Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/61

43 was a strapping youth, exactly one hundred and twenty thousand royal feet in length. In consequence of this calculation, Micromegas uttered these words:

"I am now more than ever convinced that we ought to judge of nothing by its external magnitude. O God! who hast bestowed understanding upon such seemingly contemptible substances, Thou canst with equal ease produce that which is infinitely small, as that which is incredibly great; and if it be possible that among thy works there are beings still more diminutive than these, they may, nevertheless, be endued with understanding superior to the intelligence of those stupendous animals I have seen in heaven, a single foot of whom is larger than this whole globe on which I have alighted."

One of the philosophers assured him that there were intelligent beings much smaller than men, and recounted not only Virgil's whole fable of the bees, but also described all that Swammerdam hath discovered and Reaumur dissected. In a word, he informed him that there are animals which bear the same proportion to bees that bees bear to man, the same as the Sirian himself compared to those vast beings whom he had mentioned, and as those huge animals are to other substances, before whom they would appear like so many particles of dust. Here the conversation became very interesting, and Micromegas proceeded in these words: