all reputation for equity. See how the bird pecks the net, and struggles
to reach the urn. You may observe, that each bird in behaviour and
importunity corresponds with the words of the prayer it sprung from. I
will let him out: he finds no parchment; then Providence must undergo
the imputation that has been threatened. The prayer dies in great
anger.
But as you have now learned something of the management of these
prayers, you shall hear some petitions of a different kind. The prayers
that you have heard were all sincere, and offered with a desire of
accomplishment; but there are also hypocritical prayers, the success of
which is not wished by those who utter them; they come to this other
door. The contrivance of the bird and the urn is not practised with
them, but they are let in, and very soon perish.
MAHOMET.
But do men ever pray for what they do not wish to have?
ANGEL.
Very often; they ask what they ought to wish for. I will open the door
to a few of these pretenders; now listen.
FIRST PRAYER.
Oh God, grant that I may every day increase in virtue.
SECOND PRAYER.
Oh let strength be given me to withstand the wife of my neighbour Ali,
for she is beautiful.
THIRD PRAYER.
May I have resolution to abandon my intemperance in drinking.
FOURTH PRAYER.
May God make my enemies happy.
MAHOMET.
What admirable prayers! But I observe that they are pronounced with very
little importunity: a man does not pray for temperance so fervently as
for the death of his wife.
ANGEL.
These prayers are called virtue by those who utter them. There are many
who think that to pray for virtue is equivalent to the practice of it,
and they therefore pray to be good in preference to being so, as the
less troublesome undertaking of the two. If these devout people believed
there was any danger of their prayers being heard, they would be very
cautious of praying for virtue, but they think God is not likely to
force goodness upon them because they ask for it; they have full
confidence in their own fidelity to pleasure, and rest secure that they
can still be as voluptuous as they please, though they should pray every
hour to become austere. Thus the man whom you heard asking aid against
the wife of his neighbour Ali considers that he has not the less chance
of success in his pursuit of her by praying against it, and he hopes,
too, that his prayer may be some little atonement for the actual sin.
But I think for the present you have heard enough, and can now justify
God in listening inexorably to so many prayers.
MAHOMET.
But still there is a difficulty: I have seen that many prayers are
rejected, and many are fulfilled with ruin, so that I am at a loss to
discover the utility of praying at all; and it seems to me that if men
lived by their own endeavours without prayer their prosperity would not
be lessened. To what purpose or benefit, then, should I enjoin prayer in
the Koran, and how can I recommend it? If I order men to pray, and tell
them that they will be equally fortunate without it, I think they will
hardly take the trouble; and if I affirm that by prayer they may be
rich, of long life, and the parents of many children, I shall be guilty
of a great deception.
ANGEL.
But men must be deceived for their welfare: they must believe in the
prosperity from prayer, that there may be religion in all they do. You
talk of deception--man is born to be deceived: the child is deceived by
its parent, subjects by the king, worshippers by the priest, and all
mankind are deceived by God. Man is cheated by his senses, his
imagination, his reason: from his first hour to his last he is under
illusions, without which he would not be a man.
MAHOMET.
I believe it is so; then why should I scruple to assist in the
conspiracy?
ANGEL.
It is true that fraud and deceit are censured amongst men, and it must
be so for the intercourse of human life; but as we are now a long way
from the earth, and cannot be overheard, I may say plainly that
sincerity is a private virtue only, and that men cannot be prosperously
ruled without being deceived.
MAHOMET.
I am impatient to deceive them.
ANGEL.
I will conduct you back to your cave: at a future time you shall see
more. Take my hand, and we will descend.
MAHOMET.
How rapidly the earth increases in size! There is the Red Sea, that is
Mecca.
ANGEL.
There--you are now in your cave again, and may resume your studies; I
hope with more progress.
MAHOMET.
Are you going back into your web?
ANGEL.
