"I gladly quit what I fear some present may have considered the personal part of my lecture," resumed Dr. Reasono, "to turn to those portions of the theme that should possess a common interest, awaken common pride, and excite common felicitations. I now propose to say a few words on that part of our natural philosophy which is connected with the planetary system, the monikin location--and, as a consequence from both, the creation of the world."
"Although dying with impatience to be enlightened on all these interesting points, you will grant me leave to inquire en pa.s.sant, Dr.
Reasono, if your savans receive the Mosaic account of the creation or not."
"As far as it corroborates our own system, sir, and no farther. There would be a manifest inconsistency in our giving an antagonistic validity to any hostile theory, let it come from Moses or Aaron; as one of your native good sense and subsequent cultivation will readily perceive."
"Permit me to intimate, Dr. Reasono, that the distinction your philosophers take in this matter, is directly opposed to a very arbitrary canon in the law of evidence, which dictates the necessity of repudiating the whole of a witness"s testimony, when we repudiate a part."
"That may be a human, but it is not a monikin distinction. So far from admitting the soundness of the principle, we hold that no monikin is ever wholly right, or that he will be wholly right, so long as he remains in the least under the influence of matter; and we therefore winnow the false from the true, rejecting the former as worse than useless, while we take the latter as the nutriment of facts."
"I now repeat my apologies for so often interrupting you, venerable and learned sir; and I entreat you will not waste another moment in replying to my interrogatories, but proceed at once to an explanation of your planetary system, or of any other little thing it may suit your convenience to mention. When one listens to a real philosopher, one is certain to learn something that is either useful or agreeable, let the subject be what it may."
"By the monikin philosophy, gentlemen," continued Dr. Reasono, "we divide the great component parts of this earth into land and water.
These two principles we term the primary elements. Human philosophy has added air and fire to the list; but these we reject either entirely, or admit them only as secondary elements. That neither air nor fire is a primary element, may be proved by experiment. Thus, air can be formed, in the quality of gases, can be rendered pure or foul; is dependent on evaporation, being no more than ordinary matter in a state of high rarefaction. Fire has no independent existence, requires fuel for its support, and is evidently a property that is derived from the combinations of other principles. Thus, by putting two or more billets of wood together, by rapid friction you produce fire. Abstract the air suddenly, and your fire becomes extinct; abstract the wood, and you have the same result. From these two experiments it is shown that fire has no independent existence, and therefore is not an element. On the other hand, take a billet of wood and let it be completely saturated with water; the wood acquires a new property (as also by the application of fire, which converts it into ashes and air), for its specific gravity is increased, it becomes less inflammable, emits vapor more readily, and yields less readily to the blow of the axe. Place the same billet under a powerful screw, and a vessel beneath. Compress the billet, and by a sufficient application of force, you will have the wood, perfectly dry, left beneath the screw, and the vessel will contain water. Thus is it shown that land (all vegetable matter being no more than fungi of the earth) is a. primary element, and that water is also a primary element; while air and fire are not.
"Having established the elements, I shall, for brevity"s sake, suppose the world created. In the beginning, the orb was placed in vacuum, stationary, and with its axis perpendicular to the plane of what is now called its...o...b..t. Its only revolution was the diurnal."
"And the changes of the seasons?"
"Had not yet taken place. The days and nights were equal; there were no eclipses; the same stars were always visible. This state of the earth is supposed, from certain geological proofs, to have continued about a thousand years, during which time the struggle between mind and matter was solely confined to quadrupeds. Man is thought to have made his appearance, so far as our doc.u.ments go to establish the fact, about the year of the world one thousand and three. About this period, too, it is supposed that fire was generated by the friction of the earth"s axis, while making the diurnal movement; or, as some imagine, by the friction of the periphery of the orb, rubbing against vacuum at the rate of so many miles in a minute. The fire penetrating the crust, soon got access to the bodies of water that fill the cavities of the earth. From this time is to be dated the existence of a new and most important agent in the terrestrial phenomena, called steam. Vegetation now began to appear, as the earth received warmth from within--"
"Pray, sir, may I ask in what manner all the animals existed previously?"
