THE advancement of knowledge is the triumph of truth, and, as such, is the eventual interest of mankind; inasmuch as the extension of reason is by its very definition the necessary object of rational beings. Timid theologians have trembled on the confines of some topics which might lead to dangerous discovery; forgetful that religion and truth, if not identical, are at least inseparable. Some nice and sensitive chemists have forborne the search of the ne plus ultra in alchemy, dreading that as gold is the great fountain of wickedness on earth, the indefinite increase of that metal might be the unlimited multiplication of human evil: but forgetting that in all human affairs, from fluids up to theories, there is a specific gravity in all things which keeps constant the level of terrestrial operations, and prevents the restless brain of man from raising any edifice, in brick or discovery, high enough to be the ruin of his own species. To me, however, the one consideration, that the eternal search of knowledge and truth is the very object of our faculties, has been the main spring of my life, and although my individual sufferings have been far from light, yet at their present distance the contemplation gives me pleasure, and I have the satisfaction to reflect that I am now in possession of an art which is continually employed, day and night, for the benefit of the present generation and of ages yet to come.

      I was born in the Semlainogorod of Moscow; and for ten years applied intensely to chemistry. I confess the failure of many eminent predecessors prevented my attempting the philosopher's stone; my whole thoughts were engaged on the contemplation of gravity — on that mysterious invisible agent which pervaded the whole universe — which made my pen drop from my fingers — the planets move round the sun — and the very sun itself, with its planets, moons, and satellites, revolve for ever, with myriads of others, round the final centre of universal gravity, — that mysterious spot, perhaps the residence of those particular emanations of Providence which regard created beings. At length I discovered the actual ingredients of this omnipresent agent. It is little more than a combination of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote; but the proportions of these constituent parts had long baffled me, and I still withhold them from my species for obvious reasons.

      Knowledge is power, — and the next easy step from the discovery of the elements, was the decomposition of gravity, and the neutralization of its parts in any substance at my pleasure. I was more like a lunatic than a rational chemist; — a burning furor drove me to an immediate essay of my art, and stripped me of the power and will to calculate on consequences. Imagine me in my laboratory. I constructed a gravitation-pump — applied it to my body — turned the awful engine, and stood in an instant the first of all created beings — devoid of weight! Up sprung my hair — my arms swung from my sides above the level of my shoulders, by the involuntary action of the muscles; which were no longer curbed by the re-action of their weight. I laughed like a fool or a fiend, — closed my arms carefully to my side, compressed or concealed my bristling hair under my cap, and walked forth from my study to seek some retired spot in the city where I might make instant experiment of a jump. With the greatest difficulty I preserved a decent gait; I walked with the uneasy unsteady motion of a man in water whose toes might barely reach the bottom: conscious as I was of my security, I felt every instant apprehensive of a fall. Nothing could have reconciled me to the disagreeable sensation I experienced, but the anticipation of vaulting unfettered into the air. I stood behind the cathedral of the Seven Towers; nobody was near — I looked hurriedly around, and made the spring! I rose with a slow, uniform motion, — but, gracious heaven! imagine my horror and distress, when I found that nothing but the mere resistance of the air opposed my progress; and, when at last it stopped my flight, I found myself many hundred feet above the city — motionless, and destitute of every means of descent. I tore my hair, and cursed myself, for overlooking so obvious a result. My screams drew thousands to the singular sight. I stretched my arms towards the earth, and implored assistance. Poor fool! I knew it was impracticable.

      But conceive the astonishment of the people! I was too high to be personally known; they called to me, and I answered; but they were unable to catch the import, for sound, like myself, rises better than it falls. I heard myself called an angel, a ghost, a dragon, a unicorn, and a devil. I saw a procession of priests come under me to exorcise me; but had Satan himself been free of gravity, he had been as unable to descend at their bidding as myself. At length the fickle mob began to jeer me — the boys threw stones at me, and a clever marksman actually struck me on the side with a bullet; it was too high to penetrate — it merely gave me considerable pain, drove me a few feet higher, and sunk again to the ground. Alas! I thought, would to God it had pierced me, for even the weight of that little ball would have dragged me back to earth. At length the shades of evening hid the city from my sight; the murmur of the crowd gradually died away, and there I still was, cold, terrified, and motionless — nearer to heaven than such a fool could merit to rise again. What was to be the end of this! I must starve and be stared at! I poured out a torrent of incoherent prayers to heaven — but heaven seemed as deaf as I deserved.

