The Processionary: the Eggs 



Micromegas, if he saw them, would be full 

 of pity for the leanness of human forms. To 

 him the beautiful calls for something other 

 than our sorry, frog-like anatomy. 



Show him, on the other hand, that sort of 

 abortive windmill by means of which Pytha- 

 goras, echoing the wise men of Egypt, teaches 

 us the fundamental properties of the right- 

 angled triangle. Should the good giant, con- 

 trary to our expectation, happen not to know 

 about it, explain to him what the windmill 

 means. Once the light has entered his mind, 

 he will find, just as we do, that there is beauty 

 there, real beauty, not certainly in that hor- 

 rible hieroglyphic, the figure, but in the un- 

 changeable relation between the lengths of the 

 three sides; he will admire as much as we do 

 geometry the eternal balancer of space. 



There is, therefore, a severe beauty, be- 

 longing to the domain of reason, the same in 

 every world, the same under every sun, 

 whether the suns be single or many, white or 

 red, blue or yellow. This universal beauty is 

 order. Everything is done by weight and 

 measure, a great statement whose truth 

 breaks upon us all the more vividly as we 

 probe more deeply into the mystery of things. 

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