OF THE ASIATICS. 1 83 



constellations, and instruments, as are clearly of 

 Indian origin, from such as were introduced into this 

 country by Musehnan astronomers from Tartary and 

 Persia, or in later days by mathematicians from 

 Ezirope* 



V. From all the properties of man and of na- 

 ture, from all the various branches of science, from 

 all the deductions of human reason, the general co- 

 rollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, bv 

 Persians, and by Chinese, is the supremacy of an all- 

 creating and all-preserving Spirit, infinitely wise, 

 good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the 

 comprehension of his most exalted creatures ; nor' 

 are there in any language (the ancient Hebrew al- 

 ways excepted) more pious and sublime addresses to 

 the Being of beings, more splendid enumerations of 

 his attributes, or more beautiful descriptions of his 

 visible works, than in Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit, 

 especially in the Koran, the introductions of the 

 poems of Sadi', Niza'mi', and Firdaus'i, the four 

 Vedds and many parts of the numerous Puranas : but 

 supplication and praise would not satisfy the bound- 

 less imagination of the Veddnii and Sufi theologists, 

 who, blending uncertain metaphysics with un- 

 doubted principles of religion, have presumed to 

 reason confidently on the very nature and essence 

 of the divine spirit, and asserted in a very remote 

 age, what multitudes of Hindus and Musschnans 

 assert at this hour, that all spirit is homogeneous; 

 that the spirit of Gon is in kind the same with that 

 of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree ; 



N 4 and 



