MicromegasmicroMEGAS
            by Voltaire



      Editor's Notes by Blake Linton Wilfong
            A daring and heretical yarn when published in 1752, "Micromegas" is 
      the original SF short story, and still one of the best. It brims with 
      scientific fact, extrapolates sun-powered interstellar flight, alien 
      civilizations, and the two moons of Mars, and, most importantly, makes us 
      see ourselves in a new light--and laugh at what we find.
            For Voltaire is to Man as Copernicus is to Earth. His protagonist, a 
      centuries-old 120,000-foot-tall alien supergenius, marvels at the 
      smallness of our planet's microscopic inhabitants. Man is clearly no more 
      the pinnacle of living creatures than Earth is the center of the universe. 
      We are motes in a vast cosmos.
            Perhaps the most amusing historical figure "Micromegas" ridicules is 
      the Reverend William Derham (1657-1735), early astronomer and author of 
      Astro-Theology. His description of nebulae as "openings in the firmament 
      through which the fiery Empyrean is seen" improved his standing in the 
      Church, but contributes only to his obscurity today.
            Alas, "Micromegas" contains many mathematical blunders, factual 
      errors, and implausibilities. I have corrected some of these, but 
      scientific accuracy is not really the point here. Does it matter that 
      Micromegas' homeworld would collapse into a black hole under its own 
      weight, or that the aliens' romp on Earth must wreak vast destruction? No, 
      just shift your suspension of disbelief into high gear and enjoy the fun!
            Oh, and if the NASA photos of Earth and Mars seem small, it is 
      because they are correctly scaled relative to those of Jupiter and Saturn. 
      "Micromegas" is, above all, a story of proportions. 

On a planet revolving around the star Sirius there lived a young man of great 
intelligence, whose acquaintence I had the honor of making during his recent 
visit to our little anthill. He was called Micromegas, an appropriate name for 
great people. He had a stature of eight leagues, or 24,000 geometrical paces of 
five feet each, or 120,000 statute feet. 
We earthmen have an average stature hardly more than five feet--one pace--so Mr. 
Micromegas' world must in turn have a circumference 24,000 times greater than 
our little Earth. Nothing in nature is simpler, more a matter of course. The 
dominions of certain potentates in Germany or Italy, around which you can walk 
in half an hour, compared with the empires of Turkey, Russia, or China can give 
but a faint idea of the vast disparity Nature has set between different orders 
of being throughout the universe. 
Given his Excellency's height, any sculptor or painter would agree his waist 
should, proportionally, be about 50,000 feet around. His nose being one third 
the length of his handsome face, and his handsome face being one seventh the 
height of his handsome body, it follows that the Sirian's nose is some 5,714 
statute feet long. 
His mind rivals the most cultivated among us; he knows many things, some of 
which are his own inventions. He had not yet reached his 250th year, and was 
studying, as was customary at his age, at the most famous school on the planet, 
when he solved 50 propositions of Euclid--18 more than Blaise Pascal, who, after 
having, according to his sister's account, solved 32 for his own amusement, 
became a pretty fair geometer, and a very poor metaphysician. When Micromegas 
was about 450 years old, and already passing out of childhood, he dissected, 
with the aid of powerful microscopes, many little insects less than 100 feet in 
diameter; he wrote an interesting book about them, which got him into trouble. 
The mufti of that country, much given to hair-splitting and very ignorant, found 
in his work statements they deemed suspicious, offensive, rash, and heretical, 
and they prosecuted him with bitter animosity. The question in dispute was 
whether the substantial form of which the fleas of Sirius consisted was of the 
same nature as that of the snails. Micromegas defended himself spiritedly, and 
had all the ladies on his side; the trial lasted 220 years. At last the mufti 
had the book condemned by judges who had never read it, and the author was 
forbidden to appear at court for 800 years. 
He was only moderately afflicted at being banished from a court full of trickery 
and meanness. He composed a very funny song ridiculing the mufti, which in turn 
failed to give the latter much annoyance; and he himself set forth on his 
travels from planet to planet, with a view to improving his mind and soul, as 
the saying goes. 