      Imagine my joy when a breeze sprung up, and I felt myself floating in darkness over the town: but even now new horrors seized me; — I might be driven downwards into the Moskwa and drowned; I might be dashed against the cathedral and crushed. Just as I thought on this, my head struck violently against the great bell of Boris Godunuff; — the blow and the deep intonation of the bell deprived me for some minutes of life and recollection. When I revived, I found I was lying gently pressed by the breeze against the balustrades: I pulled myself carefully along the church, pushed myself down the last column, and run as straight as my light substance would permit me to my house. With far greater joy than when I had been disrobed of it, I speedily applied a proper condensation of gravity to my body, fell on my knees to thank heaven for my deliverance, and slunk into bed, thoroughly ashamed of my day's performance. The next day, to escape suspicion, I joined the re-assembled crowd — looked upward as serious as the rest, gazed about for yesterday's phenomenon, and I dare say was the only one who felt no disappointment in its disappearance.

      Any one would imagine that, after this trial, I should have burnt my pump, and left gravity to its own operations. But no! I felt I was reserved for great things; — such a discovery was no every-day occurrence, and I would work up every energy of my soul rather than relinquish this most singular, though frightful, field of experiment.

      I was too cautious to deprive myself again entirely of gravity. In fact, in my late experiment, as in others, when I talk of extracting my gravity entirely, I mean just enough to leave me of the same weight as the atmosphere. Had I been lighter than that, I should have risen involuntarily upward, like an air-bubble in a bucket. Even as it was, I found myself inclined to rise and fall with every variation of the atmosphere, and I had serious thoughts of offering myself to the university as a barometer, that, by a moderate salary, I might pass the remainder of my days in tranquillity and honour. My object now was merely to render myself as light as occasion required: besides, I found that by continual contact with the earth and atmosphere, I always imbibed gradually a certain portion of weight, though by extremely slow and imperceptible degrees; for the constituent parts of gravity, which I have mentioned, enter largely as every chemist knows, into the composition of all earths and airs: thus, in my late essay, I should certainly have eventually descended to earth without the intervention of the breeze; indeed, I should probably have been starved first, though my body would have at least sunk down for the gratification of my friends.

