OF THE ASIATICS. \5j 



perties, and to their quantity both separate and unit- 

 ed, finite and infinite ; from all which objects he 

 deduces notions, either purely abstract and universal, 

 or mixed with undoubted facts -, he argues from phe- 

 nomena to theorems, from those theorems to other 

 phenomena ; from causes to effects, from effects to 

 causes, and thus arrives at the demonstration oi^first 

 intelligent cause : whence his collected wisdom, being 

 arranged in the form of science, chiefly consists of 

 physiology and medicine, metaphysics and logic, ethics 

 and jurisprudence, natural philosophy and mathematics \ 

 from which the religion of nature (since revealed reli- 

 gion must be referred to history , as alone affording 

 evidence of it) has in all ages and in all nations been 

 the sublime and consoling result. Without professing 

 to have given a logical definition of science, or to have 

 exhibited a perfect enumeration of its objects, I shall 

 confine myself to those j£i'£ divisions of Asiatic Philo- 

 sophy ; enlarging for the most part on the progress 

 which the Hindus have made in them, and occasionally 

 introducing the sciences of the Arabs and Persians, the 

 Tartars and the Chinese : but, how extensive soever 

 may be the range which I have chosen, I shall be- 

 ware of exhausting your patience with tedious dis- 

 cussions, and of exceeding those limits which the 

 occasion of our present meeting has necessarily pre- 

 scribed. 



I. The first article affords little scope; since I 

 have no evidence that, in any language of Asia, there 

 exists one original treatise on medicine considered 



M 4 as 



