Daniel Defoe - The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon

The first Voyage I ever made to this Country, was in one of these Engines; and I can safely affirm, I never wak'd all the way; and now having been as often there as most that have us'd that Trade, it may be expected I should give some Account of the Country; for it appears, I can give but little of the Road.

Only this I understand, That when this Engine, by help of these Artificial Wings, has raised it self up to a certain height, the Wings are as useful to keep it from falling into the Moon , as they were before to raise it, and keep it from falling back into this Region again.

This may happen from an Alteration of Centers, and Gravity having past a certain Line, the Equipoise changes its Tendency, the Magnetick Quality being beyond it, it inclines of Course, and pursues a Center, which it finds in the Lunar World , and lands us safe upon the Surface.

I was told, I need take no Bills of Exchange with me, nor Letters of Credit; for that upon my first Arrival, the Inhabitants would be very civil to me: That they never suffered any of Our World to want any thing when they came there: That they were very free to show them any thing, and inform them in all needful Cases; and that whatever Rarities the Country afforded, should be expos'd immediately.

I shall not enter into the Customs, Geography, or History of the Place, only acquaint the Reader, That I found no manner of Difference in any thing Natural, except as hereafter excepted, but all was exactly as is here, an Elementary World, peopled with Folks, as like us as if they were only Inhabitants of the same Continent, but in a remote Climate.

The Inhabitants were Men , Women , Beasts , Birds , Fishes , and Insects , of the same individual Species as Ours, the latter excepted: The Men no wiser, better, nor bigger than here; the Women no handsomer or honester than Ours: There were Knaves and honest Men, honest Women and Whores of all Sorts, Countries, Nations and Kindreds, as on this side the Skies.

They had the same Sun to shine, the Planets were equally visible as to us , and their Astrologers were as busily Impertinent as Ours, only that those wonderful Glasses hinted before made strange Discoveries that we were unacquainted with; by them they could plainly discover, That this World was their Moon, and their World our Moon; and when I came first among them, the People that flockt about me, distinguisht me by the Name of, the Man that came out of the Moon .

I cannot, however, but acquaint the Reader, with some Remarks I made in this new World, before I come to any thing Historical.

I have heard, that among the Generallity of our People, who being not much addicted to Revelation, have much concern'd themselves about Demonstrations, a Generation have risen up, who to solve the Difficulties of Supernatural Systems, imagine a mighty vast Something , who has no Form but what represents him to them as one Great Eye: This infinite Optick they imagine to be Natura Naturans , or Power-forming; and that as we pretend the Soul of Man has a Similitude in quality to its Original, according to a Notion some People have, who read that so much ridicul'd Old Legend, call'd Bible , That Man was made in the Image of his Maker: The Soul of Man, therefore, in the Opinion of these Naturallists, is one vast Optick Power diffus'd through him into all his Parts, but seated principally in his Head.

From hence they resolve all Beings to Eyes , some more capable of Sight and receptive of Objects than others; and as to things Invisible, they reckon nothing so, only so far as our Sight is deficient, contracted or darkened by Accidents from without, as Distance of Place, Interposition of Vapours, Clouds, liquid Air, Exhalations, &c. or from within, as wandring Errors , wild Notions , cloudy Understandings , and empty Fancies , with a Thousand other interposing Obstacles to the Sight, which darken it, and prevent its Operation; and particularly obstruct the perceptive Faculties, weaken the Head, and bring Mankind in General to stand in need of the Spectacles of Education as soon as ever they are born: Nay, and as soon as they have made use of these Artificial Eyes, all they can do is but to clear the Sight so far as to see that they can't see ; the utmost Wisdom of Mankind, and the highest Improvement a Man ought to wish for, being but to be able to see that he was Born blind ; this pushes him upon search after Mediums for the Recovery of his Sight, and away he runs to School to Art and Science, and there he is furnisht with Horoscopes , Microscopes , Tellescopes , Cæliscopes , Money-scopes , and the D-l and and all of Glasses, to help and assist his Moon-blind Understanding ; these with wonderful Skill and Ages of Application, after wandring thro' Bogs and Wildernesses of Guess , Conjectures , Supposes , Calculations , and he knows not what, which he meets with in Physicks , Politicks , Ethicks , Astronomy , Mathematicks , and such sort of bewildring Things, bring him with vast Difficulty to a little Minute-spot, call'd Demonstration ; and as not one in Ten Thousand ever finds the way thither, but are lost in the tiresome uncouth Journey, so they that do , 'tis so long before they come there, that they are grown Old and good for little in the Journey; and no sooner have they obtained a glimering of this Universal Eye-sight , this Eclaricissment General , but they Die , and have hardly time to show the way to those that come after.

Now, as the earnest search after this thing call'd Demonstration fill'd me with Desires of seeing every thing, so my Observations of the strange multitude of Mysteries I met with in all Men's Actions here, spurr'd my Curiosity to examine, if the Great Eye of the World had no People to whom he had given a clearer Eye-sight, or at least, that made a better use of it than we had here.

If pursuing this search I was much delighted at my Arrival into China , it cannot be thought strange, since there we find Knowledge as much advanc'd beyond our common Pitch, as it was pretended to be deriv'd from a more Ancient Original.

We are told, that in the early Age of the World, the Strength of Invention exceeded all that ever has been arrived to since: That we in these latter Ages, having lost all that pristine Strength of Reason and Invention, which died with the Ancients in the Flood, and receiving no helps from that Age, have by long Search arriv'd at several remote Parts of Knowledge, by the helps of reading Conversation and Experience; but that all amounts to no more than faint Imitations, Apings, and Resemblances of what was known in those masterly Ages.

Now, if it be true as is hinted before, That the Chinese Empire was Peopled long before the Flood; and that they were not destroyed in the General Deluge in the Days of Noah ; 'tis no such strange thing, that they should so much out-do us in this sort of Eye-sight we call General Knowledge , since the Perfections bestow'd on Nature, when in her Youth and Prime met with no General Suffocation by that Calamity.

But if I was extreamly delighted with the extraordinary things I saw in those Countries, you cannot but imagine I was exceedingly mov'd, when I heard of a Lunar World; and that the way was passable from these Parts.

I had heard of a World in the Moon among some of our Learned Philosophers, and Moor , as I have been told, had a Moon in his Head; but none of the fine Pretenders, no not Bishop Wilkins , ever found Mechanick Engines, whose Motion was sufficient to attempt the Passage. A late happy Author indeed, among his Mechanick Operations of the Spirit, had found out an Enthusiasm, which if he could have pursued to its proper Extream, without doubt might, either in the Body or out of the Body , have Landed him somewhere hereabout; but that he form'd his System wholly upon the mistaken Notion of Wind , which Learned Hypothesis being directly contrary to the Nature of things in this Climate, where the Elasticity of the Air is quite different and where the pressure of the Atmosphere has for want of Vapour no Force, all his Notion dissolv'd in its Native Vapour call'd Wind , and flew upward in blew Strakes of a livid Flame call'd Blasphemy , which burnt up all the Wit and Fancy of the Author, and left a strange stench behind it, that has this unhappy quality in it, that every Body that Reads the Book, smells the Author , tho' he be never so far off; nay, tho' he took Shipping to Dublin , to secure his Friends from the least danger of a Conjecture.