ds in the first
edition, subsequent editions read "some jesuit." B.

[5] Pascal became a very great geometer, not in the same class as
those that contributed to the progress of science with great
discoveries, like Descartes, Newton, but certainly ranked among
the geometers, whose works display a genius of the first order. K.

[6] The edition that I believe to be original reads: "rash,
smelling heresy." The present text is dated 1756. B.

[7] Mr. Voltaire had been persecuted by the theatin Boyer for
having stated in his _Letters on the English_ that our souls
develop at the same time as our organs, just like the souls of
animals. K.

He was thereby dealt the minor affliction of being banished from a
court that consisted of nothing but harassment and pettiness. He
wrote an amusing song at the expense of the mufti, which the latter
hardly noticed; and he took to voyaging from planet to planet in
order to develop his heart and mind[8], as the saying goes. Those
that travel only by stage coach or sedan will probably be surprised
learn of the carriage of this vessel; for we, on our little pile of
mud, can only conceive of that to which we are accustomed. Our
voyager was very familiar with the laws of gravity and with all the
other attractive and repulsive forces. He utilized them so well that,
whether with the help of a ray of sunlight or some comet, he jumped
from globe to globe like a bird vaulting itself from branch to
branch. He quickly spanned the Milky Way, and I am obliged to report
that he never saw, throughout the stars it is made up of, the
beautiful empyrean sky that the vicar Derham[9] boasts of having seen
at the other end of his telescope. I do not claim that Mr. Derham has
poor eyesight, God forbid! But Micromegas was on site, which makes
him a reliable witness, and I do not want to contradict anyone.
Micromegas, after having toured around, arrived at the planet Saturn.
As accustomed as he was to seeing new things, he could not, upon
seeing the smallness of the planet and its inhabitants, stop himself
from smiling with the superiority that occasionally escapes the
wisest of us. For in the end Saturn is hardly nine times bigger than
Earth, and the citizens of this country are dwarfs, no more than a
thousand fathoms tall, or somewhere around there. He and his men
poked fun at them at first, like Italian musicians laughing at the
music of Lully when he comes to France. But, as the Sirian had a good
hea