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years, by our standards.) "You can see yourself that this is to die almost at the moment one is born; our existence is a point, our lifespan an instant, our planet an atom. Hardly do we begin to learn a little when death arrives, before we get any experience. As for me, I do not dare make any plans. I see myself as a drop of water in an immense ocean. I am ashamed, most of all before you, of how ridiculously I figure in this world."
"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we believe that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of them, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity, divisibility, and the rest."
"Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices for what the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdom in everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion. Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have few sensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work of Providence. What color is your sun upon examination?"
"A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide one of its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."
"Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary colors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close to that resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that is identical to the others."
After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how many essentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned that there were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beings with extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense and think, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that are penetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose home contained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages, prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, after having told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of what they did not know, after having reasoned over the course of a revolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a small philosophical voyage together.
Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.
Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn's atmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument when the ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came in tears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who was only 660 fathoms tall, but who compensated for this small size with many other charms.
"Cruelty!" she cried, "after resisting you for 1,500 years, just when I was beginning to come around, when I'd spent hardly a hundred years in your arms, you leave me to go on a voyage with a giant from another world; go, you're only curious, you've never been in love: if you were a true Saturnian, you would be faithful. Where are you running off to? What do you want? Our five moons are less errant than you, our ring less inconsistent. It's over, I will never love anyone ever again."
The philosopher embraced her, cried with her, philosopher that he was; and the woman, after swooning, went off to console herself with the help of one of the dandies of the country.
The 1773 edition is the first that reads "a hundred"; all the earlier editions read: "two hundred." B.
Our two explorers left all the same; they alighted first on the ring, which they found to be fairly flat, as conjectured by an illustrious inhabitant of our little sphere; from there they went easily from moon to moon. A comet passed by the last; they flew onto it with their servants and their instruments. When they had traveled about one hundred fifty million leagues, they met with the satellites of Jupiter. They stopped at Jupiter and stayed for a week, during which time they learned some very wonderful secrets that would have been forthcoming in print if not for the inquisition, which found some of the propositions to be a little harsh. But I have read the manuscript in the library of the illustrious archbishop of...., who with a generosity and goodness that is impossible to praise allowed me to see his books. I promised him a long article in the first edition of Mor?ri, and I will not forget his children, who give such a great hope of perpetuating the race of their illustrious father.
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