      Three furred coats and a pair of skates I gained by leaping at fairs in the Sloboda, and subsistence for three weeks by my inimitable performance on the tight-rope: but when at last I stood barefoot on a single needle, and balanced myself head downwards on a bodkin, all Moscow rung with applause. But the great object of all my earthly hopes was to gain the affections of a young widow in the Kremlin, whose heart I hoped to move by the unrivalled effects of my despair. I jumped head-foremost from a chair on the hard floor; twice I sprung into a well, and once I actually threw myself from the highest spire in Moscow. I always lay senseless after my falls, screamed at my revival, and counterfeited severe contusions. But in vain! I found my person or pretensions disagreeable to her, and determined in some great pursuit to forget my disappointment. A thought struck me. I knew that mortal man had conceived nothing so sublime, and yet it was in my power! I prepared a large tube, and bound myself round with vast bales of provisions, which, with myself, I severally divested of gravity. It was a bright moonlight night. I stood in my garden, with a weightless watch in my hand, gazing on the heavens through the tube. I am confident there was in my face the intrepid air of one who on great occasions can subdue the little feelings of the heart. I had resolved on visiting the planet Venus, and had prudently waited till she was in that part of her orbit which was most distant from the sun and nearest to the earth; the first of which might enable me to endure the heat of her atmosphere, and the latter to subsist on the stock of provisions I could conveniently carry. In fact, I had no doubt but that owing to the extreme cold of a great part of the journey, the evaporations from the pores of my body would be little or nothing, and I could, consequently, subsist on a trifling meal. I had arranged some elastic rods of steel to project me with considerable velocity along the tube, the moment the planet should face it; and, by simple multiplication, I was enabled, from the given velocity of projection, and the known distance of the planet, to compute to a day the period of my arrival there. In fact I took double provision, partly from over-abundant precaution, and partly to support me on an immediate return, in case I found the heat oppressive. The moment approached — arrived! The planet stood shining on me down the tube. I looked wildly round me for a last farewell, and was on the point of loosing the springs, when a horrid doubt flashed on me. United saints of Constantinople! should a light breeze blow me from the line of projection, aye, even a single inch, I should shoot past the planet, fly off into immeasurable space and darkness from eternity, whirl raving along cold uncomfortable chaos, or plunge headlong into the sun itself! A moment more, and I had been lost. I stood fixed like a statue, with distended lips, gazing on the frightful planet; my eyes swam round, — my ears rung with hideous sounds, — all my limbs were paralyzed; I shrieked wildly, fainted, and should have sunk to earth, had I not been utterly devoid of weight. But, lifeless as my body stood, my thoughts still teemed with the frightful horrors I had escaped: my phrenzy bore me on my voyage, and to this day the recollections of the delirium are fresh on my mind. Methought I was on the very journey I had meditated; — already the earth had faded to a twinkling speck, and Venus, with an expanded disk, lay glittering before me: unhappy being! I had committed blunder on blunder; I had forgot the motion of the planet herself, and the effects of refraction and the aberration of light, and I saw, at the distance of many hundred miles, that I should exactly miss her. It was even so: imagine the horrors of my dream, when, after a bitter journey of twenty-three millions of miles, I exactly missed her by a foot; — had there been a tree, a bush, or a large stone, I might have saved myself. I strained my powerless fingers at the planet in vain; — I skimmed along the surface rapidly, and at length found myself as swiftly leaving it on one side as I had approached it on the other. And then I fancied I was rushing quickly towards the sun, and, in an approach of some years, suffered as many years the horrid anticipation of approaching combustion. Well, I thought I passed safely and unscathed by the sun, and launched past him into infinite darkness, except where a stray comet, carrying fuel to the sun, flashed a few years' glitter on my path. Sometimes, in the utter silence of this boundless solitude, some large unseen body would whiz by me with a rushing whirl, rolling in its orbit even here beyond the reach of light, yet still obeying the universal laws of gravitation; — alas, how I envied that mass its gravity! And then I heard strange sounds, the hisses of snakes and the shrieks of evil spirits, but saw nothing: sometimes I felt my body pierced, and bruised, and blown about by the winds; and heard my name screamed out at intervals in the waste: and then all would pass away, and leave me still shooting silently on in the same black, hopeless, everlasting track.

      After this my phrenzy turned, and methought I stood even on the surface of the planet Venus. The ground, if ground it was, seemed nothing but colour: I stooped to touch it — my hand passed unresisted through the surface. There was a perpetual undulation on its face; not of substance, but of colour: every hue I had seen was there; but all were light, and pale, and fleeting; blue faded into violet, violet to the lightest green, green into gentle silver, in perpetual and quick succession. I looked round for the inhabitants of this strange place; — methought they too were colours; I saw innumerable forms of bright hues moving to and fro; — they had neither shape nor substance — but their outline was in continual change, now swelling to a circle, sinking to an oval, and passing through every variety of curve; emitting the most glittering coruscations, and assuming every diversity of tint. But all these forms were of the brightest and most powerful colours, in opposition to the pale surface along which they floated. But there was order in their motions, and I could discover they were rational beings holding intercourse by faculties we neither have nor can conceive; for at one time I saw a number collect about a pale feeble light, whose coruscations grew less frequent, and the vividness of its colours faded: — at last it seemed to die away, and to melt into the surface of the planet from very sameness of colour; and then the forms that stood about were for some time feeble and agitated, and at last dispersed. This, I thought, is the death of an inhabitant of the planet Venus. I watched two bright colours that seemed to dance about each other, floated in the most winning curves, and sparkled as they passed. Sometimes they almost met, drew back, and again approached. At the end, in a shower of light, they swam together, and were blended into one for ever. There is love then, I thought, even in this unsubstantial clime. A little after, I saw vast troops of hues collect and flash violently; but their flashes were not the soft gentle colours I had just seen, but sharp and dazzling like forked lightning. Vast quantities faded into nothing, and there remained but a few on the spot, brighter, indeed, than they had arrived; but I thought these few brilliant shapes a poor compensation for the numbers that had perished. Even in the planet Venus, I said, there is death, and love, and war; — and hose, among beings impalpable and destitute of our earthly faculties. What a lesson of humility I read! I passed my hand through many of these forms — there was no resistance, — no sense of touch; I shouted, but no sound ensued; my presence was evidently unnoticed — there existed not the earthly sense of sight. And yet, I thought, how we creatures of earth reason on God's motives, as if he were endued with faculties like our own; while we even differ from these created phantoms of a sister-world, as much perhaps as they from the tenants of Jupiter, and far more from the creatures of other systems! But there was still one thing common to us all. All these bright beings floated close to the surface, and it was evident that to keep the restless beings of creation to their respective worlds, a general law was necessary. Great Newton! neither touch, nor taste, nor sight, nor sound, are universal, but gravity is for ever. I alone am the only wretched being whom a feverish curiosity has peeled of this general garb, and rendered more truly unsubstantial than the thin sliding hues I gazed on.

