?44 



Proceedings of Societies ? 



answer without some feelings of doubt and embarrassment. For I 

 fear to incur the imputation of aifected modesty on the one hand, — or 

 on the other, what I would equally wish to avoid, the appearance of 

 slighting in any degree the deliberate judgment of an assembly like 

 this, — were I to give expression to my actual sentiments, on hearing 

 the terms of strong and noble eulogy with which you have dignified 

 my scanty contributions to your learned stores, and the comparative- 

 ly humble attainments from which those contributions have proceed- 

 ed. But whatever may be the real value of these labours and attain-- 

 ments, — I feel, and must ever continue to feel, the great obligation 

 W'hich your praise imposes on me, of aiming to resemble as far as I 

 may, that standard of excellence which your too favourable judgment 

 has inferred from the specimens of me already before you. I must 

 ever consider it among the strongest additional incentives to the assi-. 

 duous cultivation of that knowledge, in promoting which the Asiatic 

 Society has long held so distinguished a place : a cause which I can- 

 not but consider as intimately connected with that of mental improve- 

 ment and true religion, 



I have long been impressed with the conviction that as an accurate 

 knowledge of the intellectual state of any people must precede antj 

 accompany all enlightened efforts for their amelioration,— so to attempt 

 that amelioration by appealing entirely to the lower principles of our 

 nature, the love of comforts aud luxuries and the like, while we dis- 

 regard and despise the forms, however imperfect they may be, in 

 which their own ideas of mental and moral elevation are embodied— 

 is to overlook a most essential element in the problem of human im- 

 provement,— to slight equally the spiritual and high nature of man, 

 and the history of our own gradual progress to the eminence we have 

 i-eachedo This would be 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 dis- 

 tinguished 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 mistake, 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; 

 ^t is a mistake certainly in which the Apostle of the Gentiles has le4 



