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.

No doubt it was their instinctive recognition of the analogy between
Zadig's results and those obtained by authorised inspiration which
inspired the Babylonian magi with the desire to burn the philosopher.
Zadig admitted that he had never either seen or heard of the horse of
the king or of the spaniel of the queen; and yet he ventured to assert
in 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 Oannes 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 propriety 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 argument 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
produce that effect?

The tracks were exactly like those which dogs and horses leave;
therefore they were the effects of such animals as causes. The marks at
the sides of the fore-prints of the dog track were exactly such as would
be produced by long trailing ears; therefore the dog's long ears were
the causes of these marks--and so on. Nothing can be more hopelessly
vulgar, more unlike the majestic development of a system of grandly
unintelligible conclusions from sublimely inconceivable premisses such
as delights the magian heart. In fact, Zadig's method was nothing
but the method of all mankind. Retrospective prophecies, far more
astonishing for t