The Ruins

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On one side I saw the European, with his short close coat, pointed
triangular hat, smooth chin, and powdered hair; on the other side the
Asiatic, with a flowing robe, long beard, shaved head, and round turban.
Here stood the nations of Africa, with their ebony skins, their woolly
hair, their body girt with white and blue tissues of bark, adorned with
bracelets and necklaces of coral, shells, and glass; there the tribes
of the north, enveloped in their leathern bags; the Laplander, with his
pointed bonnet and his snow-shoes; the Samoyede, with his feverish body
and strong odor; the Tongouse, with his horned cap, and carrying his
idols pendant from his neck; the Yakoute, with his freckled face; the
Kalmuc, with his flat nose and little retorted eyes. Farther distant
were the Chinese, attired in silk, with their hair hanging in tresses;
the Japanese, of mingled race; the Malays, with wide-spreading ears,
rings in their noses, and palm-leaf hats of vast circumference;* and the
tattooed races of the isles of the southern ocean and of the continent
of the antipodes.** The view of so many varieties of the same species,
of so many extravagant inventions of the same understanding, and of so
many modifications of the same organization, affected me with a thousand
feelings and a thousand thoughts.*** I contemplated with astonishment
this gradation of color, which, passing from a bright carnation to a
light brown, a deeper brown, dusky, bronze, olive, leaden, copper, ends
in the black of ebony and of jet. And finding the Cassimerian, with his
rosy cheek, next to the sun-burnt Hindoo, and the Georgian by the side
of the Tartar, I reflected on the effects of climate hot or cold, of
soil high or low, marshy or dry, open or shaded. I compared the dwarf of
the pole with the giant of the temperate zones, the slender body of
the Arab with the ample chest of the Hollander; the squat figure of
the Samoyede with the elegant form of the Greek and the Sclavonian; the
greasy black wool of the Negro with the bright silken locks of the Dane;
the broad face of the Kalmuc, his little angular eyes and flattened
nose, with the oval prominent visage, large blue eyes, and aquiline nose
of the Circassian and Abazan. I contrasted the brilliant calicoes of the
Indian, the well-wrought stuffs of the European, the rich furs of the
Siberian, with the tissues of bark, of osiers, leaves and feathers of
savage nations; and the blue figures of serpents, flowers, and
stars, with which they painted their bodies. Sometimes the variegated
appearance of this multitude reminded me of the enamelled meadows of the
Nile and the Euphrates, when, after rains or inundations, millions of
flowers are rising on every side. Sometimes their murmurs and their
motions called to mind the numberless swarms of locusts which, issuing
from the desert, cover in the spring the plains of Hauran.

* This species of the palm-tree is called Latanier. Its
leaf, similar to a fan-mount, grows upon a stalk issuing
directly from the earth. A specimen may be seen in the
botanic garden.

** The country of the Papons of New Guinea.

*** A hall of costumes in one of the galleries of the Louvre
would, in every point of view, be an interesting
establishment. It would furnish an admirable treat to the
curiosity of a great number of persons, excellent models to
the artist, and useful subjects of meditation to the
physician, the philosopher and the legislator.

Picture to yourself a collection of the various faces and
figures of every country and nation, exhibiting accurately,
color, features and form; what a field for investigation and
enquiry as to the influence of climate, customs, food, etc.
It might truly be called the science of man! Buffon has
attempted a chapter of this nature, but it only serves to
exhibit more strikingly our actual ignorance. Such a
collection is said to have been begun at St. Petersburg, but
it is also said at the same time to be as imperfect as the
vocabulary of the three hundred languages. The enterprise
would be worthy of the French nation.

At the sight of so many rational beings, considering on the one hand the
immensity of thoughts and sensations assembled in this place, and on the
other hand, reflecting on the opposition of so many opinions, and the
shock of so many passions of men so capricious, I struggled between
astonishment, admiration, and secret dread--when the legislator
commanded silence, and attracted all my attention.

Inhabitants of earth! a free and powerful nation addresses you with
words of justice and peace, and she offers you the sure pledges of her
intentions in her own conviction and experience. Long afflicted with the
same evils as yourselves, we sought for their source, and found them
all derived from violence and injustice, erected into law by the
inexperience of past ages, and maintained by the prejudices of the
present. Then abolishing our artificial and arbitrary institutions,
and recurring to the origin of all right and reason, we have found
that there existed in the very order of nature and in the physical
constitution of man, eternal and immutable laws, which only waited his
observance to render him happy.

