In the mean time, some must needs have revived the Disputes about the Definition of my Being; for whilst I was thinking of nothing else but of dying in my Cage, I was once more brought out to have another Audience. I was then questioned, in presence of a great many Courtiers, upon some points of Natural Philosophy; and, as I take it, my Answers gave some kind of Satisfaction; for the President declared to me at large his thoughts concerning the structure of the World. They seemed to me very ingenious; and had he not traced it to its Original,[5] which he maintained to be Eternal, I should have thought his Philosophy[6] more rational than our own: But as soon as I heard him maintain a Foppery[6b] so contrary to our Faith. I broke with him; at which he did but laugh; and that obliged me to tell him, That since they were thereabouts with it, I began again to think that their World was but a Moon. But then all cried, "Don't you see here Earth, Rivers, Seas? what's all that then?" "No matter," said I, "Aristotle assures us it is but a Moon; and if you had said the contrary in the Schools, where I have been bred, you would have been hissed at." At this they all burst out in laughter; you need not ask, if it was their Ignorance that made them do so; for in the mean time I was carried back to my Cage. But some more passionate Doctors, being informed that I had the boldness to affirm, That the Moon, from whence I came, was a World; and that their World was no more but a Moon, thought it might give them a very just pretext to have me condemned to the Water, for that's their way of rooting out Hereticks. For that end, they went in a Body, and complained to the King, who promised them Justice; and order'd me once more to be brought to the Bar. Now was I the third time Un-caged; and then the most Ancient spoke, and pleaded against me. I do not well remember his Speech; because I was too much frighted to receive the tones of his Voice without disorder; and because also in declaiming, he made use of an Instrument which stunn'd me with its noise: It was a Speaking-Trumpet, which he had chosen on purpose that by its Martial Sound he might rouse them to my death; and by that Emotion of their Spirits, hinder Reason from performing its Office: As it happens in our Armies, where the noise of Drums and Trumpets hinders the Souldiers from minding the importance of their Lives. When he had done, I rose up to defend my Cause; but I was excused from it, by an Accident that will surprize you. Just as I had opened my Mouth, a Man, who with much ado had pressed through the Crowd, fell at the King's Feet, and a long while rouled himself upon his Back in his presence. This practice did not at all surprize me, because I knew it to be the posture they put themselves into, when they have a mind to be heard in publick: I only stopt my own Harangue, and gave Ear to his.