Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
"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 proved; 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 whole 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
overhead, which as well as Earth and Water tends to the Center, meeting
with an empty Tun by the way, takes tip 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 ratified, 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 rarified.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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