174 ox THE PHILOSOPHY 



which has been maintained in the present century 

 with great elegance, but with little public applause ; 

 partly because it has been misunderstood, and partly 

 because it has been misapplied by the false reasoning 

 of some unpopular writers, who are said to have 

 disbelieved in the moral attributes of God, whose 

 omnipresence, wisdom, and goodness, are the basis 

 of the Indian philosophy. I have not sufficient evi- 

 dence on the subject to profess a belief in the doc- 

 trine of the Vcddnta, which human reason alone 

 could, perhaps, neither fully demonstrate, nor fully 

 disprove; but it is manifest, that nothing can be 

 farther removed from impiety than a system wholly 

 built on the purest devotion ; and the inexpressible 

 difficulty which any man, who shall make the at- 

 tempt, will assuredly find in giving a satisfactory 

 definition of material substance, must induce us to de- 

 liberate with coolness, before we censure the learned 

 and pious restorer of the ancient Vcda.\ though we 

 cannot but admit, that, if the common opinions of 

 mankind be the criterion of philosophical truth, we 

 must adhere to the system of Go'tama. which the 

 Brdmens of this province almost universally follow. 



If the metaphysics of the Pea ild ai 1 



erroneous, the pupils of Blddha have run, it is a - 

 serted, into an error diametrically opposite ; for they 

 are charged with denying the existence of pure spirit, 

 and with believing nothing absolutely and really to 

 exist but material substance : a heavy accusation 

 which ought only to have been made on positive 



and 



