But the wings bore him up
for little more than a distance of 120 paces. He fell at the foot
of the tower, broke his legs, and from that moment led a
languishing life. He consoled himself, however, in his
misfortune by saying that his attempt must certainly have
succeeded had he only provided himself with a tail.
Before going further, let us take notice that the seventeenth
century is, par excellence, the century distinguished for
narratives of imaginary travels. It was then that astronomy
opened up its world of marvels. The knowledge of observers was
vastly increased, and from that time it became possible to
distinguish the surface of the moon and of other celestial
bodies. Thus a new world, as it were, was revealed for human
thought and speculation. We learned that our globe was not, as
we had supposed, the centre of the universe. It was assigned its
place far from that centre, and was known to be no more than a
mere atom, lost amid an incalculable number of other globes. The
revelations of the telescope proved that those who formerly were
considered wise actually knew nothing. Quickly following these
discoveries, extraordinary narratives of excursions through space
began to be given to the world.
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