The Unpretentious Philosopher

Cover illustration from Louis Guillaume de La Follie’s La philosophe sans Pretention, or The Unpretentious Philosopher, from 1775. The book tells the story of a man from Mercury who travels to Earth using a flying machine powered by static electricity.

Check out the above illustration. It’s the frontispiece to Louis Guillaume de La Follie’s science-fiction work Le Philosophe sans Prétention, Ou, L'homme Rare, or The Unpretentious Philosopher, or the Rare Man, from 1775. What’s most interesting about it is the flying machine featured in the drawing, evidenced by the crowd of onlookers in awe of it.

La Philosophe san Pretention tells the story of Nadir, a human who is visited by a space traveler from Mercury called Ormisais. The visitor crash-landed his spacecraft on earth, and needs to find some rare elements in order to repair it. Nadir helps him find these materials, and along the way the two have conversations about life on each planet. As with many other aliens who visit earth throughout science fiction, Ormisais has a few biting observations and critiques about humanity and how we live. He also explains how the flying machine works.

The machine functions with two glass globes that quickly spin around, generating and storing static electricity. This static electricity produces bright light, which changes the pressure of the air, allowing craft to fly. The pilot works a set of gears in order to steer and control it. This is all shown in the frontispiece, as well as a crowd of astonished onlookers, gesturing up to Ormisais as if he’s a god of some kind.

It’s an interesting design for a flying machine, and it’s clear La Follie put some thought into it. Of course, the idea wouldn’t work in reality, but that’s neither here nor there. The design is no more outlandish than myriad other ideas for flying machines throughout history, however, but it does get points for uniqueness.

Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.