O men! cast your eyes on the heavens that give you light, and on the
earth that gives you bread! Since they offer the same bounties to you
all--since from the power that gives them motion you have all received
the same life, the same organs, have you not likewise all received the
same right to enjoy its benefits? Has it not hereby declared you all
equal and free? What mortal shall dare refuse to his fellow that which
nature gives him?

O nations! let us banish all tyranny and all discord; let us form but
one society, one great family; and, since human nature has but one
constitution, let there exist in future but one law, that of nature--but
one code, that of reason--but one throne, that of justice--but one
altar, that of union.

He ceased; and an immense acclamation resounded to the skies. Ten
thousand benedictions announced the transports of the multitude; and
they made the earth re-echo JUSTICE, EQUALITY and UNION.

But different emotions soon succeeded; soon the doctors and the chiefs
of nations exciting a spirit of dispute, there was heard a sullen
murmur, which growing louder, and spreading from group to group, became
a vast disorder; and each nation setting up exclusive pretensions,
claimed a preference for its own code and opinion.

You are in error, said the parties, pointing one to the other. We alone
are in possession of reason and truth. We alone have the true law,
the real rule of right and justice, the only means of happiness and
perfection. All other men are either blind or rebellious.

And great agitation prevailed.

Then the legislator, after enforcing silence, loudly exclaimed:

What, O people! is this passionate emotion? Whither will this quarrel
conduct you? What can you expect from this dissension? The earth has
been for ages a field of disputation, and you have shed torrents of
blood in your controversies. What have you gained by so many battles
and tears? When the strong has subjected the weak to his opinion, has he
thereby aided the cause of truth?

O nations! take counsel of your own wisdom. When among yourselves
disputes arise between families and individuals, how do you reconcile
them? Do you not give them arbitrators?

Yes, cried the whole multitude.

Do so then to the authors of your present dissensions. Order those who
call themselves your instructors, and who force their creeds upon
you, to discuss before you their reasons. Since they appeal to your
interests, inform yourselves how they support them.

And you, chiefs and governors of the people! before dragging the masses
into the quarrels resulting from your diverse opinions, let the reasons
for and against your views be given. Let us establish one solemn
controversy, one public scrutiny of truth--not before the tribunal of a
corruptible individual, or of a prejudiced party, but in the grand forum
of mankind--guarded by all their information and all their interests.
Let the natural sense of the whole human race be our arbiter and judge.



CHAPTER XX.

THE SEARCH OF TRUTH.


The people expressed their applause, and the legislator continued: To
proceed with order, and avoid all confusion, let a spacious semicircle
be left vacant in front of the altar of peace and union; let each system
of religion, and each particular sect, erect its proper distinctive
standard on the line of this semicircle; let its chiefs and doctors
place themselves around the standard, and their followers form a column
behind them.

The semicircle being traced, and the order published, there instantly
rose an innumerable multitude of standards, of all colors and of every
form, like what we see in a great commercial port, when, on a day of
rejoicing, a thousand different flags and streamers are floating from a
forest of masts.

At the sight of this prodigious diversity, I turned towards the Genius
and said:

I thought that the earth was divided only into eight or ten systems of
faith, and I then despaired of a reconciliation; I now behold thousands
of different sects, and how can I hope for concord?

But these, replied the Genius, are not all; and yet they will be
intolerant!

Then, as the groups advanced to take their stations, he pointed out to
me their distinctive marks, and thus began to explain their characters:

That first group, said he, with a green banner bearing a crescent, a
bandage, and a sabre, are the followers of the Arabian prophet. To say
there is a God, without knowing what he is; to believe the words of a
man, without understanding his language; to go into the desert to pray
to God, who is everywhere; to wash the hands with water, and not abstain
from blood; to fast all day, and eat all night; to give alms of their
own goods, and to plunder those of others; such are the means of
perfection instituted by Mahomet--such are the symbols of his followers;
and whoever does not bear them is a reprobate, stricken with anathema,
and devoted to the sword.

