700 ORIENTAL SCFTOLARSHIP DUEING THE PRESENT CENTURY. 



continuity and unity of ])ur})ose from beginning to end, when before 

 we saw ^lotliing but an undeeipherable cliaos. With every new dis- 

 covery tliat is made, whether in the royal libraries of Babyh^nia, or in 

 the royal tond)s of Egypt, or in the sacred l)ooks of Persia and India, 

 the rays of that sunrise are spreading wider and wider, and under its 

 light the ancient history of our race seems to crystallize, and to dis- 

 close in the very forms of its crystallization, laws or purposes running 

 through the most distant ages of the world, of which our forefathers 

 had no suspicion. Here it is where Oriental studies appeal, not to 

 specialists only, but to all who see in the history of the human race 

 the supreme i)roblem of all philosophy, a problem which in the future 

 will have to be studied, not as heretofore, by /r^^/Zor?' reasoning, but 

 chietly by the light of historical evidence. The Science of Language, 

 the Science of Mythology, the Science of Religion, aye, the Science of 

 Thought, all have assumed a new asi)e(^t, chietly through the discoveries 

 of Oriental scholars, who have placed facts in the ]»lace of theories and 

 disi)layed before us the historical development of the human race as 

 a worthy rival of the development of nature, displayed before our eyes 

 by the genius and patient labors of Darwin. - - - 



But, before T conclude, nmy 1 be allowed to tax jour i)atience a 

 few minutes longer, and to ask one more (piestion, though I know 

 that many here present are far more competent to return an authorita- 

 tive answer to it than your president. Is the benefit to be derived from 

 Oriental studies to be confined to a better understanding of the past, 

 to a truer insight into that marvellous drama, the history of the human 

 race in the East and in the West, whether in historic or prehistoric 

 times? May not our Oriental studies call for general sympathy and 

 support, as helping us to abetter understanding of the present, luiy, 

 of the future also, with regard to the ever-increasing intercourse 

 between the East and the West? Why should so many practical men, 

 so many statesmen, and rulers, and administrators of Eastern countries, 

 have joined our Congress, if they did not expect some important prac- 

 tical advantages from the study of Eastern languages and Eastern lit- 

 erature ? 



If the old ]>ernicious i)rejudice of the white man against the black, 

 of the Aryan against the Semitic race, of the Greek against the Bar- 

 barian, has been inherited by ourselves, and there are few who can say 

 that they are entirely free from that (Uuiniosa iKvycditas, m)thing, I 

 believe, has so powerfully helped to remove, or at h'ast to soften it, as 

 a more widely spread study of Oriental languages and literature. 



