Was I to believe him in earnest in his intention to penetrate to the centre of this massive globe? Had I been listening to the mad speculations of a lunatic, or to the scientific conclusions of a lofty genius? Where did truth stop? Where did error begin?
We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.
He believed in it, as certain good women believe in the leviathan--by faith, not by reason.
Sir, replied the commander, I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.
The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.
It swam crossways in the direction of the Nautilus with great speed, watching us with its enormous staring green eyes. Its eight arms, or rather feet, fixed to its head, that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair.
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
. . . as long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.
![[]](../images/bracket.gif){kind=small}
![[]](../images/bracket1.gif){kind=small}