The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the MoonDefoe, Daniel
Science
The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon
Defoe, Daniel
Fantasy fiction; Interplanetary voyages -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Political fiction; Satire
2. How useful a thing it would be for most sorts of our People,
especially Statesmen, P----t-men, Convocation-men, Phylosophers,
Physicians, Quacks, Mountebanks, Stock-jobbers, and all the Mob of
the Nation's Civil or Ecclesiastical Bone-setters, together with some
Men of the Law, some of the Sword, and all of the Pen: I say, how
useful and improving a thing it must be to them, to take a Journey up
to the World in the Moon; but above all, how much more beneficial it
would be to them that stay'd behind.
3. That it is not to be wonder'd at, why the Chinese excell so much
all these Parts of the World, since but for that Knowledge which
comes down to them from the World in the Moon, they would be like
other People.
4. No Man need to Wonder at my exceeding desire to go up to the World
in the Moon, having heard of such extraordinary Knowledge to be
obtained there, since in the search of Knowledge and Truth, wiser Men
than I have taken as unwarrantable Flights, and gone a great deal
higher than the Moon, into a strange Abbyss of dark Phanomena, which
they neither could make other People understand, nor ever rightly
understood themselves, witness Malbranch, Mr. Lock, Hobbs, the
Honourable Boyle and a great many others, besides Messieurs Norris,
Asgil, Coward, and the Tale of a Tub.
This great Searcher into Nature has, besides all this, left wonderful
Discoveries and Experiments behind him; but I was with nothing more
exceedingly diverted, than with his various Engines, and curious
Contrivances, to go to and from his own Native Country the Moon. All
our Mechanick Motions of Bishop Wilkins, or the artificial Wings of
the Learned Spaniard, who could have taught God Almighty how to have
mended the Creation, are Fools to this Gentleman; and because no
Man in China has made more Voyages up into the Moon than my self, I
cannot but give you some Account of the easyness of the Passage, as
well as of the Country.
Nor are his wonderful Tellescopes of a mean Quality, by which such
plain Discoveries are made, of the Lands and Seas in the Moon, and in
all the habitable Planets, that one may as plainly fee what a Clock
it is by one of the Dials in the Moon, as if it were no farther off
than Windsor-Castle; and had he liv'd to finish the Speaking-trumpet
which he had contriv'd to convey Sound thither, Harlequin's
Mock-Trumpet had been a Fool to it; and it had no doubt been an
admirable Experiment, to have given us a general Advantage from all
their acquir'd Knowledge in those Regions, where no doubt several
useful Discoveries are daily made by the Men of Thought for the
Improvement of all sorts of humane Understanding, and to have
discoursed with them on those things, must have been very pleasant,
besides, its being very much to our particular Advantage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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