la '■•,Ht,-Vup .,;v■:;:V:^v;■-::..■l■ ■ .>-^>i,.j^vvA- .,-.-• ;'-,;^'^'-, , ■■<■ - <• ■ 'W*:j'j^.;. ■ 4 . - I /.-■ -T. ^,. k ->'^ ^ - ■ ^ , * COLLECTED WORKS OF THE RIGHT HON. F. MAX MULLER V CHIPS FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP I. RECENT ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ANDREA DEL SARTO's CARITA (Ot-isiiial size ^/t. ^ in. ly ^/t. i /«.) Vol I. See {'iij^e 406 CHIPS FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP BY F. MAX MULLER, K.M. FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE VOL. I RECENT ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES NEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY 1902 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Original Edition, Vols. I aud II, 8vo, November, 1867 ; Reprinted, October, 1868; Vol. Ill, 8vo, November, 1870; Reprinted, August, 1880; Vol. IV, 8vo, October, 1875; New Edition, with Additions, 4 Vols. Crown 8vo, 1894-5; Reprinted in Collected Edition of Prof. Max Miiller's Works, Vol.1, July, i8y8; March, 1902. DEDICATED TO HIS IMPEHIAL AND KOYAL MAJESTY WILHELM H GERMAN EMPEROR AND KING OF PRUSSIA THE WORTHY SUCCESSOR OF GLORIOUS ANCESTORS AS A VERY SMALL TOKEN OF DEEPFELT GRATITUDE AND SINCERE ADMIRATION PREFACE. AFTER reaching the age of threescore years - and ten, a scholar may fairly claim the right to join the ranks of the spectators, and to leave the dusty arena to younger gladiators. Yet it is difficult to resist the temptation to descend once more on the scene of action, particularly if encouraged by the call of our friends. This is exactly what has happened to me. My ' Chips from a German Workshop,' published in four volumes in 1867 (second edition, 1868), have been out of print for many years. I am informed that it is difficult now to find a copy even at second hand. Some years ago, when asked to prepare a new edition of my collected Essays, I preferred to make a selection, which was published in two volumes under the title of 'Selected Essays,' 1881. This selection, however, has failed to please the public. I was told that an author was a very bad judge of his own work, and that my friends VI PREFACE. missed In this collection the very papers which they liked best and wished most to possess. What was I to do but to obey ? Had I fol- lowed my own inclination only, I should certainly have preferred to see some of the essays written by me when I was a very young man, consigned to oblivion. But there they are, and whether I allowed them to be published once more or not, I knew I should have been held responsible just the same for what I had written in any one of them. I am still taken to task for my 'Letter on the Turanian Languages,' which I addressed to Bunsen in the year 1853, and which was published by him in his 'Christianity and Mankind' in 1854, though I never allowed it to be reprinted, and though I have taken every oj)portunity to declare that I have ceased to hold several of the opinions put forward in that letter, and that by Turanian I never meant a family of speech, in the same sense in which we speak of an Aryan and a Semitic family, but only a class of lan- guages, held together by little more than the negative characteristic of being neither Aryan nor Semitic. Turanian seemed to me a better name than Allophylian. It has been used by many scholars in that sense, and in that sense I still continue to use it. If then I allow my old 'Chips from a German PEEFACE. Vll Workshop ' to appear once more in a new and cheaper edition, I must ask my friends in reading^ them to remember the date of every one of them, and also to bear in mind that the studies in which I have taken an active part have been advancing very rapidly during the last fifty years. There is no one who has taken an active part in the cultivation of my three favourite studies, the Science of Language, the Science of Thought, and the Science of Religion, who has not had many things to learn and many things to unlearn during the half-century that lies behind us. Much of the work that had to be done by myself and my early fellow- workers — most of them long at rest from their labours — was of necessity tentative only. Much of what I have written ran counter to current opinions, and met, therefore, with strong opposi- tion, while many things, which formerly required elaborate proof, are now accepted as matters of course. I have, during the whole of my life, tried to profit as much as I could by the excellent criticisms passed by competent critics on my numerous contributions. But though it was easy to remove mere mistakes, arising from ignorance or from pudenda negligentia, I found it difiicult, nay impossible, to change the whole drift of an argument, to leave out what required no longer any proof, or to present the old VIU PREFACE. problems under an entirely new aspect. I must, therefore, throw myself on the indulgence of my friends Avho have expressed a wish to possess a complete collection of my essays, old and new, and I must ask them to accept them as what they are, chips from my workshop, mere contributions to the history of the studies to which my life has been devoted, and, in one sense, a sketch of my life, and perhaps the most appropriate sketch that the life of a scholar deserves. But though I thought it right, in revising my essays, to correct any statements that seemed to require correction, I can honestly say that, with regard