years for the Prince of Philosophers What Obligation had you to take up arms against him Monsieur I reply'd I still preserve that Respect that Esteem and Friendship for you which I owe inviolable and I take it for a peculiar favour of Fortune to meet you here to make a fresh Protestation of them And I assure you that I am neither come in quality of a Spy or Enemy but if you please so to receive me of a Voyager 'T was purely curiosity that brought me hither by the way As to the concern of Philosophy I must acknowledge I am a little Sceptical in that Matter and know not at present what I am I am resolv'd to try all Sects before I am determin'd so that you may Sir look upon me as a Man of an uninterested Country and that contrives no Plot or Mischeivous Design against your Commonwealth These Gentlemen indeed are profess'd Cartesians but they are Philosophers and Men of Honour and have Esteem for Merit though it be on the contrary side and who hold that Liberty of Conscience in point of Philosophy is the unviolable Charter of all honest well bred Men But I pursued I am highly surpriz'd at the bustle and disturbance in this Country There 's no Spanish ' Town in Flanders so readily Alarm'd as yours What is' t you so much dread That which we so much dread said he is that Implacable Enemy of our Sovereign your Descartes who when on Earth did all imaginable towards the extirpating the Peripateticks and only desisted there as we are from good Hands inform'd to come to ruin them in this Country It is now more than thirty years so exact a Guard has been observ'd to prevent a Surprize consequent to the Advice we have had that in all this time he hath been forming a Party and gathering all the Forces possible in order to a Descent This is the Intelligence we have receiv'd from a Dutch Professor of Philosophy who acts here as Generalissimo in Aristotle's Absence But Descartes may come as soon as he pleases you see we are in a capacity to receive him Well Monsieur said I if that be all you may sleep secure Monsieur Descartes I assure you has no Design of an Invasion in his Head he 's a thousand Times farther off this Place than 't is from hence to Earth he is thinking of Building a New World above the Heavens he has invited us to see the Execution of his Grand Design and thither 't is we are going And to convince you of the Truth of what I say 't is but deputing when we part some Souls to bear us Company and they shall bring you an account of what they there shall see You rejoyce me mightily said he for we Peripateticks are tired with these long Fatigues but take it not ill that I execute my Orders and conduct you to the Governour of the Place according to the Custom That all Philosophers of a different Sect from ours arriving here give him an account what Project brought them hither we have used this Course but since Descartes has given us these Alarms So we took the Road that led to the Place convoyed with a Detachment of about fifty Souls Academiques for the most part and Collegians who look'd as if they did not wish us very well that Place was only a great Garden that represented the Lyceum in Athens where Aristotle used to teach his Scholars walking whence they derived the Name of Peripateticks 'T is of a great extent and very finely kept it is cut into abundance of Allies whereof the four greatest meet in the middle of the Garden at a round large Fountain whereon is raised a stately Pedestal of the most delicate Marble I ever saw on which stands the Statue of Alxander the Great crowned by Victory with Lawrels trampling under Foot Scepters and Crowns and Bucklers and broken Arms and the Treasures of Asia Four great Statues chained to the four Corners represent the Principal Nations Alexander conquered I found that Monument so like that of the Place des Victoires that I should have believed one had been the Pattern to the other had not I at the same Time made Reflection that the near Resemblance of those two Hero's might easily have furnished the Minds of both the Undertakers with the same Ideas All the Figures of the Monument no less than the other Statues in several Parts of the Garden as those of Philippus Olympias and many other illustrious Personages who formerly honoured Aristotle with their Friendship are of Silver for Silver is very cheap and common in the Globe of the Moon and it is probably for that Reason Chymists who always affect Mystery in their Words call that Metal by the Name of the Moon As we were admiring that noble Monument we were astonished to see all of a sudden four Water-Spouts rise from the four Angles of the Pedestal the largest and the highest that ever were they mounted at least four hundred Poles in heighth and they were brought from a River behind a neighbouring Mountain that was higher than the Wells of Domme in Auvergn over which the Water was carried by the admirable Contrivance of the Old Philosophy that in supposing the Horror of a Vacuum in Nature shew'd how with Pumps to fling Water infinitely high which Secret is unfortunately lost in our World for since the Time of Galileus we can raise Water no higher than three or four and thirty Foot We saw these Water Spouts on every Side the least of which exceeded the highest Trees that encompassed the Garden From the middle of the Garden we observed four Halls of different Figure and Architecture