Chapter IV (1)

DIALOGUE UPON THE SOUL AND OTHER TOPICS.

GOODMAN.—But my dear Sidrac, why do you always say _my thinking faculty_ and not _my soul_? If you used the latter term I should understand you much better.

SIDRAC.—And for my part, I freely confess I should not understand myself. I _feel_, I _know_, that God has endowed me with the faculties of thinking and speaking, but I can neither _feel_ nor _know_ that God has given me a thing called a soul.

GOODMAN.—Truly, upon reflection, I perceive that I know as little about the matter as you do, though I own that I have all my life been bold enough to believe that I knew. I have often remarked that the eastern nations apply to the soul the same word they use to express life. After their example, the Latins understood the word _anima_ to signify the life of the animal. The Greeks called the breath the soul. The Romans translated the word breath by _spiritus_, and thence it is that the word spirit or soul is found in every modern nation. As it happens that no one has ever seen this spirit or breath, our imagination has converted it into a being which it is impossible to see or touch. The learned tell us that the soul inhabits the body without having any place in it, that it has the power of setting our different organs in motion without being able to reach and touch them; indeed, what has not been said upon the subject? The great Locke knew into what a chaos these absurdities had plunged the human understanding. In writing the only reasonable book upon metaphysics that has yet appeared in the world, he did not compose a single chapter on the soul, and if by chance he now and then makes use of the word, he only introduces it to stand for intellect or mind.

In fact, every human being, in spite of Bishop Berkeley, is sensible that he has a mind, and that this mind or intellect is capable of receiving ideas; but no one can feel that there is another being—a soul—within him, which gives him motion, feeling, and thought. It is, in fact, ridiculous to use words we do not understand, and to admit the existence of beings of whom we cannot have the slightest knowledge.

SIDRAC.—We are then agreed upon a subject which, for so many centuries, has been a matter of dispute.

GOODMAN.—And I must observe that I am surprised we should have agreed upon it so soon.

SIDRAC.—Oh! that is not so astonishing. We really wish to know what is truth. If we were among the academies we should argue like the characters in Rabelais. If we had lived in those ages of darkness, the clouds of which so long enveloped Great Britain, one of us would very likely have burned the other. We are so fortunate as to be born in an age comparatively reasonable; we easily discover what appears to us to be truth, and we are not afraid to proclaim it.

GOODMAN.—You are right, but I fear that, after all, the truth we have discovered is not worth much. In mathematics, indeed, we have done wonders; from the most simple causes we have produced effects that would have astonished Apollonius or Archimedes; but what have we proved in metaphysics? Absolutely nothing but our own ignorance.

SIDRAC.—And do you call that nothing? You grant the Supreme Being has given you the faculties of feeling and thinking; He has in the same manner given your feet the faculty of walking, your hands their wonderful dexterity, your stomach the capability of digesting food, and your heart the power of throwing arterial blood into all parts of your body. Everything we enjoy is derived from God, and yet we are totally ignorant of the means by which He governs and conducts the universe. For my own part, as Shakespeare says, I thank Him for having taught me that of the principles of things I know absolutely nothing. It has always been a question in what manner the soul acted upon the body. Before attempting to answer this question, I must be convinced that I have a soul. Either God has given us this wonderful spark of intellect, or He has gifted us with some principle that answers equally well. In either case, we are still the creatures of His divine will and goodness, and that is all I know about the matter.

GOODMAN.—But if you do not know, tell me at least what you are inclined to think upon the subject. You have opened skulls, and dissected the human fœtus. Have you ever, in these dissections, discovered any appearance of a soul?

SIDRAC.—Not the least, and I have not been able to understand how an immortal and spiritual essence could dwell for months together in a membrane. It appears to me difficult to conceive that this pretended soul existed before the foundation of the body; for in what could it have been employed during the many ages previous to its mysterious union with flesh? Again! how can we imagine a spiritual principle waiting patiently in idleness during a whole eternity, in order to animate a mass of matter for a space of time which, compared with eternity, is less than a moment?

It is worse still when I am told that God forms immortal souls out of nothing, and then cruelly dooms them to an eternity of flames and torments. What? burn a spirit, in which there can be nothing capable of burning; how can He burn the sound of a voice, or the wind that blows? though both the sound and wind were material during the short time of their existence; but a pure spirit—a thought—a doubt—I am lost in the labyrinth; on whichever side I turn, I find nothing but obscurity and absurdity, impossibility and contradiction. But I am quite at ease when I say to myself God is Master of all. He who can cause each star to hold its particular course through the broad expanse of the firmament can easily give to us sentiments and ideas without the aid of this atom called the soul. It is certain that God has endowed all animals, in a greater or lesser degree, with thought, memory, and judgment; He has given them life; it is demonstrated that they have feeling, since they possess all the organs of feeling; if then they have all this without a soul, why is it improbable that we have none? and why do mankind flatter themselves that they alone are gifted with a spiritual and immortal principle?

