A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other LunariansTucker, George
Science
A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians
Tucker, George
Science fiction; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
A more minute description follows, of the dress of the male and female
lunarians, especially of that of the latter, to which we can merely
refer the reader. There is one portion, however, of the inhabitants,
with whom the reader must be made acquainted, inasmuch as they form
some of the author's most prominent characters. A large number of
lunarians, it seems, are born without any intellectual vigour, and
wander about like so many automatons, under the care of the
government, until illumined by the mental ray, from some terrestrial
brain, through the mysterious influence which the moon is known to
exercise on our planet. But, in this case, the inhabitant of the earth
loses what he of the moon gains, the ordinary portion of understanding
being divided between two; and, "as might be expected, there is a most
exact conformity between the man of the earth, and his counterpart in
the moon, in all their principles of action, and modes of thinking:"--
"These Glonglims, as they are called, after they have been thus imbued
with intellect, are held in peculiar respect by the vulgar, and are
thought to be in every way superior to those whose understandings are
entire. The laws by which two objects, so far apart, operate on each
other, have been, as yet, but imperfectly developed, and the wilder
their freaks, the more they are the objects of wonder and admiration."
"Now and then, though very rarely, the man of the earth regains the
intellect he has lost; in which case, his lunar counterpart returns to
his former state of imbecility. Both parties are entirely unconscious
of the change--one, of what he has lost, and the other, of what he has
gained."[7]
The belief of the influence of the moon on the human intellect, the
Brahmin remarks, may be perceived in the opinions of the vulgar, and
in many of the ordinary forms of expression; and he takes occasion to
remark, that these very opinions, as well as some obscure hints in the
Sanscrit, give countenance to the idea, that they were not the only
voyagers to the moon; but that, on the contrary, the voyage had been
performed in remote antiquity; and the Lunarians, we are told, have a
similar tradition. Many ordinary forms of expression are adduced in
support of these ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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