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- CHAPTER XXXIX.
Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself
An interval of silence was at last broken by Babbalanja.
Pointing to the sun, just gaining the horizon, he exclaimed, “As old
Bardianna says—shut your eyes, and believe.”
“And what may Bardianna have to do with yonder orb?” said Media.
This much, my lord, the astronomers maintain that Mardi moves round the
sun; which I, who never formally investigated the matter for myself,
can by no means credit; unless, plainly seeing one thing, I blindly
believe another. Yet even thus blindly does all Mardi subscribe to an
astronomical system, which not one in fifty thousand can astronomically
prove. And not many centuries back, my lord, all Mardi did equally
subscribe to an astronomical system, precisely the reverse of that
which they now believe. But the mass of Mardians have not as much
reason to believe the first system, as the exploded one; for all who
have eyes must assuredly see, that the sun seems to move, and that
Mardi seems a fixture, eternally _here_. But doubtless there are
theories which may be true, though the face of things belie them.
Hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem more
natural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony of their
own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis. And thus, my lord,
is it, that the mass of Mardians do not believe because they know, but
because they know not. And they are as ready to receive one thing as
another, if it comes from a canonical source. My lord, Mardi is as an
ostrich, which will swallow augh you offer, even a bar of iron, if
placed endwise. And though the iron be indigestible, yet it serves to
fill: in feeding, the end proposed. For Mardi must have something to
exercise its digestion, though that something be forever indigestible.
And as fishermen for sport, throw two lumps of bait, united by a cord,
to albatrosses floating on the sea; which are greedily attempted to be
swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the other by that; but forever are
kept reciprocally going up and down in them, by means of the cord; even
so, my lord, do I sometimes fancy, that our theorists divert
them-selves with the greediness of Mardians to believe.”
“Ha, ha,” cried Media, “methinks this must be Azzageddi who speaks.”
“No, my lord; not long since, Azzageddi received a furlough to go home
and warm himself for a while. But this leaves me not alone.”
“How?”
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