Scene Eighteen
The Preceding, Copernicus
AESOP: Illustrious Copernicus, I count on your frankness to tell us, without disguise, what you think of your astronomical system. Are you morally certain that the earth travels the zodiac in circling around the sun?
COPERNICUS: No, what I said was not an incontestable truth. It was a hypothesis imagined to explain in a more plausible manner than before, it seemed to me, the movements of the sidereal bodies, but it’s still a hypothesis.
AESOP: Which is to say that there is more than one way of explaining the movements of the celestial spheres.
COPERNICUS: Yes, for the appearances, according to all the astronomers, would be the same whether the sun turns around the earth or the earth around the sun.
AESOP: There is, then, no phenomenon that demonstrates invincibly the displacement of the earth?
COPERNICUS: No, it can only be admitted by supposition.
AESOP: And what persuaded you to adopt that hypothesis?
COPERNICUS: The movements of the planets, whose courses are sometimes direct and sometimes retrograde. It seemed simpler to me to think that those retrogradations were only apparent, and that they originated from the displacement of our globe rather than the backward movement of the planet, which would have been obliged to describe several epicycles around the earth in one of its periods.
AESOP: But must one regard those epicycles as unnatural curves—which is to say, as never taking place in the progress of celestial bodies?
COPERNICUS: Not absolutely, since the moon in my own system must reverse its course several times in the course of a year, apparently forming a series of epicycles.
AESOP: If the moon can trace these kinds of epicycles, why should the other planets not be able to describe real ones? Would that be impossible for the divinity? A workman who has enough talent to make a machine move in one fashion has not, because of that, lost the faculty of making it move in others of the same kind, and also dissimilar ones. It therefore appears to me that you ought to have said, since I cannot remove all species of epicycles, no matter in what fashion I explain the universe, it would be better to allow the planets to describe curves of that sort around the earth than to claim that they circle around the sun.
BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE: If the illustrious Copernicus had lived after good observations, especially after the discovery of telescopes, and he had seen the moons of the planets tracing these kinds of epicycles in turning around the latter, he would have recognized that those curves are more common in nature than simple orbits, since there are many more moons than planets. From that he would have concluded that the latter might well also describe more or less complicated curves around the earth, while the sun and the moon describe true circles, which appear elliptical because of the position that the earth occupies in their orbits.
COPERNICUS: You’re right, but as, in my time, the existence of these moons was unsuspected, I thought that it was more appropriate only to make our moon describe epicycles of a sort than five other planets. In any case, believing that the sun was much larger than the earth, I imagined that it was also more natural that the smaller mass circled around the larger one.
AESOP: But then the displacement of our globe would become apparent in the various points of space, because, in being displaced, it could not describe a great circle without the pole star moving from right to left in the course of the year, since every day, it moves by two or three degrees because of the earth’s diurnal revolution.
COPERNICUS: Yes, but I didn’t think of making that comparison. The apparent beauty of my system dazzled me and carried me away, and to anticipate the objection that might be made to me with regard to the fixity of the pole star throughout the year, I claimed that the stars were such a great distance from the earth that the angle formed by our globe in describing its orbit because insensible when seen from the star. If I had thought about the daily change in the pole star’s position that would have embarrassed me.
AESOP: Effectively, in your hypothesis, a small change can produce an effect impossible on a larger one.
COPERNICUS: That’s true, but when one creates a system, one doesn’t look at it so closely, and one is often constrained deliberately to ignore certain inconvenient phenomena.
AESOP: Illustrious Copernicus, I’m sure that if you had created your astronomical system after the new observations, you would have left the earth fixed almost at the center of the planetary orbits, and would only have given it a movement of rotation about its inclined axis, making its two poles move as indicated in On the Search for the Truth in the Sciences; and by that means you would have been able to explain in a more plausible manner the precession of the equinoxes, the diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic and other astronomical phenomena that certainly depend on the movements of the earth’s poles, as the rising and setting of stars are produced by its diurnal rotations and the seasons by the inclination of its axis, as you were the first to determine. I think, therefore, that you will not take it amiss if I declare erroneous the theory of the displacement of the earth around the star that illuminates it.
JOUROUFLE: You’re going to insult Monsieur Copernicus in that fashion?
COPERNICUS: I’m not saddened by it, because I haven’t represented that hypothesis as an incontestable truth; on the contrary, I was so suspicious of it during my life that I only delivered it for printing when I had one foot in the grave.
JOUROUFLE: Alas, what will Monsieur Newton say?
AESOP: That humans are not exempt from error.
JOUROUFLE: So I can no longer show off, decorated by the Newtonian livery? Alas, poor Jouroufle, you have fallen a long way from your glory!
