Policy of that Country when he proceeded in this manner There are others who keep Publick-house after a far different manner When one is about to be gone they demand proportionably to the Charges an Acquittance for the other World and when that is given them they write down in a great Register which they call Doomsday's Book much after this manner Item The value of so many Verses delivered such a Day to such a Person which he is to pay upon the receipt of this Acquittance out of his readiest Cash And when they find themselves in danger of Death they cause these Registers to be Chopt in pieces and swallow them down because they believe that if they were not thus digested they would be good for nothing This Conversation was no hinderance to our Journey for my Four-legged Porter jogged on under me and I rid stradling on his Back I shall not be particular in relating to you all the Adventures that happened to us on our way till we arrived at length at the Town where the King holds his Residence I was no sooner come but they carryed me to the Palace where the Grandees received me with more Moderation than the People had done as I passed the Streets But both great and small concluded That without doubt I was the Female of the Queen 's little Animal My Guide was my Interpreter and yet he himself understood not the Riddle and knew not what to make of that little Animal of the Queen's but we were soon satisfied as to that for the King having some time considered me ordered it to be brought and about half an hour after I saw a company of Apes wearing Ruffs and Breeches come in and amongst them a little Man almost of my own Built for he went on Two Legs so soon as he perceived me he Accosted me with a Criado de vuestra merced I answered his Greeting much in the same Terms But alas no sooner had they seen us talk together but they believed their Conjecture to be true and so indeed it seemed for he of all the By-standers that past the most favourable Judgment upon us protested that our Conversation was a Chattering we kept for Joy at our meeting again That little Man told me that he was an European a Native of old Castille That he had found a means by the help of Birds to mount up to the World of the Moon where then we were That falling into the Queen's Hands she had taken him for a Monkey because Fate would have it so That in that Country they cloath Apes in a Spanish Dress and that upon his arrival being found in that habit she had made no doubt but he was of the same kind It could not otherwise be replied I but having tried all Fashions of Apparel upon them none were found so Ridiculous and by consequence more becoming a kind of Animals which are only entertained for Pleasure and Diversion That shews you little understand the Dignity of our Nation answered he for whom the Universe breeds Men only to be our Slaves and Nature produces nothing but objects of Mirth and Laughter He then intreated me to tell him how I durst be so bold as to Scale the Moon with the Machine I told him of I answered That it was because he had carried a way the Birds which I intended to have made use of He smiled at this Raillery and about a quarter of an hour after the King commanded the Keeper of the Monkeys to carry us back with express Orders to make the Spaniard and me lie together that we might procreate a breed of Apes in his Kingdom The King's Pleasure was punctually obeyed at which I was very glad for the satisfaction I had of having a Mate to converse with during the solitude of my Brutification One Day my Male for I was taken for the Female told me That the true reason which had obliged him to travel all over the Earth and at length to abandon it for the Moon was that he could not find so much as one Country where even Imagination was at liberty Look ye said he how the Wittiest thing you can say unless you wear a Cornered Cap if it thwart the Principles of the Doctors of the Robe you are an Ideot a Fool and something worse perhaps I was about to have been put into the Inquisition at home for maintaining to the Pedants Teeth That there was a Vacuum and that I knew no one matter in the World more Ponderous than another I asked him what probable Arguments he had to confirm so new an Opinion To evince that answered he you must suppose that there is but one Element for though we see Water Earth Air and Fire distinct yet are they never found to be so perfectly pure but that there still remains some Mixture For example When you behold Fire it is not Fire but Air much extended the Air is but Water much dilated Water is but liquified Earth and the Earth it self but condensed Water and thus if you weigh Matter seriously you 'll find it is but one which like an excellent Comedian here below acts all Parts in all sorts of Dresses Otherwise we must admit as many Elements as there are kinds of Bodies And if you ask me why Fire burns and Water cools since it is but one and the same matter I answer That that matter acts by Sympathy according to the Disposition it is in at the time when it acts Fire which is nothing but Earth also more dilated than is fit for the constitution of Air strives to change into it self by Sympathy what ever it meets with Thus the heat of Coals being the most subtile Fire and most proper to penetrate a Body at first slides through the pores of our Skin and because it is a new matter that fills