"By feeding on each other. The strong devoured the weak, until the most diminutive of the animalcula were reached, when these turned on their persecutors, and profiting by their insignificance, commenced devouring the strongest. You find daily parallels to this phenomenon in the history of man. He who by his energy and force has triumphed over his equals, is frequently the prey of the insignificant and vile. You doubtless know that the polar regions even in the original att.i.tude of the earth, owing to their receiving the rays of the sun obliquely, must have possessed a less genial climate than the parts of the orb that lie between the arctic and the antarctic circles. This was a wise provision of Providence to prevent a premature occupation of those chosen regions, or to cause them to be left uninhabited, until mind had so far mastered matter, as to have brought into existence the first monikin."
"May I venture to ask to what epoch you refer the appearance of the first of your species?"
"To the monikin epocha, beyond a doubt, sir--but if you mean to ask in what year of the world this event took place, I should answer, about the year 4017. It is true that certain of our writers affect to think that divers men were approaching to the sublimation of the monikin mind, previously to this period; but the better opinion is, that these cases were no more than what are termed premonitory. Thus, Socrates, Plato, Confucius, Aristotle, Euclid, Zeno, Diogenes, and Seneca, were merely so many admonishing types of the future condition of man, indicating their near approach to the monikin, or to the final translation."
"And Epicurus--"
"Was an exaggeration of the material principle, that denoted the retrogression of a large portion of the race towards brutality and matter. These phenomena are still of daily occurrence."
"Do you then hold the opinion, for instance, Dr. Reasono, that Socrates is now a monikin philosopher, with his brain unravelled and rendered logically consecutive, and that Epicurus is transformed perchance into a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, with tusks, horns, and hide?"
"You quite mistake our dogmas, Sir John. We do not believe in transmigration in the individual at all, but in the transmigration of cla.s.ses. Thus, we hold that whenever a given generation of men, in a peculiar state of society, attain, in the aggregate, a certain degree of moral improvement, or mentality, as we term it in the schools, that there is an admixture of their qualities in ma.s.ses, some believe by scores, others think by hundreds, and others again pretend by thousands; and if it is found, by the a.n.a.lysis that is regularly inst.i.tuted by nature, that the proportions are just, the material is consigned to the monikin birth; if not, it is repudiated, and either kneaded anew for another human experiment, or consigned to the vast stores of dormant matter. Thus all individuality, so far as it is connected with the past, is lost."
"But, sir, existing facts contradict one of the most important of your propositions; while you admit that a want of a change in the seasons would be a consequence of the perpendicularity of the earth"s axis to the plane of its present orbit, this change in the seasons is a matter not to be denied. Flesh and blood testify against you here, no less than reason."
"I spoke of things as they were, sir, previously to the birth of the monikinia; since which time a great, salutary, harmonious, and contemplated alteration has occurred. Nature had reserved the polar region for the new species, with divers obvious and benevolent purposes.
They were rendered uninhabitable by the obliquity of the sun"s rays; and though matter, in the shape of mastodons and whales, with an instinct of its antagonistic destination, had frequently invaded their precincts, it was only to leave the remains of the first embedded in fields of ice, memorials of the uselessness of struggling against destiny, and to furnish proofs of the same great truth in the instance of the others; who, if they did enter the polar basins as masters of the great deep, either left their bones there, or returned in the same characters as they went. From the appearance of animal nature on the earth, down to the period when the monikin race arose, the regions in question were not only uninhabited, but virtually uninhabitable. When, however, nature, always wary, wise, beneficent, and never to be thwarted, had prepared the way, those phenomena were exhibited that cleared the road for the new species. I have alluded to the internal struggle between fire and water, and to their progeny, steam. This new agent was now required to act. A moment"s attention to the manner in which the next great step in the progress of civilization was made, will show with what foresight and calculation our common mother had established her laws. The earth is flattened at the poles, as is well imagined by some of the human philosophers, in consequence of its diurnal movement commencing while the ball was still in a state of fusion, which naturally threw off a portion of the unkneaded matter towards the periphery. This was not done without the design of accomplishing a desired end. The matter that was thus acc.u.mulated at the equator, was necessarily abstracted from other parts; and in this manner the crust of the globe became thinnest at the poles. When a sufficiency of steam had been generated in the centre of the ball, a safety-valve was evidently necessary to prevent a total disruption. As there was no other machinist than nature, she worked with her own tools, and agreeably to her own established laws. The thinnest portions of the crust opportunely yielded to prevent a catastrophe, when the superfluous and heated vapor escaped, in a right line with the earth"s axis, into vacuum. This phenomenon occurred, as nearly as we have been able to ascertain, about the year 700 before the Christian era commenced, or some two centuries previously to the birth of the first monikins."