to the leading theories ^^'hich I advanced in them and in my larger works, and with regard to the arguments by which I tried to support them, I have had little to alter. To mention only a few of the theories which I advanced, or the heresies, as others would like to call them, for which I still consider myself responsible, I hold as strongly as ever, I. That language and thought are inseparable, are in fact two sides of the same psychological process, and that the Science of Language is therefore the only safe foundation for the Science of Thought ^ ; or, to put it in other ' See 'The Science of Thought,' by F. M. M. 1887. rEEFACE. IX words, that a study of the origin and historical growth of our words forms the best preparation for a definition of our words, and that without such definitions all philosophy is and must be vain. II. Another heresy of mine, w^iich I have not yet abjured, is that language and race are incommensurable, and that languages must be classified independently of all physiological considerations. On this point I should now^ repeat every word which I wrote in the chapter ' Ethnology versus Phonology,' in the year 1853, in my Letter to Bunsen ' On the Turanian Languages,' second chapter, second section. Terms such as Aryan blood or Semitic skulls sound to me still as preposterous as dolicho- cephalic grammar. III. I consider it as much as ever a real misfortune that the theory of evolution, so triumphantly applied by Darwin to the pro- ductions of nature, should ever have been transferred from the productions of nature to the w^orks of man. Evolution may be, as Lord Salisbury remarked, a very comfortable term ; it saves much trouble and can be made to account for everything. Everything, as Topsy said, may be 'spected to have grow'd. But the history of the himian mind, Avhether studied in language, religion, politics or art, requires, if PREFACE. I am not quite mistaken, a strictly historical or, as it used to be called, pragmatical treatment ; requires, before all things, a knowledge of facts, in order to enable us to discover the faintest footsteps of that glorious but by no means continuous procession which has carried the savage from his cave and his forest to the height of the Partlienon, the summit of the Capitol, and to the majestic arches of West- minster Abbey. We want to know not how man may have become what he is, but how he advanced actually and step by step from the lowest depth to what we consider the highest height of civilised life reached in our own century. But this is history, not evolution. IV. I still look upon the Science of Language as one of the Natural Sciences. But while in its material aspect, as sound, language, as I have tried to show, belongs to the realm of nature, it is in its spiritual aspect a work of the human will, though acting under external restraints. V. Taking into account this double charac- ter of language, I have tried to make it clear that mythology has to be recognised as an early and inevitable stage in the growth of language and thought, nay, in one sense, as an affection, or, as I expressed it perhaps too drastically, as a disease of language. To this PREFACE. XI heresy also, if heresy it can be called, I still cling as strongly as when I published my first essay on * Comparative Mythology/ now forty years ago. There may be much diiFerence of opinion as to the right application of this principle in analysing the mythologies of civil- ised and uncivilised races, but the principle itself can never be set aside again. Mythology has been recognised, once for all, as a remnant of ancient thought and language, reflecting the salient phenomena of nature. A large portion of it, but by no means the whole of it, is in consequence solar and lunar. Scholars may differ on certain etymologies, but the learned researches and brilliant discoveries of such men as Eug. Barnouf, Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Kuhn, Curtius, Benfey, Grassmann, Michel Breal and Darmesteter, and more lately of Hillebrandt, Victor Henry and others, in the domain of mythological etymology, are not likely to be brushed away by mere ridicule. The Solar Myth has survived all badinage, even the most j)onderous, and, if we make allowance for one or two startling or rather amusing exceptions, we may truly say that no serious scholar, ac- quainted with the principles of Comparative Philology, doubts any longer that the philo- logical key is the only one that can disclose to us the orio;in and the true meaning- of XU PREFACE. mythological names, nay, even of totems and fetishes. VI. Another heresy of mine, that religion can be traced back to the perception of the Infinite under its various manifestations and conceptions, is still a subject of fierce contro- versy. All depends here on the meaning which we assign to the Infinite. I readily admit that not everything that is postulated as lying behind the Finite is fit for religious ideas ; all I maintain is that whatever religious ideas we meet with, have all their roots in the soil which underlies the surface of our finite per- ceptions. But whatever may be thought on this point, I may at all events claim this, that the facts on which the solution of the problem of the origin of religion depends, are much more freely accessible now than they were fifty years ago, and that here also mere theory has had to give way to history \ No doubt, that history begins