Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

by M. de Fontenelle

Now, madam, let us pursue our journey to the different planets; we have been long enough at the moon. Next, in the road from the moon to the sun, we find Venus. In talking of Venus I shall resume my argument concerning St. Dennis. Venus, as well as the moon, turns on her axis and goes round the sun: with telescopes it is seen that this planet, like the moon, is sometimes a crescent, sometimes on the decrease sometimes full, according to her different situations relatively to the earth. The moon, according to all appearances, is inhabited; why then should Venus be destitute of inhabitants? But, interrupted the Marchioness, with your why nots you will put inhabitants in all the planets. Certainly, I replied, this why not has the power of peopling them all. We find that they are of the same nature, all opaque bodies, illumined only by the sun, and the reflection of his rays on each other; and having all the same motions. So far then they are alike, and yet we are to suppose that these great planets were formed to remain uninhabited, and that such being the natural condition of them all, an exception should be made in favour of the earth—let who will believe it; I cannot. A few minutes, answered she, have wonderfully confirmed your opinion. Just now the moon was on the point of being quite deserted, and you cared very little about the matter, and now, if one were to presume to deny that all the planets are as full of inhabitants as the earth, I see you would be quite in a passion. It is true, said I, that in the positive fit I had just now, if you had contradicted me on the subject of these said inhabitants, I should not only have maintained their existence, but in all probability have described their formation. There are certain moments when we feel assured of a thing, and I never felt so fully persuaded of my opinion as I was then; however, though my ardour is now a little abated, I still think it would be very strange for the earth to be so well inhabited, and the other planets perfectly solitary; and numerous as we know the inhabitants of the earth to be, we do not see them all, our world contains as many species of animals that are invisible to us, as of those that we discern. From the elephant to the hand-worm we can examine them; there our sight is bounded: but after the hand-worm is an infinitude of little animals not discernible by the naked eye, and to which, in point of size, he is an elephant. With magnifying glasses, we may see a drop of water, vinegar, or any other liquor, filled with little fishes or serpents, which we should never have thought of finding there; and some philosophers suppose the taste of these liquors is produced by punctures which the little animals make in the tongue. Mix these liquors with certain things, expose them to the sun, or leave it to corrupt, and you will find new sorts of animals.

Many masses, apparently solid, contains scarcely any thing but a heap of these small animals, which in so confined a situation find room enough for their little movements. The leaf of a tree is a world, inhabited by worms imperceptibly small, to which it appears an amazing extent, having mountains and caverns, and so large that from one side of the leaf to the other the little worms have no more communication with each other than we have with the antipodes. From such considerations I cannot doubt of a great planet being inhabited. There have been found even in very hard stones an endless number of worms lodged in every interstice, feeding on parts of the stone. Consider the countless numbers of these little beings, and how many years they could subsist on a quantity of food as big as a grain of sand; and then though the moon should be but a mass of rock, we may let it be eaten by its inhabitants rather than not assign any to it. In short every thing is animated; every thing is full of life. Associate in your calculation all the species that have been lately discovered, and those that we may suppose are yet undiscovered, with all that we are in the habit of seeing, and you will surely confess that the earth is amply stocked with living creatures; that nature must delight in bestowing life since she has created such infinite variety of beings so small as to elude our sight. Can you believe that after the earth has been thus made to abound with life, the rest of the planets have not a living creature in them?

My reason is convinced, answered the Marchioness; but my imagination is overwhelmed with such an infinite variety and number of inhabitants existing in each of the planets; for as there is no dull uniformity in nature, the difference of species must be in proportion to the number of beings—how can imagination grasp such a vast idea? Imagination, I replied, is not required to represent all this to us; we can penetrate no farther than we are assisted by our sight; we can only perceive, from a general glance, that nature has established an inconceivable diversity in her works. The human face is formed every where on the same plan, but still how great is the difference between the visages of Europeans and of Africans or Tartars: not only in separate nations do we find a distinguishing character of countenance, even among the same people every family seems formed from a distinct model. How astonishing is the power of nature in giving such variety to so simple an object! In the universe we are but as a little family whose faces resemble each other; the next planet contains another family who have a different style of countenance. Probably the variations are greater in proportion to the distance, and could we compare the inhabitants of the earth and moon, we should easily see that they were nearer neighbours than those of the earth and of Saturn. Here, for instance, our thoughts are made vocal; the people in another planet only express themselves by gestures; farther off, they may dispense with any sort of conversation. Here our reason is matured by experience; elsewhere experience may add little to the understanding; at a greater distance, children may know as much as old men. In this world we give ourselves more uneasiness about the future than the past; on another globe, the past afflicts more than the future; on a third, the people are neither distressed by one nor the other, and they perhaps are not the most unhappy. It is said that we are possibly in want of a sixth sense belonging to our nature, by means of which our knowledge would be greatly augmented. This sense is most likely in some other world, where one of our five is wanting. There may even be a very great number of natural senses, but in the distribution of them among the planets, only five have fallen to our share, and with these five we remain satisfied because we don't know of any more. Our sciences have certain limits which no human understanding has exceeded: at a particular point we stop, the rest is reserved for other worlds, where they are ignorant of many things that we know. This planet is blest with the delightful emotions of love, but at the same time desolated by the fury of war. Another enjoys perpetual tranquillity, but with this uninterrupted peace, love is unknown, and calmness degenerates into ennui. In short whatever nature has done on a small scale, for the distribution of happiness and talents among us, she has undoubtedly performed on a more extensive plan for the benefit of the universe; at once diversifying and equalizing all.

