"--So you do not know what matter is."

So Micromegas, addressing another sage that he held on a thumb, asked
what his soul was, and what it did.

"Nothing at all," said the Malebranchist philosopher[5]. "God does
everything for me. I see everything in him, I do everything in him;
it is he who does everything that I get mixed up in."

[5] See the opuscule entitled "All in God" in _Miscellaneous_
(1796).

"It would be just as well not to exist," retorted the sage of Sirius.
"And you, my friend," he said to a Leibnitzian who was there, "what
is your soul?"

"It is," answered the Leibnitzian, "the hand of a clock that tells
the time while my body rings out. Or, if you like, it is my soul that
rings out while my body tells the time, or my soul is the mirror of
the universe, and my body is the border of the mirror. All that is
clear."

A small partisan of Locke was nearby, and when he was finally given
the floor: "I do not know," said he, "how I think, but I know that I
have only ever thought through my senses. That there are immaterial
and intelligent substances I do not doubt, but that it is impossible
for God to communicate thought to matter I doubt very much. I revere
the eternal power. It is not my place to limit it. I affirm nothing,
and content myself with believing that many more things are possible
than one would think."

The animal from Sirius smiled. He did not find this the least bit
sage, while the dwarf from Saturn would have kissed the sectarian of
Locke were it not for the extreme disproportion. But there was,
unfortunately, a little animalcule in a square hat who interrupted
all the other animalcule philosophers. He said that he knew the
secret: that everything would be found in the _Summa_ of Saint
Thomas. He looked the two celestial inhabitants up and down. He
argued that their people, their worlds, their suns, their stars, had
all been made uniquely for mankind. At this speech, our two voyagers
nearly fell over with that inextinguishable laughter which, according
to Homer[6], is shared with the gods. Their shoulders and their
stomachs heaved up and down, and in these convulsions the vessel that
the Sirian had on his nail fell into one of the Saturnian's trouser
pockets. These two good men searched for it a long time, found it
finally, and tidied it up neatly. The Sirian resumed his discussion
with the little mites. He spoke to them with great kindness, although
in the depths of his heart he