by Voltaire
Then Memnon said to him: ‘Your Lordship, without women and without dinner, how do you pass your time?’ ‘In watching over other worlds which are entrusted to our care,’ said the spirit, ‘as I am here now to console you.’ ‘Alas!’ replied Memnon, ‘why did you not come last night and stop me committing so many follies?’ ‘I was with Hassan, your elder brother,’ said the celestial being. ‘He is more to be pitied than you. His Gracious Majesty the King of the Indies, at whose court he has the honour to serve, caused both his eyes to be gouged out on account of a small indiscretion, and at the present moment he is in prison, with irons on his hands and feet.’
‘So what is the use of having a good angel in the family,’ said Memnon, ‘when of two brothers one has lost an eye and the other is blind, one lying on straw and the other in prison?’ ‘Your lot will change,’ said the starry creature. ‘It is true that you will always be one-eyed; but aside from that you will be happy enough, provided you never repeat the idiotic project of becoming perfectly wise.’ ‘Is that then impossible to attain?’ cried Memnon with a sigh. ‘As impossible’, replied the other, ‘as being perfectly skilful, perfectly strong, perfectly powerful, perfectly happy. We ourselves are very far from it. There is a world where all that is to be found; but in the hundred thousand millions of worlds scattered through space everything is connected by degrees. There is less wisdom and pleasure in the second than in the first, less still in the third than in the second, and so on down to the last, where everyone is completely mad.’ ‘I greatly fear’, said Memnon, 'that our little terraqueous globe is no other than the bedlam of the universe of which you do me the honour of informing me.’ ‘Not quite,’ said the spirit, ‘but close. Everything has to be in its allotted place.' ‘But then,’ said Memnon, ‘certain poets and philosophers2 must therefore be quite wrong to say that everything is for the best?’ ‘They are quite right,' said the philosopher from on high, ‘in regard to the arrangement of the universe as a whole.’ ‘Ah!’ replied poor Memnon, ‘I shall only believe that when I recover my lost eye.’
Letter from a Turk
Concerning the Fakirs and his Friend Bababec
While I was staying in the town of Benares on the banks of the Ganges, the ancient home of the Brahmins, I made every effort to educate myself. I understood Indian tolerably well; I listened a great deal and observed everything. I was lodging with my correspondent Omri, the worthiest man I have ever known. He was a Brahmin, and I have the honour of being a Muslim: we have never exchanged an angry word on the subject of Mohammed or Brahma. We each performed our ablutions after our own fashion, drank the same lemonade, and ate the same rice, like two brothers.
One day we went together to the pagoda of Gavani. There we saw several groups of fakirs, some of whom were Jangys or contemplative fakirs, while others were disciples of the ancient Gymnosophists,1 who led an active life. It is well known that they have a learned language, that of the ancient Brahmins, and, in that language, a book which they call the Veda.2 It is certainly the most ancient book of all Asia, not excluding the Zend-Avesta.3
I passed a fakir who was reading this book. ‘Ah! wretched infidel!’ he cried, ‘you have made me lose count of the number of vowels; consequently my soul will enter the body of a hare instead of – as I had every reason to hope – a parrot.’ I gave him a rupee to console him. A few paces further on I unfortunately sneezed, and the noise awakened a fakir from his ecstatic trance. ‘Where am I?’ he said. ‘What a dreadful fall! I can no longer see the end of my nose: the celestial light has disappeared.’* ‘If I am the cause’, said I, ‘of your finally seeing beyond the end of your nose, here is a rupee in amends for the ill I have done you; go back to your celestial light.’
Having discreetly extricated myself in this way, I passed on to the other Gymnosophists, several of whom brought me some very pretty little nails to stick in my arms and thighs in honour of Brahma. I bought their nails, and used them to nail down my carpets. Some danced on their hands, or performed acrobatics on a loose rope; and there were others who merely hopped along. Some carried chains, others a pack-saddle, and still others hid their heads under a bushel; despite all of which they were the pleasantest people imaginable. My friend Omri took me into the cell belonging to one of the most famous; he was called Bababec: he was as naked as a monkey and wore round his neck a large chain weighing more than sixty pounds. He was sitting on a wooden chair, suitably furnished with the sharp points of nails, which stuck into his buttocks, yet you would have thought he was on a bed of satin. A stream of women came to consult him; he was the oracle of families, and clearly enjoyed a very great reputation. I was present at a lengthy conversation which Omri held with him.
