created 2025-02-15, & modified, =this.modified
Why I am reading
This is a very early science fiction book I discovered via Photography - A Cultural History by Mary Warner Marion.
It foresaw a type of modern photography, being written in 1760.
“Thou knowest that the rays of light, reflected from different bodies, make a picture and paint the bodies upon all polished surfaces, on the retina of the eye, for instance, on water, on glass. The elementary spirits have studied to fix these transient images: they have composed a most subtile matter, very viscous, and proper to harden and dry, by the help of which a picture is made in the twinkle of an eye.
And according to his wiki, He anticipated many social and scientific inventions, e.g. photography, synthetic food, and television.
I have walk’d over the ruins of the ancient world, have view’d the monuments of modern pride, and, at the sight of all-devouring time, have wept over both.
This Solitude with which thou art so charmed, stands in the midst of a tempestuous ocean of moving sands; it is an island surrounded with inaccessible desarts, which no mortal can pass without a supernatural aid. Its name is Giphantia.
There are various passages that amount to worldbuilding.
It’s a bit of a puzzle to understand the devices in this world. For example the Mirrour is described:
From space to space (continued the Prefect) there are in the atmosphere portions of air which the spirits have so ranged, that they receive the rays reflected from the different parts of the earth, and remit them to this Mirrour: so that by inclining the glass different ways, the several parts of the earth’s surface will be visible on it. They will all appear one after the other, if the Mirrour is placed successively in all possible aspects. It is in thy power to view the habitations of every mortal.
NOTE
This mirror appears to be like “google maps” but applied in physics and by celestials. Maybe I am misinterpreting but it reads to me like a series of mirrors which reflect various points by careful articulation. While this seems impossible with atmospheric conditions, the structure of it reminds me of GPS with the various satellites creating a lattice of nodes.
I hastily took up the wonderful glass. In less than a quarter of an hour I surveyed the whole earth.
NOTE
A bit like Borges’ Aleph?
He sees in this scope, that all men are bad by a general corruption of heart.
Gallery or the Fortune of Mankind
We hear of this fantastical photography.
The elementary spirits (continued the Prefect) are not so able painters as naturalists; thou shalt judge by their way of working. Thou knowest that the rays of light, reflected from different bodies, make a picture and paint the bodies upon all polished surfaces, on the retina of the eye, for instance, on water, on glass. The elementary spirits have studied to fix these transient images: they have composed a most subtile matter, very viscous, and proper to harden and dry, by the help of which a picture is made in the twinkle of an eye. They do over with this matter a piece of canvas, and hold it before the objects they have a mind to paint. The first effect of the canvas is that of a mirrour; there are seen upon it all the bodies far and near, whose image the light can transmit. But what the glass cannot do, the canvas, by means of the viscous matter, retains the images. The mirrour shows the objects exactly, but keeps none; our canvases show them with the same exactness, and retains them all. This impression of the images is made the first instant they are received on the canvas, which is immediately carried away into some dark place; an hour after, the subtile matter dries, and you have a picture so much the more valuable, as it cannot be imitated by art nor damaged by time. We take, in their purest source, in the luminous bodies, the colours which painters extract from different materials, and which time never fails to alter. The justness of the design, the truth of the expression, the gradation of the shades, the stronger or weaker strokes, the rules of perspective, all these we leave to nature, who, with a sure and never-erring hand, draws upon our canvases images which deceive the eye and make reason to doubt, whether, what are called real objects, are not phantoms which impose upon the sight, the hearing, the feeling, and all the senses at once
The narrator is led to an immense gallery.
On each side, above two hundred windows let in the light to such a degree, that the eye could hardly bear its splendor. The spaces between them were painted with that art, I have just been describing. Out of each window, was seen some part of the territory of the elementary spirits. In each picture, appeared woods, fields, seas, nations, armies, whole regions; and all these objects were painted with such truth, that I was often forced to recollect myself, that I might not fall again into illusion. I could not tell, every moment, whether what I was viewing out of a window was not a painting, or what I was looking at in a picture was not a reality.
Out of the forbidden “apple” eaten by Adam, there are three kernels which are collected by one of the spirits. These are sown.
The forbidden tree, which was the cause of Man’s misery, was to have been the cause of his happiness. It contained the shoots of the sciences, arts, and pleasures. The little, men know of these things, is nothing in comparison of what this mysterious tree would have disclosed in their favour. It was to vegetate, blossom, and bear seed for ever; and the least of these seeds would have been the source of more delights than ever existed among the children of men.
One of the trees has small maggots, which the plant breeds. In time the maggots waste away, and become invisible: turning into flies with wings they disperse around the earth and “stick fast to men.” These give men “their itchings” (stirred passions) such as
- itch of talking
- the itch of writing
- the itch of knowing
- the itch of shining
- the itch of being known (amongst others)
Sometimes the itch of talking is turned into the itch of writing; which comes to the same thing; for writing, is talking to the whole world. Then those torrents of words, which flow from the mouth, change their course and flow from the pen … what numbers of bablers in these silent libraries!
The most troublesome itch is the itch of being known.
What designs, what efforts of imagination to make one’s self talked of! how many things attempted and dropt! what hopes, fears, cares, and follies of every kind!
The final kernel made a fantastical tree. It has fibers which are unique, with each leaf representing various concepts: an obelisk, a decoration; another while mechanical instruments; here, geometrical diagrams, algebraical problems, astronomical systems; there, physical machines, chymical instruments, plans of all kinds of works, verse, prose, conversation, history, romances, songs, and the like.
They do not fade, they grow small and fold into a thousand folds. This makes them light and the they are blown in the wind, where they enter through the pores of the skin.
What follows is this process (seems to be depicting the struggle of understanding, followed by epiphany and Expression):
During the operation, the patient appears with his eyes fixed, and a pensive air. He seems to hear and see what passes about him, but his thoughts are otherways employed. He walks sometimes at a great rate, and sometimes stands stock-still. He rubs his forehead, stamps with his foot, and bites his nails. They who have seen a geometrician upon the solution of a problem, or a naturalist on the first glimpse of a physical explication, must have observed these symptoms.
These last symptoms declare an approaching crisis, which quickly shows itself in a general evacuation of all that has been transmitted to the brain. Then verses flow, difficulties are cleared, problems are resolved, phenomena are explained, dissertations are multiplied, chapters are heaped upon chapters; and the whole takes the form of a book, and the patient is cured. Of all the accidents which afflicted him, there only remains an immoderate affection for the offspring of his brain, of which he was delivered with so much pain
A device (almost like guidance counselor) is described as a revelation imparted from a leaf implanted in the narrator. Rather than detecting hot and cold these thermometers would react to different traits of men:
shall be put, good for history, good for physick, good for poetry, good for the gown, good for the sword, good for the mitre, good for the baton, good
When a person shall put his hand upon the phial, the liquor will be condensed, or dilated; and, rising or falling in the tube, will show what the person is good for.