4 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
to have ripened the human mind into an earlier maturity, fountains 
of wisdom, Chinese, Sanskrit, and Persian, are being unsealed for 
us as far as translations can do this. And here the place of honour 
undoubtedly belongs to Professor Max Miiller, whose researches 
have raised Philology to the dignity of a Science, and whose 
discoveries will place him, I believe, with Darwin and, as some 
think, Spencer, in a triumvirate of the greatest Philosophers of 
the age. To him and an army of Oriental Scholars, of whom he 
is the acknowledged chief, we owe a series of Translations of the 
Sacred Books of the East, which has already reached many 
volumes ; so that now the Upanishads may be read by those who 
are innocent of Sanskrit, and the mysteries of the Zend-Avesta are 
no longer darkened by the still deeper mysteries of D'Anquetil. 
Special interest attaches now to Assyria, whose strange libraries, 
buried nearly three thousand years, are being brought to light; 
thus forming a real addition to our previous sources of information. 
In the interpretation of these it is satisfactory to find that this 
Society is taking part, and the explanation of the Tablets in our 
Museum by one of our own Members was one of the most 
memorable features in our last year's proceedings. I am happy to 
find that we are to be favoured this session with another lecture 
on the same subject. Judging from the number of Greek and 
Latin books that issue yearly from the press, it would not appear 
that what are commonly called the Classics are losing their hold upon 
the public mind, whether regarded as a branch of polite literature 
or of School education. There is a charm about the ancient Greeks 
which we can feel if we cannot explain. Their sculpture adorns 
our Institution. In the Art Gallery the perfection of the female 
form is exhibited in the Venus de' Medici, while before us stands 
in his godlike strength and beauty the Apollo Belvedere — 
" The god who darts around the world his rays." 
But Greece is best known by her language, whose unapproach- 
able majesty and beauty have cast such a spell upon the minds of 
men from the time of Cato the Elder, who tried in vain to 
counteract the spell, to that of Gladstone, who yields so willingly 
to its power. In the present day, when such important additions 
have been made to our knowledge of the facts and laws of the 
material universe, and when so many other languages more akin 
to our own are asserting their claims, it has appeared to many 
strange that the study of the Greek and Latin Classics should still 
