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    On the Method of Zadig
    On the Method of Zadig
    On the Method of Zadig
    Ebook48 pages30 minutes

    On the Method of Zadig

    By Thomas Henry Huxley

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    On the Method of Zadig

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      Book preview

      On the Method of Zadig - Thomas Henry Huxley

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Method of Zadig, by Thomas Henry Huxley

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: On the Method of Zadig

             Essay #1 from Science and Hebrew Tradition

      Author: Thomas Henry Huxley

      Release Date: December 3, 2008 [EBook #2627]

      Last Updated: January 20, 2013

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG ***

      Produced by D. R. Thompson, and David Widger

      ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG

      ESSAY #1 FROM SCIENCE AND HEBREW TRADITION

      By Thomas Henry Huxley

      Contents

      RETROSPECTIVE PROPHECY AS A FUNCTION OF SCIENCE

      Une marque plus sure que toutes celles de Zadig.

      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.

      Voltaire tells us that, disenchanted with life by

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