late, and there are vast periods beyond the first utterances of religious thought which are altogether beyond our ken. The idea that the Veda or the Old Testament could reveal to us the very be- ginnings of religious thought was a fond hope w^hich, if it ever was, is no longer cherished by ^ ' Sacred Books of the East,' vols. I to XLIX, Oxford, 1879-1894. • • • PREFACE. Xlll anybody, and the contention that we may recognise in savages, now living or but lately extinct, the nearest approach to what man was in his primordial cradle, or when just shaking off the fetters of his purely animal existence, is now but timidly supported, after such immense vistas have been opened dis- closing endless antecedents presupposed by the dialects, the customs and the complicated super- stitions of these so-called primitive savages. I hope I may not be called an unrepentant sinner for declining to surrender these my old articles of faith. I have lived to see manv theories which were called heretical or unscien- tific gradually changed into orthodox tenets. No doubt I have also seen orthodox tenets cast aside, and so long as man values truth more than authority this process of natural selection, or what I prefer to call rational elimination, must always continue. What would have become of religion without heretics, and what would become of science without men beingr allowed to defend their own convictions, refjard- less of authorities and majorities ? For one thing only I have, in conclusion, to apologise. There is, no doubt, much repetition in this collection of Essays and Addresses. They were all written w\t\\ a purpose and, in order to carry out my purpose, I had often to dwell XIV PREFACE. on the same facts and use the same arguments. It was quite impossible, when I had decided to publish these papers in a collected form, to leave out all paragraphs which had occurred before. They were links in an argument, and, if cut out, would have broken the chain and left a gap. I well remember how Mendelssohn disliked reminiscences in his compositions, and how he often spoiled some of his most beau- tiful songs by cutting out whole bars which he remembered having used before. I think that my readers will find it very easy to pass by a sentence or a whole page which they re- member having read before, while they would have lost the thread of the argument, if these pages had been cut out. It is sometimes a help to look at the same things from different points of view, and though iteration is no argument, it often helps to drive home an argument. Anyhow, it is a sin for which I hope to be forgiven by my friends, nay, even by my enemies, if such there be, for as to my honest critics and opponents, I have always counted them as among my best friends. F. M. M. Oxford, September 3, 1894. CONTENTS. PAGE Preface (1S94) v-xiv Introduction (1867) i The Ninth International Congress of Orientalists, Presidential Address (1892) 27 Eeply by Hofrath G. Buhler, C.I.E 86 Reply by Count Angelo De Gubernatis . . . 91 A School of Oriental Languages (1890) . . . . 97 Reply by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales , , . 113 Frederick III (1888) 116 What to do with our Old People (1888) . . , ,126 The True Antiquity of Oriental Literature (1891) , 146 A Lecture in Defence of Lectures (1890) . . . .173 Some Lessons of Antiquity (18S9) 194 On the Classification of Mankind by Language or by Blood (1891) 217 Letter to Mb. Risley on the Ethnological Survey of India (1886) 255 Horatio Hale, On the True Basis of Anthropology (1891) 263 On Freedom (1879) 269 XVI CONTENTS. Goethe and Cakltle (i88S) Correspondence between Schiller and the Duke schleswig-holstein (1875) . Andrea del Sarto's Carita (1886) Letter from Robert Browninc} (1889) . Buddhist Charity (1884) The Indian Child-Wife (1890) .... An Indian Child-Widow (1894) . On the Proper Use of Holy Scriptures (1893) Index of PAGE 3'54 406 426 427 456 464 469 493 EEOEK"T ESSAYS. introduction; (Written 1867.) More tlian twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsen called me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, and announced to me -with beaming- eyes that the publication of the Rig-veda was secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of the East-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of this work, and the necessity of having it published in England. At last his efforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of the text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result of his literary diplomacy. ' Now,' he said, ' you have got a work for life — a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'But mind,' he added, ' let us have from time to time some chips from your workshop.' ' ' This edition of the text and native commentary of the Eig-veda has since been published in six volumes, 4to : vol. i., 1849 ; vol. ii., 1853; vol. iii., 1856; vol. iv., 1862; vol. v., 1872; vol. vi., 187i. New edition in four volumes, 1890-92. VOL. I. B 2 INTRODUCTION. 