      After some time I fancied my own native planet was shining above me. I sprung franticly upward, but many a dreary century passed by, before I approached near enough to distinguish the objects on its surface. Miserable being! I was again out of the proper line, and I should have passed once more into boundless darkness, had I not, in passing along the earth's surface, imbibed a small portion of gravity; not indeed sufficient to draw me to it, but strong enough to curve my line of flight, and make me revolve round earth like a moon, in a regular elliptic orbit. This was, perhaps, the most wretched of the phantasies of my brain: in continual sight of my native land, without the chance of approaching it by a foot! There I was, rolling in as permanent and involuntary an orbit as any planet in the heavens; with my line of nodes, syzygy, quadratures, and planetary inequalities.

      But the worst of it was, I had imbibed, with that small portion of gravity, a slight share of those terrestrial infirmities I had hitherto felt free from. I became hungry — and my hunger, though by the slowest degrees, continually increased, and at the end of some years, I felt as if reduced to the most emaciated state. My soul felt gradually issuing from my tortured body, and at last, by one of the strange inconsistencies of dreams, I seemed in contemplation of myself. I saw my lifeless body whirling round its primary, its limbs sometimes frozen into ghastly stiffness, sometimes dissolved by equinoctial heat, and swinging in the wide expanse. I know not if it sprung from the pride inherent in all created beings, but this contemplation of the ultimate state of degradation of my poor form, gave me greater distress than any part of my phrenzied wanderings. Its extreme acuteness brought me to myself. I was still standing in my garden, but it was daylight, and my friends stood looking on my upright, though fainting form, almost afraid to approach me. I was disengaged from my tubs and sacks, and carried to bed. But it did not escape the notice of the bystanders, that I was destitute of weight; and although I took care to shew myself publicly with a proper gravity, even with an additional stone weight, strange stories and whispers went forth about me; and when my feats of agility, and frightful, though not fatal, falls were recollected, it became generally believed that I had either sold myself to the devil, or was, myself, that celebrated individual. I now began to prepare myself for immediate escape, in case I should be legally prosecuted. I had hitherto been unable, when suspended in the air, to lower myself at my pleasure; for I was unable to make my pump act upon itself, and therefore, when I endeavoured to take it with me, its own weight always prevented my making any considerable rise. I have since recollected, indeed, that had I made two pumps, and extracted the weight from one by means of the other, I might have carried the light one up with me, and filled myself, by its means, with gravity, when I wished to descend. However, this plan, as I said, having escaped my reflection, I set painfully about devising some method of carrying about gravity with me in a neutralized state, and giving it operation and energy when it should suit my convenience. After long labour and expensive experiments, I hit upon the following simple method:—

