Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/45

Rh your presence, of the ridiculous figure I make among my fellow-creatures."

To this declaration Micromegas replied:

"If you were not a philosopher, I should be afraid of mortifying your pride by telling you that the term of our lives is seven hundred times longer than the length of your existence; but you are very sensible that when the texture of the body is resolved, in order to reanimate nature in another form, which is the consequence of what we call death — when that moment of change arrives, there is not the least difference betwixt having lived a whole eternity or a single day. I have been in some countries where the people live a thousand times longer than with us, and yet they murmured at the shortness of their time. But one will find everywhere some few persons of good sense, who know how to make the best of their portion and thank the author of nature for his bounty. There is a profusion of variety scattered through the universe, and yet there is an admirable vein of uniformity that runs through the whole; for example, all thinking beings are different among themselves, though at bottom they resemble one another in the powers and passions of the soul. Matter, though interminable, hath different properties in every sphere. How many principal attributes do you reckon in the matter of this world?"

"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we believe this our globe