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When the English friends of Russia-I mean those who are plus catholique que le Pape-more Russian than the Russians themselves -in order to exculpate the continual aggression of the Court of St. Petersburg, come forward with the analogy of England's similar doings in the South, they have only proved the unavoidableness of future collisions, and their comparison is certainly wrong in reference to England, who would be a thousand times happier were she to stop at her natural frontier of the Suleiman range, and who but reluctantly moves forward in her self-defence to the great disgust of the British taxpayer. It is only the blind who must fail to see that not an unbounded ambition, nor an Imperial' policy, but Russia's secret attacks and insatiable lust of conquest, have forced England to cross the Kheiber and the Bolan.

Here we have a constitutional free people, which clings spasmodically to the strings of the state-purse, and is always unwilling to spend the fruit of its labour upon venturesome undertakings, whilst there we see an unrestrained autocrat, who must lavish the blood and wealth of millions in order to suppress the dismal sound of the clattering of chains in the flourish of idle glory! and this is called analogy of motives? I presume the reader will conceive at once that with such a difference of motives the future prospect of a mutual understanding between England and Russia is a very dark one, and that consequently the idea of exchanging the neighbourhood of the rough, irksome, and barbarian Asiatic for that of the apparently refined European, who wears all kinds of murderous arms concealed under his dress, is the unhappiest possible in the world. If the Indian subjects of her Majesty had progressed so far in their notions about modern or Western civilisation as to appreciate fully the good intentions of their English masters, and the undeniable change for the better which has already taken place in various departments of social and political life-I mean to say, if they were keen enough to discern between the English and the Russian civilising influence in the East-there would not be the slightest fear or danger from the immediate neighbourhood of Russia. But under the actual conditions, when the question whether India be Dar-ul-Harb (Abode of War) or Dar-ul-Islam (Abode of Peace) is still largely discussed, when the innate love for continual change, so common with all Asiatics, nay, with all societies and men in the period of childhood, gives birth to vague hopes and illusions, at such a time England ought not and cannot let her outspoken rival approach the field of her activity, that enclosure upon the gates of which so many heroes have inscribed their names with blood. What use in denying the fact that the North-Western Provinces, nay, the whole Mohammedan portion of India, are yet much like a powdermill in the close vicinity of which the declared enemy cannot be admitted? Those who believe that England may avert the seditious

designs of Russia by a similar attack upon Turkestan are grossly mistaken; for the utterly coward and unpatriotic inhabitants of the Khanates can hardly be revolutionised, whilst the inimical spark thrown upon the soil of India will necessarily cause the most fearful destruction. With the settled Ozbegs, Tadjiks, Sarts, and Kuramas, any catastrophe like that of the Sepoy revolution of 1857 is wholly unimaginable.

Suffice it to say that the only means left to England to stave off successfully the plots of her rival consists exclusively in unremitting watchfulness, and not in the idle hope of a future good understanding between the two rival Powers. It would be certainly most desirable, in the interest of the civilisation of India, that the two great representatives of our Western culture should come to a mutual understanding; but the dictum of optimist writers, that Asia is big enough for the activity of both great Powers, is unfortunately an empty phrase, and the old Persian poet when saying "Ten dervishes have room on one carpet, but not two kings in one country,' is pretty near the truth. It is obviously clear that the eventual costs of the policy of extreme watchfulness and of other steps connected with it may find a more useful application in the material and moral development of India; but the acre field which we intend to till and to cultivate must be, before all, made safe against the covetousness of our neighbour. The money spent upon the late Afghan war will be only thrown away if the present Government should undo the work of their predecessors a work commanded by urgent necessity, and executed as effectually as local conditions and political party spirit in England have permitted.

Pesth: May 1880.

A. VAMBÉRY.

ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG:

RETROSPECTIVE PROPHECY AS A FUNCTION OF SCIENCE.

'Une marque plus sûre que toutes celles de Zadig.'-CUVIER.1

Ir is a usual and a commendable practice to preface the discussion of the views of a philosophic thinker by some account of the man and of the circumstances which shaped his life and coloured his way of looking at things; but, though Zadig is cited in one of the most important chapters of Cuvier's greatest work, little is known about him, and that little might perhaps be better authenticated than it is.

It is said that he lived at Babylon in the time of King Moabdar; but the name of Moabdar does not appear in the list of Babylonian sovereigns brought to light by the patience and the industry of the decipherers of cuneiform inscriptions in these later years; nor indeed am I aware that there is any other authority for his existence than that of the biographer of Zadig, one Arouet de Voltaire, among whose more conspicuous merits strict historical accuracy is perhaps hardly to be reckoned.

Happily Zadig is in the position of a great many other philosophers. What he was like when he was in the flesh, indeed whether he existed at all, are matters of no great consequence. What we care about in a light is that it shows the way, not whether it is lamp or candle, tallow or wax. Our only real interest in Zadig lies in the conceptions of which he is the putative father; and his biographer has stated these with so much clearness and vivacious illustration, that we need hardly feel a pang, even if critical research should prove King Moabdar and all the rest of the story to be unhistorical, and reduce Zadig himself to the shadowy condition of a solar myth.

Voltaire tells us that, disenchanted with life by sundry domestic misadventures, Zadig withdrew from the turmoil of Babylon to a secluded retreat on the banks of the Euphrates, where he beguiled his

''Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe,' Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles, Ed. iv. t. i. p. 185.

solitude by the study of nature. The manifold wonders of the world of life had a particular attraction for the lonely student; incessant and patient observation of the plants and animals about him sharpened his naturally good powers of observation and of reasoning; until, at length, he acquired a sagacity which enabled him to perceive endless minute differences among objects which, to the untutored eye, appeared absolutely alike.