1 Lave tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I have published almost every year a few articles on such subjects as had engaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far as altered circumstances would allow, my edition of theEig-veda, and of other Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chiefly published in the ' Edinburgh ' and ' Quarterly ' Eeviews, in the ' Oxford Essays,' and ' Macmillan's ' and ' Eraser's ' Magazines, in the ' Saturday Eeview,' and in the ' Times.' In writing them my principal endeavour has been to bring out even in the most abstruse subjects the points of real interest that ought to engage the attention of the public at large, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting to sweep away the cob- webs of false learning, and let in the light of real knowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen's ad- vice, and when last year I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up around the mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people were asking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen's words, 'Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore from the mine : it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before it can be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food of mankind.' I can hardly hope that in this my en- deavour to be clear and plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I have always been successful. Several of the sub- jects treated in these essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult : but there is no subject, I believe, in the whole realm of human knowledge, that cannot be INTRODUCTION. 3 rendered clear aud intelligible, if we ourselves have perfectly mastered it. And now wliile the two last volumes of my edition of the Eig-veda are passing through the press, I thought the time had come for gathering up a few armfuls of these chips and splinters, throwing away what seemed worthless, and putting the rest into some kind of shape, in order to clear my workshop for other work. The volumes which I am now publishing contain a selection of essays on language, mythology, and rehgion, three subjects intimately connected with each other. There is to my mind no subject more absorbing than the tracing the origin and first growth of human thought ; — not theoretically, or in accordance with the Hegelian laws of thought, or the Comtian epochs ; but historically, and like an Indian trapper, spying for every footprint, every layer, every broken blade that might tell and testify of the former presence of man in his early wanderings and searchinofs after truth and light. In the languages of mankind, in which every- thing new is old and everything old is new, an in- exhaustible mine has been discovered for researches of this kind. Language still bears the impress of the earliest thoughts of man, obliterated, it may be, buried under new thoughts, yet here and there still recoverable in their sharp original outline. The growth of language is continuous, and by continuing our researches backward from the most modern to the most ancient strata, the very elements and roots of human speech have been reached, and with them the elements and roots of human thought. What lies beyond the beginnings of language, however interest- B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. iug it may be to the biologist, does not yet belong to tbe history of man, in the true and original sense of that word. Man means the thinker, and the first manifestation of thought is speech. But more surprising than the continuity in the growth of language, is the continuity in the growth of religion. Of religion, too, as of language, it may be said that in it everything new is old and every- thing old is new, and that there has been no entirely new religion since the beginning of the world. The elements and roots of religion were there, as far back as we can trace the history of man; and the history of religion, like the history of lan- guage, shows us throughout a succession of new combinations of the same radical elements. An in- tuition of God, a sense of human wealmess and de- pendanee, a belief in a Divine government of the world, a distinction between good and evil, and a hope of a better life, these are some of the radical elements of all religions. Though sometimes hidden, they rise again and again to the surface. Though frequently distorted, they tend again and again to their perfect form. Unless they had formed part of the oldest dowry of the human soul, religion would have remained an impossibility, and the tongues of angels would have been to human ears but as sound- ing brass or a tinkling cymbal. If we once under- stand this clearly, the words of St. Augustine, which have seemed startling to many of his admirers, be- come perfectly clear and intelligible, when he says ' : ' August. Retr. 1, 13. 'Res ipsa, quse nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiques, nee defuitab initio generis humani, quousque Christus veniret in carnem, unde vera religio, quas jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana.' IKTRODUCTIOlSr. 