Those who travel only in coaches will doubtless be astonished at the sort of 
conveyance adopted up there; for we, on our little mound of mud, can imagine 
nothing beyond our own experience. Our traveler had such a marvelous 
acquaintance with the laws of gravitation, and all the forces of attraction and 
repulsion, and made such good use of his knowledge, that, sometimes by means of 
a sunbeam, and sometimes with the help of a comet, he went from one world to 
another as a bird hops from bough to bough. He traversed the Milky Way in a 
short time; and I am obliged to confess that he never saw, beyond the stars with 
which it is thickly sown, that beautiful celestial empyrean which the 
illustrious parson, Derham, boasts of having discovered at the end of his 
telescope. Not that I would for a moment suggest Mr. Derham mistook what he saw; 
Heaven forbid! But Micromegas was on the spot, he is an accurate observer, and I 
have no wish to contradict anybody. 


Micromegas, after plenty of turns and twists, arrived at the planet Saturn. 
Accustomed though he was to the sight of novelties, when he saw the 
insignificant size of the globe and its inhabitants, he could not at first 
refrain from that smile of superiority which sometimes escapes even the wisest; 
for in truth Saturn is scarcely 900 times greater than Earth, and the citizens 
of that country are mere dwarfs, only a thousand fathoms high, or thereabout. He 
laughed a little at first at these people, in much the same way an Italian 
musician, when he comes to France, derides Lulli's performances. But, being a 
sensible fellow, the Sirian was soon convinced that a thinking being need not be 
altogether ridiculous because he is only 6,000 feet high. He was soon on 
familiar terms with the Saturnians after their astonishment had somewhat 
subsided. He formed a close friendship with the secretary of the Academy of 
Saturn, a man of great intelligence, who had not indeed invented anything 
himself, but excelled at describing the inventions of others, and who could turn 
a little verse neatly enough or perform an elaborate calculation. 
One day, after the Sirian had laid down and the secretary had approached his 
face to facilitate conversation, Micromegas said, "I must confess that nature is 
full of variety." 
"Yes," said the Saturnian; "nature is like a flower-bed, the blossoms of 
which--" 
"Oh," said the other, "have done with your flower-bed!" 
"She is," resumed the secretary, "like an assembly of blondes and brunettes, 
whose attire--" 
"No, no," said the traveler. "Nature is like nature. Why do you search for 
comparisons?" 
"To please you," answered the secretary. 
"I do not want to be pleased," rejoined the traveler; "I want to be instructed; 
begin by telling me how many senses the men in your world possess." 
"We have 72," said the academician; "and we are always complaining that they are 
so few. Our imagination soars beyond our needs; we find that with our 72 senses, 
our ring, and our five moons, that our range is too restricted, and, in spite of 
all our curiosity and the tolerably large number of passions which spring out of 
our 72 senses, we often feel bored." 
"I can well believe it," said Micromegas; "for on our globe, though we have 
nearly a thousand senses, there lingers even in us a certain vague desire, an 
unaccountable restlessness, which warns us that we are of little account in the 
universe, and that there are beings much more perfect than ourselves. I have 
traveled; I have seen mortals far below us, and others greatly superior; but I 
have seen none who have not more desires than real wants, and more wants than 
they can satisfy. I shall someday, perhaps, reach the country where there is 
lack of nothing, but hitherto no one has been able to give me any positive 
information about it." The Saturnian and the Sirian thereupon exhausted 
themselves with ingenius yet futile conjectures on the subject, but were 
eventually obliged to return to facts. 
"How long do you people live?" asked the Sirian. 
"Ah! a very short time," replied the little man of Saturn. 
"So too with us," said the Sirian. "We are always complaining of the shortness 
of life. This must be a universal law of nature." 