AESOP: That is a misfortune that the creators of false systems cannot escape. Ptolemy and Descartes experienced it before Newton, but they have conserved a part of their glory nevertheless. Newton can also lay claim to the praises of posterity, like them, although I must here, in accordance with the power that Urania has given me, condemn and declare false not merely the hypothesis of the displacement of the earth, but also those of the pretended void and sidereal or universal attraction. Copernicus, most of all, will always be welcomed with honor in future ages for having revealed the diurnal movement and the inclination of the earth’s axis to explain the seasons, and I am charged on Urania’s behalf with complimenting him in the name of the scientific world.
JOUROUFLE: Havens! To be condemned on almost all accounts!
AESOP: I’m sorry, but it was necessary to expect it sooner or later.
JOUROUFLE: Oh! Monseigneur Aesop, change your verdict, I implore you.
AESOP: I have judged in accordance with the truth, and I cannot revoke my judgment.
JOUROUFLE: Please, receive our very humble supplication favorably, and you will be delighted to have rendered us that service.
AESOP: It’s impossible.
JOUROUFLE: Remember that we can give you a good place in some academy. I’m not deceiving you, Monseigneur Aesop; I can get you in there—I have the keys.
AESOP: I don’t aspire to that honor.
JOUROUFLE: Look, I’ll even give you my position and title.
AESOP: I have no need of them.
JOUROUFLE: And we’d let you have a good pension. Oh, good Monseigneur Aesop!
AESOP: I didn’t ask for one in Greece; I shan’t ask for one here.
JOUROUFLE: And we’d carry you on the wings of renown.
AESOP: I’m content with the renown I have.
JOUROUFLE: But remember, too, that we can annul your merit, and you’ll have neither a position nor a pension.
AESOP: I don’t care.
JOUROUFLE: And that we’ll denigrate you in the scientific world.
AESOP: The scientific world won’t always be Newtonian, and serene skies usually succeed nebulous weather.
JOUROUFLE: And that posterity will shame you in consideration for us.
AESOP: I have no fear of that misfortune; posterity will be
able to render justice sooner or later.
JOUROUFLE: Go on, quickly, hurry—for I can see Seigneur Newton coming, with his numerous friends.
Scene Nineteen
The preceding, Newton, Heromondas, Sgravesande,
Pemberton, Voltaire, Pope, the Physicists, etc.
NEWTON: Your presence is greatly desired, my dear Copernicus; would you leave us here alone when we’re defending our cause?
COPERNICUS: Rather say yours, for as your partisans have often confessed, the hypothesis of general gravitation can only be sustained by that of the displacement of the earth.
NEWTON: That’s true, but as the two hypotheses corroborate one another mutually, to defend my theories is to care for your glory. So I hope that you will render me a similar service, and will strive to do for me what I have done for you. Let us defend the displacement of our globe with all our might.
COPERNICUS: All my efforts are futile henceforth; I can do nothing for you or for me; the affair has been judged definitively, and your sidereal attraction, as well as the displacement of the earth, has been declared false and utterly false.
PEMBERTON: Entirely?
COPERNICUS: Yes.
HEROMONDAS: And you’ve accepted that judgment?
COPERNICUS: The fixity of the pole star in all the seasons of the year and other astronomical phenomena have closed the path to any protest.
VOLTAIRE: You’ve given in too easily.
COPERNICUS: What do you expect me to do, on fining myself in contradiction with myself and with phenomena?
SGRAVESANDE: You ought to have appealed to Urania, to the scientific world, to posterity and to all the devils, if necessary.
COPERNICUS: But after all, I never claimed that my astronomical system conformed in all respects with the exact truth; I’ve always regarded it as a simply hypothesis.
SGRAVESANDE: That’s you’re sentiment, then? Well, we have a contrary opinion, and we’ll sustain against you and against everyone that the sun is fixed at the center of the world and that the earth rotates around that star, describing a true ellipse. My friends, do you not adhere go my proposition?
PEMBERTON: Yes, we adhere to it heart and soul.
SGRAVESANDE: Will you all swear to it?
PEMBERTON, HEROMONDAS, VOLTAIRE, etc.: Yes, we swear.
SGRAVESANDE: There, Aesop, retract your judgment quickly or we’ll make such a racket that Urania’s palace will be shaken.
HEROMONDAS: And toppled.
PEMBERTON, SGRAVESANDE, JOUROUFLE, POPE, VOLTAIRE, and the troop of Physicists and Astronomers: Yes, yes, toppled.
Scene Twenty
Aesop, Copernicus, Newton, Heromondas, Pemberton,
Sgravesande, Pluche, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
Voltaire, Pope, Jouroufle, the Concierge, etc.