GOODMAN.—Perhaps this idea arises from their inordinate vanity. I am persuaded that if the peacock could speak he would boast of his soul, and would affirm that it inhabited his magnificent tail. I am very much inclined to believe with you that God has created us thinking creatures, with the faculties of eating, drinking, feeling, etc., without telling us one word about the matter. We are as ignorant as the peacock I just mentioned, and he who said that we live and die without knowing how, why, or wherefore, spoke nothing but the truth.

SIDRAC.—A celebrated author, whose name I forget, calls us nothing more than the puppets of Providence, and this seems to me to be a very good definition. An infinity of movements are necessary to our existence, but we did not ourselves invent and produce motion. There is a Being who has created light, caused it to move from the sun to our eyes in about seven minutes. It is only by means of motion that my five senses are put in action, and it is only by means of my senses that I have ideas, hence it follows that my ideas are derived from the great author of motion, and when He informs me how He communicates these ideas to me, I will most sincerely thank Him.

GOODMAN.—And so will I. As it is I constantly thank Him for having permitted me, as Epictetus says, to contemplate for a period of some years this beautiful and glorious world. It is true that He could have made me happier by putting me in possession of Miss Fidler and a good rectory, but still, such as I am, I consider myself as under a great obligation to God’s parental kindness and care.

_Sidrac._—You say that it is in the power of God to give you a good living, and to make you still happier than you are at present. There are many persons who would not scruple flatly to contradict this proposition of yours. Do you forget that you yourself sometimes complain of fatality? A man, and particularly a priest, ought never to contradict one day an assertion he has perhaps made the day before. All is but a succession of links, and God is wiser than to break the eternal chain of events, even for the sake of my dear friend Goodman.

GOODMAN.—I did not foresee this argument when I was speaking of fatality, but to come at once to the point, if it be so, God is as much a slave as myself.

SIDRAC.—He is the slave of His will, of His wisdom, and of the laws which He has Himself instituted; and it is impossible that He can infringe upon any of them, because it is impossible that He can become either weak or inconsistent.

GOODMAN.—But, my friend, what you say would tend to make us irreligious, for, if God cannot change any of the affairs of the world, what is the use of teasing Him with prayers, or of singing hymns to His praise?

SIDRAC.—Well! who bids you worship or pray to God? We praise a man because we think him vain; we entreat of him when we think him weak and likely to change his purpose on account of our petitions. Let us do our duty to God, by being just and true to each other. In that consists our real prayers, and our most heartfelt praises.

A CONVERSATION WITH A CHINESE.

In the year 1723 there was a Chinese in Holland who was both a learned man and a merchant, two things that ought by no means to be incompatible; but which, thanks to the profound respect that is shown to money, and the little regard that the human species pay to merit, have become so among us.

This Chinese, who spoke a little Dutch, happened to be in a bookseller’s shop at the same time that some literati were assembled there. He asked for a book; they offered him Bossuet’s “Universal History,” badly translated. At the title “Universal History”—

“How pleased am I,” cried the Oriental, “to have met with this book. I shall now see what is said of our great empire, of a nation that has subsisted for upwards of fifty thousand years; of that long dynasty of emperors who have governed us for such a number of ages. I shall see what these Europeans think of the religion of our literati, and of that pure and simple worship we pay to the Supreme Being. What a pleasure will it be for me to find how they speak of our arts, many of which are of a more ancient date with us than the eras of all the kingdoms of Europe! I fancy the author will be greatly mistaken in relation to the war we had about twenty-two thousand five hundred and fifty-two years ago with the martial people of Tonquin and Japan, as well as the solemn embassy that the powerful emperor of Mogul sent to request a body of laws from us in the year of the world 500000000000079123450000.”

“Lord bless you,” said one of the literati, “there is hardly any mention made of that nation in this world. The only nation considered is that marvellous people, the Jews.”

“The Jews!” said the Chinese; “those people then must certainly be masters of three parts of the globe at least.”

“They hope to be so some day,” answered the other; “but all we have here are those peddlers you see going about with toys and nic-nacs, and who sometimes do us the honor to clip our gold and silver.”

“Surely you are not serious,” exclaimed the Chinese. “Could those people ever have been in possession of a vast empire?”

Here I joined in the conversation, and told him that for a few years they were in possession of a small country to themselves; but that we were not to judge of a people from the extent of their dominions, any more than of a man by his riches.

“But does not this book take notice of some other nations?” demanded the man of letters.

“Undoubtedly,” replied a learned gentleman who stood at my elbow; “it treats largely of a small country about sixty leagues wide, called Egypt, in which it is said that there is a lake of one hundred and fifty leagues in circumference, made by the hands of man.”

“My God!” exclaimed the Chinese, “a lake of one hundred and fifty leagues in circumference within a spot of ground only sixty leagues wide. This is very curious!”

“The inhabitants of that country,” continued the doctor, “were all sages.”

“What happy times were those!” cried the Chinese; “but is that all?”

“No,” replied the other, “there is mention made of those famous people the Greeks.”

“Greeks! Greeks!” said the Asiatic, “who are those Greeks?”

“Why,” replied the philosopher, “they were masters of a little province, about the two-hundredth part as large as China, but whose fame spread over the whole world.”

