At a short distance from Bagdad a dervis, celebrated for his holiness,
passed his days tranquilly in agreeable solitude. The surrounding
inhabitants, in order to have an interest in his prayers, eagerly
brought to him every day provisions and presents. The holy man thanked
God incessantly for the blessings Providence heaped upon him. "O Allah,"
said he, "how ineffable is Thy tenderness toward Thy servants. What have
I done to deserve the benefactions which Thy liberality loads me with!
Oh, Monarch of the skies! oh, Father of nature! what praises could be
worthy to celebrate Thy munificence and Thy paternal cares! O Allah, how
great are Thy gifts to the children of men!" Filled with gratitude, our
hermit made a vow to undertake for the seventh time the pilgrimage to
Mecca. The war, which then existed between the Persians and the Turks,
could not make him defer the execution of his pious enterprise. Full of
confidence in God, he began his journey; under the inviolable safeguard
of a respected garb, he passed through without obstacle the enemies'
detachments; far from being molested, he receives at every step marks of
veneration from the soldiers of both sides. At last, overcome by
fatigue, he finds himself obliged to seek a shelter from the rays of the
burning sun; he finds it beneath a fresh group of palm-trees, whose
roots were watered by a limpid rivulet. In this solitary place, where
the silence was broken only by the murmuring of the waters and the
singing of the birds, the man of God found not only an enchanting
retreat, but also a delicious repast; he had but to extend the hand to
gather dates and other agreeable fruits; the rivulet can appease his
thirst; very soon a green plot invites him to take sweet repose. As he
awakens he performs the holy cleansing; and in a transport of ecstasy,
he exclaimed: "O Allah! HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE CHILDREN OF
MEN!" Well rested, refreshed, full of life and gayety, our holy man
continues on his road; it conducts him for some time through a
delightful country, which offers to his sight but blooming shores and
trees filled with fruit. Softened by this spectacle, he worships
incessantly the rich and liberal hand of Providence, which is everywhere
seen occupied with the welfare of the human race. Going a little
farther, he comes across a few mountains, which were quite hard to
ascend; but having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight suddenly
meets his eyes; his soul is all consternation. He discovers a vast plain
entirely devastated by the sword and fire; he looks at it and finds it
covered with more than a hundred thousand corpses, deplorable remains of
a bloody battle which had taken place a few days previous. Eagles,
vultures, ravens, and wolves were devouring the dead bodies with which
the earth was covered. This sight plunges our pilgrim into a sad
reverie. Heaven, by a special favor, had made him understand the
language of beasts. He heard a wolf, gorged with human flesh, exclaim in
his excessive joy: "O Allah! how great is Thy kindness for the children
of wolves! Thy foreseeing wisdom takes care to send infatuation upon
these detestable men who are so dangerous to us. Through an effect of
Thy Providence which watches over Thy creatures, these, our destroyers,
murder each other, and thus furnish us with sumptuous repasts. O Allah!
HOW GREAT IS THY GOODNESS TO THE CHILDREN OF WOLVES!"
XCIX.--IT IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF
HEAVEN, AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS UNIVERSE WAS MADE BUT FOR MAN.
An exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of
Heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it. I exist, you will say;
but is this existence always a benefit? You will say, look at this sun,
which shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and
verdure; these flowers, which bloom for our sight and smell; these
trees, which bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams,
which flow but to quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the
universe to facilitate your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing
nature produces for your use! Yes, I see all these things, and I enjoy
them when I can. But in some climates this beautiful sun is most always
obscured from me; in others, its excessive heat torments me, produces
storm, gives rise to dreadful diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows
have no grass, the trees are fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the
springs are dried up; I can scarcely exist, and I sigh under the cruelty
of a nature which you find so benevolent. If these seas bring me spices,
riches, and useless things, do they not destroy a multitude of mortals
who are dupes enough to go after them?