No; I shall not dwindle into a spider again, but shall still watch over
you unseen, and be at hand to instruct you in any emergency of the
Koran.
MAHOMET.
Before you leave me, there is still one question that I would propose to
you.
ANGEL.
Ask what you will.
MAHOMET.
First, then, I inquire, whether God foresees with certainty all the
future actions of men.
ANGEL.
Undoubtedly he does.
MAHOMET.
All that men are to do, then, is already certain, being foreseen, and no
man is free to perform an action or not. Now that men should hereafter
be punished for doing what they cannot avoid is a kind of justice so
mysterious that I confess I am quite unable to see the force or
excellence of it; and all men are in trouble to understand this
difficulty. I was lately questioned about it by one of my friends, and
being without an answer, I had no expedient except to assume suddenly a
face of deep meditation, as not having heard him, and in reverence he
forbore to repeat his question. This contrivance for silencing inquirers
may once be successful, but my followers will not always receive a fit
of musing as a satisfactory explanation; and if you do not supply me
with a better answer concerning destiny, they will begin to think that
my knowledge of the matter is not very profound. I confess that I know
not how to approach the subject, and all my thoughts only convince me
how ignorant I am of it. However, I have supposed that I could not be
altogether silent on this topic in the Koran, and that if I could not
make it clearer, I must at least make it more mysterious. Accordingly, I
have written something to show that men are at liberty, and subject to
fate at the same time; and if my disciples can find any meaning in what
I have said they must have uncommon sagacity. Now by giving me an
insight into this dark subject you will greatly increase both my
knowledge and authority.--God is great! the angel has suddenly vanished,
and that just at the juncture when he was to have explained liberty and
fate. This expedient resembles mine when I had recourse to musing as an
explanation. What! is this matter unknown even to the angels? Well, I
must rest in ignorance, and look the more confident when questions are
asked. And now to the Koran again.
* * * * *
A LETTER FROM POSTERITY TO THE PRESENT AGE.
I know not with what indulgence or resentment you, who are the reigning
sovereign, may receive advice from your intended successor, but since
your actions may tend to my advantage or trouble, I conceive myself
entitled to declare my opinion of your conduct.
Though I have received many messages and injunctions from you, I have
never before attempted an answer; and indeed the Present Age has
hitherto always supposed itself secure from the reproaches of Posterity,
and has been able to boast of its benefits to future times without fear
of contradiction. You know that during your life I am confined to an
island remote from your territories, and I have till now forborne from
writing to you, because I have been told that no ship from this island
could reach you. Having, however, found at last an expedient, by which,
perhaps, a messenger may arrive at your court, I have resolved to send
you a few observations, though without any absolute certainty that you
will ever read them.
Although the seas between us are acknowledged impassable to a ship from
my country, you have imagined them safe and easy to those which sail in
the contrary direction, and leave your dominions for my island. But in
this you are greatly mistaken; for of the innumerable ambassadors, whom
you despatch to me, a few only arrive, and from them I receive a
melancholy narrative of multitudes perishing by the rocks and other
perils of the voyage. And besides the natural toil and danger of these
seas, I learn that many of your messengers are lost by want of
preparation and skill, by ignorance of the sea, and by faulty ships. It
is said that some of your packets founder as soon as they have left the
harbour, many in the middle of the voyage, and some within sight of my
island. The ruins and fragments cast up on my shore from time to time
inform me how many expeditions you fit out for destruction.
However, I have learned something of you from the few more skilful
adventurers who have accomplished the voyage; and as from their
information I find that you are imposing duties upon me, for which I am
not likely to have either time or inclination, I shall make a few
remarks upon these labours, which you think yourself entitled to leave
for me.