“Indeed!” said the Chinese, with an air of openness and ingenuousness; “I declare I never heard the least mention of these people, either in the Mogul’s country, in Japan, or in Great Tartary.”

“Oh, the barbarian! the ignorant creature!” cried out our sage very politely. “Why, then, I suppose you know nothing of Epaminondas the Theban, nor of the Pierian heaven, nor the names of Achilles’ two horses, nor of Silenus’ ass? You have never heard speak of Jupiter, nor of Diogenes, nor of Lais, nor of Cybele, nor of—”

“I am very much afraid,” said the learned Oriental, interrupting him, “that you know nothing of that eternally memorable adventure of the famous Xixofon Concochigramki, nor of the mysteries of the great Fi-psi-hi-hi! But pray tell me what other unknown things does this “Universal History” treat of?”

Upon this my learned neighbor harangued for a quarter of an hour together about the Roman republic, and when he came to Julius Cæsar the Chinese stopped him, and very gravely said:

“I think I have heard of him; was he not a Turk?”

“How!” cried our sage in a fury, “don’t you so much as know the difference between pagans, Christians, and Mahometans? Did you never hear of Constantine? Do you know nothing of the history of the popes?”

“We have heard something confusedly of one Mahomet,” replied the Asiatic.

“It is surely impossible,” said the other, “but you must have heard at least of Luther, Zwinglius, Bellarmine, and Œcolampadius.”

“I shall never remember all those names,” said the Chinese, and so saying he quitted the shop, and went to sell a large quantity of Pekoe tea and fine calico, and then, after purchasing what merchandise he required, set sail for his own country, adoring Tien, and recommending himself to Confucius.

As to myself, the conversation I had been witness to plainly discovered to me the nature of vain glory; and I could not forbear exclaiming:

“Since Cæsar and Jupiter are names unknown to the finest, most ancient, most extensive, most populous, and most civilized kingdom in the universe, it becomes ye well, O ye rulers of petty states! ye pulpit orators of a narrow parish, or a little town! ye doctors of Salamanca, or of Bourges! ye trifling authors, and ye heavy commentators!—it becomes you well, indeed, to aspire to fame and immortality.”

MEMNON THE PHILOSOPHER.

Memnon one day took it into his head to become a great philosopher. “To be perfectly happy,” said he to himself, “I have nothing to do but to divest myself entirely of passions, and nothing is more easy, as everybody knows. In the first place, I will never be in love, for when I see a beautiful woman I will say to myself, These cheeks will one day grow sallow and wrinkled, these eyes be encircled with vermilion, that bosom become lean and emaciated, that head bald and palsied. Now, I have only to consider her at present in imagination as she will afterwards appear in reality, and certainly a fair face will never turn my head.

“In the second place, I shall always be temperate. It will be in vain to tempt me with good cheer, with delicious wines, or the charms of society. I will have only to figure to myself the consequences of excess—an aching head, a loathing stomach, the loss of reason, of health, and of time; I will then only eat to supply the waste of nature; my health will be always equal, my ideas pure and luminous. All this is so easy that there is no merit in accomplishing it.

“But,” says Memnon, “I must think a little of how I am to regulate my fortune; why, my desires are moderate, my wealth is securely placed with the receiver-general of the finances of Nineveh. I have wherewithal to live independent, and that is the greatest of blessings. I shall never be under the cruel necessity of dancing attendance at court. I will never envy any one, and nobody will envy me. Still all this is easy. I have friends, and I will preserve them, for we shall never have any difference. I will never take amiss anything they may say or do; and they will behave in the same way to me. There is no difficulty in all this.”

Having thus laid this little plan of philosophy in his closet, Memnon put his head out of the window. He saw two women walking under the plane trees near his house. The one was old and appeared quite at her ease. The other was young, handsome, and seemingly much agitated. She sighed, she wept, and seemed on that account still more beautiful. Our philosopher was touched, not, to be sure, with the lady (he was too much determined not to feel any uneasiness of that kind), but with the distress which he saw her in. He came downstairs and accosted the young Ninevite, designing to console her with philosophy. That lovely person related to him, with an air of the greatest simplicity and in the most affecting manner, the injuries she sustained from an imaginary uncle—with what art he had deprived her of some imaginary property, and of the violence which she pretended to dread from him.

“You appear to me,” said she, “a man of such wisdom that if you will come to my house and examine into my affairs, I am persuaded you will be able to relieve me from the cruel embarrassment I am at present involved in.”

Memnon did not hesitate to follow her, to examine her affairs philosophically, and to give her sound counsel.

The afflicted lady led him into a perfumed chamber and politely made him sit down with her on a large sofa, where they both placed themselves opposite to each other, in the attitude of conversation, the one eager in telling her story, the other listening with devout attention. The lady spoke with downcast eyes, whence there sometimes fell a tear, and which, as she now and then ventured to raise them, always met those of the sage Memnon. Their discourse was full of tenderness, which redoubled as often as their eyes met. Memnon took her affairs exceedingly to heart and felt himself every instant more and more inclined to oblige a person so virtuous and so unhappy. By degrees, in the warmth of conversation, they drew nearer. Memnon counselled her with great wisdom, and gave her most tender advice.