‘Father,’ said Omri, ‘do you think that after passing through the test of the seven metempsychoses, I shall attain to the dwelling of Brahma?’ ‘That depends,’ said the fakir; ‘in what manner do you live?’ ‘I try’, said Omri, ‘to be a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, a good friend; I lend money to the rich without interest at times, and I give to the poor; I labour to keep peace among my neighbours.’ ‘Do you ever stick nails in your bottom?’ asked the Brahmin. ‘Never, reverend father.’ ‘I am sorry,’ replied the fakir, ‘but you will certainly only ever reach the nineteenth Heaven; which is a pity.’ ‘Well,’ said Omri, ‘that is good enough; I am very content with my lot; what do I care whether it is the nineteenth or the twentieth Heaven, provided I do my duty during this earthly pilgrimage, and am well received at the final resting-place? Is it not enough to be an honest man in this world, and afterwards to be happy in the country of Brahma? Which Heaven do you yourself propose to enter, Monsieur Bababec, with your nails and your chains?’ ‘The thirty-fifth,’ said Bababec. ‘I think it amusing of you’, replied Omri, ‘to assume you will be placed higher than I; certainly, that can only be the effect of excessive ambition. You condemn those who seek honours in this life, so why do you want such great honours in the next? And what gives you the right to think you will be better treated than I? Let me tell you that I give more in alms in ten days than the cost to you of all the nails you stick into your backside in ten years. Brahma must be mightily pleased that you spend the day completely naked with a chain round your neck; what a service to your country! But I set far more store by the man who sows vegetables, or plants trees, than by all your friends who watch the ends of their noses or carry a pack-saddle from excessive nobility of soul.’
Having spoken thus, Omri quietened down, flattered him, and finally persuaded him to throw away his nails and chain and come and share an honest life. He was scrubbed down, anointed with perfumed essences, and properly dressed. He lived thus for a fortnight very soberly, and admitted he was a hundred times happier than he had been before. But he had lost his influence with the people; the women no longer came to consult him; so he left Omri and returned to his nails in order to regain esteem.
Plato’s Dream
Plato dreamt a great deal, and men have not been dreaming any the less ever since. He dreamt for example that human nature was formerly double, and that in punishment for its faults it was separated into male and female.1
He had proved that there can only exist five perfect worlds, since there are only five regular bodies in mathematics.2 His Republic was another great dream. He had also dreamt that sleeping comes from waking, and waking from sleeping, and that we must undoubtedly lose our sight if we look at an eclipse of the sun other than reflected in a pond.3 Great reputations used to be made by dreams.
Here is one of Plato’s dreams, by no means one of the least interesting. He dreamt that the great Demiurge, the eternal Geometer, having peopled infinite space with innumerable globes, decided to test the scientific ability of the genies who had witnessed these works. He gave each of them a little piece of matter to work with, rather as Phidias and Zeuxis4 are said to have given their disciples statues and paintings to make, if one may compare little things with great.
So Demogorgon was allotted the piece of mud
which is known as the Earth5 and, after arranging it in the fashion we still see around us today, claimed he had created a masterpiece. He thought he had silenced envy, and stood waiting for praises, even from his fellow-artists. He was deeply surprised to be greeted by them with derision.
One of these, a rather unpleasant ironist, said: ‘Yes, you’ve done a grand job. You’ve divided your world in two, and put a vast body of water between your hemispheres so that there can be no contact between them. Anyone living at your two poles will die of cold, or die of heat on your equinoctial line. You have prudently laid out great deserts of sand, so that travellers can die of hunger and thirst. I don’t mind your sheep and your cows and hens, but frankly, why the snakes and reptiles? Your onions and artichokes are fine, but what is the idea of covering the earth with so many poisonous plants, unless you plan to kill off all its inhabitants? Moreover, you seem to have created thirty or more species of monkey, many more species of dog, but only four or five species of man. It is true that you have endowed this latter creature with what you call reason, but in all honesty it is a quite ridiculous faculty, far too close to lunacy. It strikes me moreover that you set little store by this two-legged animal, since you have given him so many enemies and so few defences, so many illnesses and so few cures, so many passions and so little wisdom. You seem not to want very many of these humans to survive: not counting the dangers to which you expose them, you have calculated things so nicely that one day the smallpox will wipe out a tenth of the entire species every year, while her sister the pox will poison the sources of life for the remaining nine-tenths. Were this not enough, you have disposed matters so that half of the survivors will spend their time in litigation while the other half murder each other. No doubt they will all feel greatly obliged to you, and you must indeed be complimented on fashioning a masterpiece.’
Demogorgon blushed; he felt keenly that there were both moral and physical defects in his work, but he maintained that there was more good than ill. ‘It is easy to criticize,’ he said, ‘but do you think it is easy to create an animal who always acts according to reason, who is free, and who never abuses his freedom? Do you think that, when there are nine or ten thousand plants to take root, it is easy to stop some of them developing harmful qualities? Do you imagine that, with a given quantity of water, sand, mud and fire, you can avoid having deserts or oceans? Well, Sir Irony, you have just finished fashioning Mars; let us see how you have fared with your two great rings,6 and what pretty effects your nights will make with no moon. Let’s see if there isn’t any madness or illness among your inhabitants.’
So the genies conducted an examination of Mars, and came down very harshly on its ironical artificer. Nor was the painstaking genie who moulded Saturn spared; and his fellow-artists who fashioned Jupiter, Mercury and Venus had all to endure their share of criticism.
Which led to a flurry of long books and short pamphlets being written on all sides; witticisms were exchanged, songs composed, insults traded, and the opposing parties became embittered. Finally the eternal Demiurge imposed silence on all of them: ‘You have done well,’ he said, ‘and you have done ill – because you have plenty of intelligence, and because you are imperfect; your works will last for only a few hundred million years;7 after which, being better educated, you will do better: it belongs to me alone to make perfect and immortal things.’