Man's vanity persuades him that he is the sole center of the universe;
he creates for himself a world and a God; he thinks himself of
sufficient consequence to derange nature at his will, but he reasons as
an atheist when the question of other animals is involved. Does he not
imagine that the individuals different from his species are automatons
unworthy of the cares of universal Providence, and that the beasts can
not be the objects of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider
fortunate or unfortunate events, health or sickness, life and death,
abundance or famine, as rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of
the liberty which they arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this
principle when animals are taken into consideration? No; although they
see them under a just God enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live
and die, like themselves, it does not enter their mind to ask what
crimes these beasts have committed in order to cause the displeasure of
the Arbiter of nature. Philosophers, blinded by their theological
prejudices, in order to disembarrass themselves, have gone so far as to
pretend that beasts have no feelings!
Will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? Will they not
recognize that nature was not made for them? Will they not see that this
nature has placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced?
Will they not see that all organized beings are equally made to be born
and to die, to enjoy and to suffer? Finally, instead of priding
themselves preposterously on their mental faculties, are they not
compelled to admit that they often render them more unhappy than the
beasts, in which we find neither opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor the
weaknesses which decide at every moment the well-being of men?
C.--WHAT IS THE SOUL? WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT. IF THIS PRETENDED SOUL
WAS OF ANOTHER ESSENCE FROM THAT OF THE BODY, THEIR UNION WOULD BE
IMPOSSIBLE.
The superiority which men arrogate to themselves over other animals, is
principally founded upon the opinion of possessing exclusively an
immortal soul. But as soon as we ask what this soul is, they begin to
stammer. It is an unknown substance; it is a secret force distinguished
from their bodies; it is a spirit of which they can form no idea. Ask
them how this spirit, which they suppose like their God, totally
deprived of a physical substance, could combine itself with their
material bodies? They will tell you that they know nothing about it;
that it is a mystery to them; that this combination is the effect of the
Almighty power. These are the clear ideas which men form of the hidden,
or, rather, imaginary substance which they consider the motor of all
their actions! If the soul is a substance essentially different from the
body, and which can have no affinity with it, their union would be, not
a mystery, but a thing impossible. Besides, this soul, being of an
essence different from that of the body, ought to act necessarily in a
different way from it. However, we see that the movements of the body
are felt by this pretended soul, and that these two substances, so
different in essence, always act in harmony. You will tell us that this
harmony is a mystery; and I will tell you that I do not see my soul,
that I know and feel but my body; that it is my body which feels, which
reflects, which judges, which suffers, and which enjoys, and that all of
its faculties are the necessary results of its own mechanism or of its
organization.
CI.--THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL IS AN ABSURD SUPPOSITION, AND THE EXISTENCE
OF AN IMMORTAL SOUL IS A STILL MORE ABSURD SUPPOSITION.
Although it is impossible for men to have the least idea of the soul, or
of this pretended spirit which animates them, they persuade themselves,
however, that this unknown soul is exempt from death; everything proves
to them that they feel, think, acquire ideas, enjoy or suffer, but by
the means of the senses or of the material organs of the body. Even
admitting the existence of this soul, one can not refuse to recognize
that it depends wholly on the body, and suffers conjointly with it all
the vicissitudes which it experiences itself; and however it is imagined
that it has by its nature nothing analogous with it; it is pretended
that it can act and feel without the assistance of this body; that
deprived of this body and robbed of its senses, this soul will be able
to live, to enjoy, to suffer, be sensitive of enjoyment or of rigorous
torments. Upon such a tissue of conjectural absurdities the wonderful
opinion of the immortality of the soul is built.
If I ask what ground we have for supposing that the soul is immortal:
they reply, it is because man by his nature desires to be immortal, or
to live forever. But I rejoin, if you desire anything very much, is it
sufficient to conclude that this desire will be fulfilled? By what
strange logic do they decide that a thing can not fail to happen because
they ardently desire it to happen? Man's childish desires of the
imagination, are they the measure of reality? Impious people, you say,
deprived of the flattering hopes of another life, desire to be
annihilated. Well, have they not just as much right to conclude by this
desire that they will be annihilated, as you to conclude that you will
exist forever because you desire it?