      You will readily imagine that this subtle fluid, call it gravitation, or weight, or attraction, or what you will, pervading as it does every body in nature, impalpable and invisible, would occupy an extremely small space when packed in its pure and unmixed state. I found, after decomposing it, that besides the gases I mentioned before, there always remained a slight residuum, incombustible and insoluble. This was evidently a pure element, which I have called by a termination common among chemists, "gravium." When I admitted to it the other gases, except the azote of the atmosphere, it assumed a creamy consistence, which might be called "essential oil of gravitation;" and finally, when it was placed in contact with the atmosphere, it imbibed azote rapidly, became immediately invisible, and formed pure weight. I procured a very small elastic Indian-rubber bottle, into which I infused as much oil of gravity as I could extract from myself, carefully closed it, and squeezed it flat; and I found that by placing over the orifice an extremely fine gauze, and admitting the atmosphere through it (like the celebrated English Davy Lamp), as the bottle opened by its own elasticity, the oil became weight; and when I squeezed it again, the azote receded through the gauze, and left the weightless oil. Thank Heaven, I was now in possession of the ultimatum of my inquiries, the means of jumping into the air without any weight, and the power of assuming it when I wished to descend. As I feared, I was indicted as a sorcerer, and condemned to be hung; I concealed my bottle under my arm, ascended the scaffold, avowed my innocence, and was turned off. I counterfeited violent convulsions, but was careful to retain just weight enough to keep the rope tight. In the evening, when the populace had retired, I gently extricated my neck, walked home, and prepared to leave my country. At Petersburgh I heard that Captain Kharkof Voronetz was about to sail to India to bombard a British fortress. I demanded an interview. "Sir," said I, "I am an unhappy man, whose misfortunes have compelled him to renounce his country. I am in possession of an art by which I can give you accurate intelligence of every thing going on in the fortress you are to attack; and I offer you my services, provided you will give me a passage and keep my secret." I saw by his countenance he considered me an impostor. "Sir," I said, "promise me secrecy, and you shall behold a specimen of my art." He assented. I squeezed the little bottle under my arm, sprung upward, and played along the ceiling to his great amaze. He was a man of honour, and kept his promise; and in six months we arrived off the coast of Coromandel. Here I made one of the greatest mistakes in my life. I had frequently practised my art during the first part of the voyage for the amusement of the sailors; and instead of carrying my gravity-bottle with me, I used to divest myself of just sufficient gravity to leap mast-high, and descend gently on the deck; and by habit I knew the exact quantity which was requisite in northern climes. But when I had ascended to view the fortress near the equator, I found too late that I had extracted far too much, and for this reason: If you hold an orange at its head and stalk, by the forefinger and thumb, and spin it with velocity, you will see that small bodies would be thrown with rapidity from those parts which lie midway between the finger and thumb, while those that are nearer are far less affected by the rotatory motion. It was just so with me. I had been used to descend in the northern climates with a very slight weight; but I now found, that in the equatorial regions I was thrown upward with considerable strength. A strong sea-breeze was blowing. I was borne rapidly away from the astonished crew, passed over the fortress, narrowly escaped being shot, and found myself passing in the noblest manner over the whole extent of India. Habit had entirely divested me of fear, and I experienced the most exquisite delight in viewing that fine country spread out like a map beneath me. I recognised the scenes of historical interest. There rolled the Hydaspes, by the very spot where Porus met Alexander. There lay the track of Mahmoud the great Gaznevide. I left the beautiful Kashmir on the right. I passed over the head-quarters of Persia in her different ages, Herat, Ispahan, Kamadan. Then came Arbela on my right, where a nation, long cooped up in a country scarce larger than Candia, had overthrown the children of the great Cyrus, and crushed a dynasty whose sway reached uninterrupted for 2000 miles. I saw the tomb of Gordian, on the extreme frontier of his empire a noble spot for the head of a nation of warriors. I skimmed along the plain where Crassus and Galerius, at the interval of three hundred years, had learnt on the same unhappy field that Rome could bleed. A strong puff from the Levant whirled me to the northward, and dropped me at length on a ridge of Mount Caucasus, fatigued and hungry. I assuaged my hunger with mountain mosses, and slept a few hours as well as the extreme cold would permit me. On waking, the hopelessness of my situation distressed me much. After passing over so many hot countries, where the exhalations from the earth had enabled my body to imbibe gravitation more rapidly than usual, I had gradually moved northward, where the centrifugal force of the earth had much decreased. From these two causes, and in this wild country, without the means of chemically assisting myself, I now found my body too heavy to trust again to the winds — intrenched as I was, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, but without weight to give firmness to my step; without the lightness of a fowl I had all its awkward weakness in water. The savage natives cast lots for me, and I became a slave. My strange lightness was a source of mirth to all, even to my fellow-servants; and I found, by experience, how little weight a man bears in society who has lost his gravity. When I attempted to dig, I rose without effect on my spade. Sometimes when I bore a load of wood on my shoulders, it felt so top-heavy, that upon the slightest wind I was sure to tumble over — and then I was chastised: my mistress one day hoisted me three miles by a single kick on the breech. But however powerless against lateral pressure, it was observed with amaze how easily I raised the vast weights under which the most powerful men in the country sunk; for, in fact, my legs being formed to the usual capabilities of mankind, had now little or no weight of body to support: I was, therefore, enabled to carry ten or twelve stone in addition to a common burden. It was this strength that enabled me to throw several feet from the earth a native who had attacked me. He was stunned by the fall, but, on rising, with one blow he drove me a hundred yards before him. I took to my heels, determined, if possible, to escape this wretched life. The whole country was on foot to pursue me, for I had doubly deserved death; I had bruised a freeman, and was a fugitive slave. But notwithstanding the incredible agility of these people in their native crags, their exact knowledge of the clefts in the hills, the only passes between the eternal snows and my own ignorance, I utterly baffled their pursuit by my want of weight, and the energy which despair supplied me. Sometimes when they pressed hardest on me, I would leap up a perpendicular crag, twenty feet high, or drop down a hundred. I bent my steps towards the Black Sea, determined, if I could reach the coast, to seek a passage to some port in Cathenoslaw, and retire where I might pass the remainder of my life, under a feigned name, with at least the satisfaction of dying in the dominions of my legitimate sovereign, Alexander.