At this interesting moment, as may easily be imagined, who should come in but the uncle? He was armed from head to foot, and the first thing he said was that he would immediately sacrifice, as was just, both Memnon and his niece. The latter, who made her escape, knew that he was disposed to pardon, provided a good round sum were offered to him. Memnon was obliged to purchase his safety with all he had about him. In those days people were happy in getting so easily quit. America was not then discovered, and distressed ladies were not then so dangerous as they are now.

Memnon, covered with shame and confusion, got home to his own house. He there found a card inviting him to attend dinner with some of his intimate friends.

“If I remain at home alone,” said he, “I shall have my mind so occupied with this vexatious adventure that I shall not be able to eat a bit and I shall bring upon myself some disease. It will, therefore be prudent in me to go to my intimate friends and partake with them of a frugal repast. I shall forget in the sweets of their society the folly I have this morning been guilty of.”

Accordingly he attends the meeting; he is discovered to be uneasy at something, and he is urged to drink and banish care.

“A little wine, drunk in moderation, comforts the heart of God and man”—so reasoned Memnon the philosopher, and he became intoxicated. After the repast, play is proposed.

“A little play with one’s intimate friends is a harmless pastime.” He plays and loses all in his purse and four times as much on his word. A dispute arises on some circumstance in the game and the disputants grow warm. One of his intimate friends throws a dice-box at his head and strikes out one of his eyes. The philosopher Memnon is carried home drunk and penniless, with the loss of an eye.

He sleeps out his debauch and when his head becomes clear he sends his servant to the receiver-general of the finances of Nineveh to draw a little money to pay his debt of honor to his intimate friends. The servant returns and informs him that the receiver-general had that morning been declared a fraudulent bankrupt, and that by this means a hundred families are reduced to poverty and despair. Memnon, almost beside himself, puts a plaster on his eye and a petition in his pocket, and goes to court to solicit justice from the king against the bankrupt. In the saloon he meets a number of ladies, all in the highest spirits and sailing along with hoops four-and-twenty feet in circumference. One of them, slightly acquainted with him, eyed him askance, and cried aloud: “Ah! what a horrid monster!”

Another, who was better acquainted with him, thus accosts him: “Good-morrow, Mr. Memnon; I hope you are well, Mr. Memnon. La! Mr. Memnon, how did you lose your eye?” and, turning upon her heel, she tripped unconcernedly away.

Memnon hid himself in a corner and waited for the moment when he could throw himself at the feet of the monarch. That moment at last arrived. Three times he kissed the earth and presented his petition. His gracious majesty received him very favorably and referred the paper to one of his satraps. The satrap takes Memnon aside and says to him, with a haughty air and satirical grin:

“Hark ye, you fellow with the one eye; you must be a comical dog indeed to address yourself to the king rather than to me, and still more so to dare to demand justice against an honest bankrupt, whom I honor with my protection, and who is also a nephew to the waiting-maid of my mistress. Proceed no further in this business, my good friend, if you wish to preserve the eye you have left.”

Memnon, having thus in his closet resolved to renounce women, the excess of the table, play, and quarrelling, but especially having determined never to go to court, had been, in the short space of four-and-twenty hours, duped and robbed by a gentle dame, had got drunk, had gamed, had been engaged in a quarrel, had got his eye knocked out, and had been at court, where he was sneered at and also insulted.

Petrified with astonishment, and his heart broken with grief, Memnon returns homeward in despair. As he was about to enter his house, he is repulsed by a number of officers who are carrying off his furniture for the benefit of his creditors. He falls down almost lifeless under a plane tree. There he finds the fair dame of the morning, who was walking with her dear uncle, and both set up a loud laugh on seeing Memnon with his plaster. The night approached, and Memnon made his bed on some straw near the walls of his house. Here the ague seized him and he fell asleep in one of the fits, when a celestial spirit appeared to him in a dream.

It was all resplendent with light; it had six beautiful wings, but neither feet, nor head, and could be likened to nothing.

“What art thou?” said Memnon.

“Thy good genius,” replied the spirit.

“Restore me, then, my eye, my health, my fortune, my reason,” said Memnon, and he related how he had lost them all in one day.

“These are adventures which never happen to us in the world we inhabit,” said the spirit.

“And what world do you inhabit?” said the man of affliction.

“My native country,” replied the other, “is five hundred millions of leagues distant from the sun, in a little star near Sirius.”

“Charming country!” said Memnon. “And are there indeed with you no jades to dupe a poor devil, no intimate friends that win his money and knock out an eye for him, no fraudulent bankrupts, no satraps that make a jest of you while they refuse you justice?”

“No,” said the inhabitant of the star, “we have nothing of the kind. We are never duped by women because we have none among us; we never commit excesses at table because we neither eat nor drink; we have no bankrupts because with us there is neither silver nor gold; our eyes cannot be knocked out because we have not bodies in the form of yours, and satraps never do us injustice, because in our world we are all equal.”

“Pray, my lord,” said Memnon, “without women and without eating, how do you spend your time?”

