ANCIENT FAITH AND FABLE
BY VOLTAIRE
In order to be successful in their efforts to
govern the multitude, rulers have endeavored
to instill 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 Liege
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 Chaldeans 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
farther 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 aggravated 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 astronomers 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 cleric 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 hath not the sun been
immovable?"
The dog and the cleric 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar 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?"
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