A God of clemency, the author of life, has instituted these laws of
oppression and murder: he made them for all the world, but has revealed
them only to one man; he established them from all eternity, though he
made them known but yesterday. These laws are abundantly sufficient
for all purposes, and yet a volume is added to them. This volume was
to diffuse light, to exhibit evidence, to lead men to perfection and
happiness; and yet every page was so full of obscurities, ambiguities,
and contradictions, that commentaries and explanations became necessary,
even in the life-time of its apostle. Its interpreters, differing in
opinion, divided into opposite and hostile sects. One maintains that Ali
is the true successor; the other contends for Omar and Aboubekre. This
denies the eternity of the Koran; that the necessity of ablutions and
prayers. The Carmite forbids pilgrimages, and allows the use of wine;
the Hakemite preaches the transmigration of souls. Thus they make up
the number of seventy-two sects, whose banners are before you.* In this
contestation, every one attributing the evidence of truth exclusively to
himself, and taxing all others with heresy and rebellion, turns against
them its sanguinary zeal. And their religion, which celebrates a mild
and merciful God, the common father of all men,--changed to a torch of
discord, a signal for war and murder, has not ceased for twelve hundred
years to deluge the earth in blood, and to ravage and desolate the
ancient hemisphere from centre to circumference.**

* The Mussulmen enumerate in common seventy-two sects, but I
read, while I resided among them, a work which gave an
account of more than eighty,--all equally wise and
important.

** Read the history of Islamism by its own writers, and you
will be convinced that one of the principal causes of the
wars which have desolated Asia and Africa, since the days of
Mahomet, has been the apostolical fanaticism of its
doctrine. Caesar has been supposed to have destroyed three
millions of men: it would be interesting to make a similar
calculation respecting every founder of a religious system.

Those men, distinguished by their enormous white turbans, their broad
sleeves, and their long rosaries, are the Imans, the Mollas, and the
Muftis; and near them are the Dervishes with pointed bonnets, and the
Santons with dishevelled hair. Behold with what vehemence they recite
their professions of faith! They are now beginning a dispute about
the greater and lesser impurities--about the matter and the manner of
ablutions,--about the attributes of God and his perfections--about the
Chaitan, and the good and wicked angels,--about death, the resurrection,
the interrogatory in the tomb, the judgment, the passage of the narrow
bridge not broader than a hair, the balance of works, the pains of hell,
and the joys of paradise.


Next to these, that second more numerous group, with white banners
intersected with crosses, are the followers of Jesus. Acknowledging the
same God with the Mussulmans, founding their belief on the same books,
admitting, like them, a first man who lost the human race by eating an
apple, they hold them, however, in a holy abhorrence; and, out of pure
piety, they call each other impious blasphemers.

The great point of their dissension consists in this, that after
admitting a God one and indivisible the Christian divides him into three
persons, each of which he believes to be a complete and entire God,
without ceasing to constitute an identical whole, by the indivisibility
of the three. And he adds, that this being, who fills the universe,
has reduced himself to the body of a man; and has assumed material,
perishable, and limited organs, without ceasing to be immaterial,
infinite, and eternal. The Mussulman who does not comprehend these
mysteries, rejects them as follies, and the visions of a distempered
brain; though he conceives perfectly well the eternity of the Koran, and
the mission of the prophet: hence their implacable hatreds.

Again, the Christians, divided among themselves on many points, have
formed parties not less violent than the Mussulmans; and their quarrels
are so much the more obstinate, as the objects of them are inaccessible
to the senses and incapable of demonstration: their opinions, therefore,
have no other basis but the will and caprice of the parties. Thus,
while they agree that God is a being incomprehensible and unknown, they
dispute, nevertheless, about his essence, his mode of acting, and his
attributes. While they agree that his pretended transformation into man
is an enigma above the human understanding, they dispute on the junction
or distinction of his two wills and his two natures, on his change
of substance, on the real or fictitious presence, on the mode of
incarnation, etc.

Hence those innumerable sects, of which two or three hundred have
already perished, and three or four hundred others, which still subsist,
display those numberless banners which here distract your sight.

The first in order, surrounded by a group in varied and fantastic
dress, that confused mixture of violet, red, white, black and speckled
garments--with heads shaved, or with tonsures, or with short hair--with
red hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards, is the
standard of the Roman pontiff, who, uniting the civil government to
the priesthood, has erected the supremacy of his city into a point of
religion, and made of his pride an article of faith.