In many particulars, I believe you only fall into that mistake, common
to every age, of expecting too much observance from your successor; but
in addition to that, you may perhaps have other errors of your own
invention. I understand that upon the most trifling event you please
yourself with considering what posterity will say about it. Now, while I
gratefully acknowledge the care you take to supply me with conversation,
I would represent to you that you can hardly expect me to decline all
enterprises and employments for the sake of having full leisure to talk
of what you have been doing. You seem to think it but reasonable, that
when you are dead I shall be occupied incessantly with considering your
exploits, and celebrating your praises; but you forget that I shall
always have my own exploits to consider, and myself to praise. It is
impossible that I should undertake in your behalf all the study and
research which you impose upon me without neglecting altogether my own
affairs, my hopes and dangers, and that only in order to make you
famous. This, I think, cannot be expected; for although men will endure
great labours for their own renown, no person has been known to forfeit
his ease, pleasure, and reputation for the fame of another.
I am told that you expect me to understand the affairs of your reign
much better than you do yourself. I am to discover infallibly the nature
of every event, to expose the fraud of every intrigue, and to manifest
the true origin of all that now passes before your eyes.
When there has been some mysterious transaction, in which there is guilt
and blame without any certainty of the person upon whom it ought to
fall, you desire your subjects to be under no concern, and not to
perplex themselves with conjectures, for Posterity will inquire into the
matter, and disgrace those who deserve it. Yet I should have thought you
must have better opportunities of information about what is now passing
than I am likely to command when all concerned in the event are dead.
But I believe the advantage which makes Posterity infallible is, that
none remain to contradict whatever he may choose to conclude. But before
you can be sure I shall arrive at just decisions upon all events in your
reign, you must know whether I shall be at the trouble of examining them
at all; and I cannot help suspecting that I shall be more attentive to
the most trivial occurrence which I see passing than to all the events
which were seen by you.
I have learned, also, that you act with the most wanton caprice in
distributing honours and rewards amongst your subjects. The clamorous
become great; the good, the silent, and the useful remain obscure: and
it is said that to excuse the little pains you take in discovering and
advancing true merit, you often allege that Posterity will rectify all
your mistakes concerning the characters of men. This seems to me a
singular kind of justice; and I cannot think that a man of merit is
adequately rewarded by the hope of its being acknowledged after his
death that he ought to have been famous while he lived. But I warn you
that I shall not think myself under any obligation to adjust the claims
of your contemporaries. This is one of the most unreasonable tasks that
you impose upon me; you find it difficult to distinguish the good and
bad qualities in that multitude which is soliciting your notice, and
therefore transfer the decision to me, as if the characters of men were
most easily discerned when the means of information are lost. I am
expected not only to furnish honour for all whom you have unjustly kept
in obscurity, but also to degrade those whom you have exalted without
reason, and you seem to think that you atone sufficiently for raising so
many undeserving men when you charge Posterity to deprive them of their
honours.
I am told that by this uncertainty in assigning honours, and this custom
of referring all kinds of merit to my decision, you have taught great
numbers of busy men, whose names can never reach my ear, to expect what
they call justice from me. When there have been two competitors for a
public honour, the unsuccessful one invokes my aid, and desires that I
will not fail to expose the arts of his adversary and to manifest his
own probity, when the truth is, that I am never to hear of the dispute,
and therefore cannot reasonably be expected to settle it. I find that I
am become the common refuge of all the unhappy men who are disappointed
in their hopes of your favour. He who was to have been an orator and
statesman, but instead of that dies unheard of in a wretched garret,
entreats me with his last breath to make him as great a man as he ought
to have been.
But I hear that of all those who expect my praise the most numerous and
most confident are the authors. The scribbler, who has been guilty of a
tiresome volume which you have refused to read, still writes with the
same industry as at first, for he has patience, and can wait for the
applause of Posterity. He who has had the good fortune to be read and
commended by you has no reason to suppose that I shall be less pleased
by his work; and he whom you have censured or refused to read is but the
more confident of my applause from your known neglect of merit. Thus
either to fail or to succeed assures an author of favour with Posterity,
whence I must regard with despair the library that I am expected to
peruse.
