by Jan Potocki
We see charlatans put ponies on show which tap with their hooves the number of spades or clubs on a card. But it is a sign from their master which makes them tap or stop tapping. They have no idea of numeration and this abstraction, which is the simplest of all abstractions, may be considered to mark the limit of animal intelligence.
Doubtless the intelligence of animals often comes close to our own. The dog soon recognizes the master of the house and his friends and those who are neither friends nor enemies. It is fond of the former and tolerates the latter. It hates evil-looking people. It gets upset and gets excited. It hopes and fears. It is ashamed if it is found doing what it has been told not to do. Pliny says that elephants have been taught to dance, and that once they were found rehearsing in the moonlight.
The intelligence of animals surprises us when it is applied to particular circumstances. They do what they are told, they avoid doing what they are told not to do and what would be harmful to them in other ways. But they do not distinguish the general idea of the good from the particular idea associated with one action or another. So they cannot classify their actions. They cannot divide them into good and bad actions. This abstraction is more difficult than numeration. They are not capable of the easier form so they will not be of the more difficult.
Conscience is partly man’s own creation, since what is bad in one country is good in another. But in general, conscience warns of what abstraction has placed under the one or the other sign, that is, good or evil. Animals are incapable of such abstraction. They therefore have no conscience and cannot be guided by it. So they are therefore not susceptible of reward or punishment other than that which we inflict on them for our convenience and not for theirs.
So man is alone in his species in a world where we find nothing which does not fit into a general scheme. Man alone knows his thought and alone can abstract and generalize qualities. He alone is susceptible to merit or demerit, since abstraction, generalization and division into good and evil have shaped his conscience.
But why should man have qualities which distinguish him from all the other animals? Here analogy leads us to say that everything in this world has a well-specified goal. Conscience must have been given to man for a purpose. And thus we are brought by reasoning to natural religion. And where does that lead us? Nowhere other than to the same goal as revealed religion, that is, to future rewards. For where the products are the same, the factors cannot be very different.
But the reasoning on which natural religion is based is a dangerous instrument which can easily harm the person using it. What virtue has not been attacked by reason? What crime have people not tried to justify by it? Could eternal providence have exposed the fate of ethics to the mercy of sophistry? Certainly not. Faith, supported by the habits of childhood, filial love, and the needs of the human heart, offers man a surer mainstay than reason. Conscience itself, which distinguishes us from brute beasts, has been doubted, and sceptics have made it their plaything. They have insinuated that man is not different from the countless other material intelligences which inhabit this world. But in spite of them man senses that he has a conscience, and the priest uttering the words of consecration says to him, ‘a God comes down to this altar and unites Himself with you.’ Then man understands clearly that he does not belong to brute nature. He withdraws inside himself and there he guards his conscience.
But you will say that it isn’t a question of proving to me that natural religion tends to the same end as revealed religion. If you are a Christian, you must believe in revealed religion and in the miracles which have established it. But wait a moment. Let us first be clear about the difference between revealed and natural religion.
According to theologians, God is the author of the Christian religion. He is this also according to philosophers, since nothing happens, according to them, without divine permission. But the theologians base their arguments on miracles, which are exceptions to the general laws of nature and with which philosophers have some difficulty. In so far as they study nature, the latter tend to believe that God, the author of our holy religion, decided to establish it only by human means and without setting aside the general laws which govern the natural and spiritual world.
Here the difference is slight, but natural philosophers attempt to make a yet more delicate distinction. They say to theologians, ‘Those who have seen miracles have no difficulty in believing in them. The merit of faith is yours, since you have come eighteen centuries later. And if faith is a merit, yours is also tested, whether miracles really occurred or whether a sacred tradition transmitted knowledge of them to you. If the test is the same, then the merit is also the same.’
At this point theologians abandon the defensive and say to natural philosophers, ‘But who has revealed to you the laws of nature? How do you know whether miracles, instead of being exceptions, are not rather manifestations of phenomena unknown to you? For you do not know the laws of nature with which you dare to challenge the decrees of religion. How do the rays of light, which you have postulated in the laws of optics, pass through each other in all directions without colliding with each other? Whereas, if they strike a mirror, they bounce off it as though they were elastic bodies? Sounds pass through each other in the same way and they are sent back in the form of echoes. They obey more or less the same laws as rays of light, yet they seem only to be a way of being whereas rays of light seem substantial. You don’t understand it for at bottom you don’t understand anything.’
Natural philosophers are forced to admit that they know nothing. But they can say, ‘If we are not able to define a miracle, and are very far from being able to deny it, you theologians don’t have the right to reject the declarations of the Church fathers, who admitted that our dogmas and mysteries existed already in earlier religions. Now as these were not given to ancient religions by revelation, you must incline to our opinion and concede that the same dogmas could have been established without the help of miracles.’ Finally, these natural philosophers add, ‘If you want us clearly to state our opinion on the origins of Christianity, here it is.
