The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon — John Shaqi
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
This Machine that I am speaking of, contains a multitude of strange
Springs and Screws, and a Man that puts himself into it, is very
insensibly carried into vast Speculations, Reflexions, and regular
Debates with himself: They have a very hard Name for it in those
Parts; but if I were to give it an English Name, it should be call'd,
The Cogitator, or the Chair of Reflection.
And First, The Person that is seated here feels some pain in passing
some Negative Springs, that are wound up, effectually to shut out
all Injecting, Disturbing Thoughts; and the better to prepare him for
the Operation that is to follow, and this is without doubt a very
rational way; for when a Man can absolutely shut out all manner of
thinking, but what he is upon, he shall think the more Intensly upon
the one object before him.
This Operation past, here are certain Screws that draw direct Lines
from every Angle of the Engine to the Brain of the Man, and at the
same time, other direct Lines to his Eyes; at the other end of which
Lines, there are Glasses which convey or reflect the Objects the
Person is desirous to think upon.
Then the main Wheels are turn'd, which wind up according to their
several Offices; this the Memory, that the Understanding; a third the
Will, a fourth the thinking Faculty; and these being put all into
regular Motions, pointed by direct Lines to their proper Objects,
and perfectly uninterrupted by the Intervention of Whimsy, Chimera,
and a Thousand fluttering Damons that Gender in the Fancy, but are
effectually Lockt out as before, assist one another to receive right
Notions, and form just Ideas of the things they are directed to, and
from thence the Man is impower'd to make right Conclusions, to think
and act like himself, suitable to the sublime Qualities his Soul was
originally blest with.
There never was a Man went into one of these thinking Engines, but he
came wiser out than he was before; and I am persuaded, it would be a
more effectual Cure to our Deism, Atheism, Scepticism, and all other
Scisms, than ever the Italian's Engine, for Curing the Gout by
cutting off the Toe.
This is a most wonderful Engine, and performs admirably, and my
Author gave me extraordinary Accounts of the good Effects of it; and
I cannot but tell my Reader, That our Sublunar World suffers Millions
of Inconveniencies, for want of this thinking Engine: I have had a
great many Projects in my Head, how to bring our People to regular
thinking, but 'tis in vain without this Engin; and how to get the
Model of it I know not; how to screw up the Will, the Understanding,
and the rest of the Powers; how to bring the Eye, the Thought, the
Fancy, and the Memory, into Mathematical Order, and obedient to
Mechanick Operation; help Boyl, Norris, Newton, Manton, Hammond,
Tillotson, and all the Learned Race, help Phylosophy, Divinity,
Physicks, Oeconomicks, all's in vain, a Mechanick Chair of Reflection
is the only Remedy that ever I found in my Life for this Work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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