“In watching over the other worlds that are entrusted to us, and I am now come to give you consolation.”

“Alas!” replied Memnon, “why did you not come yesterday to hinder me from committing so many indiscretions?”

“I was with your elder brother Hassan,” said the celestial being. “He is still more to be pitied than you are. His most gracious majesty, the sultan of the Indies, in whose court he has the honor to serve, has caused both his eyes to be put out for some small indiscretion, and he is now in a dungeon, his hands and feet loaded with chains.”

“Tis a happy thing, truly,” said Memnon, “to have a good genius in one’s family, when out of two brothers, one is blind of an eye, the other blind of both; one stretched upon straw, the other in a dungeon.”

“Your fate will soon change,” said the spirit of the star. “It is true you will never recover your eye, but, except that, you may be sufficiently happy if you never again take it into your head to be a perfect philosopher.”

“Is it, then, impossible?” said Memnon.

“As impossible as to be perfectly wise, perfectly strong, perfectly powerful, perfectly happy. We ourselves are very far from it. There is a world, indeed, where all this takes place; but, in the hundred thousand millions of worlds dispersed over the regions of space, everything goes on by degrees. There is less philosophy and less enjoyment in the second than in the first, less in the third than in the second, and so forth till the last in the scale, where all are completely fools.”

“I am afraid,” said Memnon, “that our little terraqueous globe here is the madhouse of those hundred thousand millions of worlds of which your lordship does me the honor to speak.”

“Not quite,” said the spirit, “but very nearly; everything must be in its proper place.”

“But are those poets and philosophers wrong, then, who tell us that everything is for the best?”

“No, they are right, when we consider things in relation to the gradation of the whole universe.”

“Oh! I shall never believe it till I recover my eye again,” said the unfortunate Memnon.

PLATO’S DREAM.

Plato was a great dreamer, as many others have been since his time. He dreamed that mankind were formerly double, and that, as a punishment for their crimes, they were divided into male and female.

He undertook to prove that there can be no more than five perfect worlds, because there are but five regular mathematical bodies. His republic was one of his principal dreams. He dreamed, moreover, that watching arises from sleep, and sleep from watching, and that a person who should attempt to look at an eclipse otherwise than in a pail of water would surely lose his sight. Dreams were at that time in great repute.

Here follows one of his dreams, which is not one of the least interesting. He thought that the great Demiurgos, the eternal geometer, having peopled the immensity of space with innumerable globes, was willing to make a trial of the knowledge of the genii who had been witnesses of his works. He gave to each of them a small portion of matter to arrange, nearly in the same manner as Phidias and Zeuxis would have given their scholars a statue to carve or a picture to paint, if we may be allowed to compare small things to great.

Demogorgon had for his lot the lump of mould which we call the earth, and, having formed it such as it now appears, he thought he had executed a masterpiece. He imagined he had silenced Envy herself, and expected to receive the highest panegyrics, even from his brethren; but how great was his surprise, when, at his next appearing among them, they received him with a general hiss.

One among them, more satirical than the rest, accosted him thus:

“Truly you have performed mighty feats! you have divided your world into two parts; and, to prevent the one from communication with the other, you have carefully placed a vast collection of waters between the two hemispheres. The inhabitants must perish with cold under both your poles and be scorched to death under the equator. You have, in your great prudence, formed immense deserts of sand, so that all who travel over them may die with hunger and thirst. I have no fault to find with your cows, your sheep, your cocks, and your hens, but can never be reconciled to your serpents and your spiders. Your onions and your artichokes are very good things, but I cannot conceive what induced you to scatter such a heap of poisonous plants over the face of the earth, unless it was to poison its inhabitants. Moreover, if I am not mistaken, you have created about thirty different kinds of monkeys, a still greater number of dogs, and only four or five species of the human race. It is true, indeed, you have bestowed on the latter of these animals a faculty by you called reason, but, in truth, this same reason is a very ridiculous thing, and borders very near upon folly. Besides, you do not seem to have shown any very great regard to this two-legged creature, seeing you have left him with so few means of defence, subjected him to so many disorders and provided him with so few remedies, and formed him with such a multitude of passions and so small a portion of wisdom or prudence to resist them. You certainly were not willing that there should remain any great number of these animals on the earth at once, for, without reckoning the dangers to which you have exposed them, you have so ordered matters that, taking every day throughout the year, smallpox will regularly carry off the tenth part of the species, and sister maladies will taint the springs of life in the nine remaining parts; and then, as if this were not sufficient, you have so disposed things that one-half of those who survive will be occupied in going to law with each other or cutting one another’s throats.

“Now, they must doubtless be under infinite obligations to you, and it must be owned you have executed a masterpiece.”

Demogorgon blushed. He was sensible there was much moral and physical evil in this affair, but still he insisted there was more good than ill in it.

“It is an easy matter to find fault, good folks,” said the genius, “but do you imagine it is so easy to form an animal, who, having the gift of reason and free-will, shall not sometimes abuse his liberty? Do you think that, in rearing between nine and ten thousand different plants, it is so easy to prevent some few from having noxious qualities? Do you suppose that with a certain quantity of water, sand, and mud you could make a globe that should have neither seas nor deserts?