"And why so early, may I presume to inquire, Doctor?"
"Simply that there might be time for the new climate to melt the ice that had acc.u.mulated about the islands and continents of that region (for it was only at the southern extremity of the earth that the explosion had taken place), in the course of so many centuries. Two hundred and seventy years of the active and unremitted agency of steam sufficed for this end; since the accomplishment of which, the monikin race has been in the undisturbed enjoyment of the whole territory, together with its blessed fruits."
"Am I to understand," asked Captain Poke, with more interest than he had before manifested in the philosopher"s lecture, "that your folks, when at hum", live to the south"ard of the belt of ice that we mariners always fall in with somewhere about the parallel of 77 degrees south lat.i.tude?"
"Precisely so--alas! that we should, this day, be so far from those regions of peace, delight, intelligence, and salubrity! But the will of Providence be done!--doubtless there is a wise motive for our captivity and sufferings, which may yet lead to the further glory of the monikin race!"
"Will you have the kindness to proceed with your explanations, Doctor?
If you deny the annual revolution of the earth, in what manner do you account for the changes of the seasons, and other astronomical phenomena, such as the eclipses which so frequently occur?"
"You remind me that the subject is not yet exhausted," the philosopher hurriedly rejoined, hastily and covertly dashing a tear from his eye.
"Prosperity produced some of its usual effects among the founders of our species. For a few centuries, they went on multiplying in numbers, elongating and rendering still more consecutive their cauda, improving in knowledge and the arts, until some spirits, more audacious than the rest, became restive under the slow march of events, which led them towards perfection at a rate ill-suited to their fiery impatience. At this time, the mechanic arts were at the highest pitch of perfection amongst us--we have since, in a great measure, abandoned them, as unsuited to, and unnecessary for, an advanced state of civilization--we wore clothes, constructed ca.n.a.ls, and effected other works that were greatly esteemed among the species from which we had emigrated. At this time, also, the whole monikin family lived together as one people, enjoyed the same laws, and pursued the same objects. But a political sect arose in the region, under the direction of misguided and hot-headed leaders, who brought down upon us the just judgment of Providence, and a mult.i.tude of evils that it will require ages to remedy. This sect soon had recourse to religious fanaticism and philosophical sophisms, to attain its ends. It grew rapidly in power and numbers; for we monikins, like men, as I have had occasion to observe, are seekers of novelties. At last it proceeded to absolute overt acts of treason against the laws of Providence itself. The first violent demonstration of its madness and folly was, setting up the doctrine that injustice had been done the monikin race, by causing the safety-valve of the world to be opened within their region. Although we were manifestly indebted to this very circ.u.mstance for the benignity of our climate, the value of our possessions, the general healthfulness of our families-nay, for our separate existence itself, as an independent species, yet did these excited and ill-judging wretches absolutely wage war upon the most benevolent and the most unequivocal friend they had. Specious promises led to theories, theories to declamations, declamation to combination, combination to denunciation, and denunciation to open hostilities. The matter in dispute was debated for two generations, when the necessary degree of madness having been excited, the leaders of the party, who by this time had worked themselves through their hobby, into the general control of the monikin affairs, called a meeting of all their partisans and pa.s.sed certain resolutions, which will never be blotted from the monikin memory, so fatal were their consequences, so ruinous for a time their effects! They were conceived in the following terms:--
""At a full and overflowing meeting of the most monikinized of the monikin race, holden at the house of Peleg Pat (we still used the human appellations, at that epoch), in the year of the world 3,007, and of the monikin era 317, Plausible Shout was called to the chair, and Ready Quill was named secretary.""
