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Page 2
Our greatest ladies hither come,
And ply in chariots daily;
Oft pawn their jewels for a sum
To venture in the Alley.
The meteoric rise in the price of shares in the moon-mountain project
of the Cacklogallinians is no greater than the actual rise in prices of
shares during the South Sea Bubble, when, between April and July, 1720,
shares rose from �120 to �1,020. The fluctuating market of the
Cacklogallinian 'Change, which responded to every rumor, follows
faithfully the actual situation in London in 1720; and the final crash
which shook Cacklogallinian foundations--subtly suggested by Brunt's
unwillingness to return and face the enraged multitude--is an echo of
the crash which shook England when the Bubble was pricked.
But its reflection of the economic background of the age is not the only
reason for the interest and importance of _A Voyage to Cacklogallinia_,
either in its generation or in our own. The little tale has its place in
the history of science, particularly in that movement of science which,
beginning with the "new astronomy" in the early seventeenth century,
was to produce one of the most important chapters in the history
of aviation.[5] So far as literature is concerned, _A Voyage to
Cacklogallinia_ belongs to the literary _genre_ of "voyages to the moon"
which from Lucian to H.G. Wells (even to modern "pulp magazines") have
enthralled human imagination. Yet while its fantasy looks back to
Lucian's Icaro-Menippus, who flew to the moon by using the wing of
a vulture and the wing of an eagle, its suggestion of the growing
scientific temper of modern times makes it much more than mere fantasy.
In the semilegendary history of Iran is to be found a tale, retold by
Firdausi in the _Shaknameh_, of Kavi Usan, who "essayed the sky To
outsoar angels" by fastening four eagles to his throne. The Iranian
motif was adopted in the romances of Alexander the Great and so passed
into European literature. The researches of Leonardo da Vinci upon the
muscles of birds and the principles of the flight of birds brought over
to the realm of science ideas long familiar in tale and legend. Francis
Bacon did not hesitate to suggest in his _Natural History_ (Experiment
886) that there are possibilities of human flight by the use of birds
and "advises others to think further upon this experiment as giving
some light to the invention of the art of flying."
John Wilkins, one of the most influential early members of the Royal
Society, in his _Mathematicall Magick_,[6] in 1648, suggested "four
several ways whereby this flying in the air hath been or may be
attempted." He listed, as the second, "By the help of fowls." Ten years
earlier there appeared in England during the same year two works which
were to have great influence in popularizing the theme of light:
Wilkins's _Discovery of a World in the Moone_,[7] a serious
semiscientific work on the nature of the moon and the possibility of
man's flying thither, and a prose romance by Francis Godwin, _The Man in
the Moone: or, A Discourse of a Voyage thither by D. Gonsales._[8] These
two works were largely responsible for the emergence of the old theme of
flight to the moon in imaginative literature; the English translation of
Lucian at almost the same time perhaps aided in advancing the popularity
of the idea.
The similarities between Brunt's romance and Godwin's tale a century
earlier are too striking to be fortuitous, and, indeed, there is no
question that Brunt used Godwin as one of his chief sources. An earlier
_Robinson Crusoe_, an idyllic _Gulliver's Travels_, Godwin's _The Man in
the Moone_ helped to establish in English literature the vogue of the
traveler's tale to strange countries. Domingo, like Captain Samuel
Brunt, draws from the "exotic" tradition. Both travelers find themselves
in strange lands; both experience many other adventures before they make
their way to the moon, drawn by birds.
But the century which elapsed between Godwin's fanciful tale and Brunt's
fantastic romance felt the impact of the new science. No matter how
clearly both tales draw from old traditions of legend and literature,
no matter how many elements of fantasy remain, there is a profound and
fundamental difference between them. Godwin's hero made his way to the
moon by mere chance; it happened that he harnessed himself to his gansas
during their period of hibernation. Too late, he discovered that gansas
hibernate in the moon! The earlier voyage took only "Eleven or Twelve
daies"--and that by gansa power! The earlier author did not suggest that
his hero encountered any particular difficulties of respiration, nor did
he pause to consider in detail the problem of the nature of the
intervening air through which his hero passed.
But a hundred years of science had intervened between Godwin's tale and
that of Captain Samuel Brunt. The later voyage to the moon is no less
fantastic in its outlines than is the earlier, yet it shows clearly the
impact of science upon popular imagination. The imagination of man had
expanded with the expanding universe. Brunt takes care to indicate the
vast distance between the earth and the moon by subtle mathematical
suggestion. Although both travelers flew "with incredible swiftness,"
the eighteenth-century flyers found that it was "about a Month before
we came into the Attraction of the Moon." Brunt's account of the
preparation for the ascent into the orb of the moon is almost as careful
as a modern account of an ascent into the stratosphere. His bird flyers
lay their plans deliberately and upon the basis of the most recent
scientific discoveries. There is nothing fortuitous about their final
ascent. Brunt was clearly aware of the work of many scientists, notably
Boyle, upon the nature and rarefaction of the air. His flyers proceed
by slow stages, accustoming themselves gradually to the rarefied air,
assisting their respiration by the use of wet sponges. They learn by
experience the answer to the problems with which Godwin's mind had
played but which many later scientific writers had considered more
definitely: what is the nature of gravity; how far beyond the confines
of the earth does it extend; what would happen to man could he "pass the
Atmosphere"? The generation to which Captain Samuel Brunt belonged might
still delight in the fantastic; but like our own generation, it insisted
that fantasy must rest upon that which is at least scientifically
possible, if not probable.
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