INTRODUCTORY. Q 



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 biogra- 

 pher of Zadig, one Arouet de Voltaire, among whose most 

 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 the rest of the story to be 

 unhistorical, and reduce Zadig himself to the shadowy con- 

 dition 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 solitude by 

 the study of nature. The manifold wonders of the world of 

 life had a peculiar attraction for the lonely student ; inces- 

 sant and patient observation of the planets and animals 

 about him sharpened his naturally good powers of observa- 

 tion and of reasoning; until it length he acquired a saga- 

 city which enabled him to perceive endless minute differ- 

 ences among objects which, to the untutored eye, appear 

 absolutely alike. 



It might have been expected that this enlargement of the 

 powers of the mind and of its store of natural knowledge 



