I ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG 7 



the most positive manner that animals answering 

 to their description did actually exist and ran 

 about the plains of Babylon. If his method was 

 good for the divination of the course of events ten 

 hours old, why should it not be good for those of 

 ten years or ten centuries past ; nay, might it not 

 extend ten thousand years and justify the impious 

 in meddling with the traditions of Cannes and the 

 fish, and all the sacred foundations of Babylonian 

 cosmogony ? 



But this was not the worst. There was another 

 consideration which obviously dictated to the more 

 thoughtful of the magi the property of burning 

 Zadig out of hand. His defence was worse than 

 his offence. It showed that his mode of divination 

 was fraught with danger to magianism in general. 

 Swollen with the pride of human reason, he had 

 ignored the established canons of magian lore ; and, 

 trusting to what after all was mere carnal common 

 sense, he professed to lead men to a deeper insight 

 into nature than magian wisdom, with all its 

 lofty antagonism to everything common, had ever 

 reached. What, in fact, lay at the foundation of 

 all Zadig's arguments but the coarse commonplace 

 assumption, upon which every act of our daily 

 lives is based, that we may conclude from an effect 

 to the pre- existence of a cause competent to pro- 

 duce that effect ? 



The tracks were exactly like those which dogs 

 and horses leave ; therefore they were the effects 