      Exhausted and emaciated, I arrived at a straggling village, the site of the ancient Pityus. This was the last boundary of the Roman power on the Euxine — and to this wretched place state exiles were frequently doomed. The name became proverbial; and, I understand, has been so far adopted by the English, that the word "Pityus" is, to this day, most adapted to the lips of the banished. In a small vessel we sailed for Azof; but when we came off the straits of Caffa, where the waters of the Don are poured into the Euxine, a strong current drove us on a rock, and in a fresh gale the ship went speedily to pieces. I gave myself up for lost, and heard the crew, one after the other, gurgle in the waves and scream their last, while I lay struggling and buffeting for life. But after the first hurry for existence, I found I had exhausted myself uselessly, for my specific gravity being so trifling, I was enabled to lie on the surface of the billows without any exertion, and even to sit upon the wave as securely as a couch. I loosened my neckcloth, and spreading it wide with my hands and teeth, I trusted myself to the same winds that had so often pelted me at their mercy, and always spared me. In this way I traversed the Euxine. I fed on the scraps that floated on the surface — sometimes dead fish, and once or twice on some inquisitive stragglers whose curiosity brought them from the deep to contemplate the strange sail. Two days I floated in misery, and a sleepless night; by night I dared not close my eyes for fear of falling backward-and by day I frequently passed objects that filled me with despair — fragments of wrecks; and then I looked on my own sorry craft: once I struck my feet against a drowned sailor, and it put me in mind of myself. At last I landed safe on the beach, between Odessa and Otchacow, traversed the Ukraine, and, by selling the little curiosities I had picked up on my passage, I have purchased permission to reside for the rest of my days unknown and unseen in a large forest near Minsk. Here, within the gray crumbling walls of a castle, that fell with the independence of this unhappy country, I await my end. I have left little to regret at my native Moscow; neither friends, nor reputation, nor lawful life; and I had failed in a love which was dearer to me than reputation — than life — than gravity itself. I have established an apparatus, on improved principles, to operate on gravity; and I am now employed, day and night, for the benefit, not more of the present generation, than of all of mankind that are to come. In fact, I am laboriously and unceasingly extracting the gravitation from the earth, in order to bring it nearer the sun; and though, by thus diminishing the earth's orbit, I fear I shall confuse the astronomical tables and calculations, I am confident I shall improve the temperature of the globe. How far I have succeeded, may be guessed from the recent errors in the Almanacs about the eclipses, and from the late mild winters.