us it makes us exhale in Sweat that Sweat dilated by the Fire is converted to a Steam and becomes Air that Air being farther rarified by the heat of the Antiperistasis or of the Neighbouring Stars is called Fire and the Earth abandoned by the Cold and Humidity which were Ligaments to the whole falls to the ground Water on the other hand though it no ways differ from the matter of Fire but in that it is closer burns us not because that being dense by Sympathy it closes up the Bodies it meets with and the Cold we feel is no more but the effect of our Flesh contracting it self because of the Vicinity of Earth or Water which constrains it toa Resemblance Hence it is that those who are troubled with a Dropsie convert all their nourishment into Water and the Cholerick convert all the Blood that is formed in their Liver into Choler It being then supposed that there is but one Element it is most certain that all Bodies according to their several qualities incline equally towards the Center of the Earth But you 'll ask me Why then does Iron Metal Earth and Wood descend more swiftly to the
Center than a Sponge if it be not that it is full of Air which naturally tends upwards That is not at all the Reason and thus I make it out Though a Rock fall with greater Rapidity than a Feather both of them have the same inclination for the Journey but a Cannon Bullet for instance where the Earth pierced through would precipitate with greater haste to the Center thereof than a Bladder full of Wind and the reason is because that mass of Metal is a great deal of Earth contracted into a little space and that Wind a very little Earth in a large space For all the parts of Matter being so closely joined together in the Iron encrease their force by their Union because being thus compacted they are many that Fight against a few seeing a parcel of Air equal to the Bullet in Bigness is not equal in Quantity Not to insist on a long Deduction of Arguments to prove this tell me in good earnest How a Pike a Sword or a Dagger wound us If it be not because the Steel being a matter wherein the parts are more continuous and more closely knit together than your Flesh is whose Pores and Softness shew that it contains but very little Matter within a great extent of Place and that the point of the Steel that pricks us being almost an innumerable number of Particles of matter against a very little Flesh it forces it to yeild to the stronger in the same manner as a Squadron in close order will easily break through a more open Battallion for why does a Bit of red hot Iron burn more than a Log of Wood all on Fire Unless it be that in the Iron there is more Fire in a small space seeing it adheres to all the parts of the Metal than in the Wood which being very Spongy by consequence contains a great deal of Vacuity and that Vacuity being but a Privation of Being cannot receive the form of Fire But you 'll object you suppose a Vacuum as if you had proved it and that 's begging of the question Well then I 'll prove it and though that difficulty be the Sister of the Gordian knot yet my Arms are strong enough to become its Alexander Let that vulgar Beast then who does not think it self a Man had it not been told so answer me if it can Suppose now there be but one Matter as I think I have sufficiently peoved whence comes it that according to its Appetite it enlarges or contracts its self whence is it that a piece of Earth by being Condensed becomes a Stone Is it that the parts of that Stone are placed one with another in such a manner that wherever that grain of Sand is settled even there or in the same point another grain of Sand is Lodged That cannot be no not according to their own Principles seeing there is no Penetration of Bodies But that matter must have crowded together and if you will abridged it self so that it hath filled some place which was empty before To say that it is incomprehensible that there should be a Nothing in the World that we are in part made up of Nothing Why not pray Is not the whold World wrapt up in Nothing Since you yield me this point then confess ingeniously that it 's as rational that the World should have a Nothing within it as Nothing about it I well perceive you 'll put the question to me Why Water compressed in a Vessel by the Frost should break it if it be not to hinder a Vacuity But I answer That that only happens because the Air over-head which as well as Earth and Water tends to the Center meeting with an empty Tun by the way takes up his Lodging there If it find the pores of that Vessel that 's to say the ways that lead to that void place too narrow too long and too crooked with impatience it breaks through and arrives at its Tun. But not to trifle away time in answering all their objections I dare be bold to say That if there were no Vacuity there could be no Motion or else a Penetration of Bodies must be admitted for it would be a little too ridiculous to think that when a Gnat pushes back a parcel of Air with its Wings that parcel drives another before it that other another still and that so the stirring of the little Toe of a Flea should raise a bunch upon the Back of the Universe When they are at a stand they have recourse to Rarefaction But in good earnest How can it be when a Body is rarified that one Particle of the Mass does recede from another Particle without leaving an empty Space