XXI. What shall I say of the ridiculous historical tales, which are
venerated in some nations as irrefragable traditions? The Arcadians
compute their origin to be antecedent to the creation of the Moon. The
people of Peru maintain their kings to be legitimate descendants from
the sun. The Arabs believe as an article of faith, the existence of
a bird, which they call Anca Megareb, of such an enormous size, that
its eggs are as big as large hills; which bird they say was afterwards
cursed by their Prophet Handal, for having insulted him, and that it
now lives retired in a certain inaccessible Island. The credit of an
imaginary hero called Cherderles, is not less established among the
Turks; they say he was one of Alexander’s captains, and that having
made himself and his horse immortal by drinking of the waters of a
certain river, he now goes about exploring the world, and assisting
such soldiers as invoke him; they seem very happy with this delusion,
and near a little Mosque appropriated to his worship, they shew the
tombs of the nephew and the servant of this knight errant, and they
add, that by their intercession continual miracles are wrought in that
quarter.
XXII. In short, if you scrutinize country by country, the whole
intellectual map of the globe, except only those places where the name
of Christ is worshiped, you will find all this extensive surface,
covered with spots and stains. Every country is an Africa to engender
monsters; every province, an Iberia to produce poisons; in all places,
as in Lycia, they invent chimeras; and in all nations, where the
light of the gospel is wanting, they are obscured with as dark mists,
as formerly obscured Egypt. There are no people whatever, who have
not much of the barbarous. What results from this? why that the voice
of the people is totally destitute of authority, because we see it
so frequently posted on the side of error. Every one considers as
infallible, the sentiment that prevails in his own country; upon this
principle, that every body says so, and every body thinks so. Who are
these every bodies? All the people in the world? Not so, because in
other places, they think and say the contrary. But is not mankind the
same in one place as another? why then should truth be more attached to
the voice of this people, than of that people? Why because this is my
country, and the other is a foreign one;--good reasoning!