Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/378

364 blister and that scab, of which you do not know the cause, have to come, either by the corruption of the enemies which these little giants have slain, or by the plague produced by the remnants of the food with which the disturbers have gorged themselves, and left in heaps of dead bodies on the field; or because the tyrant, after having driven from around himself his companions which were corking with their bodies the pores of ours, has given passage to the humor, which has become corrupt after having been ejected from the sphere of the circulation of our blood. For a further proof of this universal parasitism, you have only to consider how the blood runs to the spot where you are wounded. The doctors tell you that it is guided by Provident Nature, which desires to succor the debilitated parts; which would make us conclude that besides the soul and mind there is in us a third intellectual substance having its functions and organs apart. But for this reason I find it more probable to say that these little animals, feeling themselves attacked, send to their neighbors for aid, and they having come from all around, and the country being incapable of supporting so many people, they die of hunger, or are smothered by the pressure. This mortality takes place when the imposthume is ripe; for the corrupted flesh then becomes insensible in testimony that the animals have been smothered; and that the bleeding which we order to divert the inflammation is because that, having lost much by the opening which these little animals tried to cork up, they refused to assist their allies because they were hardly able to take care of themselves."

Cyrano tried to go up to the moon by tying around his waist bottles full of dew, which, according to the opinion then received, was attracted by the sun. He was not able to rise so high; but, after breaking a considerable number of bottles, he pretended almost to nullify the weight of his body, so that he could travel by long leaps, only grazing the earth, as many people fancy in their sleep that they are doing. "He reached the moon by means of a machine which he does not describe, and found there another terrestrian who had raised himself up by the aid of a Montgolfier and a parachute. He filled two large vessels with smoke, sealed them hermetically, and fastened them under his arms; the smoke, which tended to rise and could not penetrate the metal, immediately pushed the vessels up, and they carried the man with them. . . . When he had risen to the moon, . . . he promptly untied the vessels which he had bound as wings to his shoulders, and did it with such success that he had just reached the lunar air, four toises above the moon, when he took leave of his flippers. The elevation was still great enough for him to have been considerably hurt, if the wind had not inflated the voluminous folds of his robe, and gently sustained him till he set foot on the ground.'.