GhazzaWs Alchemy of Happiness. 



41 



reason and opposed to superstition, it will be found that 

 he quotes from him. 1 



This treatise on the Alchemy of Happiness, or Kimiai 

 Saadet, seems well adapted to extend our knowledge of 

 the writings of Ghazzali and of the opinions current then 

 and now in the Oriental world. Although it throws no 

 light on any questions of geography, philology or political 

 history, objects most frequently in view in translations 

 from the Oriental languages, yet a book which exhibits 

 with such plainness the opinions of so large a portion of 

 the human race as the Mohammedans, on questions of 

 philosophy, practical morality and religion, will always be 

 as interesting to the general reader and to a numerous 

 class of students, as the facts that may be elicited to com- 

 plete a series of kings in a dynasty or to establish the site 

 of an ancient city can be to the historian or the geographer. 

 I translate it from an edition published in Turkish in 1845 

 (A. H., 1260), at the imperial printing press in Constan- 

 tinople. As no books are allowed to be printed there which 

 have not passed under the eyes of the censor, the doctrines 

 presented in. the book indicate, not only the opinions of 

 eight hundred years since, but also what views are re- 

 garded as orthodox, or tolerated among the orthodox at 

 the present day. It has been printed also in Persian at 

 Calcutta. 



In form, the book contains a treatise on practical piety, 

 but as is the case with a large proportion of Mohammedan 

 works, the author, whatever may be his subject, finds a 

 place for observations reaching far wide of his apparent 

 aim, so our author is led to make many observations which 

 develop his notions in anatomy, physiology, natural phi- 

 losophy and natural religion. The partisans of all sorts of 

 opinions will be interested in finding that a Mohammedan 



1 Sale's Koran,, vol. I, p. 326, and note. 

 Trans. viii.~\ 6 