"Alas!" quoth the Saturnian, "none of us live more than 500 annual revolutions 
of the Sun." (That amounts to about 15,000 years, according to our manner of 
counting.) "You see how it is our fate to die almost as soon as we are born; our 
existence is a point, our duration an instant, our globe an atom. Scarcely have 
we begun to acquire a little information when death arrives before we can put it 
to use. I myself do not venture to lay any schemes; I feel like a drop of water 
in a boundless ocean. I am ashamed, especially before you, of the absurd figure 
I make in this universe." 
Micromegas answered: "Were you not a philosopher, I should fear to distress you 
by telling you our lives are 700 times as long as yours; but you know too well 
that when the time comes to give back one's body to the elements, and reanimate 
nature under another form--the process called death--when that moment of 
metamorphosis comes, it is precisely the same whether we have lived an eternity 
or only a day. I have been in countries where life is a thousand times longer 
than with us, and yet have heard murmurs of its brevity even there. But people 
of good sense exist everywhere, who know how to make the most of what they have, 
and to thank the Author of nature. He has spread over this universe abundant 
variety, together with a kind of admirable uniformity. For example, all thinking 
beings are different, yet resemble each other in the common endowment of thought 
and will. Matter is infinitely extended, but has different properties in 
different worlds. How many of these various properties do you reckon in the 
matter with which you are acquainted?" 
"If you speak," replied the Saturnian, "of those properites without which we 
believe this globe could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of them, such as 
extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravitation, divisibility, etc." 
"Apparently," rejoined the traveler, "this small number is sufficient for the 
Creator's purpose in constructing this little habitation. I admire His wisdom 
throughout; I see differences everywhere, but everywhere also a due proportion. 
Your globe is small; you who inhabit it are small likewise; you have few senses; 
the matter comprising your world has few properties; all this is the work of 
Providence. What color is your sun when carefully examined?" 
"White deeply tinged with yellow," said the Saturnian; "and when we split up one 
of its rays, it consists of seven colors." 
"Our sun has a reddish light," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary colors. 
There is not a single sun, among all those I have approached, which resembles 
any other, just as among yourselves there is not a single face which is not 
different from all the rest." 
After several other questions of this kind, he inquired how many modes of 
existence essentially different were enumerated on Saturn. He was told that not 
more than 30 were distinguished, as God, space, matter, beings occupying space 
which feel and think, thinking beings which do not occupy space, those which 
possess penetrability, others which do not, etc. The Sirian, in whose world they 
count 300 of them, and who had discovered 3,000 more in the course of his 
travels, astonished the philosopher of Saturn. At length, after having 
communicated to each other a little of what they knew, and a great deal of that 
about which they knew nothing, and after having exercised their reasoning powers 
during a complete revolution of the Sun, they resolved to make a little 
exploratory tour together. 
Our two philosophers were ready to embark upon the atmosphere of Saturn, with a 
fine collection of scientific instruments, when the Saturnian's mistress, who 
had heard what he was up to, came in tears to remonstrate with him. She was a 
pretty little brunette, barely 660 fathoms high, but her agreeable manners amply 
atoned for that deficiency. 
"Oh, cruel one!" she exclaimed, "after having resisted you for 1,500 years, and 
when I was at last beginning to surrender, and have passed scarcely a hundred 
years in your arms, to leave me thus, and start on a long journey with a giant 
of another world! Go, you have no taste for anything but novelty, you have never 
felt true love; were you a real Saturnian, you would be constant. Whither away 
so fast? What would you have? Our five moons are less fickle than you, our ring 
less changeable. So much for the past! I will never love again." 
The philosopher embraced her, and, in spite of all his philosophy, joined his 
tears with hers. As to the lady, after having fainted away, she consoled herself 
with a certain beau who lived in the neighborhood. 

Meanwhile our two inquirers commenced their travels; they first jumped onto 
Saturn's ring, which they found pretty flat, as an illustrious inhabitant of our 
little globe has cleverly conjectured; thence they easily made their way from 
moon to moon. A comet passed near the last one, so they sprang upon it, along 
with their instruments. When they had gone about 150,000,000 leagues, they came 
across the satellites of Jupiter. They landed on Jupiter itself, and remained 
there a year, during which they learned some very remarkable secrets which would 
now be appearing in the press, were it not for certain censors who find them too 
hard to swallow. 