one at the End of each of the four Alleys We were conducted to the biggest of them which was of exquisite Beauty and Magnificence being of Gold Azure and Precious Stones On both Sides in the Intervals of the Windows was your Imbossed Work of Silver excellently carved but that made a Gallimawfry odd and humerous enough for on one Part on the Right-hand were represented the famous Exploits of Alexander the defeat of Darius near the City Arbela the Attack of Porus his Army the Passage of Granicus and the Taking of the City Tyre On the other were Triumphs of Aristotle over the rest of the Philosophers and the Extravagancies of those that went for Wisemen before his Time The first on the Left-hand exhibits Pythagoras doctrining his Disciples and presenting them with a sort of Table-Book wherein among others were written these three Precepts First That they were to hear him full five Years without speaking a Word to contradict him Secondly They must lend an attentive Ear especially in the Night to the Musick and Harmony of the Celestial Spheres which only Wisemen are priviledged to understand And Thirdly they must abstain from eating Beans The Second shews you Democritus laughing with Might and Main and Heraclitus weeping in warm Tears and a Troop of little Children hooping after them as after
remember the Priviledg these Cartesian Gentlemen take who when perplex'd in answering the Argument brought against the Essence of Matter and drawn from the Sacrament of the Host think they have right to cry out They are injur'd That their Philosophy is sequestred from Things relating to Faith That they are Philosophers and not Divines and undertake the explaining the Mysteries of Nature not of Religion I would I say they 'd do me the like Justice or if they had rather the same Favour And supposing any one so Religious as to suspect me of the Heresie of those who say The Souls in parting from the Body are not doom'd for Eternity I wish he 'd consider once more that I am in this an Historian and Philosopher not a Theologist and give a Relation of Descartes's World am not making a Profession of Faith Which the Character of an History such as I am upon will bear far more independently of the Truths of our Religion than a System of Philosophy Any one that knows never so little must be forc'd to acknowledg this Which being once suppos'd I return to the Narrative of my Old Gentleman who thus went on M. Descartes's Soul returning to Stockholm found her self in the like unlucky Circumstances as did one Hermotimus mentioned by Tertullian L. de Anima who having procur'd the self-same Secret as Descartes left constantly anights his Body asleep in Bed whilst his Soul went a rambling through the World Both one and the other at their return found their Lodgings out of a Capacity to receive them The Task Descartes's Soul enjoyn'd her self then was to meet at Paris She would not tell me presently of the Accident but only invited me to take a turn or two No sooner said than done With one Snuff of the Tobacco I equipt my self to wait on her My Soul was no sooner out of my Body but she said in Language Spiritual she was about to tell me strange News I am says she no longer Imbody'd my Corps is this day to be interr'd at Stockholm and he gave me the Particulars of what I have been relating Nor did she seem sab or afflicted thereupon I then demanded of her if she experienc'd what the Philosophers report That the Soul being the substantial Form of the Body when separated for good and all is in statu violento She answer'd me she knew nothing of that violent State but found her self incomparably better out than in the Body And that she had but one Concern upon her to know in what part of the vast Space was best to settle her Abode in That she would take my Directions in the thing but that she found her Will inclin'd for the third Heaven The third Heaven according to the division Cartesius makes of the World is the last of all and that which is the farthest remov'd from us For the first is nothing but the Vortex in which is plac'd the Earth whose Centre is the Body of the Sun about which the Coelestial Matter that composes the Vortex carries us and makes us turn continually like the other Planets The second Heaven is incomparably larger than that in which we are and takes up all that mighty space in which we see the fix'd Stars which are so many Suns and have each of them a Vortex of which they are themselves the Centre as our Sun is of this Lastly the third Heaven is all that Matter or all that indefinite Extent which we conceive above the Starry Heaven and is void of Bounds and in respect of which the space of all the other may be consider'd as a Point Now many Reasons determin'd M. Descartes to choose his place of Residence in the highest Heaven The first was To avoid the Company of an Innumerable gang of Souls of Philosophers that were vaulting and fluttering on all parts of this our Vortex for to tell you by the way 't is incredible how many Souls we met upon our Journey And M. Descartes was much surpriz'd to see the Secret of which he took himself to be the first Inventer made use of in all times even by those of a very mean Quality whereby they have escap'd a dying or whose Souls have lost their Bodies by some Accident not unlike that of M. Descartes But that which made their Company so disrelisht