"<1>--Cuvier.
It is an 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.
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