“As for you, my sneering friend, I think you have just finished the planet Jupiter. Let us see now what figure you make with your great belts and your long nights with four moons to enlighten them. Let us examine your worlds and see whether the inhabitants you have made are exempt from follies or diseases.”

Accordingly the genius fell to examining the planet Jupiter, when the laugh went strongly against the laugher. The serious genius who had made the planet Saturn did not escape without his share of the censure, and his brother operators, the makers of Mars, Mercury, and Venus, had each in his turn some reproaches to undergo.

Several large volumes and a great number of pamphlets were written on this occasion; smart sayings and witty repartees flew about on all sides; they railed against and ridiculed each other, and, in short, the disputes were carried on with all the warmth of party heat, when the eternal Demiurgos thus imposed silence on them all:

“In your several performances there is both good and bad, because you have a great share of understanding, but at the same time fall short of perfection. Your works will not endure above a hundred millions of years, after which you will acquire more knowledge and perform much better. It belongs to me alone to create things perfect and immortal.”

This was the doctrine Plato taught his disciples. One of them, when he had finished his harangue, cried out: “And so you then awoke?”

AN ADVENTURE IN INDIA.

All the world knows that Pythagoras, while he resided in India, attended the school of the Gymnosophists and learned the language of beasts and plants. One day while he was walking in a meadow near the sea-shore he heard these words:

“How unfortunate that I was born an herb! I scarcely attain two inches in height, when a voracious monster, a horrid animal, tramples me under his large feet; his jaws are armed with rows of sharp scythes, by which he cuts, then grinds, and then swallows me. Men call this monster a sheep. I do not suppose there is in the whole creation a more detestable creature.”

Pythagoras proceeded a little way and found an oyster yawning on a small rock. He had not yet adopted that admirable law by which we are enjoined not to eat those animals which have a resemblance to us. He had scarcely taken up the oyster to swallow it, when it spoke these affecting words:

“O Nature, how happy is the herb, which is, as I am, thy work! Though it be cut down, it is regenerated and immortal, and we, poor oysters, in vain are defended by a double cuirass; villains eat us by dozens at their breakfast, and all is over with us forever. What a horrible fate is that of an oyster, and how barbarous are men!”

Pythagoras shuddered; he felt the enormity of the crime he had nearly committed; he begged pardon of the oyster, with tears in his eyes, and replaced it very carefully on the rock.

As he was returning to the city, profoundly meditating on this adventure, he saw spiders devouring flies; swallows eating spiders, and sparrow-hawks eating swallows. “None of these,” said he, “are philosophers.”

On his entrance, Pythagoras was stunned, bruised, and thrown down by a lot of tatterdemalions, who were running and crying: “Well done, he fully deserved it.” “Who? What?” said Pythagoras, as he was getting up. The people continued running and crying: “Oh, how delightful it will be to see them boiled!”

Pythagoras supposed they meant lentils or some other vegetables, but he was in error; they meant two poor Indians. “Oh!” said Pythagoras, “these Indians, without doubt, are two great philosophers weary of their lives; they are desirous of regenerating under other forms; it affords pleasure to a man to change his place of residence, though he may be but indifferently lodged; there is no disputing on taste.”

He proceeded with the mob to the public square, where he perceived a lighted pile of wood and a bench opposite to it, which was called a tribunal. On this bench judges were seated, each of whom had a cow’s tail in his hand and a cap on his head, with ears resembling those of the animal which bore Silenus when he came into that country with Bacchus, after having crossed the Erytrean sea without wetting a foot, and stopping the sun and moon, as it is recorded with great fidelity by the Orphics.

Among these judges there was an honest man with whom Pythagoras was acquainted. The Indian sage explained to the sage of Samos the nature of that festival to be given to the people of India.

“These two Indians,” said he, “have not the least desire to be committed to the flames. My grave brethren have adjudged them to be burnt; one for saying that the substance of Xaca is not that of Brahma, and the other for supposing that the approbation of the Supreme Being was to be obtained at the point of death without holding a cow by the tail. ‘Because,’ said he, ‘we may be virtuous at all times, and we cannot always have a cow to lay hold of just when we may have occasion.’ The good women of the city were greatly terrified at two such heretical opinions; they would not allow the judges a moment’s peace until they had ordered the execution of those unfortunate men.”

Pythagoras was convinced that from the herb up to man there were many causes of chagrin. However, he obliged the judges and even the devotees to listen to reason, which happened only at that time.

He went afterwards and preached toleration at Crotona; but a bigot set fire to his house, and he was burned—the man who had delivered the two Hindoos from the flames! Let those save themselves who can!

BABABEC.

When I was in the city of Benares, on the borders of the Ganges, the country of the ancient Brahmins, I endeavored to instruct myself in their religion and manners. I understood the Indian language tolerably well. I heard a great deal and remarked everything. I lodged at the house of my correspondent, Omri, who was the most worthy man I ever knew. He was of the religion of the Brahmins; I have the honor to be a Mussulman. We never exchanged one word higher than another about Mahomet or Brahma. We performed our ablutions each on his own side; we drank of the same sherbet, and we ate of the same rice, as if we had been two brothers.

