equivalent to a soul; now to attribute the equivalent of a soul to these little animals appeared to him absurd.

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But," said the Sirian, "you fancied just now that they were making love; do you imagine that they can

1 This expression was one which Fontenelle (ob. 1757) had employed in relating certain physiological observations of his own.