Chapter II
Original French
Conversation de l'habitant de Sirius avec celui de Saturne.
Après que son excellence se fut couchée, et que le secrétaire se fut approché de son visage, Il faut avouer, dit Micromégas, que la nature est bien variée. Oui, dit le Saturnien, la nature est comme un parterre dont les fleurs..... Ah! dit l'autre, laissez là votre parterre. Elle est, reprit le secrétaire, comme une assemblée de blondes et de brunes, dont les parures.... Eh! qu'ai-je à faire de vos brunes? dit l'autre. Elle est donc comme une galerie de peintures dont les traits..... Eh non! dit le voyageur, encore une fois la nature est comme la nature. Pourquoi lui chercher des comparaisons? Pour vous plaire, répondit le secrétaire. Je ne veux point qu'on me plaise, répondit le voyageur; je veux qu'on m'instruise; commencez d'abord par me dire combien les hommes de votre globe ont de sens. Nous en avons soixante et douze, dit l'académicien; et nous nous plaignons tous les jours du peu. Notre imagination va au-delà de nos besoins; nous trouvons qu'avec nos soixante et douze sens, notre anneau, nos cinq lunes, nous sommes trop bornés; et, malgré toute notre curiosité et le nombre assez grand de passions qui résultent de nos soixante et douze sens, nous avons tout le temps de nous ennuyer. Je le crois bien, dit Micromégas; car dans notre globe nous avons près de mille sens; et il nous reste encore je ne sais quel désir vague, je ne sais quelle inquiétude, qui nous avertit sans cesse que nous sommes peu de chose, et qu'il y a des êtres beaucoup plus parfaits. J'ai un peu voyagé; j'ai vu des mortels fort au-dessous de nous; j'en ai vu de fort supérieurs: mais je n'en ai vu aucuns qui n'aient plus de désirs que de vrais besoins, et plus de besoins que de satisfaction. J'arriverai peut-être un jour au pays où il ne manque rien; mais jusqu'à présent personne ne m'a donné de nouvelles positives de ce pays-là. Le Saturnien et le Sirien s'épuisèrent alors en conjectures; mais, après beaucoup de raisonnements fort ingénieux et fort incertains, il en fallut revenir aux faits. Combien de temps vivez-vous? dit le Sirien. Ah! bien peu, répliqua le petit homme de Saturne. C'est tout comme chez nous, dit le Sirien: nous nous plaignons toujours du peu. Il faut que ce soit une loi universelle de la nature. Hélas! nous ne vivons, dit le Saturnien, que cinq cents grandes révolutions du soleil. (Cela revient à quinze mille ans ou environ, à compter à notre manière.) Vous voyez bien que c'est mourir presque au moment que l'on est né; notre existence est un point, notre durée un instant, notre globe un atome. A peine a-t-on commencé à s'instruire un peu que la mort arrive avant qu'on ait de l'expérience. Pour moi, je n'ose faire aucuns projets; je me trouve comme une goutte d'eau dans un océan immense. Je suis honteux, surtout devant vous, de la figure ridicule que je fais dans ce monde.
Micromégas lui repartit: Si vous n'étiez pas philosophe, je craindrais de vous affliger en vous apprenant que notre vie est sept cents fois plus longue que la vôtre; mais vous savez trop bien que quand il faut rendre son corps aux éléments, et ranimer la nature sous une autre forme, ce qui s'appelle mourir; quand ce moment de métamorphose est venu, avoir vécu une éternité, ou avoir vécu un jour, c'est précisément la même chose. J'ai été dans des pays où l'on vit mille fois plus long-temps que chez moi, et j'ai trouvé qu'on y murmurait encore. Mais il y a partout des gens de bon sens qui savent prendre leur parti et remercier l'Auteur de la nature. Il a répandu sur cet univers une profusion de variétés avec une espèce d'uniformité admirable. Par exemple tous les êtres pensants sont différents, et tous se ressemblent au fond par le don de la pensée et des désirs. La matière est partout étendue; mais elle a dans chaque globe des propriétés diverses. Combien comptez-vous de ces propriétés diverses dans votre matière? Si vous parlez de ces propriétés, dit le Saturnien, sans lesquelles nous croyons que ce globe ne pourrait subsister tel qu'il est, nous en comptons trois cents, comme l'étendue, l'impénétrabilité, la mobilité, la gravitation, la divisibilité, et le reste. Apparemment, répliqua le voyageur, que ce petit nombre suffit aux vues que le Créateur avait sur votre petite habitation. J'admire en tout sa sagesse; je vois partout des différences, mais aussi partout des proportions. Votre globe est petit, vos habitants le sont aussi; vous avez peu de sensations; votre matière a peu de propriétés; tout cela est l'ouvrage de la Providence. De quelle couleur est votre soleil bien examiné? D'un blanc fort jaunâtre, dit le Saturnien; et quand nous divisons un de ses rayons, nous trouvons qu'il contient sept couleurs. Notre soleil tire sur le rouge, dit le Sirien, et nous avons trente-neuf couleurs primitives. Il n'y a pas un soleil, parmi tous ceux dont j'ai approché, qui se ressemble, comme chez vous il n'y a pas un visage qui ne soit différent de tous les autres.