Leaving Jupiter, our explorers crossed a space of about 100,000,000 leagues, 
and, coasting along the planet Mars, which, as is well known, is five times 
smaller than our own little globe, they saw two moons. These have escaped the 
observation of our astronomers. I am well aware that Father Castel will write, 
and pleasantly enough too, against the existence of these two moons, but I 
believe those who reason from analogy. Those excellent philosophers know how 
difficult it would be for Mars, which is so distant from the Sun, to get by with 
less than two moons. Be that as it may, our friends found the planet so small 
they were afraid of finding no room there to put up for the night, so they 
proceeded on their way, like a pair of travelers who disdain a humble village 
inn, and push on to the nearest town. But the Sirian and his companion soon 
repented this decision, for they went a long time without finding anything at 
all. 

At last they perceived a faint glimmer; it came from our Earth, and created 
compassion in the minds of those who had so lately left Jupiter. However, for 
fear of repenting a second time, they decided to disembark. They passed over the 
tail of the comet, and with the aid with an aurora borealis close at hand, 
alighted on Earth by the northern shore of the Baltic Sea, July 5, 1737. 
After resting, they consumed for breakfast a couple of mountains. Then wishing 
to inspect the countryside, they first went from north to south. Each of the 
Sirian's ordinary steps was about 30,000 statute feet; the Saturnian dwarf, 
whose height was only a thousand fathoms, followed panting far behind, for he 
had to take 20 steps when the other made a single stride. Picture to yourself a 
tiny little toy spaniel pursuing a captain of the King of Prussia's grenadiers! 
The strangers proceeded quickly, circling the globe in 36 hours; the Sun, 
indeed, or rather the Earth, makes the same journey in a day; but it is much 
easier to turn on one's axis than to walk on one's feet. Behold our travelers, 
then, returned to the same spot from which they had started, after having set 
eyes upon that sea, to them almost imperceptible, called the Mediterranean, and 
that other little pond which, under the name of the great Ocean, surrounds this 
molehill. Therein the dwarf had never sunk much above the knee, while the other 
had scarcely wetted his ankle. They did all they could, searching here and 
there, to ascertain whether Earth was inhabited. They stooped, lay down, and 
groped about in all directions; but their eyes and hands being out of all 
proportion to the tiny beings who crawl up and down here, they felt not the 
slightest sensation which could lead them to suspect that we and our fellow 
creatures have the honor to exist. 
The dwarf hastily declared there was not a single creature on this planet. His 
first reason was that he had not seen one. But Micromegas politely explained 
that that was not a good argument: 
"For," said he, "you, with your little eyes, cannot see certain stars of the 
50th magnitude which I distinctly discern; do you conclude that those stars have 
no existence?" 
"But," argued the dwarf, "this globe is so ill-constructed, so irregular, and so 
ridiculously shaped! All here appears chaotic; look at these little brooks, not 
one of which goes in a straight line, and these ponds, which are neither round, 
square, oval, nor of any regular form; and all these little bristles which have 
rubbed the skin off my feet!"--he alluded to the trees--"Observe too the shape 
of the globe as a whole, how it is flat at the poles, how it turns around the 
Sun in a clumsily slanting manner, so that the polar climes are mere wastes. In 
truth, what chiefly makes me think there is nobody here, is that I cannot 
suppose any sensible people should wish to occupy such a dwelling." 
"Well," said Micromegas, "perhaps the people who inhabit it are not sensible. 
But there are in fact signs of its not having been made for nothing. Everything 
here seems irregular, you say; but you judge by the standards of Saturn and 
Jupiter. Have I not told you that in the course of my travels I have always 
found variety?" 