It might have been expected that this enlargement of the powers of the mind and of its store of natural knowledge could tend to nothing but the increase of a man's own welfare and the good of his fellow-men. But Zadig was fated to experience the vanity of such expectations.

One day, walking near a little wood, he saw, hastening that way, one of the Queen's chief eunuchs, followed by a troop of officials, who appeared to be in the greatest anxiety, running hither and thither like men distraught, in search of some lost treasure.

'Young man,' cried the eunuch, 'have you seen the Queen's dog?' Zadig answered modestly, 'A bitch, I think, not a dog.' 'Quite right,' replied the eunuch; and Zadig continued, ' A very small spaniel who has lately had puppies; she limps with the left foreleg, and has very long ears.' 'Ah! you have seen her then,' said the breathless eunuch. 'No,' answered Zadig, 'I have not seen her; and I really was not aware that the Queen possessed a spaniel.'

By an odd coincidence, at the very same time, the handsomest horse in the King's stables broke away from his groom in the Babylonian plains. The grand huntsman and all his staff were seeking the horse with as much anxiety as the eunuch and his people the spaniel; and the grand huntsman asked Zadig if he had not seen the King's horse go that way.

A first-rate galloper, small-hoofed, five feet high; tail three feet and a half long; cheek pieces of the bit of twenty-three carat gold; shoes silver?' said Zadig. 'Which way did he go? Where is he?' cried the grand huntsman.

'I have not seen anything of the horse, and I never heard of him before,' replied Zadig.

The grand huntsman and the chief eunuch made sure that Zadig had stolen both the King's horse and the Queen's spaniel, so they haled him before the High Court of Desterham, which at once condemned him to the knout and transportation for life to Siberia. But the sentence was hardly pronounced when the lost horse and spaniel were found. So the judges were under the painful necessity of reconsidering their decision: but they fined Zadig four hundred ounces of gold for saying he had seen that which he had not seen.

The first thing was to pay the fine; afterwards Zadig was permitted to open his defence to the court, which he did in the following terms:

'Stars of justice, abysses of knowledge, mirrors of truth, whose gravity is as that of lead, whose inflexibility is as that of iron, who rival the diamond in clearness, and possess no little affinity with gold; since I am permitted to address your august assembly, I swear by Ormuzd that I have never seen the respectable lady dog of the Queen, nor beheld the sacrosanct horse of the King of Kings.

This is what happened. I was taking a walk towards the little wood near which I subsequently had the honour to meet the venerable chief eunuch and the most illustrious grand huntsman. I noticed the track of an animal in the sand, and it was easy to see that it was that of a small dog. Long faint streaks upon the little elevations of sand between the footmarks convinced me that it was a she dog with pendent dugs-showing that she must have had puppies not many days since.

Other scrapings of the sand, which always lay close to the marks of the forepaws, indicated that she had very long ears; and, as the imprint of one foot was always fainter than those of the other three, I judged that the lady dog of our august Queen was, if I may venture to say so, a little lame.

'With respect to the horse of the King of Kings, permit me to observe that, wandering through the paths which traverse the wood, I noticed the marks of horseshoes. They were all equidistant. "Ah!" said I, "this is a famous galloper." In a narrow alley, only seven feet wide, the dust upon the trunks of the trees was a little disturbed at three feet and a half from the middle of the path. "This horse," said I to myself, "had a tail three feet and a half long, and, lashing it from one side to the other, he has swept away the dust." Branches of the trees met overhead at the height of five feet, and under them I saw newly fallen leaves; so I knew that the horse had brushed some of the branches, and was therefore five feet high. As to his bit, it must have been made of twenty-three carat gold, for he had rubbed it against a stone, which turned out to be a touchstone, with the properties of which I am familiar by experiment. Lastly, by the marks which his shoes left upon pebbles of another kind, I was led to think that his shoes were of fine silver.'

All the judges admired Zadig's profound and subtle discernment; and the fame of it reached even the King and the Queen. From the ante-rooms to the presencechamber, Zadig's name was in everybody's mouth; and, although many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burnt as a sorcerer, the King commanded that the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been fined should be restored to him. So the officers of the court went in state with the four hundred ounces; only they retained three hundred and ninety-eight for legal expenses, and their servants expected fees.

Those who are interested in learning more of the fateful history of Zadig must turn to the original; we are dealing with him only as a philosopher, and this brief excerpt suffices for the exemplification of the nature of his conclusions and of the method by which he arrived at them.

These conclusions may be said to be of the nature of retrospective prophecies; though it is perhaps a little hazardous to employ phraseology which perilously suggests a contradiction in terms-the word 'prophecy' being so constantly in ordinary use restricted to 'foretelling.' Strictly, however, the term prophecy as much applies to outspeaking as to foretelling; and, even in the restricted sense of 'divination,' it is obvious that the essence of the prophetic operation does not lie in its backward or forward relation to the course of time, but in the fact that it is the apprehension of that which lies out of the sphere of immediate knowledge; the seeing of that which to the natural sense of the seer is invisible.

The foreteller asserts that, at some future time, a properly situated observer will witness certain events; the clairvoyant declares that, at this present time, certain things are to be witnessed a thousand miles away; the retrospective prophet (would that there were such a word as backteller '!) affirms that so many hours or years ago, such and such things were to be seen. In all these cases, it is only the relation to time which alters-the process of divination beyond the limits of possible direct knowledge remains the same.

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