Après plusieurs questions de cette nature, il s'informa combien de substances essentiellement différentes on comptait dans Saturne. Il apprit qu'on n'en comptait qu'une trentaine, comme Dieu, l'espace, la matière, les êtres étendus qui sentent, les êtres étendus qui sentent et qui pensent, les êtres pensants qui n'ont point d'étendue; ceux qui se pénètrent, ceux qui ne se pénètrent pas, et le reste. Le Sirien, chez qui on en comptait trois cents et qui en avait découvert trois mille autres dans ses voyages, étonna prodigieusement le philosophe de Saturne. Enfin, après s'être communiqué l'un à l'autre un peu de ce qu'ils savaient et beaucoup de ce qu'ils ne savaient pas, après avoir raisonné pendant une révolution du soleil, ils résolurent de faire ensemble un petit voyage philosophique.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from the French of all seven chapters, Beuchot edition (1829), checked against the printed pages. Later editorial notes are omitted.
Conversation between the inhabitant of Sirius and the inhabitant of Saturn.
After His Excellency had lain down and the secretary had drawn near his face, Micromegas said, "We must admit that nature is wonderfully varied." "Yes," said the Saturnian, "nature is like a flower bed whose blossoms…" "Oh," said the other, "leave your flower bed alone." "She is," the secretary resumed, "like a gathering of blondes and brunettes whose ornaments…" "What have I to do with your brunettes?" said the other. "Then she is like a picture gallery whose outlines…" "No, no!" said the traveler. "Once again, nature is like nature. Why hunt for comparisons?" "To please you," replied the secretary. "I do not want to be pleased," replied the traveler; "I want to be instructed. Begin by telling me how many senses the people of your globe possess." "We have seventy-two," said the academician, "and every day we complain of having so few. Our imagination reaches beyond our needs. With our seventy-two senses, our ring, our five moons, we find ourselves too confined; and despite all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions arising from our seventy-two senses, we have ample time to be bored." "I can well believe it," said Micromegas, "for on our globe we have nearly a thousand senses, and still there remains some vague desire, some uneasiness, which constantly reminds us how little we are and that there are beings far more perfect. I have traveled a little; I have seen mortals far beneath us, and others far above us. But I have seen none whose desires did not exceed their real needs, and whose needs did not exceed their satisfactions. Perhaps one day I shall reach the country where nothing is lacking; so far no one has given me definite news of it." The Saturnian and the Sirian then exhausted themselves in conjecture; but after much reasoning, very ingenious and very uncertain, they had to return to facts. "How long do you live?" asked the Sirian. "Oh, a very short time," replied the little man of Saturn. "Just as with us," said the Sirian. "We are always complaining of how little time we have. It must be a universal law of nature." "Alas!" said the Saturnian, "we live only five hundred great revolutions of the sun." (That amounts to about fifteen thousand years by our reckoning.) "You see, we die almost at the moment of birth. Our existence is a point, our duration an instant, our globe an atom. We have scarcely begun to learn a little when death arrives, before we have acquired experience. For my part, I dare make no plans. I feel like a drop of water in an immense ocean. I am ashamed, especially before you, of the ridiculous figure I cut in this world."
Micromegas answered, "Were you not a philosopher, I would fear to distress you by telling you that our lives are seven hundred times longer than yours. But you know very well that when we must return our bodies to the elements and enliven nature in another form—what is called dying—when that moment of metamorphosis has come, to have lived an eternity or a day is precisely the same thing. I have visited countries where people live a thousand times longer than we do at home, and found them grumbling still. But everywhere there are sensible people who know how to accept their lot and thank the Author of nature. He has lavished varieties upon this universe with a kind of admirable uniformity. All thinking beings, for example, differ, yet fundamentally all resemble one another in the gift of thought and desire. Matter everywhere has extension, but on each globe it has different properties. How many of these different properties do you count in your matter?" "If you mean," said the Saturnian, "those properties without which we believe this globe could not subsist as it is, we count three hundred: extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravitation, divisibility, and the rest." "Apparently," replied the traveler, "that small number suffices for the Creator's designs upon your little dwelling. I admire his wisdom in everything; everywhere I see differences, but everywhere proportions too. Your globe is small; so are its inhabitants. You have few sensations; your matter has few properties. All this is the work of Providence. What color is your sun when closely examined?" "A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian, "and when we split one of its rays, we find it contains seven colors." "Our sun tends toward red," said the Sirian, "and we have thirty-nine primary colors. Of all the suns I have approached, no two are alike, just as among you no face is without its difference from every other."