The Saturnian had answers to these arguments, and the dispute might never have 
ended, had not he suddenly spied what seemed to him a small tadpole moving half 
underwater in the Baltic sea. Actually, it was a whale. He caught it cleverly 
with his little finger, and placing it on his thumbnail, 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 our world was inhabited, immediately concluded that 
whales were the only creatures to be found here, and, as speculation was his 
strong point, made conjectures about the origin of so insignificant an atom, the 
source of its movement, and whether it had ideas and free will. Micromegas drew 
a magnifying glass from his bundle of instruments, examined the creature 
patiently, and found no evidence that it had a soul lodged in its body. The two 
travelers then suspected there were no intelligent beings in this habitation of 
ours, when at last they noticed something as big as a whale, floating on the 
Baltic sea. 
We know that at that very time, a flock of philosophers was returning from the 
polar circle, where they had gone to make observations no one had attempted 
before. The newspapers say their vessel ran aground in the gulf of Bothnia, and 
that they had great difficulty saving their lives; but we never know in this 
world the real truth about anything. I will relate honestly what occurred, 
without adding anything of my own invention--a task which demands no small 
effort on the part of a historian. 


The Saturnian stretched out his hand, seized with great dexterity the ship which 
carried those gentlemen, and placed it in the hollow of his hand without 
squeezing it too much, for fear of crushing it. "Here is an animal quite 
different from the first," he observed. 
The passengers and crew, who thought a tempest had whirled them aloft, and 
supposed they had struck upon some kind of rock, began to stir; the sailors 
seized casks of wine, threw them overboard on the Saturnian's hand, then jumped 
down themselves, while the geometers seized their quadrants, their sectors, and 
a pair of Lapland girls, and descended on the Saturnian's fingers. They made 
such a commotion that at last he felt a tickle--a pole with an iron point being 
driven a foot deep into his forefinger. He surmised that this prick proceeded 
somehow from the little animal he was holding; but at first he perceived nothing 
more than minute specks, which he guessed to be turds, spilling away from the 
creature. 

I have no wish to shock anyone's vanity, but I must beg those who are sensitive 
about their own importance to consider what I have to say on this subject. 
Taking the average stature of mankind at five feet, we make no greater figure on 
Earth than an insect not quite one 200,000th of an inch in height on a bowl 10 
feet around. Imagine a being who could hold Earth in his hands and who had 
organs of sense proportionate to our own--there are in fact many such 
beings--and consider what they would think of those battles which give the 
conqueror possession of some village, to be lost again soon after. 
No doubt some captain of tall grenadiers will read this work and raise the caps 
of his company a couple of feet; but I warn him, it will be all in vain; he and 
his men will never be anything but the merest mites. 
It was not until both Sirian and Saturnian examined the "turds" with microscopes 
that they realized the amazing truth. When Leeuwenhoek 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 Micromegas and the dwarf 
felt in watching the movements of those little machines, in examining their 
feats, in following their operations! How they shouted with joy! 
"I see them!" they exclaimed both at once. "Do you 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 lose them. The Saturnian, passing from extreme 
skepticism to utter credulity, fancied he saw them engaged in the work of 
propagation. 
"Ah!" said he, "I have surprised nature in the very act." 
But he was deceived by appearances, an accident to which we are only too liable, 
whether using microscopes or not. 
Micromegas, a much better observer, perceived clearly that the atoms were 
speaking to each other, and corrected his companion; but the dwarf, ashamed of 
having erred on this delicate subject, refused to believe that such creatures 
could have any means of communicating ideas. He had the gift of tongues as did 
the Sirian; he did not hear the atoms speak, so he concluded that they did not; 
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, they must have 
something equivalent of a soul; and to attribute the equivalent of a soul to 
these little animals seemed absurd. 
"But," said the Sirian, "you fancied just now they were making love; can they 
make love without being able to think or utter a word, or even to make 
themselves understood? Moreover, do you suppose it is more difficult to produce 
arguments than offspring? Both appear to me equally mysterious operations." 
"I no longer venture either to believe or deny," said the dwarf; "We must try to 
examine these insects, then form our conclusions afterward." 