It is said that almost all your subjects are authors, so that he who has
not written a book is accused of affecting singularity; and I hear you
read the living writers with so much industry that very few complain of
being overlooked. Now I am credibly informed that there is only one
writer of your whole reign whom I am likely to study: I conceal his
name, that each may believe it to be himself, and the vigour and hope of
your authors may not be diminished.
But I must inform all of your contemporaries who, either from their
writings or their actions, are confident of my future praise, that when
I come to the throne, a man of but moderate abilities, provided he be
alive, will engage more of my notice and conversation than the most
renowned of your dead subjects.
But my neglect is not the only thing which these ambitious men have to
fear; the loss of their names and actions at sea being a still greater
impediment to immortal fame. Every one of your authors, as I have been
told, sends his works to sea in full confidence that they will reach my
island and be eagerly studied by me. Many even undertake to foretell my
impression and opinion from particular passages. These books, from which
I am to obtain my knowledge, usually attain the bottom of the sea almost
as soon as they set out.
I hear that you are very punctual in transmitting to me intelligence of
all you do, and that when you are doing nothing you take care to inform
me of that also, and despatch a copious narrative of every day, whether
any thing has happened in it or not. I have already told you the fate
of these valuable communications; they are lost by the storms and rocks.
But from time to time a man is born in your dominions with a genius to
overcome all the difficulties that separate us. He is versed in the
characters and events of your reign, and also knows my disposition, what
things I wish to know, and what I should reject, and he has skill to
preserve him from being destroyed and forgotten in the seas through
which I am to be reached. Such a man from the rocks in his way gathers
the fragments of letters that you have sent by unfortunate voyagers, and
judges what intelligence is worthy to reach my island. From these rare
adventurers I obtain all the knowledge I have of your reign.
There are, indeed, many divers in my island, who pretend to give ample
and exact information of you, but they find little belief. These
artists, by constant discipline, have extraordinary skill and patience
in remaining under water, where, as they wish me to suppose, they
discover innumerable histories from your lost ships, which they read
with great diligence beneath the waves, and then rising up write what
they have learned, and present it to me. The writers who thus look for
facts at the bottom of the sea are very apt to contradict the most
authentic intelligence that I have received from your ablest
ambassadors; but I give very little attention to their discoveries.
As I have now explained to you how rare and imperfect is the information
that I receive of your reign, you may understand that your claim to my
incessant praise and study is not likely to be complied with.
But whatever intelligence of your proceedings you may contrive to give
me, I cannot promise that laborious attention to them which you require;
and I think you the more unreasonable in demanding so much of my
admiration, because, as I am told, you show no such respect for your
predecessor, but are wholly occupied by your own projects. It is said
that you never speak of him without derision; and that any person who
would recall one of his maxims is ruined in your esteem, and ridiculed
by all your court as a man of an understanding too slow to go on with
the course of the seasons. Now, if you think that an Age deceased is
thus at the mercy of its successor, I cannot understand what peculiar
merit in you is to secure you from the same treatment during my reign. I
am told, that in your eyes the chief virtue of all things consists in
being new. A book just from the press has wit and spirit, which after a
short time are not to be found in it. I understand that a volume six
months old is thought to have lost all its vigour. Men, also, as books,
attain with you a sudden eminence, but soon discover that their renown
has left them with their novelty.
If my intelligence is accurate, you estimate opinions by the same rule.
A man who would be thought to reason justly must insist upon something
which never was imagined before: in all matters relating to the
government of your dominions you disdain to think any thing that was
thought twenty years ago; and indeed I believe that by your command, the
same thing very seldom is true for two years together. And it seems that
whenever you order your subjects to do or think any thing new, you
imagine yourself conferring a great benefit on me, for instead of
regarding your various decrees as the amusements of a day, you believe
that your wildest fancies will last for ever. In all your inventions you
are dreaming for Posterity, and every absurdity you commit is for my
use.