‘The temples of the ancients were slaughterhouses and their gods shameless adulterers, but some congregations of religious men had purer principles and less repellent sacrifices. Philosophers called the divinity theos, without specifying Jupiter or Saturn. Rome, then, was subduing the world by its arms and subjugating it to its vices. A divine master appeared in Palestine. He preached love of one’s fellow man, contempt for riches, forgiveness of trespasses, resignation to the will of a Father who is in heaven.
‘Simple men had followed him during his lifetime. They came together after his death. Other more enlightened men chose from among pagan rituals that which was best adapted to the new cult. Finally, Church fathers made heard from the pulpit a more persuasive eloquence than that which up till then had been heard in public. And thus by apparently human means Christianity was formed from the purest elements of pagan and Jewish religions. But that is also how the will of heaven is accomplished. Doubtless, the creator of the universe could have written His holy law in letters of fire across the starry night sky, but He did not do so. He hid the rites of a more perfect religion in ancient mysteries, just as in the acorn He hid the forest which one day is going to give shade to our descendants. Unknown to us, we live in the midst of causes whose effects will surprise posterity. Therefore we give to God the name providence. We would call him only power if He acted otherwise.’
Such is the idea that natural philosophers have formed of the origins of Christianity. It is far from pleasing to the theologians, but they have not got the courage to contest it, since they see in the opinions of their antagonists true and great ideas which make them indulgent towards forgivable errors.
Thus, rather like the lines we call asymptotes, the opinions of philosophers and theologians can converge, without ever meeting, to within a distance which is smaller than any given distance. That is to say, that difference becomes less than any given distance or perce
ptible quantity. Now does a difference which I cannot perceive give me the right to set my convictions up in opposition to my brothers and to my Church? Does it give me the right to sow my doubts in the faith that they possess and which they have made the basis of their ethics? Certainly not. I haven’t got that right. So I submit heart and soul. Don Newton and Don Leibniz were Christians and even theologians; the latter even strove for the reunion of the churches. As for me, who am not worthy to be named after such great men, I study theology in the works of creation and find in it new reasons for adoring the creator.
*
Having thus spoken, Velásquez took off his hat, seemed to meditate and then sank into contemplation which might have been taken for ecstasy in an ascetic.
Rebecca seemed a bit disconcerted by this and I realized that those who wanted to weaken our religious principles and turn us into Muslims would find it no easier with the geometer than they had with me.
The Thirty-eighth Day
The previous day’s rest had been beneficial. We all set off again in better spirits. The Wandering Jew had not been seen the previous day because, not being able to remain static for a moment, he could only tell us his story when we too were on the move. So we hadn’t gone a quarter of a league before he appeared, took up his usual place between Velásquez and myself and began again as follows:
THE WANDERING JEW’S STORY CONTINUED
Dellius was growing old and, sensing his end was near, he summoned Germanus and myself and told us to dig in the cellar near the door, where we would find a bronze casket which we should bring to him. We did as he asked, found the casket and brought it to him. Dellius drew out a key from his bosom, opened the casket and then said to us:
‘Here are two signed and sealed parchments. One of these parchments will secure for my dear son the possession of the finest house in Jerusalem. The other is a deed worth thirty thousand darics together with many years’ interest.’
He next told me the whole story of my grandfather, Hiskias, and my forebear, Sedekias. Then he added, ‘This rapacious and unjust man is still alive, which goes to prove that remorse does not kill. My children, as soon as I die, you will go to Jerusalem. But do not make yourself known until you have found protectors. Perhaps it may be best to wait for Sedekias to die, which, given his great age, must happen very soon. Meanwhile you can live on your five hundred darics. You will find them sewn into this pillow, which never leaves me.
‘I have only one piece of advice to give you. Live a life free from reproach and you will be rewarded by the serenity which a clear conscience will give to the evening of your lives. As for me, I shall die as I have lived, that is, singing. This will be my swan-song, as they say. Homer who, like me, was blind, wrote a hymn to Apollo, who is the very sun whom he could not see and whom I also can no longer see. I once set this hymn to music. I shall intone it but I doubt whether I shall be able to reach the end.’
So Dellius sang the hymn that begins, ‘Greetings, happy Latona.’ But when he reached ‘Delos, if you wish my son to live on your shores,’ Dellius’s voice faded away. He leant on my shoulder and breathed his last.
We long mourned for our old friend. At last we left for Palestine, and reached Jerusalem on the twelfth day after our departure from Alexandria. For safety’s sake we changed our names. I took the name Antipas and Germanus was known as Glaphyras. We first stayed at an inn outside the city gates. When we asked where Sedekias lived, we were told at once, for it was the finest house in Jerusalem, a veritable palace worthy of a prince. We rented a poor room in the house of a cobbler who lived opposite Sedekias. I did not go out much; Germanus roamed all over the city and set about finding things out.