On his right you see the Greek pontiff, who, proud of the rivalship of
his metropolis, sets up equal pretensions, and supports them against the
Western church by the priority of that of the East. On the left are the
standards of two recent chiefs,* who, shaking off a yoke that had become
tyrannical, have raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested
half of Europe from the pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects,
subdivided from the principal divisions, the Nestorians, the Eutycheans,
the Jacobites, the Iconoclasts, the Anabaptists, the Presbyterians,
the Wicliffites, the Osiandrians, the Manicheans, the Pietists, the
Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weepers, and a hundred
others,** all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong, tolerant
when weak, hating each other in the name of a God of peace, forming each
an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity, dooming each
other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing in this
world the imaginary hell of the other.

* Luther and Calvin.

** Consult upon this subject Dictionnaire des Herseies par
l'Abbe Pluquet, in two volumes 8vo.: a work admirably
calculated to inspire the mind with philosophy, in the sense
that the Lacedemonians taught the children temperance by
showing to them the drunken Helots.

After this group, observing a lonely standard of the color of hyacinth,
round which were assembled men clad in all the different dresses of
Europe and Asia:

At least, said I, to the Genius, we shall find unanimity here.

Yes, said he, at first sight and by a momentary accident. Dost thou not
know that system of worship?

Then, perceiving in Hebrew letters the monogram of the name of God, and
the palms which the Rabbins held in their hands:

True, said I, these are the children of Moses, dispersed even to this
day, abhorring every nation, and abhorred and persecuted by all.

Yes, he replied, and for this reason, that, having neither the time nor
liberty to dispute, they have the appearance of unanimity. But no sooner
will they come together, compare their principles, and reason on
their opinions, than they will separate as formerly, at least into two
principal sects;* one of which, taking advantage of the silence of their
legislator, and adhering to the literal sense of his books, will deny
everything that is not clearly expressed therein; and on this principle
will reject as profane inventions, the immortality of the soul, its
transmigration to places of pain or pleasure, its resurrection, the
final judgment, the good and bad angels, the revolt of the evil Genius,
and all the poetical belief of a world to come. And this highly-favored
people, whose perfection consists in a slight mutilation of their
persons,--this atom of a people, which forms but a small wave in the
ocean of mankind, and which insists that God has made nothing but for
them, will by its schism reduce to one-half, its present trifling weight
in the scale of the universe.

* The Sadducees and Pharisees.

He then showed me a neighboring group, composed of men dressed in white
robes, wearing a veil over their mouths, and ranged around a banner of
the color of the morning sky, on which was painted a globe cleft in two
hemispheres, black and white: The same thing will happen, said he, to
these children of Zoroaster,* the obscure remnant of a people once so
powerful. At present, persecuted like the Jews, and dispersed among
all nations, they receive without discussion the precepts of the
representative of their prophet. But as soon as the Mobed and the
Destours** shall assemble, they will renew the controversy about the
good and the bad principle; on the combats of Ormuzd, God of light, and
Ahrimanes, God of darkness; on the direct and allegorical sense; on
the good and evil Genii; on the worship of fire and the elements; on
impurities and ablutions; on the resurrection of the soul and body, or
only of the soul;*** on the renovation of the present world, and on that
which is to take its place. And the Parses will divide into sects, so
much the more numerous, as their families will have contracted, during
their dispersion, the manners and opinions of different nations.

* They are the Parses, better known by the opprobrious name
of Gaures or Guebres, another word for infidels. They are
in Asia what the Jews are in Europe. The name of their pope
or high priest is Mobed.

** That is to say, their priests. See, respecting the rites
of this religion, Henry Lord Hyde, and the Zendavesta.
Their costume is a robe with a belt of four knots, and a
veil over their mouth for fear of polluting the fire with
their breath.

*** The Zoroastrians are divided between two opinions; one
party believing that both soul and body will rise, the other
that it will be the soul only. The Christians and
Mahometans have embraced the most solid of the two.

