M. Bayle says concerning this (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, vol.  III, ch. 157, p. 991) ’that it is saying nothing, that it is prescribing for us a remedy whose preparation hardly anyone understands’.  I hold that the thing is not impossible, and that men could attain it by dint of meditation and practice.  For apart from the true martyrs and those who have been aided in wonderful wise from on high, there have been counterfeits who imitated them.  That Spanish slave who killed the Carthaginian governor in order to avenge his master and who evinced great joy in his deed, even in the greatest tortures, may shame the philosophers.  Why should not one go as far as he?  One may say of an advantage, as of a disadvantage: 

  Cuivis potest accidere, quod cuiquam potest.

256.  But even to-day entire tribes, such as the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Galibis and other peoples of America teach us a great lesson on this matter:  one cannot read without astonishment of the intrepidity and well-nigh insensibility wherewith they brave their enemies, who roast them over a slow fire and eat them by slices.  If such people could retain their physical superiority and their courage, and combine them with our acquirements, they would surpass us in every way,

  Extat ut in mediis turris aprica casis.

They would be, in comparison with us, as a giant to a dwarf, a mountain to a hill: 

  Quantus Eryx, et quantus Athos, gaudetque nivali
  Vertice se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.

[284] 257.  All that which is effected by a wonderful vigour of body and mind in these savages, who persist obstinately in the strangest point of honour, might be acquired in our case by training, by well-seasoned mortifications, by an overmastering joy founded on reason, by great practice in preserving a certain presence of mind in the midst of the distractions and impressions most liable to disturb it.  Something of this kind is related of the ancient Assassins, subjects and pupils of the Old Man or rather the Seigneur (Senior) of the Mountain.  Such a school (for a better purpose) would be good for missionaries who would wish to return to Japan.  The Gymnosophists of the ancient Indians had perhaps something resembling this, and that Calanus, who provided for Alexander the Great the spectacle of his burning alive, had doubtless been encouraged by the great examples of his masters and trained by great sufferings not to fear pain.  The wives of these same Indians, who even to-day ask to be burned with the bodies of their husbands, seem still to keep something of the courage of those ancient philosophers of their country.  I do not expect that there should straightway be founded a religious order whose purpose would be to exalt man to that high pitch of perfection:  such people would be too much above the rest, and too formidable for the authorities.  As it rarely happens that people are exposed to extremes where such great strength of mind would be needed, one will scarce think of providing for it at the expense of our usual comforts, albeit incomparably more would be gained than lost thereby.