Are you satisfied, madam, said I? Have I given your imagination room to exert itself? Do you not already see the people of different planets? No, answered she, with a sigh: all you have been saying is so vague and unsatisfactory; there is nothing in it for the mind to fix on. I want something more determined; more marked. Well then, I replied, I will not conceal any particulars that I am acquainted with: I can give you some information that you will acknowledge to be undoubted, when I tell you my authorities. Prepare to listen patiently if you please, for it is a long story.

In one of the planets, I shall not at present tell you which, there is a people that are very active, laborious and skillful. Like some of our Arabs, they live by pillage, and that is their only fault. They live together in the most harmonious manner, labouring incessantly and in concert, for the common good: above all their chastity is unexampled; it is true they have no great merit in it; they are all sterile; there is no difference of sex among them. But, interrupted the Marchioness, were you not aware that the author of this marvellous story wanted to make a fool of you? How could such a nation be perpetuated? No, I replied, very coolly, they did not intend to make a fool of me; all that I have told you is fact, yet the nation is perpetuated. They have a queen whose royalty consists, not in directing the business of the state, not in leading her subjects to the field of battle, but in her surprizing fecundity, she has millions of children; in short the production of them occupies the whole of her time. She has a large palace, divided into a vast number of chambers, in each of which a cradle is prepared for a little prince, and she is confined successively in all these chambers, always surrounded by her courtiers who congratulate her on the noble privilege she enjoys exclusively of her subjects.

I see, madam, that you wish to enquire who are her lovers, or, to give them a more respectable appellation, her husbands. Some of the eastern queens have seraglios of men; she apparently does the same, but she keeps it a greater secret than they; this may arise from modesty, but it is acting with little dignity. Among these Arabs who are always in action, are found a few strangers, in person very much resembling the natives of the country, though extremely different in disposition, for they are remarkably indolent; they never stir out nor engage in any business; and were not these persons kept for the pleasure of the queen, they would hardly be suffered to remain amongst so industrious a people. If, in reality, notwithstanding the smallness of their number, they are the fathers of many thousands of children, they deserve to be excused from any other employment; and it is a striking proof that this is their only function, that as soon as the queen has brought forth her ten thousand children, the Arabs kill, without mercy, the unhappy foreigners, then become useless to the state.

Have you done? enquired the Marchioness. Thank heavens! Let us now resume a little common sense, if we can. Where have you picked up this romance? What poet is the inventor of it? I again tell you, answered I, that it is no romance. All this takes place on our globe, even under our eyes.—If I must explain the mystery, these Arabs are no other than bees.

After this I gave her the natural history of bees, of which she had before scarcely ever heard more than the name. In concluding, you see, said I, that in attributing to other planets what is daily passing here, we should be accused of telling the most extravagant falsehoods. The history of insects, in particular, is a collection of wonders. I have no doubt of it, she replied: the silk-worm alone, with which I was better acquainted than the bees, would afford abundant materials for your descriptions. A people undergoing such wonderful changes as to be totally unlike what they formerly were; at one part of their lives crawling, at another, flying: in short a thousand incredible things might be told of the character and manners of this nation.

My imagination continued the Marchioness, is beginning to work on the subject you have given me—the inhabitants of all the planets: I am conjecturing their figures; I can discern some of them very distinctly, but I don't know how to describe them to you. As to their figures, said I, I advise you to leave the formation of them to your dreams: we shall hear to-morrow what they have suggested, and whether they have been able to represent the inhabitants of any of the planets.