betwixt them must not the two Bodies which are just separated have been at the same time in the same place of this and that so they must have all three penetrated each other I expect you 'll ask me why through a Reed a Syringe or a Pump Water is forced to ascend contrary to its inclination To which I answer That that 's by violence and that it is not the fear of a Vacuity that turns it out of the right way but that being linked to the Air by an imperceptible Chain it rises when the Air to which it is joined is raised That 's no such knotty Difficulty when one knows the perfect Circle and the delicate Concatenation of the Elements For if you attentively consider the Slime which joines the Earth and Water together in Marriage you 'll find that it is neither Earth nor Water but the Mediator betwixt these Two Enemies In the same manner the Water and Air reciprocally send a Mist that dives into the Humours of both to negotiate a Peace betwixt them and the Air is reconciled to the Fire by means of an interposing Exhalation which Unites them I believe he would have proceeded in his Discourse had they not brought us our Victuals and seeing we were a hungry I stopt my Ears to his discourse and opened my Stomack to the Food they gave us I remember another time when we were upon our Philosophy for neither of us took pleasure to Discourse of mean things I am vexed said he to see a Wit of your stamp infected with the Errors of the Vulgar You must know then in spight of the Pedantry of Aristotle with which your Schools in France still ring That every thing is in every thing that 's to say for instance That in the Water there is Fire in the Fire Water in the Air Earth and in the Earth Air Though that Opinion makes Scholars open their Eyes as big as Sawcers yet it is easier to prove it than perswade it For I ask them in the first place if Water does not breed Fish If they deny it let them dig a Pit fill it with meer Element and to prevent all blind Objections let them if they please strain it through a Strainer and I 'll oblige my self in case they find no Fish therein within a
certain time to drink up all the Water they have poured into it But if they find Fish as I make no doubt on 't it is a convincing Argument that there is both Salt and Fire there Consequentially now to find Water in Fire I take it to be no difficult Task For let them chuse Fire even that which is most abstracted from Matter as Comets are there is a great deal in them still seeing if that Unctuous Humour whereof they are engendred being reduced to a Sulphur by the heat of the Antiperistasis which kindles them did not find a curb of its Violence in the humid Cold that qualifies and resists it it would spend it self in a trice like Lightning Now that there is Air in the Earth they will not deny it or otherwise they have never heard of the terrible Earth-quakes that have so often shaken the Mountains of Sicily Besides the Earth is full of Pores even to the least grains of Sand that compass it Nevertheless no Man hath as yet said that these Hollows were filled with Vacuity It will not be taken amiss then I hope if the Air takes up its quarters there It remains to be proved that there is Earth in the Air but I think it scarcely worth my pains seeing you are convinced of it as often as you see such numberless Legions of Atomes fall upon your heads as even stiffle Arithmetick But let us pass from simple to compound Bodies they 'll furnish me with much more frequent Subjects and to demonstrate that all things are in all things not that they change into one another as your Peripateticks Juggle for I will maintain to their Teeth that the Principles mingle separate and mingle again in such a manner that that hath been made Water by the Wise Creator of the World will always be Water I shall suppose no Maxime as they do but what I prove And therefore take a Billet or any other combustible stuff and set Fire to it they 'll say when it is in a Flame That what was Wood is now become Fire but I maintain the contrary and that there is no more Fire in it when it is all in Flame than before it was kindled but that which before was hid in the Billet and by the Humidity and Cold hindered from acting being now assisted by the Stronger hath rallied its forces against the Phlegm that choaked it and commanding the Field of Battle that was possessed by its Enemy triumphs over his Jaylor and appears without Fetters Don't you see how the Water flees out at the two ends of the Billet hot and smoaking from the Fight it was engaged in That flame which you see rise on high is the purer Fire unpestered from the Matter and by consequence the readiest to return home to it self Nevertheless it Unites it self by tapering into a Piramide till it rise to a certain height that it may pierce through the thick Humidity of the Air which resists it but as in mounting it disengages it self by little and little from the violent company of its Landlords so it diffuses it self because then it meets with nothing that thwarts its passage which negligence though is many times the cause of a second Captivity For marching stragglingly it wanders sometimes into a Cloud and if it meet there with a Party of its own sufficient to make head against a Vapour they Engage Grumble Thunder and Roar and the Death of Innocents is many times the effect of the animated Rage of those inanimated