and perfectly intolerable to Cartesius his Spirit was That these Souls so disentangled as they were from Matter were tinctur'd still with Prejudice wherewith they were prepossess'd when united with their Bodies That when he would have converss'd with them about the Principles of Bodies and the Causes of several Phoenomena's they faintly suppos'd to him or prov'd by the Authority of Aristotle substantial Forms absolute Accidents and occult Qualities as is done to this day in many Schools And except some few Souls of the highest Rank which he hath converted and proselyted to Cartesianism all are inveterate and inleagu'd against him with as immoderate Fury as the Philosophers of this World when he began to publish his Doctrin here The second Reason that byass'd him to that Election was because he look'd upon those indefinite Spaces as a new Discovery of which he was the Author For it was upon his forming a distinct Idea of Matter whose Essence consisted in Extension that he concluded Space Extension and Matter to be one and the same thing signify'd under different Names And being it was necessary to admit of a Space and an Extension above our World since we have a most clear Conception of them it was plain That above our World there was Matter too and as we can have no Idea of any Bounds or Limits that Matter has it is necessary it should be Infinite or rather Indefinite Finally the third and most prevailing Reason of all and which he intimated not to me until we arrived upon the place is that well conjecturing the Matter above the fix'd Stars to be uninform'd and not yet shap'd into a World he was in good hopes that he was able to set it to work himself and fancy'd that in dividing and agitating it according to his Principles he could reduce it to a World like this excepting that it would be destitute of real Men and only stor'd with Automatous Machines in their Likeness That Project was the Subject of the most part of his Books especially of his Book of Principles and that Entituled The World of M. Descartes We set out immediately for the third Heaven I shall not descend to the Particulars of our Voyage I hope in a few days you 'll bear me Company there your self I 'll only say that upon our Coasting we found all Things exactly in that Portrait we had drawn before without Form without due Order or any regular posture of the Parts as rude and unsightly Materials that require the Hand of the Artist We survey'd it all about and bewilder'd our selves a long time in the vast Deserts of the other World which perfectly represented to me
Truth and assure your self I shall wholly resign my self up unto her so soon as M. Descartes shall present her to me After that Protestation which seemed a little to reinstate me in their good Oponion we launch'd again And it will not be amiss to advise my Reader here this once for all That whatever Room these Harangues and Disputes take up upon the Paper they lasted but one single instant since separate Spirits entertain each other a quite different way from that they use when in the Body whose Tongue pronounces but one Syllable at a Time one Spiritual Word that a Separate Soul shall speak unto another Soul is more full and expressive than a thousand pronounced or written And since my taking of this Voyage I have made a World of fine Discoveries for the explaining the Way that Angels discourse together I question not but to be in Print some Time or other upon that Occasion I confess I shall speak many Things that for want of Use will not be understood but my Book may find no less a Welcome and Esteem for that but rather the good Fortune Books of Mysterious Divinity have met with that have been for some Time the only ones in Fashion recommended meerly by their being unintelligible to those that read them and pretending to be understood by the Composers for it is known by too manifest Experience the Authors of those Books are not always such mighty Saints as they would seem We parted then from the Top of the Tower before the Instrument desisted from its turning and we steered towards the Globe of the Moon My Soul perceived an unspeakable Pleasure to scud it in the Air and to wander in those vast Spaces she could only travel with the Eye before when united with the Body that minded me of a former Delight I had sometime tasted in my Sleep in dreaming that I whipt through the Air without ever touching Ground above which I thought my self exalted many Yards We met upon the Road vast Troops of Separate Souls of all Nations Laplanders Finlanders Plaus mag 〈◊〉 c. 17 â—â—rt de â—aima Brachmans and I then remembred what I had read in several Books That the Secret of separating the Soul and Body was known among those People But about fifty Leagues on this side that Planet there is a Region very well stock'd especially with Philosophers and those Stoicks for the generality And quite from that Place to my Arrival at the Globe of the Moon I descryed how swingingly History belies an infinite Number of Persons that it supposes dead like other Men though in truth they are no more Dead than M. Descartes himself I shall discourse with some of them as I go along The Moon has an Atmosphere like the Earth that by a moderate Computation may amount to three French Leagues in height As we were just ready to strike Sail we made a good Distance from us three