"Well said!" replied Micromegas. Using the equipment he had brought with him, he 
fabricated a pair of monster speaking-trumpets, like huge funnels, the narrow 
ends of which he and the Saturnian placed in their ears. As the wide part of the 
trumpets covered the ship and her crew, the faintest voice was conveyed in such 
a manner that the philosophers high above them clearly heard the buzzing of our 
insects down below. In a few hours they succeeded in distinguishing the words, 
and at last in understanding the French language. The travelers' astonishment 
increased every instant. They heard mere mites speaking tolerably good sense; 
such a freak of nature seemed inexplicable. 
You may imagine how impatiently the Sirian and his dwarf longed to converse with 
the atoms; but the dwarf feared that his voice of thunder, and still more that 
of Micromegas, might deafen the mites without conveying any meaning. To diminish 
its strength, they placed in their mouths little toothpicks, the tapering ends 
of which were brought near the ship. Then the Sirian, holding the dwarf on his 
knee (who in turn held the vessel with her crew upon his palm), bent his head 
down and spoke in a low voice, thus at last addressing them: 
"Invisible insects, whom the hand of the Creator has been pleased to produce in 
the abyss of the infinitely little, I thank Him for having deigned to reveal to 
me secrets which seemed inscrutable. It may be the courtiers of my country would 
not condescend to look upon you, but I despise no one, and offer you my 
protection." 
If ever anyone was astonished, it was the people who heard these words, nor 
could they guess whence they came. The ship's chaplain recited the prayers used 
in exorcism, the sailors swore, and the philosophers constructed theories; but 
whatever theories they constructed, they could not divine who was speaking to 
them. The dwarf of Saturn, who had a softer voice than Micromegas, then told 
them briefly with what kind of beings they were dealing. He gave an account of 
their journey from Saturn, and acquainted them with the parts and powers of Mr. 
Micromegas; and, after having commiserated them for being so small, he asked if 
they had always been in that pitiful condition little better than annihilation, 
what they found to do on a globe that appeared to belong to whales, if they were 
happy, if they increased and multiplied, whether they had souls, and a hundred 
other questions. 
A philosopher of the party, bolder than the rest, and shocked that the existence 
of his soul should be questioned, took observations of the speaker with a 
quadrant from two different stations, and, at the third, spoke: "Do you then 
suppose sir, because a thousand fathoms extend between your head and feet, that 
you are--" 
"A thousand fathoms!" cried the dwarf. "Good heavens! How can he know my height? 
A thousand fathoms! He is not an inch out of his reckoning. What! Has that atom 
actually measured me? He is a geometer, he knows my size; while I, who can 
barely see him except through a microscope, am still ignorant of his!" 
"Yes, I have taken your measure," said the man of science; "and, based on your 
relative proportions, I further deduce that your big companion is approximately 
120,000 statute feet tall." 
Thereupon Micromegas uttered, "I see more clearly than ever that we should judge 
nothing by its apparent importance. O God, Who hast bestowed intelligence upon 
things which seemed so despicable, the infinitely little is as much Thy concern 
as the infinitely great; and, if it is possible that there should be living 
things smaller than these, they may be endowed with minds superior even to those 
of the magnificent creatures I have seen in the sky, who with one foot could 
cover this globe upon which I have alighted." 
One of the philosophers agreed he might with perfect confidence believe there 
actually were intelligent beings much smaller than man. He related, not the 
fables Virgil told on the subject of bees, but the results of Swammerdam's 
discoveries, and Reamur's dissections. Finally, he informed him that there are 
animals which bear the same proportion to bees that bees bear to men, or that 
the Sirian himself bore to those huge creatures of which he spoke, or that those 
great creatures themselves bore to others before whom they seemed mere atoms. 
The conversation grew more and more interesting, and Micromegas spoke as 
follows: 
"O intelligent atoms, in whom the Eternal Being has been pleased to manifest His 
skill and power, you must doubtless taste joys of perfect purity on your globe; 
for, being encumbered with so little matter, and seeming to be all spirit, you 
must pass your lives in love and meditation--the true life of spiritual beings. 
