ulity of his proselytes. [156] A
philosopher will observe, that their credulity and his success would
tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine mission,
that his interest and religion were inseparably connected, and that
his conscience would be soothed by the persuasion, that he alone was
absolved by the Deity from the obligation of positive and moral laws. If
he retained any vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may
be allowed as an evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the
arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have
started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied of the
importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or a priest, I
can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity; and the decree
of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the mothers should never be
separated from their children, may suspend, or moderate, the censure of
the historian. [157]

[Footnote 154: The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to Mahomet a
tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and whisper in his ear.
As this pretended miracle is urged by Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis
Christianae,) his Arabic translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him
the names of his authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to
the Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their indignation and
laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the Arabic version; but it has
maintained an edifying place in the numerous editions of the Latin
text, (Pocock, Specimen, Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187. Reland, de Religion.
Moham. l. ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]

[Footnote 155: (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122, edit.
Fischer.) The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in his Dialogue
with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129, edit. Hen. Stephan.)
are beyond the reach of human foresight; and the divine inspiration of
the philosopher is clearly taught in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The
ideas of the most rational Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de
Divinat. i. 54,) and in the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of
Tyre, (p. 153-172, edit. Davis.)]

[Footnote 156: In some passage of his voluminous writings, Voltaire
compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, "qui detache la chaine
de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a ses confreres."]

[Footnote 157: Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this humane
law o