Things If when it finds it self pestered among those Crudities of the middle Region it is not strong enough to make a defence it yields to its Enemy upon discretion which by its weight constrains it to fall again to the Earth And this Wretch inclosed in a drop of Rain may perhaps fall at the Foot of an Oak whose Animal Fire will invite the poor Straggler to take a Lodging with him and thus you have it in the same condition again as it was a few Days before But let us trace the Fortune of the other Elements that composed that Billet The Air retreats to its own Quarters also though blended with Vapours because the Fire all in a rage drove them briskly out Pell-mell together Now you have it serving the Winds for a Tennis-ball furnishing Breath to Animals filling up the Vacuities that Nature hath left and it may be also wrapt up in a drop of Dew suckling the thirsty Leaves of that Tree whither our Fire retreated The Water driven from its Throne by the Flame being by the heat elevated to the Nursery of the Meteors will distil again in Rain upon our Oak as soon as upon another and the Earth being turned to Ashes and then cured of its Sterility either by the nourishing Heat of a Dunghill on which it hath been thrown or by the vegetative Salt of some neighbouring Plants or by the teeming Waters of some Rivers may happen also to be near this Oak which by the heat of its Germ will attract it and convert it into a part of its bulk In this manner these Four Elements undergo the same Destiny and return to the same State which they quitted but a few days before So that it may be said that all that 's necessary for the composition of a Tree is in a Man and in a Tree all that 's necessary for making of a Man. In fine according to this way all things will be found in all things but we want a Prometheus to pluck us out of the Bosom of Nature and render us sensible which I am willing to call the First Matter These were the things I think with which we past the time for that little Spaniard had a quaint Wit. Our conversation however was only in the Night time because from Six a clock in the morning until night Crowds of the People that came to stare at us in our Lodging would have disturbed us For some threw us Stones others Nuts and others Grass there was no talk but of the Kings Beasts we had our Victuals daily at set hours and the King and Queen took the pains often to feel my Belly to see if I did not begin to swell for they had an extraordinary desire to have a Race of these little Animals I cannot tell whether it was that I minded their Gestures and Tones more than my Male did But I learnt sooner than he to understand their Language and to smatter a little in it which made us to be lookt upon in another guess manner than formerly and the news thereupon flew presently all over the Kingdom that two Wild Men had been found who were less than other Men by reason of the bad Food we had had in the Desarts and who through a defect of their Parents Seed had not the fore Legs strong enough to support their Bodies This belief would have taken rooting by being spread had it not been for the Learned Men of the Country who opposed it saying
Sun and were not perceived by the Ancients dayly increase Now who can tell but that it is a Crust formed in its Superfice it 's Mass that extinguishes proportionably as the Light leaves it and if it become not when all these moveable Bodies have abandoned it an obscure Body like the Earth There are very distant Ages beyond which there appears no Vestige of Man-kind perhaps heretofore the Earth was a Sun peopled with Animals proportioned to the Climate that produces them and perhaps these Animals were the Demons of whom Antiquity relates so many Instances Why not Is it not possible that these Animals after the Extinction of the Earth have still lived there for some time and that the Alteration of their Globe had not as yet destroyed all their Race In effect their life continued until the time of Augustus according to the Testimony of Plutarch It would even seem that the prophetick and sacred Testament of our Primitive Patriarchs designed to lead us by the Hand to that truth For we read in it of the Revolt of Angels before mention is made of Man. Is not that Sequel of time which the Scripture observes half of a Proof in a manner that Angels inhabited the Earth before us And that these proud Blades who had lived in out World whilst it was a Sun disdaining perhaps since it was extinct to abide any longer in it and knowing that God had placed his Throne in the Sun had the boldness to adventure to invade it But God who resolved to punish their Audacity banish'd them even from the Earth and created Man less perfect but by consequence less proud to possess their vacant Habitations About the end of four Months Voyage at least as near as one can reckon when there is no Night to distinguish the Day I came upon the Coast of one of those little Earths that wheel about the Sun which the Mathematicians call Spots where by reason that Clouds interposed my Glasses now not uniting so much heat and by consequence the Air not pushing my Shed with so much Force what remained of the Wind could do no more but bear up my fall and let me down upon the top of a very high Mountain to which I gently descended I leave it to you to consider what Joy I felt when I saw my Feet upon firm Ground after