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people; for all their prejudices, all their opinions, and all their 

 customs, from the most trifling to the most important, are abso- 

 lutely incorporated with their religion, and ought all to be held 

 sacred. 



" The founder of a philosophical Utopia would certainly reject 

 with abhorrence a system which tends to enslave the human 

 mind, and to entail hereditary degradation on a large portion of his 

 citizens. But we are not here discussing a speculative theory ; 

 the objects in our contemplation are not metaphysical entities to 

 be moulded into ideal forms; but human beings, already fixed 

 in stubborn and immoveable prejudices, to which any system 

 founded in wisdom and humanity must necessarily conform. It is 

 not the question, it never can be a question, whether the English 

 or the Hindoo code of religion and jurisprudence be entitled to 

 the preference; but whether the Hindoo law and religion, for they 

 are one and the same, are, or are not, to be maintained, or whe- 

 ther we are at liberty to invade both. If we profess to govern the 

 Hindoos by their own laws, let us not falsify that profession by 

 tearing them up by the roots, on the pretence of pruning and 

 amending them. They are no longer Hindoo if they are subject 

 to innovation. Before quitting this branch of the subject, it may 

 be useful (for the sake of illustration) to examine the reasonable- 

 ness of interfering with the most exceptionable of all their institu- 

 tions. It has been thought an abomination not to be tolerated, 

 that a widow should immolate herself on the funeral pile of her 

 deceased husband. But what judgment should we pronounce on 

 the Hindoo, who (if any of our institutions admitted the parallel) 

 should forcibly pretend to stand between a Christian and the hope 



