189 
from the early time of Thales, or 600 years before the 
Christian era. 
But from our cursory view of ancient commerce, we 
have seen that from the earliest times it embraced the 
products of India, which are mentioned by Herodotus, and 
•were sought for by the Phoenicians, whose most flourishing 
period was from 1000 to 556 B.C. They were used by 
the Israelites in large quantities in the time of Solomon, 
or 1000 years B.C. ; but they are mentioned at still earlier 
periods. We have, moreover, seen that the Egyptians, who 
existed as a powerful and civilized nation under the Sesos- 
tridae, from B.C. 1600 to 800, and were ruled over by the 
Hyksos from 1800 to the former period, seem in very 
early ages to have been acquainted with the products of 
India. There is also a most remarkable resemblance 
between them and the Hindoos, unaccountable, if we do 
not admit that these were contemporaries ; and therefore 
if the latter did not originate, must have borrowed the 
practices which form the points of resemblance, neces- 
sarily at times quite incompatible with their also copying 
from the comparatively modern Arabs, or even from their 
chief masters, the more ancient Greeks. The only diffi- 
culty, therefore, which I feel, is in disbelieving that the 
Hindoos were an early civilized people; as in this way 
only can be explained the numerous facts alluded to in the 
previous parts of this discourse. 
Seeing, therefore, that Buddhism, called a reform of 
the abuses of Brahmanism, arose in the plains of India, 
at least in the sixth century before Christ, it proves the 
long anterior existence of the religion of the Brahmans, as 
well as of the Vedas, in which its doctrines are explained, 
and which contain no traces of Buddhism, or of the worship 
of Rama and Chrishna, as these succeeded that of the 
Elements. But even the Vedas, or at least the fourth, (which 
