ISSS.] 



Asiati c Society of Bengal. 



245 



the way, as any one may see v;ho 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 

 Chrysostoms, the Augustines,~-when the expansive power of Christi- 

 anity, with much of its primitive fervour, was seen in close and more 

 pgwa/ 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 distinctness) had 

 weight with me in the conception of that work which the Society has 

 honoured with such distinguished approbation. I am sensible that to 

 conceive 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,— 1 cannot see the unhesitating manner in which their senti- 

 ment 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 satisfaction at the result of the experiment, and hope for the 

 future. 



I would not however be thought to limit my interest in the Re- 

 searches of the Society to matters of this high bearing : for no specu- 

 lations 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 utility 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 concerns, 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 ab-* 

 stract 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 know^ 

 ledge of the history of man and the progress of mind ought to be 

 deemed unimportant by us, — we must remember also that we cannot 

 exactly determine beforehand how far any fragment or morsel of 

 history may conduce to that clear knowledge in the end. In investi- 

 gating the former history of India, where from the almost total ah- 



