The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-WorldNewcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Science
The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Science fiction; Utopias -- Fiction; Voyages, Imaginary -- Early works to 1800
informed your Majesty thus, surely their rational motions were very
irregular; For how is it possible, that a Natural nothing can have a
being in Nature? If it be no substance, it cannot have a being, and if
no being, it is nothing; Wherefore the distinction between subsisting of
it self, and subsisting in another body, is a meer nicety, and
non-sense, for there is nothing in Nature that can subsist of, or by it
self, (I mean singly) by reason all parts of Nature are composed in one
body, and though they may be infinitely divided, commixed, and changed
in their particular, yet in general, parts cannot be separated from
parts as long as Nature lasts; nay, we might as probably affirm, that
Infinite Nature would be as soon destroyed, as that one Atom could
perish; and therefore your Majesty may firmly believe, that there is no
Body without colour, nor no Colour without body; for colour, figure,
place, magnitude, and body, are all but one thing, without any
separation or abstraction from each other.
The Empress was so wonderfully taken with this Discourse of the
Worm-men, that she not only pardoned the rudeness they committed in
laughing at first at her question, but yielded a full assent to their
opinion, which she thought the most rational that ever she had heard
yet; and then proceeding in her questions, enquired further, whether
they had observed any seminal principles within the Earth free from all
dimensions and qualities, which produced Vegetables, Minerals, and the
like? To which they answered, That concerning the seeds of Minerals,
their sensitive perceptions had never observed any; but Vegetables had
certain seeds out of which they were produced. Then she asked, whether
those seeds of Vegetables lost their Species, that is, were annihilated
in the production of their off-spring? To which they answered, That by
an Annihilation, nothing could be produced, and that the seeds of
Vegetables were so far from being annihilated in their productions, that
they did rather numerously increase and multiply; for the division of
one seed, said they, does produce numbers of seeds out of it self. But
repli'd the Empress, A particular part cannot increase of it self. 'Tis
true, answer'd they: but they increase not barely of themselves, but by
joining and commixing with other parts, which do assist them in their
productions, and by way of imitation form or figure their own parts into
such or such particulars. Then, I pray inform me, said the Empress, what
disguise those seeds put on, and how they do conceal themselves in their
Transmutations? They answered, That seeds did no ways disguise or
conceal, but rather divulge themselves in the multiplication of their
off-spring; onely they did hide and conceal themselves from their
sensitive perceptions so, that their figurative and productive motions
were not perceptible by Animal Creatures. Again, the Empress asked them,
whether there were any Non-beings within the Earth? To which they
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