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
As to the Effects of Mathematical thinking, what Volumes might be
writ of it will more easily appear, if we consider the wondrous
Usefulness of this Engine in all humane Affairs; as of War, Peace,
Justice, Injuries, Passion, Love, Marriage, Trade, Policy, and
Religion.
When a Man has been screw'd into himself, and brought by this Art to
a Regularity of Thought, he never commits any Absurdity after it; his
Actions are squared by the same Lines, for Action is but the
Consequence of Thinking; and he that acts before he thinks, sets
humane Nature with the bottom upward.
M. would never have made his Speech, nor the famous B----ly wrote a
Book, if ever they had been in this thinking Engine: One would have
never told us of Nations he never saw, nor the other told us, he had
seen a great many, and was never the Wiser.
H. had never ruin'd his Family to Marry Whore, Thief and
Beggar-Woman, in one Salliant Lady, after having been told so
honestly, and so often of it by the very Woman her self.
Our late unhappy Monarch had never trusted the English Clergy, when
they preacht up that Non-Resistance, which he must needs see they
could never Practice; had his Majesty been screw'd up into this
Cogitator, he had presently reflected, that it was against Nature to
expect they should stand still, and let him tread upon them: That
they should, whatever they had preacht or pretended to, hold open
their Throats to have them be cut, and tye their own Hands from
resisting the Lord's Anointed.
Had some of our Clergy been screw'd in this Engine, they had never
turned Martyrs for their Allegiance to the Late King, only for the
Lechery of having Dr. S------- in their Company.
Had our Merchants been manag'd in this Engine, they had never trusted
their Turkey Fleet with a famous Squadron, that took a great deal of
care to Convoy them safe into the Enemies Hands.
Had some People been in this Engine, when they had made a certain
League in the World, in order to make amends for a better made
before, they would certainly have consider'd farther, before they had
embarkt with a Nation, that are neither fit to go abroad nor stay at
Home.
As for the Thinking practis'd in Noble Speeches, Occasional Bills,
Addressings about Prerogative, Convocation Disputes, Turnings in and
Turnings out at Ours, and all the Courts of Christendom, I have
nothing to say to it.
Had the Duke of Bavaria been in our Engine, he would never have begun
a Quarrel, which he knew all the Powers of Europe were concern'd to
suppress, and lay all other Business down till it was done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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