226 SURG.-GEN. C. A. GORDON, M.D., C.B., ETC., ON 
favours population, agriculture, and commerce. It directs 
that in time of war, and with a view as much as possible to 
mitigate its horrors, the produce of the field, the work of the 
artizan, the city without walls, and the defenceless village 
shall be sacred and inviolable. In actual conflict also, rules 
were to be observed such as some 30 centuries subsequently 
were to be adopted under the Geneva Convention.* The 
practice of virtue was inculcated “as necessary for procur- 
ing happiness even in this transient life. Of the laws as a 
whole, it has been observed that they tended to procure 
peace and promote happiness; to prevent violence, to en- 
courage benevolence and charity, to keep the people united 
among themselves, and to prevent their tranquillity from 
being disturbed by the introduction of foreign innovations. 
At a date some six or seven centuries prior to that of our 
era various systems of philosophy had sprung up among the 
Hindoos of ancient India, but of the whole two only were 
important in respect to the number and influence of their 
disciples, namely, the Vedanta and the Nyaya.t 
Of these the first named, Vedanta, or “ orthodox,” and the 
oldest of which record is available, had for its founder the 
sage, Kapila,§ whose doctrines in part resembled those of 
Pythagoras, in part those of Zeno. The second, Nyaya, or 
logical school, was said to have been founded by Gotama, 
otherwise Gautama, a sage who, according to eminent writers, 
was mentioned in the Vedas, and who accordingly belonged 
to an earlier period than Kapila. In it metaphysics and logic 
were presented in such a manner as to be “ better accommo- 
dated than any other anciently known in India to the natural 
reason and common sense of mankind.”|| There exists in 
India a tradition that the (heretical?) Brahmins communicated 
this system to Callisthenes, from whom it was adopted by 
Aristotle.4 
Both systems equally inculcate the practice of virtue, that 
in their actions men should be guided by the dictates of 
reason, namely, that faculty “ which enables us to distinguish 
* Birdwood, Industrial Arts of India, i, 16. But prior to the Conven- 
tion so called, similar rules were inculcated by Saladin during the 
Crusades, A.D. 1186—92. 
+ Ibid., vol. 11, p. 320. 
t See Appendix A. 
§ Mr. Chandra Sekhar Sur holds that the author of the “ Vedanta” (the 
supplement of the Vedas) is not known, and that Kapila was the author 
of the “ Sankhya Philosophy.” 
|| Craufurd, vol. 1, p. 219. 
§ Callisthenes, born B.c. 365; Aristotle, born B.c. 385. 