Souls that held a very serious Conference together we judged they might be Souls of Consequence by the deference many others in their Retinue seemed to pay them Upon our enquiring who they were we understood they were Socrates Plato and Aristotle that were met in Consult for the Publick Interest for that being advised by certain News from our World That the Venetians had beaten the Turks not only out of Ancient Peloponesus but also the Famous City of Athens where heretofore these three Philosophers had made so great a Figure they had resolved in their Debate so soon as any Noble Venetian's Soul should arrive in these Quarters to petition her to recommend their Interest to General Morisini and the Republick's Consideration To require the replacing the Statues the Athenians had erected to them To re-establish the Academy and the Lyceum with all their Priviledges and to restore the Marbles in the Prytaneum whereon was engraven the Justification of Socrates with the Execrations charged on Anytus and Melitus his Accusers And in case they should push their Conquests as far as Macedonia to have as great regard for Stagyra at present Liba nova as Alexander the Great had formerly on the account of his Master Aristotle whose Country that was I am surprized says Father Mersennus to see these Philosophers I never heard any Mention of them here nor did I ever meet them in all my Travels It is true I have observed in my Commentaries upon Genesis That Plato and Trismegistus used to quit their Bodies the better to contemplate the Sovereign Good and that Socrates as Alcibiades relates in Plato had from Time to Time such sort of Extasies 'T is true also I never took Aristotle for so great a Fool as to throw himself headlong into Euripes for the Madness and Despair of being unable to comprehend the Flux and Reflux of the Sea And many things I have read in that Philosopher induced me to suspect he knew the Mystery of Separation but I never thought to inform my self whether these Gentlemen made use of it to prevent their Dying You 'll see he added that as M. Descartes has determined to put the Project of his World in Execution that he framed while he lived on Earth so Plato will resolve upon the Undertaking that of his Republick which we shall see fix'd somewhere in those Vast and Desart Spaces above the Heavens where he will convoy a Colony of Separate Souls to constitute his Government That supposed said my old Gentleman Lucian had but ill Intelligence from the other World since in his Dialogues of the Dead he often talks of Socrates as a Man that had passed the Stygian-Lake in Caron's Boat and as an old Inhabitant of Hell Nouveaux Dial. des Mor. But what Gentlemen said I do you say of our Modern Lucian I mean the Author of the New Dialogues of the Dead that without farther Ceremony places Monsieur Descartes in Hell and brings him on the Stage discoursing with the pretended Demetrius of Moscovy Is it reasonable to think That Author upon his entertaining us in that Work with some pretty Things and diverting us with an abundance of choice Historical Observations to think I say under that Shelter he had Right to put off all the Frolicks of his Imagination without any regard to Truth To place M. Descartes in Hell at the same Time he 's above the Heavens is not this to express my self in the Quodlibetique Style of our Friend M Aberrare toto Coelo In the interim we saw the three Philosophers advance towards us 'T is known they were three of the finest Gentlemen that have bore that Character in Antiquity and that they have always been distinguish'd from that Rascality of Sophists and Cynicks that generally were meer Andrews and only purchased the Reputation of Sages at the Expence of the most abusive Extravagances Socrates made the Address and in a most obliging manner told us He easily perceived we were of France not only because we came that Road but also that he saw
in the World in dispatching some Commissions of M. Descartes partly in the several Planets and different Places of the wide Space which he travers'd in search of some old Cartesians on that Philosopher's Account to inform them of his Place of Residence and of the grand Design he was ready to put in Execution I gave him the Letter which I have joyn'd to this Relation and with which I 'll finish it A VOYAGE TO The World of Cartesius PART IV. MY Soul thus seated on the Pineal Gland of my Brain as a Queen upon her Throne to conduct and govern all the Motions of the Machine of my Body was extreamly pleas'd with the change of her Ideas and complimented her self with the honourable new Character of Cartesian wherewith I began to be distinguisht amongst the Learned I found my self immediately dispos'd for the Humour and Spirit of that Tribe of Philosophers and could not mention without disdain the Philosophy of the Colleges good only said I to corrupt the Mind and fill it with empty and confus'd Ideas and fit for nothing but to entertain the vanity of a Pedant Descartes was the first and indeed the only Philosopher the World has ever known the rest in respect of him were mere Children Wranglers and Legendaries Being invited some days after to a Thesis of Philosophy it cannot be imagin'd what Violence it was to me to resolve to go I could not forbear gaping all the while I staid looking down from the exaltation of my Soul with pity