[1] See Dr. Herschel’s Experiments on the refrangibility of the rays of light and heat. [↑]
CHAPTER XIV.
The Author examines the records of the Assembly.—Grounds of proposal for admittance to the order of Worthies.—Shell fish of Symzonia.—Great quantities of Pearls, and the use to which they are applied.
I was allowed free access to the records of the Assembly: and, having made such proficiency in the Symzonian language as to read it with facility, I derived much amusement and instruction from the various recommendations for admittance to the distinguished orders which had been stated to the Grand Council and placed on record during a long course of ages. These records were much too voluminous to admit of my reading them in course. I therefore contented myself with opening them at hazard, and reading whatever chanced to present itself.
One man was proposed to be admitted to the order of Worthies by the title “Wise,” because he had given evidence of superior imagination and ingenuity; he having fancied that he had discovered by studying the laws of matter and motion, that the Internals were inhabitants of the concave side of a hollow sphere; and, reasoning from analogy, that the convex or outer side of that sphere must be inhabited by a people enjoying a wider range of action, and more extended views of objects floating in unlimited space: that the suns, moons and stars, which they saw imperfectly by refraction and reflection, were only visible through a dense atmosphere in their world, but must of necessity be directly visible to the inhabitants of the External World in all their effulgence. He had written a book to explain his ingenious theory of an External World, in which he had endeavoured to show by various calculations, that his extravagant hypothesis was not absolutely beyond the limit of possibility.
This man was not proposed as one designated by the popular voice, but was named by a certain Wise man as one of retired habits and uncommon genius. The council unanimously rejected the application, and passed a vote of censure on him for troubling them with the dreams of a maniac or an enthusiast. The members of the council were generally of opinion that to suppose the outside of such a world to be inhabited was as absurd as to suppose men to dwell on the outside of their houses.
Another man was proposed as Wise, for devising a scheme to relieve the government from the trouble of superintending the distribution of things useful, in order to preserve equality in the comforts of the people throughout the land; and from constant attention to the emission and withdrawal of tokens, to maintain their regular value, and insure their proper effect. His plan was to substitute in place of the tokens a system of promissory obligations, to be issued by an association of individuals who should be always bound to redeem them. This plan, he contended, would greatly facilitate exchanges, and contribute to the convenience of government.
His scheme was promptly condemned, as a device to cheat the people, by causing perpetual fluctuations in the nominal price of things; and he was recorded as a designing man, unfit to be of the order of Worthies.