802 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Skpt. 



own gradual progress to the eminence we have reached. This would he true, 

 even if the language and literature in which these ideas were incorporated by the 

 natives of this country were far inferior to what they are known and acknowledged 

 to be by the most accomplished spirits of civilized Europe, — the one nearly un- 

 rivalled for its powers of combination and expression — the other distinguished 

 by a peculiar grace and tenderness of sentiment, and in the higher flights of 

 speculation into regions where man requires better guidance than his own reason 

 can impart — characterized, even when most tarnished by error, by a singular 

 acuteness and profundity, as well as grandeur of thought. Now if it be a mis- 

 take, in matters of religion particularly, to avail ourselves of what is good and just 

 in heathen theology, with a view to its rectification by revealed truth; it is a 

 mistake certainly in which the Apostle of the Gentiles has led the way, as any 

 one may see who observes his appeal not only to the ethical but the theological 

 poetry of heathenism — even when most nearly treading on the verge of that same 

 Pantheistic sentiment which characterizes the theology of heathen India: and 

 if any precedent could be wanted after this inspired authority, we might find it in 

 the course taken by all the great lights of the Church, the Basils, the Chrysos- 

 toms, the Augustinks, — when the expansive power of Christianity, with much of 

 its primitive fervour, was seen in close and more equal juxta-position with the faded 

 yet still conspicuous splendours of Western Gentilism. These considerations (if 

 authority were needed where the reason of the case speaks with sufficient dis- 

 tinctness) had weight with me in the conception of that work which the Society 

 has honored with such distinguished approbation. I am sensible that to con- 

 ceive and to execute are very different things, and I cannot venture to take to 

 myself all which your kind judgment has been led, perhaps too readily, to transfer 

 from the one to the other : yet I cannot see the manner in which learned natives 

 have received many portions of this work, — I cannot see the unhesitating manner 

 in which their sentiment has been adopted in this assembly, including some whom 

 only the increased complexity of public affairs prevents from marching in equal 

 steps with the Colebrookes and the Wilsons of former days, — without satis- 

 faction at the result of the experiment, and hope for the future. 



I would not however be thought to limit my interest in the Researches of 

 the Society to matters of this high bearing : for no speculations into either 

 the works of nature, or the monuments of man, are without their proper claim 

 to attention : and just and reasonable as it is to inquire into the solid uti- 

 lity of any pursuit we undertake, — it never appeared to me either wise or 

 worthy to ask at every turn what special usefulness, or bearing on present con- 

 cerns, may appear in each part or section of the study before us. In science 

 we know that things, which were once thought to be mere food of learned and 

 abstract mathematical speculation, have turned out in the progress of knowledge 

 to subserve the most practical purposes ; and with respect to those literary and 

 antiquarian researches, which form the more proper object of this Society, — 

 while nothing that gives us clear knowledge of the history of man and the pro- 

 gress of mind ought to be deemed unimportant by us, — we must remember also 

 that we cannot exactly determine beforehand how far any fragment or mor- 

 sel of history may conduce to that clear knowledge in the end. In investigating the 

 former history of India, where from the almost total absence of written do- 

 cuments, we must needs proceed by such fragments and morsels, — it is very 

 necessary to bear this in mind. With respect to my own occasional share in 

 these researches, — of which you have made such kind and flattering mention, — 

 1 fear that what I have succeeded in deciphering has scarcely adequately repaid 

 the labour bestowed: my own judgment could never admit the idea, which some 

 even of considerable eminence in these pursuits would have led me to entertain 

 as probable, that the classical period of Indian history had been attained : I 

 adopted at length firmly, however reluctantly, the conviction which both internal 

 and external evidence forced upon me, that the monuments in question belonged 

 to a much darker as well as more recent age. A better fortune, as well as a 

 higher merit, has characterised the efforts in the same kind of another Member 

 of the Society now present ; whose happy researches on other monuments, con- 

 ducted under much greater disadvantages in every way than mine, has finally led 

 to a conclusion, which I think all but certainly established, that they belong to 