I have nowhere beheld genuine happiness, but here it is to be found, without a 
doubt." 
On hearing these words, all the philosophers shook their heads, and one, more 
frank than the others, candidly confessed that, with the exception of a small 
number held in mean estimation among them, all the rest of mankind were a 
multitude of fools, knaves, and miserable wretches. 
"We have more matter than we need," said he, "the cause of much evil, if evil 
proceeds from matter; and we have too much mind, if evil proceeds from mind. For 
instance, at this very moment there are 100,000 fools of our species who wear 
hats, slaying 100,000 fellow creatures who wear turbans, or being massacred by 
them, and over almost all of Earth such practices have been going on from time 
immemorial." 
The Sirian shuddered, and asked what could cause such horrible quarrels between 
those miserable little creatures. 
"The dispute concerns a lump of clay," said the philosopher, "no bigger than 
your heel. Not that a single one of those millions of men who get their throats 
cut has the slightest interest in this clod of earth. The only point in question 
is whether it shall belong to a certain man who is called Sultan, or another 
who, I know not why, is called Caesar. Neither has seen, or is ever likely to 
see, the little corner of ground which is the bone of contention; and hardly one 
of those animals, who are cutting each other's throats has ever seen the animal 
for whom they fight so desperately." 
"Ah! wretched creatures!" exclaimed the Sirian with indignation; "Can anyone 
imagine such frantic ferocity! I should like to take two or three steps, and 
stamp upon the whole swarm of these ridiculous assassins." 
"No need," answered the philosopher; "they are working hard enough to destroy 
themselves. I assure you, at the end of 10 years, not a hundredth part of those 
wretches will be left; even if they had never drawn the sword, famine, fatigue, 
or intemperance will sweep them almost all away. Besides, it is not they who 
deserve punishment, but rather those armchair barbarians, who from the privacy 
of their cabinets, and during the process of digestion, command the massacre of 
a million men, and afterward ordain a solemn thanksgiving to God." 
The traveler, moved with compassion for the tiny human race, among whom he found 
such astonishing contrasts, said to the gentlemen: 
"Since you belong to the small number of wise men, and apparently do not kill 
anyone for money, tell me, pray, how you occupy yourselves." 
"We dissect flies," said the same philosopher, "measure distances, calculate 
numbers, agree upon two or three points we understand, and dispute two or three 
thousand points of which we know nothing." 
The visitors from Sirius and Saturn immediately desired to question these 
intelligent atoms about the subjects on which they agreed. 
"How far do you reckon it," said the latter, "from the Dog Star to the great 
star in Gemini?" 
They all answered together: "32 degrees and a half." 
"How far do you make it from here to the Moon?" 
"60 half-diameters of the Earth, in round numbers." 
"What is the weight of your air?" 
He thought to trick them, but they all answered that air weighs about 900 times 
less than an equal volume of distilled water, and 19,000 times less than pure 
gold. 
The little dwarf from Saturn, astonished at their replies, was now inclined to 
take for sorcerers the same people he had disbelieved, just a quarter hour ago, 
could possess souls. 
Then Micromegas said: "Since you know so well what is outside yourselves, 
doubtless you know still better what is within you. Tell me what is the nature 
of your soul, and how you form ideas." 
The philosophers spoke all at once as before, but this time all their opinons 
differed. The oldest quoted Aristotle, another pronounced the name of Descartes, 
this spoke of Malebranche, that of Leibnitz, and another again of Locke. The old 
Peripatetic said loudly and confidently: "The soul is an actuality and a 
rationality, in virtue of which it has the power to be what it is; as Aristotle 
expressly declares on page 633 of the Louvre edition of his works"; and he 
quoted the passage. 
"I don't understand Greek very well," said the giant. 
"Neither do I," said the mite of a philosopher. 
"Why, then," inquired the Sirian, "do you quote the man you call Aristotle in 
that language?" 