Next to these, remark those banners of an azure ground, painted with
monstrous figures of human bodies, double, triple, and quadruple, with
heads of lions, boars, and elephants, and tails of fishes and tortoises;
these are the ensigns of the sects of India, who find their gods in
various animals, and the souls of their fathers in reptiles and insects.
These men support hospitals for hawks, serpents, and rats, and they
abhor their fellow creatures! They purify themselves with the dung and
urine of cows, and think themselves defiled by the touch of a man! They
wear a net over the mouth, lest, in a fly, they should swallow a soul
in a state of penance,* and they can see a Pariah** perish with hunger!
They acknowledge the same gods, but they separate into hostile bands.

* According to the system of the Metempsychosis, a soul, to
undergo purification, passes into the body of some insect or
animal. It is of importance not to disturb this penance, as
the work must in that case begin afresh.

** This is the name of a cast or tribe reputed unclean,
because they eat of what has enjoyed life.

The first standard, retired from the rest, bearing a figure with four
heads, is that of Brama, who, though the creator of the universe, is
without temples or followers; but, reduced to serve as a pedestal to the
Lingam,* he contents himself with a little water which the Bramin throws
every morning on his shoulder, reciting meanwhile an idle canticle in
his praise.

* See Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes, vol. 1.

The second, bearing a kite with a scarlet body and a white head, is that
of Vichenou, who, though preserver of the world, has passed part of his
life in wicked actions. You sometimes see him under the hideous form
of a boar or a lion, tearing human entrails, or under that of a horse,*
shortly to come armed with a sword to destroy the human race, blot out
the stars, annihilate the planets, shake the earth, and force the great
serpent to vomit a fire which shall consume the spheres.

* These are the incarnations of Vichenou, or metamorphoses
of the sun. He is to come at the end of the world, that is,
at the expiration of the great period, in the form of a
horse, like the four horses of the Apocalypse.

The third is that of Chiven, God of destruction and desolation, who has,
however, for his emblem the symbol of generation. He is the most wicked
of the three, and he has the most followers. These men, proud of his
character, express in their devotions to him their contempt for
the other gods,* his equals and brothers; and, in imitation of his
inconsistencies, while they profess great modesty and chastity, they
publicly crown with flowers, and sprinkle with milk and honey, the
obscene image of the Lingam.

* When a sectary of Chiven hears the name of Vichenou
pronounced, he stops his ears, runs, and purifies himself.

In the rear of these, approach the smaller standards of a multitude of
gods--male, female, and hermaphrodite. These are friends and relations
of the principal gods, who have passed their lives in wars among
themselves, and their followers imitate them. These gods have need of
nothing, and they are constantly receiving presents; they are omnipotent
and omnipresent, and a priest, by muttering a few words, shuts them up
in an idol or a pitcher, to sell their favors for his own benefit.


Beyond these, that cloud of standards, which, on a yellow ground, common
to them all, bear various emblems, are those of the same god, who reins
under different names in the nations of the East. The Chinese adores him
in Fot,* the Japanese in Budso, the Ceylonese in Bedhou, the people of
Laos in Chekia, of Pegu in Phta, of Siam in Sommona-Kodom, of Thibet
in Budd and in La. Agreeing in some points of his history, they all
celebrate his life of penitence, his mortifications, his fastings, his
functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity between him and another
god, his adversary, their battles, and his ascendency. But as they
disagree on the means of pleasing him, they dispute about rites and
ceremonies, and about the dogmas of interior doctrine and of public
doctrine. That Japanese Bonze, with a yellow robe and naked head,
preaches the eternity of souls, and their successive transmigrations
into various bodies; near him, the Sintoist denies that souls can exist
separate from the senses,** and maintains that they are only the effect
of the organs to which they belong, and with which they must perish, as
the sound of the flute perishes with the flute. Near him, the Siamese,
with his eyebrows shaved, and a talipat screen*** in his hand,
recommends alms, offerings, and expiations, at the same time that he
preaches blind necessity and inexorable fate. The Chinese vo-chung
sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors; and next him, the follower of
Confucius interrogates his destiny in the cast of dice and the movement
of the stars.**** That child, surrounded by a swarm of priests in yellow
robes and hats, is the Grand Lama, in whom the god of Thibet has just
become incarnate.*5 But a rival has arisen who partakes this benefit
with him; and the Kalmouc on the banks of the Baikal, has a God similar
to the inhabitant of Lasa. And they agree, also, in one important
point--that god can inhabit only a human body. They both laugh at
the stupidity of the Indian who pays homage to cow-dung, though they
themselves consecrate the excrements of their high-priest.*6