I had so long acted the part of a Fowl. Words indeed are too weak to express the Extasie of Gladness I found my self in when at length I perceived my Head Crowned with the Brightness of the Heavens However I was not so far transported yet with that Extasie but that I thought of getting out of my Box and of covering the Capital thereof with my Shirt before I left it because I was apprehensive that if the Air becoming Serene the Sun should again kindle my Glasses as it was likely enough I might find my House no more By Gullies which seemed hollowed by the fall of Water I descended into the Plain where because of the thick Mud that fatned the Earth I had much ado to go However having advanced a little way I arrived in a great Bottom where I rencountred a little Man stark-naked sitting and resting himself upon a Stone I cannot call to mind whether I spoke to him first or if it was he that put the Question to me But it is as fresh in my Memory as if I heard him still that he discoursed to me three long Hours in a Language which I knew very well I had never heard before and which hath not the least resemblance with any of the Languages in this World notwithstanding I comprehended it faster and more intelligibly than my Mother Tongue He told me when I made enquiry about so wonderful a thing that in Sciences there was a true without which one was always far from the easie that the more an Idiom was distant from this truth the more it came short of the Conception and was less easie to be understood In the same manner continued he in Musick one never finds this true but that the Soul immediately rises and blindly aspires after it We see it not but we feel that Nature sees it and without being able to conceive in what manner we are swallowed up by it it still ravishes us tho we cannot observe where it is It 's the very same with Languages he who hits upon that verity of Letters Words and Order in expressing himself can never fall below his thought he speaks always with congruity to his Conception and it is because you are ignorant of this perfect Idiom that you are at a stand not knowing the Order nor the Words which might explain what you imagine I told him that the first Man of our World had undoubtedly made use of that Language because the several Names which he gave to several things declared their Essence He interrupted me and went on It is not absolutely necessary for expressing all the mind conceives but without it we cannot be understood of all Seeing this Idiom is the Instinct or Voice of Nature it ought to be intelligible to all that live under the Jurisdiction of Nature And therefore if you understood it you might Discourse and Communicate all your thoughts to Beasts and the Beasts theirs to you because it is the very Language of Nature whereby she makes her self to be understood by all Living Creatures Be no more surprised then at the faoility wherewith you understand the meaning of a Language which never sounded before in your Ear. When I speak your Soul finds in every Word of mine that Truth which it gropes after and though her Reason understand it not yet she has Nature with her that cannot fail to understand it Ha! without doubt cried I it was by the means of that Emphatick Idiom that our first Father heretofore conversed with Animals and was by them understood for seeing the Dominion over all the kinds of them was given to him they obeyed him because he commanded in a Language that was known to them and it is for that Reason also that this Original Language being lost they come not at present when they are called as heretofore they did seeing now they do not understand us The little Man seemed as if he had no mind to answer me but resuming his discourse he was about to go on if I had not once again interrupted him I asked him then what World it was that we breathed in if it was much inhabited and what kind of Government they lived under I am going replyed he to discover Secrets to you which are not known in your Climate Consider well the Ground whereon we go it is not long since it was an indigested disorderly Mass a Chaos of confused Matter a black and glewy Filth whereof the Sun had purged it self Now after that by the force of the rays which the Sun darted against it he mingled pressed and compacted those numerous Clouds of Atomes After I say that
cause the Servants to cut meat for me he had sometimes the goodness to prepare it for me himself If I catcht cold in the Winter he carried me to the Fire lined my Cage or ordered the Gardiner to warm me in his Bosom The Servants durst not vex me in his presence and one day I remember he saved me from the Jaws of the Cat who held me in her Paws to which my Lady 's little Page had exposed me but it will not be impertinent to tell you the Cause of that Barbarity To comply with Verdelet for that was the Page's name I was chattering one day some idle words that he had taught me Now it happened as ill Luck would have it though I always repeated my Lessons in course that I came to say in order just as he came in to deliver a Message Be quiet you Son of a Whore you lye The Man there that stands Indicted who knowing the Rogue to be naturally given to Lying imagined that I might very well have spoken by Prophecy and sent to the place to know if Verdelet had been there Verdelet was convinced of his Knavery Verdelet was whipt and Verdelet