One day we went together to the pagoda of Gavani. There we saw several bands of fakirs, some of whom were janguis, that is to say, contemplative fakirs, and others were disciples of the ancient Gymnosophists, who led an active life. They all have a learned language peculiar to themselves; it is that of the most ancient Brahmins; and they have a book written in this language, which they call the “_Shasta_.” It is, beyond all contradiction, the most ancient book in all Asia, not excepting the “_Zend_.”

I happened by chance to cross in front of a fakir who was reading in this book.

“Ah! wretched infidel!” cried he, “thou hast made me lose a number of vowels that I was counting, which will cause my soul to pass into the body of a hare instead of that of a parrot, with which I had before the greatest reason to flatter myself.”

I gave him a rupee to comfort him for the accident. In going a few paces farther I had the misfortune to sneeze. The noise I made roused a fakir, who was in a trance.

“Heavens!” cried he, “what a dreadful noise. Where am I? I can no longer see the tip of my nose—the heavenly light has disappeared.”

“If I am the cause,” said I, “of your not seeing farther than the length of your nose, here is a rupee to repair the great injury I have done you. Squint again, my friend, and resume the heavenly light.”

Having thus brought myself off discreetly enough, I passed over to the side of the Gymnosophists, several of whom brought me a parcel of mighty pretty nails to drive into my arms and thighs, in honor of Brahma. I bought their nails and made use of them to fasten down my boxes. Others were dancing upon their hands, others cut capers on the slack rope, and others went always upon one foot. There were some who dragged a heavy chain about with them, and others carried a packsaddle; some had their heads always in a bushel—the best people in the world to live with. My friend Omri took me to the cell of one of the most famous of these. His name was Bababec; he was as naked as he was born, and had a great chain about his neck that weighed upwards of sixty pounds. He sat on a wooden chair, very neatly decorated with little points of nails that penetrated into his flesh, and you would have thought he had been sitting on a velvet cushion. Numbers of women flocked to him to consult him. He was the oracle of all the families in the neighborhood, and was, truly speaking, in great reputation. I was witness to a long conversation that Omri had with him.

“Do you think, father,” said my friend, “that after having gone through seven metempsychoses, I may at length arrive at the habitation of Brahma?”

“That is as it may happen,” said the fakir. “What sort of life do you lead?”

“I endeavor,” answered Omri, “to be a good subject, a good husband, a good father, and a good friend. I lend money without interest to the rich who want it, and I give it to the poor; I always strive to preserve peace among my neighbors.”

“But have you ever run nails into your flesh?” demanded the Brahmin.

“Never, reverend father.”

“I am sorry for it,” replied the father, “very sorry for it, indeed. It is a thousand pities, but you will certainly not reach above the nineteenth heaven.”

“No higher!” said Omri. “In truth, I am very well contented with my lot. What is it to me whether I go into the nineteenth or the twentieth, provided I do my duty in my pilgrimage, and am well received at the end of my journey? Is it not as much as one can desire to live with a fair character in this world and be happy with Brahma in the next? And pray what heaven do you think of going to, good master Bababec, with your chain?”

“Into the thirty-fifth,” said Bababec.

“I admire your modesty,” replied Omri, “to pretend to be better lodged than me. This is surely the result of an excessive ambition. How can you, who condemn others that covet honors in this world, arrogate such distinguished ones to yourself in the next? What right have you to be better treated than me? Know that I bestow more alms to the poor in ten days than the nails you run into your flesh cost for ten years. What is it to Brahma that you pass the whole day stark naked with a chain about your neck? This is doing a notable service to your country, doubtless! I have a thousand times more esteem for the man who sows pulse or plants trees than for all your tribe, who look at the tips of their noses or carry packsaddles to show their magnanimity.”

Having finished this speech, Omri softened his voice, embraced the Brahmin, and, with an endearing sweetness, besought him to throw aside his nails and his chain, to go home with him and live with decency and comfort.

The fakir was persuaded: he was washed clean, rubbed with essences and perfumes and clad in a decent habit; he lived a fortnight in this manner, behaved with prudence and wisdom and acknowledged that he was a thousand times happier than before; but he lost his credit among the people; the women no longer crowded to consult him; he therefore quitted the house of the friendly Omri and returned to his nails and his chain—to regain his reputation.

ANCIENT FAITH AND FABLE.

In order to be successful in their efforts to govern the multitude, rulers have endeavored to instil all the visionary notions possible into the minds of their subjects.

