distance; and he had said to himself that here was a steed with a
perfect stride. The path was narrow, being only seven feet wide, and
here and there the dust had been flicked from the trees on either hand,
and so Zadig had made sure that the horse had a tail three and a half
feet long. The branches crossed over the path at the height of five
feet, and as leaves had been broken off, the observer had decided that
the horse was just five feet high. As to the bit, this must be of gold,
since the horse had rubbed it against a stone, which Zadig had
recognized as a touchstone and on which he had assayed the trace of
precious metal. And from the marks left by the horse's shoes on another
kind of stone Zadig had felt certain that they were made of eleven-penny
silver.

Huxley has pointed out that the method of Zadig is the method which has
made possible the incessant scientific discovery of the last century. It
is the method of Wellington at Assaye, assuming that there must be a
ford at a certain place on the river, because there was a village on
each side. It is the method of Grant at Vicksburg, examining the
knapsacks of the Confederate soldiers slain in a sortie to see if these
contained rations, which would show that the garrison was seeking to
break out because the place was untenable. It is also the method of Poe
in the 'Gold-Bug' and in the 'Murders of the Rue Morgue.' In all
probability Poe borrowed it directly from Voltaire, who had taken it
over from Oriental folklore.

In his application of this method, not casually, playfully, and with
satiric intent, as Voltaire had applied it, but seriously and taking it
as the mainspring of his story, Poe added an ingenious improvement of
his own devising. Upon the preternaturally acute observer who was to
control the machinery of the tale, the American poet bestowed a