in revenge would have had me devoured by Maulkin The King by a Nod of the head shew'd that he was satisfied with the Pity that she had conceived for my disaster However he discharged her to speak any more to me in private Then he asked my Adversary's Council if his Plea was ready He made a sign with his Foot that he was going to speak and if I mistake it not these are the Points whereon he insisted against me The Plea brought in the Parliament of Birds Assembled against an Animal accused of being a Man. Gentlemen The Plaintiff is Guillemot the Fleshy a Partridge by extraction lately arrived from the World of the Earth his Breast still gaping by a shot that he hath received from Men Demandant against all Mankind and by consequence against an Animal whom I pretend to be a member of that great Body It would be no hard matter for us to hinder by his death the Violences that he can commit Nevertheless seeing the Preservation or Loss of every thing that has breath concerns the Common-Wealth of the Living I think we should deserve to have been made Men that 's to say Degraded from Reason and Immortality which we enjoy above them had we resembled them in any unjust Action like theirs Let us examine then Gentlemen the Difficulties of this Cause with all the Application that our divine minds are capable of The stress of the matter lies here to wit Whether or not this Animal be a Man and then in case we make it out that he is whether or not he deserves Death for that For my part I make no doubt but that he is in the first place Because he is so impudent as to tell a Lye in maintaining that he is not in the second place Because he laughs like a Fool thirdly In that he weeps like a Sot fourthly In that he blows his Nose like a nasty Villain fifthly In that he is Feathered but in part sixthly In that he carries his Tail before seventhly In that he hath always a great many little square Bones in his Mouth which he has neither the wit to spit out nor swallow down eighthly and lastly Because every Morning he lifts up his Eyes his Nose and large Snout claps his open Hands close together which he points up to Heaven joins them into one piece as if it troubled him to have two at liberty breaks his Legs short off by the middle so that he falls upon his Geegots and then by Magical words that he mutters I have observed That his broken Legs are knit again and that he rises up as gay as he was before Now you know Gentlemen that amongst all Animals none but Man has so black a Soul as to be given to Magick and by consequence I conclude That this is a Man We are now to enquire whether or not as Man he deserves to be put to death I think Gentlemen it never was yet doubted but that all Creatures are produced by our common Mother to live together in Society Now if I prove that Man seems to be Born only to break it shall I not make it out that he going contrary to the end of his Creation deserves that Nature should repent her self of her work The first and fundamental Law for the maintenance of a Republick is Equality But Man cannot endure it to Eternity he falls upon us that he may eat us he perswades himself that we were only made for his use he makes the Barbarity wherewith he massacres us and the small Resistance he finds on our side an Argument of his pretended Superiority And nevertheless wo'nt own Eagles Condores and Griffins who are too hard for the strongest Man to be his Masters But why should that great Size and conformation of Members make the diversity of Kind seeing there are Dwarffs and Giants to be found amongst Men themselves Nay more that Empire wherewith they flatter themselves is but an imaginary Right On the contrary they are so inclinable to Servitude that least they should not serve they fell one another for Slaves In this manner the Young are Slaves to the Old the Poor to the Rich the Clowns to the Gentlemen the Princes to the Monarchs and the Monarchs themselves to the Laws which they have Established And besides all that the poor Drudges are so afraid to be without Masters that as if they apprehended that Liberty might come to them from some unexpected place they frame to themselves Gods in all parts in the Water in the Air in the Fire and under the Earth they 'll make them of Wood rather than want nay I fancy also that they tickle themselves with the vain hopes of Immortality not so much out of a Horrour that they have of being annihilated as for fear that they may have none to command them after their death Here 's the fine effect of that fantastical Monarchy and of that natural Empire of Man as they would have it over the Animals nay and over us too for he has been so insolent as even to pretend to that In the mean while in consequence of that ridiculous Principality he fairly takes to himself the power of Life and Death over us he lays snares for us chains us claps us up in Prison kills us eats us and makes the power of killing those which remain free a mark of Nobility He thinks that the Sun is lighted on purpose to let him see how to make War against us that Nature hath only suffered us to take our turns in the Air that from our flight he may draw lucky or unlucky Auspices and that when God put Entrails into our Bodies his intention only was to make a great Book wherein Man might learn the Science of future Contingencies Good then is not this unsupportable Pride Could any that 's