5 ' What is now called the Christian reli<2'iou, has existed among the ancients, and was not absent from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh : from which time the true relisrion, which existed already, began to be called Christian.' From this point of view the words of Christ, too, which startled the Jews, assume their true meaning, when He said to the centurion of Capernaum : ' Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.' During the last fift}^ years the accumulation of new and authentic materials for the study of the religions of the world, has been most extraordinary ; but such are the difficulties in mastering these materials that I doubt whether the time has yet come for attempting to trace, after the model of the Science of Language, the definite outlines of the Science of Religion. By a succession of the most fortunate circumstances, the canonical books of three of the principal religions of the ancient world have lately been recovered, the Veda, the Zend-Avesta, and the Tripifaka. But not only have we thus gained ac- cess to the most authentic documents from which to study the ancient religion of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, and the Buddhists, but b}'- discovering the real origin of Greek, Eoman, and likewise of Teutonic, Sclavonic, and Celtic mythology, it has become possible to separate the truly religious ele- ments in the sacred traditions of these nations from the mythological crust by which they are surrounded, and thus to gain a clearer insight into the real faith of the ancient Aryan world. 6 INTEODUCTIOiS'. If we turn to tlie Semitic world, we find that althougli but few new materials have been discovered from which to study the ancient religion of the Jews, jet a new spirit of inquiry has brought new life into the study of the sacred records of Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets ; and the recent researches of Biblical scholars, thongh starting from the most 0|)posite points, have all helped to bring out the his- torical interest of the Old Testament, in a manner not dreamt of by former theologians. The same may be said of another Semitic religion, the religion of Mohammed, since the Koran and the literature connected with it were submitted to the searching criticism of real scholars and historians. Important materials for the study of the Semitic religions have come from the monuments of Babylon and Nineveh. The very images of Bel and Nisroch now stand before our eyes, and the inscriptions on the tablets may hereafter tell us even more than they do at present of the thoughts of those who bowed their knees before them. The religious worship of the Pheni- cians and Carthaginians has been illustrated by Movers from the ruins of their ancient temples, and from scattered notices in classical writers ; nay, even the religious ideas of the Nomads of the Arabian peninsula, previous to the rise of Mohammedanism, have been brought to light by the patient researches of Oriental scholars. There is no lack of idols among the ruined and buried temples of Egypt with which to reconstruct the pantheon of that primeval country : nor need we despair of recovering more and more of the thoughts which are buried under the hieroglyphics of the in- INTEODUCTION. / scrlptions, or preserved in hieratic and demotic MSS., if we watch the brilliant discoveries that have rewarded the patient researches of the disciples of ChampoUion. Besides the Arj^an and Semitic families of re- ligion, we have in China three recognised forms of public worship, the religion of Confucius, that of Laotse, and that of Fo (Buddha) ; and here, too, recent publications have shed new light, and have rendered an access to the canonical works of these religions, and an understanding of their highest objects, more easy, even to those who have not mastered the intricacies of the Chinese language. Among the Turanian nations, a few only, such as the Einns and the Mongolians, have preserved some remnants of their ancient worship and mytho- logy, and these too have lately been more carefully collected and explained by D'Ohson, Castren, and others. In America the religions of Mexico and Peru had long attracted the attention of theologians ; and of late years the impulse imparted to ethnological re- search has induced travellers and missionaries to record any traces of religious life that could be dis- covered among the savage inhabitants of Africa, America, and the Polynesian islands. It will be seen from these few indications, that there is no lack of materials for the student of religion; but we shall also perceive how difficult it is to master such vast materials. To gain a full knowledge of the Veda, or the Zend-Avesta, or the Tripi^aka, of the Old Testament, the Koran, or the sacred books of China, is the work of a whole life. 8 INTRODUCTION. How then is one man to survey tlie whole field of religious thought, to classify the religiors of the world according to definite and permanent criteria, and to describe their characteristic features with a sure and discriminating hand? Nothing is more difficult to seize than the salient features, the traits that constitute the permanent expression and real character of a religion. Religion seems to be the common property of a large com- munity, and yet it not only varies in numerous sects, as language does in its dialects, but it escapes our firm grasp till we can trace it to its real habitat, the heart of each true believer. We speak glibly of Buddhism and Brahmanism, forgetting that we are generalising on the most intimate convictions of millions and millions of human souls, divided by half the world and by thousands of years. It may be said that at all events where a religion possesses canonical books, or a definite number of articles, the task of the student of re- ligion becomes easier, and this, no doubt, is true to a certain extent. But even then we know that the interpretation of these canonical books varies, so much so that sects appealing to the same revealed authorities, as, for instance, the founders of the Vedanta and the Saukhya systems, accuse each other of error, if not of wilful error or heresy. Articles too, though drawn up with a view to define the principal doctrines of a religion, lose much of their historical value by the treatment they receive from subsequent schools ; and they are frequently silent on the very points which make religion what it is. A few instances may serve to show what difii- INTEODUCTION. 