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are the invisible types of the visible atoms which compose 
the five elements — JEther, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth." 
Sir Wm. Jones thinks, that by means of the Puranas, 
we shall in time discover all the learning of the Egyptians, 
without decyphering their hieroglyphics, and states having 
no doubt, that their Osiris and Isis are the Iswara and Isi 
of the Hindoos. They mean, he conceives, the powers of 
Nature, considered as male and female; and that Isa, 
like the other goddesses, represents the active power of 
her lord; whose eight forms, under which he becomes 
visible to man, were thus enumerated by Calidasa near 
two thousand years ago. " Water was the first work of 
the Creator ; and Eire receives the oblation of clarified 
butter, as the law ordains : the sacrifice is performed with 
solemnity ; the two lights of Heaven distinguish time ; the 
subtle Ether, which is the vehicle of sound, pervades the 
Universe; the Earth is the natural parent of all increase; 
and by Air, all things breathing are animated. May Isa, 
the power propitiously apparent in these eight forms, 
bless and sustain you." (Jones, on the Gods, &c.) 
In addition to what has been above-mentioned respecting 
the syllogistic form of reasoning, as in use among the ancient 
Hindoos, we may adduce the " tradition which prevailed, 
according to the well-informed author of the Dabistan, in 
the Punjab, and in several Persian provinces ; that ' among 
other Indian curiosities, which Callisthenes transmitted to 
his uncle, was a technical system of logic, which the 
Brahmans had communicated to the inquisitive Greek, 1 
and which the Mahomedan writer supposes to have been 
the ground-work of the famous Aristotelean method." 
(Jones. 11th Disc.) 
Hindoo law has been a subject necessarily paid much 
attention to, from the peculiar position of the English in 
India ; and the translations and comments of Sir W. Jones, 
