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
Methinks I begin to pity my Brethren, the moderate Men of the Church,
that they cannot see into this New Plot, and to wish they would but
get up into our Consolidator, and take a Journey to the Moon, and
there, by the help of these Glasses, they would see the Allegorical,
Symbollical, Hetrodoxicallity of all this Matter; it would make
immediate Converts of them; they would see plainly, that to Tack and
Consolidate, to make Exclusive Laws, to persecute for Conscience,
disturb, and distress Parties; these are all Phanatick Plots, meer
Combinations against the Church, to bring her into Contempt, and to
fix and establish the Dissenters to the end of the Chapter: But of
this I shall find occasion to speak Occasionally, when an Occasion
presents it self, to examine a certain Occasional Bill, transacting
in these Lunar Regions, some time before I had the Happiness to
arrive there.
In examining the Multitude and Variety of these most admirable
Glasses for the assisting the Opticks, or indeed the Formation of a
new perceptive Faculty; it was you may be sure most surprizing to
find there, that Art had exceeded Nature; and the Power of Vision was
assisted to that prodigious Degree, as even to distinguish Non-Entity
it self; and in these strange Engines of Light it could not but be
very pleasing, to distinguish plainly betwixt Being and Matter, and
to come to a Determination, in the so long Canvast Dispute of
Substance, vel Materialis, vel Spiritualis; and I can solidly affirm,
That in all our Contention between Entity and Non-Entity, there is so
little worth meddling with, that had we had these Glasses some Ages
ago, we should have left troubling our heads with it.
I take upon me, therefore, to assure my Reader, That whoever pleases
to take a Journey, or Voyage, or Flight up to these Lunar Regions, as
soon as ever he comes ashoar there, will presently be convinc'd, of
the Reasonableness of Immaterial Substance, and the Immortality, as
well as Immateriality of the Soul: He will no sooner look into these
Explicating Glasses, but he will be-able to know the separate meaning
of Body, Soul, Spirit, Life, Motion, Death, and a Thousand things
that Wise-men puzzle themselves about here, because they are not
Fools enough to understand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account