9 culties the student of religion has to contend with, before he can hope firmly to grasp the facts on which theories may safely be based. Eoman Catholic missionaries who had spent their lives in China, who had every opportunit}^, while stayiiig at the court of Pekin, of studying in the original the canonical works of Confucius and their commentaries, who could consult the greatest theo- logians then living, and converse with the crowds that thronged the temples of the capital, differed diametrically in their opinions as to the most vital points in the state-religion of China. Lecomte, Fouquet, Premare, and Bouvet thought it undeniable that Confucius, his predecessors and his disciples, had entertained the noblest ideas on the constitution of the universe, and had sacrificed to the true God in the most ancient temple of the earth. According to Maigrot, Navarette, on the contrary, and even according to the Jesuit Longobardi, the adoration of the Chinese was addressed to inanimate tablets, meaningless inscriptions, or, in the best case, to coarse ancestral spirits and beings without intelli- gence.^ If we believe the former, the ancient deism of China approached the purity of the Christian re- ligion ; if we listen to the latter, the absurd fetishism of the multitude degenerated amongst the educated into systematic materialism and atheism. In answer to the peremptory texts quoted by one party, the other adduced the glosses of accredited interpreters, and the dispute of the missionaries who had lived in China and knew Chinese, had to be settled in the last instance by a decision of the see of Rome. 'Abel Rc'inusat, MHangen, p. 1G2. 10 INTRODUCTION. Tliere is hardly any religion that has been studied in its sacred literature, and watched in its external ■worship with greater care than the modern religion of the Hindus, and yet it would be extremely hard to give a faithful and intelligible description of it. Most people who have lived in India would main- tain that the Indian religion, as believed in and practised at present by the mass of the people, is idol-worship and nothing else. But let us hear one of the mass of the people, a Hindu of Benares, who in a lecture delivered before an English and native audience defends his faith and the faith of his fore- fathers against such sweeping accusations. * If by idolatry,' he says, ' is meant a system of worship which confines our ideas of the Deity to a mere image of clay or stone, which prevents our hearts from being expanded and elevated with lofty notions of the attributes of God, if this is what is meant by idolatrj'-, we disclaim idolatry, we abhor idolatry, and deplore the ignorance or uncharitableness of those that charge us with this grovelling system of wor- ship But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the omnipresence of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of an image any of His glorious manifestations, ought we to be charged with identifying them with the matter of the image, whilst during those moments of sincere and fervent devotion, we do not even think of matter? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with sentiments of love and reverence ; if we fancy him present in the picture, still looking upon us with his wonted tenderness and affection, INTRODUCTION. 1 ] and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should we be charged with offering the grossest insult to him — that of fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper ? . . . . We really lament the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who confound our representative worship with the Phenician, Grecian, or Eoman idolatry as repre- sented by European writers, and then charge us with polytheism in the teeth of thousands of texts in the Pura/ias, declaring in clear and unmistakeable terms that there is but one God who manifests Himself as Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra (Siva) in his func- tions of creation, preservation, and destruction.* ' In support of these statements, this eloquent advocate quotes numerous passages from the sacred literature of the Brahmans, and he sums up his view of the three manifestations of the Deity in the words of their great poet Kalidasa, as translated by Mr. Griffith : In those Three Persons the One God was shown, Each First in place, each Last — not one alone ; • Of *Siva, Vishwu, Brahma, each may be First, second, third, among the Blessed Three. If such contradictory views can be held and defended with regard to religious systems still pre- valent amongst us, where we can cross-examine living witnesses, and appeal to chapter and verse in ' The modern pandit's reply to the missionary who accuses him of polytheism is: 'Oh, these are only various manifestations of the one God; the same as, though the sun be one in the heavens, yet he appears in multiform reflections upon the lake. The various sects are only different entrances to the one city.' — See W, W, Hunter, Annals of linral Bengal, p. 116 ; and Medhurst on Shins in China, in his 'Inquiry on the Proper Mode of Translating Huach.' 