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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.
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