I find you have invented a new phrase, "the spirit of the age," said to
be of admirable use in silencing those men of immovable minds, who
obstinately retain a maxim because they remember it true at a former
time. In every dispute, as I hear, this phrase is both wit and argument;
no man is able to refute it, nor even to reason against it for a moment;
and if an intrepid disputant sometimes ventures to call its authority in
question, he acts on pain of being ridiculous for the rest of his life.
Now, since every doctrine must wait for your permission before it can be
true, since you have assumed this right to reject every past notion,
and supply from your own stock all the wisdom that your people want, I
wish to be informed what shall prevent me from being equally absolute in
my turn.
I advise you, then, to give up the frivolous amusement of making
discoveries for my use; I intend to make discoveries for myself, and
believe I shall follow your example in liking my own truths best, for
the sake of their author. But, while I desire you to forbear
recommending opinions to me, I would not discourage you from prosecuting
your triumph over the defenceless notions of antiquity; for a living
disputant has so great an advantage over one who is dead, that in any
controversy with your predecessor I think you cannot fail to be
victorious. Only remember, that when you are dead I shall argue against
you with the same advantage; and I know not how you can expect that,
having your example before me, I should use that advantage with
moderation.
* * * * *
ANSWER FROM THE PRESENT AGE TO POSTERITY.
Your letter has reached me; and as I find that through imperfect
intelligence you have contracted a very wrong opinion of my character, I
shall endeavour to correct your mistakes. Having been told of certain
prevailing follies, you impute them all to me, and would make me the
author of all absurdities committed by my subjects. If, when you come to
the throne, you shall undertake to be the inventor of every thing that
is said and done in your dominions, you will make yourself answerable
for more follies than you will find ingenuity to defend.
However, the distance between us may easily excuse your mistake; for
those by whom I am surrounded are very apt to give me the honour of all
the extravagant designs that become public; and, indeed, I cannot blame
their credulity, for when every scribbler calls himself "the Present
Age," and every projector affects to be acting under my orders, I can
hardly expect that my true actions shall be always distinguished.
Perhaps I might be pardoned, if, in the multitude and confusion of
exploits and opinions which are said to be mine, I were sometimes,
myself, to doubt what it is that I am really doing and thinking. I
therefore readily excuse your misconception of my character, and shall
now endeavour to give you a juster notion of me.
First, I shall say a few words of the unfair use of my name, that you
may see the reason of my being so much misrepresented to you, and also
may be warned of the usurpation which your own name will inevitably
suffer when you occupy my place. My subjects are extremely desirous of
discovering my will, and would commonly obey my slightest commands with
perfect alacrity. There is a great emulation amongst them to be the
first in learning my sentiments upon every occasion, and imparting them
to others. But this excessive loyalty, instead of making my people
obedient to my government, only induces them to believe the numberless
impostors, who recommend their own inventions in my name, and thus,
while my subjects are committing the wildest follies in action and
opinion, they imagine themselves submitting to the wisdom of their
sovereign.
The greatest part of these fictitious laws are propagated by those who
write, and who are almost as numerous as you represent them. My people
judge and reason by means of works, called Reviews, which are published
at certain times, each of them containing doctrines adverse to those of
its rivals. Every one of them affirms solemnly that I am its editor;
derides the pretence of all the rest to my protection, and declares me
the guardian of itself alone. Every reader pretends to know my style,
and can trace it in his own Review. The truth is, that a few of the
writers in these works have sagacity and opportunity to discover my real
sentiments, while the others publish their own fancies as my decrees.
In addition to these Reviews certain works are published every morning
and evening, that contain a faithful history of that portion of time
which is called a day. Of all these, likewise, I am the professed
editor: each of them claims to itself my real labour, and imputes to the
others the dishonest use of my name. Each, therefore, has its sect of
believers; who are convinced that they read what has been corrected and
authorised, if not written, by me.