12 INTRODUCTION. their sacred writings, wliat must the difficulty be when we have to deal with the religions of the past? I do not wish to disguise these difficulties, which are inherent in a comparative study of the religions of the world. I rather dwell on them strongly, in order to show how much care and caution is required in so difficult a subject, and how much indulgence should be shown in judging of the shortcomings and errors that are unavoidable in so comprehensive a study. It was supposed at one time that a comparative analysis of the languages of mankind must transcend the powers of man : and yet by the combined and well-directed effi^rts of many scholars, great results have here been obtained, and the principles that must guide the student of the Science of Language are now firmly established. It will be the same with the Science of Eeligiou. By a proper division of labour, the materials that are still wanting will be collected and published and translated, and when that is done, surely man will never rest till he has discovered the purpose that runs through the religions of manldud, and till he has reconstructed the true Civitas Dei on founda- tions as wide as the ends of the world. The Science of Religion may be the last of the sciences which man is destined to elaborate ; but when it is elabo- rated, it will change the aspect of the world, and give a new life to Christianity itself. The Fathers of the Church, though living in much more dangerous proximity to the ancient religions of the Gentiles, admitted freely that a comparison of Christianity and other religions was useful. ' If there is any agreement,' Basilius remarked, ' between FNTEODUCTION. 13 their [the Greeks'] doctrines and our own, it may benefit us to know them : if not, then to compare them, and to learn how they differ, will help not a little towards confirming that which is the better of the two.'' But this is not the only advantage of a compara- tive study of religions. The Science of Religion will for the first time assign to Christianity its right place among the religions of the world ; it will show for the first time fully what was meant by the ful- ness of time ; it will restore to the whole history of the world, in its unconscious progress towards Christianity, its true and sacred character. Not many years ago great offence was given by an eminent writer who remarked that the time had come when the history of Christianity should be treated in a truly historical spirit, in the same spirit in which we treat the history of other religions, such as Brahmanism, Buddhism, or Mohammedanism. And yet what can be truer ? He must be a man of little faith who would fear to subject his own religion to the same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment for that faith which we hold to be the only true one. We should rather challenge for it the severest tests and trials, as the sailor would for the good ship to which he entrusts his own life, and the lives of those who are most dear to him. In the Science of Eeligion, ' Basilius, ' De legendis Grjec. libris,' c. v. Ei fiiv oZv iffrl rts olKeiSrrii irphs a\\T]\ovi to7s \6yois, irpoiipyov ftf 7]f.L7u avTwv i] yvcocris yfVOiTO. ei 5e n^, dwh r6 -ye irap(iXKt)\a Bevras Kara^aBuv rh Sia4>opou, oil fiiKphv fU pefialwffiv fifKrlovos, 14 INTRODUCTION. we can decline no comparisons, nor claim any immu- nities for Christianity, as little as the missionary can, when wrestling with the subtle Brahman, or with the fanatical Mussulman, or the plain-speaking Zulu. And if we send out our missionaries to every part of the world to face every kind of religion, to shrink from no contest, to be appalled by no objections, we must not give way at home or within our own hearts to any misgivings, lest a comparative study of the religions of the world should shake the firm founda- tions on which we must stand or fall. To the missionary more particularly a compara- tive study of the religions of mankind will be, I believe, of the greatest assistance. Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something totally distinct from their own, as formerly they used to describe the languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering of birds than the articulate speech of men. The Science of Language has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and that even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former great- ness and beauty. The Science of Eeligion, I hope, will produce a similar change in our views of barba- rous forms of faith and worship ; and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference, will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated afresh to the true God. > • Jognth Chundra Gangooly, a native convert, says: *I know from personal experience that the Hindu Scriptures have a great deal of truth. ... If you go to India, and examine the common INTRODUCTION. 