CONCIERGE: This is a fine racket you’re making at the gate of the palace! What’s the cause of all this shouting?
JOUROUFLE: It’s because Monseigneur Aesop has just said bluntly to Seigneurs Newton and Copernicus that they’ve lied and that they were wrong. That’s not good, and I have an interest in sustaining at those Messieurs are right. For you see, Seigneur Concierge, I was only appointed doorkeeper of my academy because I praised Newton and his partisans to the skies; since then, I’ve almost lost my position for having muttered between my teeth that Newton wasn’t infallible. Misfortune, it’s said, advises a man well. I took it back, and as a recompense have been appointed first geometer of Urania’s court, with a fine certificate for posterity.
CONCIERGE: Monsieur Jouroufle, you’ve been taken in by these sumptuous promises. Urania has no need of a geometer of your stripe, and if you want to be received with honor by posterity, I advise you to get rid of your scientific prejudices and embrace the truth when you encounter it.
JOUROUFLE: Entirely?
CONCIERGE: Yes.
JOUROUFLE: Otherwise, posterity will look at me askance?
CONCIERGE: Most certainly.
JOUROUFLE: That’s good to know; I’ll take advantage of it, for I don’t like surly faces.
SGRAVESANDE: Without beating around the bush, Monsieur Concierge, we summon you to overturn the judgments of your creature Aesop immediately. Do you believe that after having grown old in the sciences we want to go back to school and learn what we’ve never known or understood? Certainly not. What we have conceived ourselves, or learned from Copernicus, Kepler and, above all, from Newton, our supreme dictator, we want to sustain forever.
CONCIERGE: Who’s stopping you? Don’t you know that the land of science is a state where opinions are free and entirely independent? If you want to say that it’s night when the midday sun is shining, you can, but you’ll render yourselves ridiculous of you try to force others to say that it isn’t day. They ought to enjoy the same liberty that you demand for yourselves.
VOLTAIRE and SGRAVESANE, simultaneously: No, no, that’s not what we intend. Liberty for us, servitude for others. Let them think and speak like us, or remain silent.
CONCIERGE: But what is it about, President?
AESOP: The Newtonians want to sustain, contrary to the evidence, that the terrestrial atmosphere doesn’t increase the apparent diameter of the stars that are seen through it, especially at the horizon.
CONCIERGE: One might perhaps allow that false opinion to pass, if they had never had in their power convex diaphanous objects that increase the apparent volume of objects. But as they know those optical facts, their error is inexcusable. Monsieur Jouroufle, do you think like these Messieurs?
JOUROUFLE: Oh no, Seigneur Concierge. Your servant Jouroufle does not want posterity to laugh at him while reproaching him for refusing the optical property of our diaphanous and convex atmosphere.
AESOP: The same scientists also want to sustain, in spite of experiments, that the spaces of the universe in which the sidereal bodies are suspended are void, or almost void, and that the expansible atmosphere exists in the middle of that void without being able to dilate there.
CONCIERGE: And you, Monsieur Jouroufle, did you defend that erroneous opinion?
JOUROUFLE: Seigneur Concierge. I am veridical, and I confess that I sustained it once, but in passing and without extrapolating its consequences; but now, my intelligence is better founded, and I’m not unaware that everything elastic dilates and expands if nothing retains it.
AESOP: They also want to make us believe that attraction is an occult and intrinsic quality of matter, and that the stars attract one another mutually at immense distances in an indivisible moment.
CONCIERGE: Have you talked such nonsense, Monsieur Jouroufle?
JOUROUFLE: Yes, unfortunately, and before Monseigneur Aesop made us understand that all attraction depends uniquely on the atmosphere. But now I think more accurately, how could I believe and extol such an evident error? For who is unaware that nothing can be attracted without being gripped? An occult quality is certainly not a hook.
AESOP: And they also say that the sun and the moon attract the earth.
CONCIERGE: From so far away, Monsieur Jouroufle, from so far away?
JOUROUFLE: Right! We say that as a joke.
AESOP: Finally, they are absolutely determined to persuade us that the earth travels around the day star, although the fixity of the north polar star is the same throughout the year, which would be impossible if the earth were circulating in space, since the daily displacement of its meridian, in diurnal rotation, changes the position of that star by about two degrees every day.
CONCIERGE: Oh, Monsieur Jouroufle! You have adopted that hypothesis contradicted by more than one astronomical phenomenon?
JOUROUFLE: You’re joking, Seigneur Concierge. Monsieur Jouroufle has too much intelligence not to reject such hypotheses.
The Nickel Man Page 10