"Because," replied the sage, "it is right and proper to quote what we do not 
comprehend in a language we least understand." 
The Cartesian interposed and said: "The soul is pure spirit, which receives in 
its mother's womb all metaphysical ideas, and which, on issuing thence, is 
obliged to go to school as it were, and learn afresh all it knew so well, and 
will never know again." 
"It was hardly worthwhile, then," answered the eight-leagued giant, "for your 
soul to have been so learned in your mother's womb, if you were to become so 
ignorant by the time you have a beard on your chin. But what do you mean by 
spirit?" 
"Why do you ask?" said the philosopher; "I have no idea of its meaning, except 
that it is said to be independent of matter." 
"You know, at least, what matter is, I presume?" 
"Perfectly well," replied the man. "For instance, this stone is gray, is of such 
and such a form, has three dimensions, has weight and divisibility." 
"Very well," said the Sirian, "Now tell me, please, what this thing actually is 
which appears to you to be divisible, heavy, and of a gray color. You observe 
certain qualities; but are you acquainted with the intrinsic nature of the thing 
itself?" 
"No," said the other. 
"Then you do not know what matter is." 
Thereupon Mr. Micromegas, addressing his question to another sage, whom the 
Saturnian held on his thumb, asked him what the soul was, and what it did. 
"Nothing at all," said the disciple of Malebranche; "it is God who does 
everything for me; I see and do everything through Him; He it is who does all 
without my interference." 
"Then you might just as well not exist," replied the sage of Sirius. 
"And you, my friend," he said to a follower of Leibnitz, who was there, "what is 
your soul?" 
"It is," answered he, "a hand which points to the hour while my body chimes, or, 
if you like, it is the soul which chimes, while my body points to the hour; or 
to put it another way, my soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its 
frame: that is all clear enough." 
A little student of Locke was standing near; and when his opinion was at last 
asked: "I know nothing," said he, "of how I think, but I know I have never 
thought except on the suggestion of my senses. That there are immaterial and 
intelligent substances is not what I doubt; but that it is impossible for God to 
communicate the faculty of thought to matter is what I doubt very strongly. I 
adore the eternal Power, nor is it my part to limit its exercise; I assert 
nothing, I content myself with believing that more is possible than people 
think." 
The creature of Sirius smiled; he did not deem the last speaker the least 
sagacious of the company; and, were it possible, the dwarf of Saturn would have 
clasped Locke's disciple in his arms. 
But unluckily a little animalcule was there in a square cap, who silenced all 
the other philosophical mites, saying that he knew the whole secret, that it was 
all to be found in the "Summa" of St. Thomas Aquinas; he scanned the pair of 
celestial visitors from top to toe, and maintained that they and all their kind, 
their suns and stars, were made solely for man's benefit. 
At this speech our two travelers tumbled over each other, choking with that 
inextinguishable laughter which, according to Homer, is the special privilege of 
the gods; their shoulders shook, and their bodies heaved up and down, till in 
those merry convulsions, the ship the Saturnian held on his palm fell into his 
breeches pocket. These two good people, after a long search, recovered it at 
last, and duly set to rights all that had been displaced. The Saturnian once 
more took up the little mites, and Micromegas addressed them again with great 
kindness, though he was a little disgusted in the bottom of his heart at seeing 
such infinitely insignificant atoms so puffed up with pride. He promised to give 
them a rare book of philosophy, written in minute characters, for their special 
use, telling all that can be known of the ultimate essence of things, and he 
actually gave them the volume ere his departure. It was carried to Paris and 
laid before the Academy of Sciences; but when the old secretary came to open it, 
the pages were blank. 
"Ah!" said he. "Just as I expected." 

       
      Continue
      to Voltaire's "Plato's Dream" 
       
      Return
      to the Free Sci-Fi Classics table of contents 
       
      Return
      to The World of the Wondersmith 

Free Sci-Fi Classics
Copyright  1998-2000 Blake Wilfong
All rights reserved. 
