Mr. H. T. Colebrooke's Discourse. xix 



European skill, it assuredly will to that of augmenting Asiatic 

 attainments. 



The course of inquiry into the arts, as into the sciences, of Asia, 

 cannot fail of leading to much which is curious, and instructive. 

 The inquiry extends over regions, the most anciently and the 

 most numerously peopled on the globe. The range of research is 

 as wide, as those regions are vast ; and as various, as the people 

 who inhabit them are diversified. It embraces their ancient and 

 modern history ; their civil polity ; their long-enduring institutions ; 

 their manners, and their customs ; their languages, and their 

 literature ; their sciences, speculative and practical : in short, the 

 progress of knowledge among them; the pitch which it has 

 attained ; and last, but most important, the means of its ex- 

 tension. 



In speaking of the history of Asiatic nations (and it is in Asia, 

 that recorded and authentic history of mankind commences), I 

 do not refer merely to the succession of political struggles, 

 national conflicts, and warlike achievements ; but rather to less 

 conspicuous, yet more important, occurrences, Avhich directly 

 concern the structure of society ; the civil institutions of nations ; 

 their internal, more than their external, relations : and the yet less 

 prominent, but more momentous, events, which affect society 

 universally, and advance it in the scale of civilized life. 



It is the history of the human mind, which is most diligently 

 to be investigated : the discoveries of the wise ; the inventions of 

 the ingenious ; and the contrivances of the skilful. 



Nothing, which has much engaged the thoughts of man, is 

 foreign to our inquiry, within the locar limits, which we have 

 prescribed to it. We do not exclude from our research the political 

 transactions of Asiatic states, nor the lucubrations of Asiatic 

 philosophers. The first are necessarily connected, in no small 

 degree, with the history of the progress of society ; the latter 

 have great influence on the literary, the speculative, and the 

 practical, avocations of men. 



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