Micromegas
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~8,000 words · 38 passages
Cite this work
- APAVoltaire. (n.d.). Micromegas. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/micromegas
- MLAVoltaire. Micromegas. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/micromegas.
- ChicagoVoltaire. Micromegas. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/micromegas.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Micromégas: an inhabitant of Sirius, twenty-three miles tall, visits Earth and cannot find the humans, so small are they.
Context and history
Science fiction from 1752, and probably the first in French literature. The joke is serious: seen from outside, our importance is a matter of scale. When the giants finally find the humans and hear them arguing metaphysics, they burst out laughing. Voltaire wrote in French: this is an old English translation, in the public domain. For citation, the original.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Since our strangers moved fairly rapidly, they circumnavigated the globe in 36 hours. The sun, in truth, or rather the Earth, makes a similar voyage in a day; but you have to imagine that the going is much easier when one turns on one's axis instead of walking on one's feet. So there they were, back where they started, after having seen the nearly imperceptible pond we call _the Mediterranean_, and the other little pool that, under the name _Ocean_, encircles the molehill. The dwarf never got in over his knees, and the other hardly wet his heels. On their way they did all they could to see whether the planet was inhabited or not. They crouched, laid down, felt around everywhere; but their eyes and their hands were not proportionate to the little beings that crawl here, they could not feel in the least any sensation that might lead them to suspect that we and our associates, the other inhabitants of this planet, have the honor of existing. The dwarf, who was a bit hasty sometimes, decided straightaway that the planet was uninhabited. His first reason was that he had not seen anyone. Micromegas politely indicated that this logic was rather flawed: "For," said he, "you do not see with your little eyes certain stars of the 50th magnitude that I can perceive very distinctly. Do you conclude that these stars do not exist?" "But," said the dwarf, "I felt around a lot." "But," answered the other, "you have pretty weak senses." "But," replied the dwarf, "this planet is poorly constructed. It is so irregular and has such a ridiculous shape! Everything here seems to be in chaos: you see these little rivulets, none of which run in a straight line, these pools of water that are neither round, nor square, nor oval, nor regular by any measure; all these little pointy specks scattered across the earth that grate on my feet?…