So Plato taught his disciples. When he had stopped speaking, one of them said to him: ‘And then you woke up.’
The History of the Travels
of Scarmentado
Written by Himself
I was born in the city of Candia1 in 1600. My father was the Governor, and I remember that a mediocre poet named Iro,2 whose harshness was anything but mediocre, wrote some bad verses in my praise to the effect that I was directly descended from Minos; but my father subsequently falling into disgrace, he wrote other verses in which I was traced back only to Pasiphaë and her lover.3 This Iro was a wicked creature, and the most tedious rogue on the whole island.
At the age of fifteen my father sent me to study in Rome. I arrived hoping to learn every truth: for until then I had been taught just the contrary, after the fashion of this evil world from China to the Alps. Monsignor Profundo, to whom I was recommended, was a peculiar man and one of the most redoubted scholars in the world. He would have taught me the Aristotelian Categories, and was on the point of placing me in the category of his catamites: I had a narrow escape. I saw processions, exorcisms, and a few acts of plunder. It was said, though quite falsely, that Signora Olympia,4 a person of great prudence, used to sell numerous things which should not be sold. I was at an age when all this seemed highly amusing. A young lady of very tender morals, named Signora Fatelo,5 took it into her head to fall in love with me. She was being courted by the reverend Father Poignardini and by the reverend Father Aconiti,6 both of them young professed monks of an order which no longer exists. She reconciled them by bestowing her favours on me, but at the same time I ran the risk of being excommunicated and poisoned. I left, delighted by the architecture of St Peter’s.
I travelled in France; it was during the reign of Louis the Just.7 The first question I was asked was if I should like for my lunch a small portion of the maréchal d’Ancre, whose flesh had been roasted by the populace and was being distributed very cheaply to whoever wanted it.8
This state was continually in the grip of civil wars, sometimes over a place in the Cabinet, sometimes over a couple of controversial pages. For more than sixty years this fire, at times smothered and at other times violently fanned, had been ravaging these beautiful climes. Such were the liberties of the Gallican church. ‘Alas,’ I said, ‘this people was nevertheless born gentle; what can have diverted them thus from their innate character? They make jokes, and then they organize the St Bartholomew Massacres.9 Happy the times when they are only joking!’
I crossed over to England: there the same quarrels excited the same fury. Devout Catholics had resolved, for the good of the Church, to blow up with gunpowder the King, the Royal Family and the entire Parliament, and to rid England of these heretics.10 I was shown the square where the blessed Queen Mary,11 daughter of Henry VIII, had burned more than five hundred of her subjects. An Irish priest assured me that this was a very good thing: first, because those who were burned were English; second, because they never used holy water and did not believe in St Patrick’s well.12 He was particularly astonished that Queen Mary had not yet been canonized; but he hoped she soon would be, when the Cardinal Nephew13 had a little more leisure.
I went to Holland, where I hoped to find more tranquillity among a more phlegmatic people. When I arrived in The Hague they were just cutting off the head of a venerable old gentleman. It was the bald head of Barneveldt,14 the Prime Minister, who had deserved the most from the republic. Moved to pity, I enquired as to his crime and whether he had betrayed the state. ‘He’s done far worse than that,’ replied a black-cloaked preacher;15 ‘he believes that we can be saved by good works as well as by faith. You must realize that if such opinions become established, the republic could not endure and that severe laws are needed to repress such scandalous horrors.’
A learned politician of the country told me with a sigh: ‘Alas, Monsieur, these good times will not last for ever; it is no accident that this people is so zealous; fundamentally their character leans towards the abominable dogma of toleration. One day things will come to that: it makes one shudder.’ For myself, awaiting that dark day of moderation and lenience, I rapidly took leave of a country where severity was not softened by any amenity, and I embarked for Spain.
The court was at Seville, the galleons had returned safely,16 everything breathed abundance and joy at the loveliest season of the year. At the end of an avenue of orange- and lemon-trees I saw an immense arena surrounded by tiered seats covered with precious draperies. The King, the Queen, the infantes, the infantas, were all present under a superb canopy. Opposite this august family was another, more elevated throne
. I said to one of my travelling companions: ‘Unless that throne is reserved for God, I do not see what purpose it can serve.’ These indiscreet words were overheard by a grave Spaniard and were to cost me dear. Meanwhile I imagined we were going to witness some tournament or bullfight, when the Grand Inquisitor appeared on this throne, from which he blessed the King and the people.
Then came an army of monks in procession, two-by-two, white, black, grey, with and without sandals; with and without beards; with and without pointed cowls; then came the executioner; then, surrounded by alguazils and grandees, came forty individuals covered with sacks on which were painted devils and flames.17 These were Jews who had preferred not to renounce Moses totally, and Christians who had either married their godmothers, or failed to worship Our Lady of Atocha, or been unwilling to part with their cash in favour of the Order of St Jerome. Some very beautiful prayers were devoutly chanted, after which all of the guilty were slowly burned; which seemed to give the royal family much edification.
