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
Here I found two famous Volumes in Chyrurgery, being an exact
Description of the Circulation of the Blood, discovered long before
King Solomon's Allegory of the Bucket's going to the Well; with
several curious Methods by which the Demonstration was to be made so
plain, as would make even the worthy Doctor B------ himself become a
Convert to his own Eye-sight, make him damn his own Elaborate Book,
and think it worse Nonsence than ever the Town had the Freedom to
imagine.
All our Philosophers are Fools, and their Transactions a parcel
of empty Stuff, to the Experiments of the Royal Societies in this
Country. Here I came to a Learned Tract of Winds, which outdoes even
the Sacred Text, and would make us believe it was not wrote to those
People; for they tell Folks whence it comes, and whither it goes.
There you have an Account how to make Glasses of Hogs Eyes, that can
see the Wind; and they give strange Accounts both of its regular and
irregular Motions, its Compositions and Quantities; from whence, by a
sort of Algebra, they can cast up its Duration, Violence, and Extent:
In these Calculations, some say, those Authors have been so exact,
that they can, as our Philosophers say of Comets, state their
Revolutions, and tell us how many Storms there shall happen to any
Period of time, and when; and perhaps this may be with much about the
same Truth.
It was a certain Sign Aristotle had never been at China; for, had he
seen the 216th Volume of the Chinese Navigation, in the Library I
am speaking of, a large Book in Double Folio, wrote by the Famous
Mira-cho-cho-lasmo, Vice-Admiral of China, and said to be printed
there about 2000 Years before the Deluge, in the Chapter of Tides he
would have seen the Reason of all the certain and uncertain Fluxes
and Refluxes of that Element, how the exact Pace is kept between the
Moon and the Tides, with a most elaborate Discourse there, of the
Power of Sympathy, and the manner how the heavenly Bodies Influence
the Earthly: Had he seen this, the Stagyrite would never have Drowned
himself, because he could not comprehend this Mystery.
'Tis farther related of this Famous Author, that he was no Native
of this World, but was Born in the Moon, and coming hither to make
Discoveries, by a strange Invention arrived to by the Virtuosoes of
that habitable World, the Emperor of China prevailed with him to stay
and improve his Subjects, in the most exquisite Accomplishments of
those Lunar Regions; and no wonder the Chinese are such exquisite
Artists, and Masters of such sublime Knowledge, when this Famous
Author has blest them with such unaccountable Methods of Improvement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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