After several questions of this kind, he asked how many essentially different substances were counted on Saturn. He learned that they counted only some thirty: God, space, matter, extended beings that feel, extended beings that feel and think, thinking beings without extension, beings that penetrate one another, beings that do not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose country counted three hundred and who had discovered three thousand more on his travels, astonished the philosopher of Saturn prodigiously. At last, after sharing a little of what they knew and a great deal of what they did not, after reasoning for one revolution of the sun, they resolved to make a little philosophical journey together.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French of all seven chapters, Beuchot edition (1829), not from the Musean edition. Later editorial notes are omitted.
The man from Sirius talks with the man from Saturn.
His Excellency lay down, and the secretary came up close to his face. "We have to admit that nature has an extraordinary variety," Micromegas said. "Yes," the Saturnian said, "nature is like a flower bed whose flowers…" "Oh, leave your flower bed alone!" the other said. "It is," the secretary continued, "like a gathering of blondes and brunettes whose clothes…" "What do your brunettes have to do with me?" the other asked. "Then it is like a gallery of paintings whose lines…" "No!" the traveler said. "Once again, nature is like nature. Why look for comparisons?" "To please you," the secretary answered. "I don't want to be pleased," the traveler replied. "I want to learn. Start by telling me how many senses the people on your globe have." "We have seventy-two," the academician said, "and every day we complain that there are so few. Our imagination goes beyond our needs. We feel too limited with our seventy-two senses, our ring, and our five moons. Despite all our curiosity and the fairly large number of passions that come from our seventy-two senses, we have plenty of time to be bored." "I can easily believe it," Micromegas said. "On our globe we have nearly a thousand senses, yet we still have some vague desire, some restless feeling, constantly reminding us how insignificant we are and how much more perfect other beings are. I've traveled a little. I've seen mortals far below us and others far above us. But I've never seen any who didn't have more desires than real needs, and more needs than satisfaction. Perhaps one day I'll reach a country where nothing is missing. So far, though, nobody has given me any reliable news of that country." The Saturnian and the Sirian then exhausted themselves in guesses. After a great deal of very clever and very uncertain reasoning, however, they had to return to facts. "How long do you live?" the Sirian asked. "Oh, a very short time," the little man from Saturn replied. "It's exactly the same with us," said the Sirian. "We always complain that it is too short. It must be a universal law of nature." "Sadly," said the Saturnian, "we live for only five hundred great revolutions around the sun." (By our way of counting, that is about fifteen thousand years.) "You see, it's almost like dying at the moment we're born. Our existence is a point, our lifespan a moment, our globe an atom. We've barely begun to learn a little when death arrives, before we've gained experience. I don't dare make any plans myself. I feel like a drop of water in an enormous ocean. Especially in front of you, I'm ashamed of the ridiculous figure I cut in this world."
Micromegas answered, "If you weren't a philosopher, I'd be afraid of upsetting you by telling you that our lives are seven hundred times longer than yours. But you know very well that when we have to give our bodies back to the elements and bring nature to life again in another form—what we call dying—then, when that moment of transformation arrives, living for an eternity or living for one day comes to exactly the same thing. I've visited countries where people live a thousand times longer than we do at home, and I found them complaining too. Still, everywhere there are sensible people who accept their situation and thank the Author of nature. He has filled this universe with enormous variety and a kind of wonderful consistency. For example, all thinking beings are different, yet deep down they all share the gifts of thought and desire. Matter takes up space everywhere, but it has different properties on each globe. How many of these different properties do you count in your matter?" "If you mean the properties without which we believe this globe couldn't continue as it is," the Saturnian said, "we count three hundred. These include extension in space, the inability of two bodies to occupy the same space, movement, gravity, divisibility, and the rest." "Apparently," the traveler replied, "that small number is enough for the Creator's plans for your little home. I admire his wisdom in everything. Everywhere I see differences, but everywhere I also see things in proportion. Your globe is small, and so are its inhabitants. You have few sensations, and your matter has few properties. All of this is Providence's work. What color is your sun when examined carefully?" "A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "When we split one of its rays, we find seven colors in it." "Our sun is reddish," the Sirian said, "and we have thirty-nine basic colors. Of all the suns I've approached, no two are alike, just as no face among you is exactly like any other."
After several questions of this kind, he asked how many essentially different substances people counted on Saturn. He learned that they counted only about thirty: God, space, matter, beings that take up space and feel, beings that take up space and feel and think, thinking beings that take up no space, beings that can occupy the same space as others, beings that cannot, and the rest. In the Sirian's world they counted three hundred, and on his travels he had discovered three thousand more. This astonished the philosopher from Saturn enormously. Finally, after sharing a little of what they knew and a great deal of what they did not know, and after reasoning for one revolution around the sun, they decided to take a short philosophical journey together.
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Chapter II is part of Micromegas by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 2 of 7 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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