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Giphantia: Or a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and, During the Present Century, What Will Pass, in the World.Tiphaigne de La Roche, Charles-François

Philosophy

Giphantia: Or a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and, During the Present Century, What Will Pass, in the World.

Name: Giphantia: Or a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and, During the Present Century, What Will Pass, in the World.
Author: Tiphaigne de La Roche, Charles-François

Tiphaigne de La Roche, Charles-François

French fiction -- 18th century; Utopias -- Fiction; Voyages, Imaginary -- Fiction

Dost thou observe that battle? seest thou a numerous army defeated by
fifteen hundred men? It is the æra of the liberty of the Helvetic body.
Members of the empire, but oppressed by tyrants, the Swiss shake off the
yoke and form a government, the wisdom of which cannot be too much
admired. Their commerce extends but to necessaries: they have soldiers
only for their defence, and these too are trained among other nations: a
constant peace reigns in the republic. Without covetousness, without
jealousy, without ambition, liberty and necessaries content them. They
are a people that talk the least of philosophy, and are the most
philosophical.

Whilst the new Western empire is rent, the Eastern is destroyed. Thou
seest coming out of Asia the last swarm of Barbarians which were to fall
upon Europe[13]. They advance: and, like huge masses which acquire more
force in proportion to the height they fall from, they crush
Constantinople and seize the Eastern empire, which they still possess to
this day.

Such is the disastrous contexture of the compendious History of mankind:
the crowd of particulars is only a crowd of less noted calamities. The
total of the nations, especially the European, is like a mass of
quicksilver, which the lightest impression puts in motion, which the
least shake divides and subdivides, and of which chance unites again the
parts in a thousand different manners. Who will find the means to fix
them?

                       THE END OF THE FIRST PART.

                               GIPHANTIA:

                                PART II.

[Illustration]

                                LONDON,
                      Printed in the Year MDCCLX.

                                 TABLE
                                 OF THE
                               CHAPTERS.
                                PART II.

                                                    Page

               CHAP. I. THE REPAST                   201

               CHAP. II. THE KERNELS                 212

               CHAP. III. ANTIENT LOVE               215

               CHAP. IV. THE GRAFTS                  221

               CHAP. V. VOLUPTAS                     228

               CHAP. VI. PERPETUAL YOUTH             233

               CHAP. VII. THE ITCHINGS               239

               CHAP. VIII. THE COMPENSATIONS         249

               CHAP. IX. NIL ADMIRARI                253

               CHAP. X. THE FANTASTICAL TREE         259

               CHAP. XI. THE PREDICTIONS             265

               CHAP. XII. THE SYSTEM                 274

               CHAP. XIII. EPISTLE TO THE EUROPEANS  292

               CHAP. XIV. THE MAXIMS                 302

               CHAP. XV. THE THERMOMETERS            306

               CHAP. XVI. THE LENTILS                312

               CHAP. XVII. THE SUBTERRANEOUS ROAD    318

[Illustration]

                               GIPHANTIA.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Giphantia: Or a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and, During the Present Century, What Will Pass, in the World.

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