The good people who read Virgil, or the “Provincial Letters,” do not know that there are twenty times more copies of the “Almanac of Liège” and of the “_Courier Boiteux_” printed than of all the ancient and modern books together. No one can have a greater admiration than myself for the illustrious authors of these almanacs and their brethren. I know that ever since the time of the ancient Chaldæans there have been fixed and stated days for taking physic, paring our nails, giving battle, and cleaving wood. I know that the best part of the revenue of an illustrious academy consists in the sale of these almanacs. May I presume to ask, with all possible submission and a becoming diffidence of my own judgment, what harm it would do to the world if some powerful astrologer were to assure the peasants and the good inhabitants of little villages that they might safely pare their nails when they please, provided it be done with a good intention? The people, I shall be told, would not buy the almanacs of this new astrologer. On the contrary, I will venture to affirm that there would be found among your great geniuses many who would make a merit in following this novelty. Should it be alleged, however, that these geniuses, in their new-born zeal, would form factions and kindle a civil war, I would have nothing further to say on the subject, but readily give up for the sake of peace my too radical and dangerous opinion.

Everybody knows the king of Boutan. He is one of the greatest princes in the universe. He tramples under his feet the thrones of the earth, and his shoes (if he has any) are provided with sceptres instead of buckles. He adores the devil, as is well known, and his example is followed by all his courtiers. He one day sent for a famous sculptor of my country and ordered him to make a beautiful statue of Beelzebub. The sculptor succeeded admirably. Never before was there seen such an interesting and handsome devil. But, unhappily, our Praxiteles had only given five clutches to his statue, whereas the devout Boutaniers always gave him six. This serious blunder of the artist was attributed by the grand master of ceremonies to the devil with all the zeal of a man justly jealous of his master’s acknowledged rights, and also of the established and sacred customs of the kingdom of Boutan. He insisted that the sculptor should be punished for his thoughtless innovation, by the loss of his head. The anxious sculptor explained that his five clutches were exactly equal in weight to six ordinary clutches; and the king of Boutan, who was a prince of great clemency, granted him a pardon. From that time the people of Boutan no longer believed the dogma relating to the devil’s six clutches.

The same day it was thought necessary that his majesty should be bled, and a surgeon of Gascony, who had come to his court in a ship belonging to our East India company, was appointed to take from him five ounces of his precious blood. The astrologer of that quarter cried out that the king would be in danger of losing his life if the surgeon opened a vein while the heavens were in their present state. The Gascon might have told him that the only question was about the king’s health; but he prudently waited a few moments, and then, taking an almanac in his hand, thus addressed the astrologer:

“You were in the right, great man! The king would have died had he been bled at the instant you mentioned, but the heavens have since changed their aspect, and now is the favorable moment.”

The astrologer assented to the surgeon’s observation. The king was cured; and by degrees it became an established custom among the Boutaniers to bleed their kings whenever it was considered necessary.

Although the Indian astrologers understood the method of calculating eclipses, yet the common people obstinately held to the old belief that the sun, when obscured, had fallen into the throat of a great dragon, and that the only way to free him from thence was by standing naked in the water and making a hideous noise to frighten away the monster, and oblige him to release his hold. This notion, which is quite prevalent among the orientals, is an evident proof how much the symbols of religion and natural philosophy have at all times been perverted by the common people. The astronomers of all ages have been wont to distinguish the two points of intersection, upon which every eclipse happens, and which are called the lunar nodes, by marking them with a dragon’s head and tail. Now the vulgar, who are equally ignorant in every part of the world, took the symbol or sign for the thing itself. Thus, when the astronomers said the sun is in the dragon’s head, the common people said the dragon is going to swallow up the sun; and yet these people were remarkable for their fondness for astrology. But while we laugh at the ignorance and credulity of the Indians, we do not reflect that there are no less than 300,000 almanacs sold yearly in Europe, all of them filled with observations and predictions equally as false and absurd as any to be met with among the Indians. It is surely as reasonable to say that the sun is in the mouth or the claws of a dragon as to tell people every year in print that they must not sow, nor plant, nor take physic, nor be bled, but on certain days of the moon. It is high time, in an age like ours, that some men of learning should think it worth their while to compose a calendar that might be of use to the industrious classes by instructing instead of deceiving them.

A blustering Dominican at Rome said to an English philosopher with whom he was disputing:

“You are a dog; you say that it is the earth that turns round, never reflecting that Joshua made the sun to stand still!”

“Well! my reverend father,” replied the philosopher, “ever since that time has not the sun been immovable?”

The dog and the Dominican embraced each other, and even the devout Italians were at length convinced that the earth turns round.

An augur and a senator lamented, in the time of Cæsar, the declining state of the republic.

“The times, indeed, are very bad,” said the senator; “we have reason to tremble for the liberty of Rome.”

“Ah!” said the augur, “that is not the greatest evil; the people now begin to lose the respect which they formerly had for our order. We seem barely to be tolerated—we cease to be necessary. Some generals have the assurance to give battle without consulting us. And, to complete our misfortunes, even those who sell us the sacred pullets begin to reason.”

“Well, and why don’t you reason likewise?” replied the senator, “and since the dealers in pullets in the time of Cæsar are more knowing than they were in the time of Numa, ought not you modern augurs to be better philosophers than those who lived in former ages?”

THE TWO COMFORTERS.

The great philosopher Citosile once said to a woman who was disconsolate, and who had good reason to be so: “Madame, the queen of England, daughter to Henry IV., was as wretched as you. She was banished from her kingdom, was in great danger of losing her life at sea, and saw her royal spouse expire on a scaffold.”