Chap. VII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 127 



cannot proceed from religicn, but from a motive of honour and pride: 

 And, therefore, 1 think our author has very properly charaderifed them- 

 to be men of great pr'ide^ felf-love, and a belief that they are faints ; 

 and having a fovereign contempts for all zvho are not in their efate^ 

 and efeeming them as profane '% But, if there were any doubt, that 

 it is the principle of honour, as w^ell as of religion, which incites 

 thefe Devotees to inllidl upon themfelves fuch torments, the example 

 of the widows among the Hindoos makes the matter clear : For 

 they not only fuiTer themfelves to be burnt on the funeral pile w^ith 

 their hufbands, but infift upon it as a privilege belonging to them • 

 from the ufe of which they cannot be reftrained by any entreaties 

 of their relations or friends. Of this, three memorable examples 

 are recorded by Mr Crawford in his Sketches of the Hiftory of the Hin- 

 dGOs\, Now, the facrifice of themfelves, by fo cruel a death as that 

 of being burnt alive, can only proceed from a principle of honour 

 which makes them afhamed to furvive their hufbands, and not to 

 teftify their affedion to them by being burnt alive v/ith them, in a 

 country where fuch a practice is common: And, accordingly, the 

 author, who gives us the laft of the three examples I mentioned 

 fays, that it was not love that they bore to their hufbands, which 

 was their motive, but an opinion that it w^as a virtuous adion, high- 

 ly praife-worthy, and not to be avoided by a woman of honour J. 



Mr Crawford, in this work, vv'hich I think a valuable hiftorical 

 coUedion, mentions fome other adions of the Indians which 

 fhow that they prefer honour to life, and willijigly give up life 

 when they think it is honourable to do fo^. And, in one of thefe 

 examples, there is a memorable faying recorded of a Hindoo, (wor- 

 thy of any antient philofopher,) to whom an European Dodor pre- 

 fcribed a doze of bark and flrong wine: ' But the Hindoo poiitively 



' refufed 



* Ibid. p. 1073. I Vol. 2. Sketch 12. 



X Vol. 2. p. 28, $ Ibid. p. 67. and following. 