on all I heard One of the first things I did was the degrading the Suarez's Fonseca's Smigletius's and Goudin's c. in my Library cashiering them of the considerable Post they held and abandoning them to a mouldy Chest of Lumber there to lye at the Mercy of the Dust and Vermin to be succeeded by M. Descartes bound in a fine Turky Cover and all his illustrious Disciples Before my Conversion to Cartesianism I was so pitiful and Tender-hearted that I could not so much as see a Chicken kill'd But since I was once persuaded that Beasts were destitute both of Knowledg and Sense scarce a Dog in all the Town wherein I was could escape me for the making Anatomical Dissections wherein I my self was Operator without the least inkling of Compassion or Remorse as also at the opening of the Disputes and Assemblies of the Learn'd which I thought good to keep at my House for the inhancing and propagating the Doctrin of my Master in the Country the first Oration I made before them was an Invective against the Ignorance and Injustice of that Senator the Areopagite that caus'd a Noble Man's Child to be declar'd for ever Incapacitated from entring on the Publick Government whom he had observ'd take pleasure in pricking out the Eyes of Jack-Daws that were given him to play with Notwithstanding I must ingenuously confess that as resolv'd a Cartesian as I was I was not insensible of some weighty Scruples the more Ingenious sort rais'd in me in our Conferences I perceived also that the farther I went the more they increas'd and if M. Descartes does not settle and compose the Fluctuation of my Mind by a just and clever Answer to the Letter I have wrote him on that Subject I have great Fears the Traces of my Brain will change and the Animal Spirits resume their wonted Current This is the Copy of the Letter I sent to M. Descartes that contains the principal of those Difficulties which I thought not unworthy of the Publick A Letter to M. Descartes Monsieur I Cannot sufficiently express my Acknowledgments of the Honours and Civilities I receiv'd from you during that transitory Stay I made in your Parts of the highest Heavens The few good Qualities and Accomplishments you must necessarily find in me prevented not your treating me as a Person qualify'd with the greatest Merit For you to build an intire World before my Face and to give your self the trouble of making me comprehend the whole Contrivance to see all the Wheels and Springs of so admirable a Machine was an Honour greater in its kind than what the King vouchsafes Embassadors Princes and mighty Personages by commanding all the Water-works to be plaid for them at Versailles You may infallibly reckon from that time that I am devotedly at your Service and that having made your self absolute Master of my Vnderstanding by those sublimated Notices you have communicated you have yet more irresistibly captivated my Will by those extraordinary Favours you have heap'd upon me The Reverend Father Mersennus who readily condescended to the trouble of this Letter will inform you more at large both what my real Sentiments are of your Person and your Doctrin My Behaviour since my return hath throughly convinc'd him that there never was a Disciple more Zealous than my self for the Honour Growth and Advancement of the Sect. In less than a Month since my Arrival from your World I have cast Terror and Confusion in the Face of Peripateticism throughout the Land I have inspirited with new Life and Courage those few drooping Cartesians that remain'd but liv'd in Obscurity and Silence solacing themselves with the private enjoyment of Truth but were very remiss in promoting her Interest there where she had been but ill receiv'd Twice every Week I hold publick Disputes at my House and indeavour therein as much as possible to give Vogue and Reputation to your Doctrin I have already made some Conquests among the Peripateticks many whereof appear there and excepting two or three who are ungovernably headstrong and conceited they will all be my own as soon as I shall have answer'd some pretty substantial Objections they have propos'd against several Points of your Philosophy The chief of which respect the general Construction of your World And whereas in that Affair they pretend to destroy your Conclusions by your own Principles and some amongst them are Men of Parts that give a specious and probable turn to their Arguments in so much that I have sometimes been put to 't to find the Fallacy I thought my self oblig'd to have recourse unto the Oracle and that I could do nothing better than consult You your self as you gave me Permission and intreat you to communicate your Thoughts as soon as possible thereupon A Voyage from the third Heaven to this Place is no great business for your little Moor. Thus then these Gentlemen to my best Remembrance fell to Work They began by proposing two or three trite Arguments daily made use of in the Desks to confute your System and to shew that it is a meer Chymera and not to be suffered as a simple Hypothesis should they grant the Principles you your self lay down M. Descartes say they supposes first That God creates Matter secondly That he divides it into infinite little cubical Parts and lastly determining several great Portions of this Matter he puts them in a circular Motion and at once makes the little cubical Parts of which