""After several excellent and eloquent addresses from all present, it was unanimously resolved as follows, viz.:""
""That steam is a curse, and not a blessing; and that it deserves to be denounced by all patriotic and true monikins.""
""That we deem it the height of oppression and injustice in nature, that she has placed the great safety-valve of the world within the lawful limits of the monikin territories.""
""That the said safety-valve ought to be removed forthwith; and that it shall be so removed, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must.""
""That we cordially approve of the sentiments of John Jaw, our present estimable chief magistrate, the incorruptible partisan, the undaunted friend of his friends, the uncompromising enemy of steam, and the sound, pure, orthodox, and true monikin.""
""That we recommend the said Jaw to the confidence of all monikins.""
""That we call upon the country to sustain us in our great, holy, and glorious design, pledging ourselves, posterity, the bones of our ancestors, and all who have gone before or who may come after us, to the faithful execution of our intentions.
""Signed,""
""PLAUSIBLE SHOUT, Chairman.""
""READY QUILL, Secretary.""
"No sooner were these resolutions promulgated (for instead of being pa.s.sed at a full meeting, it is now understood they were drawn up between Messrs. Shout and Quill, under the private dictation of Mr.
Jaw), than the public mind began seriously to meditate proceeding to extremities. That perfection in the mechanic arts, which had hitherto formed our pride and boast, now proved to be our greatest enemy. It is thought that the leaders of this ill-directed party meant, in truth, to confine themselves to certain electioneering effects; but who can stay the torrent, or avert the current of prejudice! The stream was setting against steam; the whole invention of the species was put in motion; and in one year from the pa.s.sage of the resolutions I have recited, mountains were transported, endless piles of rocks were thrown into the gulf, arches were constructed, and the hole of the safety-valve was hermetically sealed. You will form some idea of the waste of intelligence and energy on this occasion, when I add that it was found, by actual observation, that this artificial portion of the earth was thicker, stronger, and more likely to be durable than the natural. So far did infatuation lead the victims, that they actually caused the whole region to be sounded, and, having ascertained the precise locality of the thinnest portion of the crust, John Jaw, and all the most zealous of his followers, removed to the spot, where they established the seat of their government in triumph. All this time nature rested upon her arms, in the quiet of conscious force. It was not long, however, before our ancestors began to perceive the consequences of their act, in the increase of the cold, in the scarcity of fruits, and in the rapid augmentation of the ice. The monikin enthusiasm is easily awakened in favor of any plausible theory, but it invariably yields to physical pressure. No doubt the human race, better furnished with the material of physical resistance, does not exhibit so much of this weakness, but--"
"Do not flatter us with the exception, Doctor. I find so many points of resemblance between us, that I really begin to think we must have had the same origin; and if you would only admit that man is of the secondary formation, and the monikins of the primary, I would accept the whole of your philosophy without a moment"s delay."
"As such an admission would be contrary to both fact and doctrine, I trust, my dear sir, you will see the utter impossibility of a Professor in the University of Leaphigh making the concession, even in this remote part of the world. As I was about to observe, the people began to betray uneasiness at the increasing and constant inclemency of the weather; and Mr. John Jaw found it necessary to stimulate their pa.s.sions by a new development of his principles. His friends and partisans were all a.s.sembled in the great square of the new capital, and the following resolutions were, to use the language of a handbill that is still preserved in the archives of the Leaphigh Historical Society (for it would seem they were printed before they were pa.s.sed), "unanimously, enthusiastically, and finally adopted," viz.:
""Resolved, That this meeting has the utmost contempt for steam.""
""Resolved, That this meeting defies snow, and sterility, and all other natural disadvantages.""
""Resolved, That we will live forever.""
""Resolved, That we will henceforward go naked, as the most effectual means of setting the frost at defiance.""
""Resolved, That we are now over the thinnest part of the earth"s crust in the polar regions.""
""Resolved, That henceforth we will support no monikin for any public trust, who will not give a pledge to put out all his fires, and to dispense with cooking altogether.""
""Resolved, That we are animated by the true spirit of patriotism, reason, good faith, and firmness.""