Several days later, he came to me and said, ‘My friend, I have just made an excellent discovery. The brook Cedron broadens into a magnificent sheet of water behind Sedekias’s house. The old man spends all his evenings there in a bower of jasmine. He is there now. I’ll show you your persecutor.’
I followed Germanus and we reached the bank of the stream opposite a beautiful garden in which I could see an old man asleep. I sat opposite him and looked at him. How different was his sleep from that of Dellius! Troublesome dreams seemed to disturb it and make him shudder from time to time. ‘Dellius,’ I cried, ‘how right you were to praise the life of innocence!’
Germanus made the same observation as I did.
As we were still looking, an object met our eyes which soon made us forget our observations and moral reflections. It was a young girl between sixteen and seventeen years old, of marvellous beauty which was enhanced by her rich attire. On her neck and calves she wore pearls and gem-studded chains. Otherwise she was dressed only in a gold-hemmed linen tunic. Germanus cried out, ‘It’s Venus herself!’ I instinctively prostrated myself before her. The beautiful young girl caught sight of us and seemed somewhat disturbed. But then she regained her composure, picked up a peacock-feather fan and wafted it to and fro above the old man’s head to refresh him and prolong his rest.
Germanus opened a book which he had specially brought with him, and pretended to read. I pretended to listen. But all our attention was fixed on what was happening in the garden.
The old man woke up. The questions he put to the young girl indicated to us that his sight was very dim and he couldn’t see us where we were, which pleased us greatly, for we proposed to come there often. Sedekias went away, leaning on the beautiful girl, and we returned to our room. Having nothing else to do, we got our landlord the cobbler to gossip to us. From him we learnt that Sedekias didn’t have a son still alive but his fortune was to pass to the daughter of one of his sons: she was called Sara and her grandfather was very fond of her.
After we had retired to our room, Germanus said to me, ‘Dear friend, I have thought up a way of bringing matters to a head with your great-uncle: it will be to marry his granddaughter. A great deal of prudence will be needed to succeed.’
I was very taken by this idea. We discussed it for a long time and I dreamed about it that night.
The next day I returned to the stream, and went back again on the following days. I rarely failed to see my young cousin, sometimes alone, sometimes with her grandfather, and without my having to speak the beautiful young girl guessed in the end that I was there only because of her.
As the Jew reached this point in his story we arrived at our resting-place and the unhappy wanderer was soon lost to sight in the mountains.
Rebecca was careful not to set the duke off again on the subject of religion. But as she wanted to hear about what he called his system, she seized the first opportunity to speak to him about it and even pressed him with questions.
*
VELÁSQUEZ’S ACCOUNT OF HIS SYSTEM
‘Señora,’ Velásquez replied, ‘we are blind men who can feel some walls and know the ends of several roads. But we mustn’t be expected to know the map of the whole city. However, since you wish it, I shall try to give you an idea of what you call my system and what I would rather call my way of seeing things.
‘Now everything that our eyes can see, all that vast horizon which stretches out at the foot of the mountains, in short, all of nature which can be perceived by our senses, can be divided into dead matter and organic matter. The latter differs from the former by its organs but belongs to it absolutely by its elements. Thus, Señora, the elements which go to make you up can also be found in the rocks on which we are sitting or the grass which covers them. Indeed, you have chalk in your bones, siliceous earth in your flesh, alkali in your bile, iron in your blood, salt in your tears. Your fatty parts are a combination of combustible material with an element of the atmosphere. So that if you were put in a reverberatory furnace you could be reduced to a glass bottle and if some metallic chalk were added you could be turned into a nice telescopic lens.’
‘Señor duque,’ said Rebecca, ‘what a very droll picture you are painting. But please go on.’
The duke thought that he had, without being aware of it, paid a co
mpliment to the fair Jewess. He graciously raised his hat, put it back on his head and continued as follows:
We can see in the elements of dead matter a spontaneous tendency, if not towards organization, then at least combination. Elements come together and separate to unite themselves with others. They take on certain forms. It can be supposed that they are intended for organization but they do not organize themselves of themselves. Unless there is a germ they could not pass to the other kind of combination which results in life.
Like magnetic fluid, life is only ever seen by its effects. Its first effect in organized bodies is to stop an interior fermentation known as putrefaction, which begins in bodies having organs as soon as life has left them. For this reason an ancient philosopher dared to affirm that life was a salt.
Life can be preserved for a long time in a fluid, as in an egg, or in a solid, as in seeds, and it develops once conditions are favourable.
Life extends to all parts of the body, even fluids, and even blood, which putrefies once it leaves our veins. Life is in the walls of the stomach, protecting them from the effect of gastric juices, which dissolve dead things that are admitted to the stomach.
Life is preserved for varying amounts of time in members cut off from the body.
Finally, life possesses the property of self-propagation. That is what is called the mystery of generation, which is a mystery like everything else in nature.
Organized beings are divided into two great classes: one which through combustion gives a fixed alkali, the other which abounds in volatile alkali. Plants form the first class, animals the second.
