688 ORIENTAL SCHOLARSHIP DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



tliem, and 1 doubt whether anybody here present would deny that it is 

 due in the first place to Oriental scholars, such as Sir W. Jones, (Jole- 

 brooke, Schlegel, Bopp, Burnouf, Lassen, and Kuhn, if we now have a 

 whole period added to the history of the world, if we now can prove 

 that long- before we knew anything of Homeric Greece, of Vedic India, 

 of Persia, Greece, Italy, and all the rest of Europe, there was a real 

 historical community formed by the speakers of Aryan tongues, that 

 they were closely held together by the bonds of a common speech and 

 common thoughts. It is equally due to the industry and genius of 

 Oriental scholars, such as De Sacy, Gesenius, Ewald, and my friend 

 the late Prof. Wright, if it can no longer be doubted that the ancestors 

 of the speakers of Babylonian and Assyrian, Syriac, Hebrew, Pheni- 

 cian, and Arabic formed once one consolidated brotherhood of Semitic 

 speech, and that however different they are when they appear for the 

 tirst time in their national costumes on the stage of history they could 

 once understand their common words and common thoughts like mem- 

 bers of one and the same family. Surely this is an achievement on 

 which Oriental scholarship has a rig^ht to take pride, when it is chal- 

 lenged to produce its title to the gratitude of the world at large. 



If we now turn our attention to another field of Oriental scholarship 

 which has been fruitful of results of the greatest importance to the 

 student of hisrory, and to the world at large, we shall be able to show, 

 not indeed that Oriental scholars have created a whole period of his- 

 tory, as in the case of the Aryas and Semites, before their respective 

 separation, but that they have inspired the oldest period in the history 

 of the world with a new life and meaning-. Instead of learning by 

 heart the unmeaning names of kings and the dates of their battles, 

 whether in Egypt, or Babylon, in Syria and Palestine, we have been 

 enabled, chiefly through the marvellous discoveries of Oriental scholars, 

 to watch their most secret thoughts, to comprehend their motives, to 

 listen to their prayers, to read even their jirivate and confidential 

 letters. Think only what ancient Egypt was to us a hundred years 

 ago! A Sphinx buried in a desert, with hardly any human features 

 left. And now, not only do we read the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and 

 demotic inscriptions, not only do we know the right names of kings and 

 queens 4000 or 5000 years B- c, but we know their gods, their worship; 

 we know their laws and their poetry; we know their folk lore and even 

 their novels. Their prayers are full of those touches which make the 

 whole world feel akin. Here is the true Isis, here is Hunmn Nature, 

 unveiled. The prayers of Babylon are more formal; still, how much 

 more living is the picture they give us of the humanity of Babylon and 

 Nineveh, than all the palaces, temples, and halls! And as to India, 

 think what India was to the scholars of the last century! A name and 

 not much more. And now! Not only have the ancient inhabitants 

 ceased to be mere idolaters or niggers; they have been recognized as 

 our brothers in language and thought, 



