Daniel Defoe, The consolidator, 1705 ✓

Daniel Defoe , The consolidator : Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, Benj. Bragg, Londres , 1705, 360 pages.

Texte de grande qualité au Project Gutenberg.

Exemplaire de 1705 digitalisé par l’Internet Archive.

Les trois romans des années vingt du 18e siècle — Moll Flanders (1721), Defoe 1973, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Defoe 2001, Lady Roxana (1724), Defoe 1949 (fr) — sont des romans modernes. Celui-ci est différent par le ton. À la fois, il fait moins moderne — cela fait penser à Swift. Et d’autre part il est très polémique, plein d’allusions à la situation politique (y compris les querelles de religion), dans laquelle Daniel Defoe était très actif.

Un aspect surprenant, c’est l’aspect science-fiction du roman, qui montre que Daniel Defoe était très intéressé par la science.

Environ un siècle et demi avant l’expérience de Joule, il semble pressentir l’équivalence d’énergie entre chaleur et travail. (Il dit en avoir entendu parler. Je ne sais pas si « some Learned Men » ont laissé quelque chose par écrit. Je ne sais pas si ça, ça fait partie de la réalité ou de la fiction.)

… operated by that sublime Flame ; which being concealed in proper Receptacles, obtains its vent at the Cavities appointed, are supplied from thence with Life and Motion ; and as Fire it self, in the Opinion of some Learned Men, is nothing but Motion, and Motion tends to Fire : It can no more be a Wonder, if exalted in the Center of this famous Engine, a whole Nation should be carried up to the World in the Moon.

P. 51-52.

Il imagine aussi une curieuse machine qui aide dans le travail, mais la description n’est pas claire pour moi. Elle semble permettre de faire en même temps une chose différente de chaque main. Elle a en outre un dispositif de reconnaissance vocale qui couche par écrit ce qu’on lui dicte.

… it will necessarily come in my way to speak of a most Noble Invention, being an Engine I would recommend to all People to whom ’tis necessary to have a good Memory ; and which I design, if possible, to obtain a Draft of, that it may be Erected in our Royal Societies Laboratory : It has the wonderfullest Operations in the World : One part of it furnishes a Man of Business to dispatch his Affairs strangely ; for if he be a Merchant, he shall write his Letters with one Hand, and Copy them with the other ; if he is posting his Books, he shall post the Debtor side with one Hand, and the Creditor with the other ; if he be a Lawyer, he draws his Drafts with one Hand, and Ingrosses them with the other.

Another part of it furnishes him with such an Expeditious way of Writing, or Transcribing, that a Man cannot speak so fast, but he that hears shall have it down in Writing before ’tis spoken ; and a Preacher shall deliver himself to his Auditory, and having this Engine before him, shall put down every thing he says in Writing at the same time ; and so exactly is this Engine squar’d by Lines and p. 10Rules, that it does not require him that Writes to keep his Eye upon it.

P. 9-10.