15 And even to us at home, a wider view of the reli- gious life of the world may prove a very useful lesson. Immense as is the difference between our own and all other religions of the world — and few can know that difference who have not honestly examined the foundations of their own as well as of other re- ligions — the position which believers and unbelievers occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is very much the same all over the world. The difficulties which trouble us have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching the relation of the Finite to the Infinite, of the human mind as the recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old problems indeed : and while watching their apjDearauce in different countries, and their treatment under vary- ing circumstances, we shall be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which others committed before us, and by the truth which they discovered. We shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of re- ligious controversy and many a shipwreck in distant sayings of the people, you will be surprised to see what a splendid religion the Hindu religion must be. Even the most ignorant women have proverbs that are full of the purest religion. Now I am not going to India to injure their feelings by saying, " Your Scripture is all nonsense, is good for nothing; anything outside the Old and New Testament is a humbug." No ; I tell you I will appeal to the Hindu philosophers, and moralists, and poets, at the same time bringing to them my light, and reasoning with them in the spirit of Christ. That will be my work.' — ' A Brief Account of Joguth Chundra Gangooly, a Brahmin and a Convert to Christianity.' Christian Reformer, August, ISGO. 16 INTRODUCTION. seas, we sTiall face with greater calmness and pru- dence the troubled waters at home. If there is one thing which a comparative studj of religions places in the clearest light, it is the in- evitable decay to which every religion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its first apostles. Yet it is but seldom borne in mind that without constant reforma- tion, i.e. without a constant return to its fountain- head, every religion, even the most perfect — nay the most perfect, on account of its very perfection, more even than others — suffers from its contact with the world, as the purest air suffers from the mere fact of being breathed. Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find it free from many of the blemishes that offend us in its later phases. The founders of the ancient religions of the world, as far as we can judge, were minds of a high stamp, full of noble aspirations, yearning for truth, devoted to the wel- fare of their neighbours, examples of purity and un- selfishness. What they desired to found upon earth was but seldom realised, and their sayings, if pre- served in their original form, often offer a strange contrast to the practice of those who profess to be their disciples. As soon as a religion is established, and more particularly when it has become the re- ligion of a powerful state, the foreign and worldly elements encroach more and more on the original foundation, and human interests mar the simplicity and purity of the plan which the founder had con- ceived in his own heart, and matured in his com- INTRODUCTION. 17 munings with his God. Even those who lived with Buddha misunderstood his words, and at tlie Great Council which had to settle the Buddhist canon, Asoka, the Indian Constantine had to remind the assembled priests that ' what had been said bj Buddha, that alone was well said.'' With every centur}- , Buddhism, when it was accepted by nations differing so widely as Mongols and Hindus, when its sacred writings were translated into languages as far apart as Sanskrit and Chinese, assumed widely different as- pects, till at last the Buddhism of the Shamans in the steppes of Tartary became as different from the teaching of the original Sama?ia, as the Christianity of the leader of the Chinese rebels is from the teach- ing of Christ. If missionaries could show to the Brahmans, the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians, nay, even to the Mohammedans, how much their present faith differs from the faith of their forefathers and founders, if they could place in their hands and read with them in a kindly spirit the original docu- ments on which these various religions profess to be founded, and enable them to distinguish between the doctrines of their own sacred books and the additions of later ages, an important advantage would be gained, and the choice between Christ and other Masters would be rendered far more easy to many a truth-seeking soul. But for that purpose it is neces- sary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of ' Second Bairat Inscription, in Cunningham, Corjnts InscTiptionum Tndicarum, p. 97: 'Bhagavata Budhenabhasite save se subhasite va.' Kern, Indian Antiquary, vol. v., p. 257. Oldenberg, Vinaya, intro- duction, p. xl. Burnouf, Lotus de la ioune Lot, Appendice, No. X., VOL. I. 18 INTRODUCTION, tlie nineteenth century and tlie religion of Christ. If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not win as many hearts in India and China as it ought, let us remember that it was the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic simplicity, but with its overpowering love of God and man, that conquered the world and superseded re- ligions and philosophies, more difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of Hindus and Buddhists. If we can teach something to the Brahmans in reading with them their sacred hymns, they too can teach us something when read- ing with us the Gospel of Christ. Never shall I for- get the deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real martyr to his faith, who had pictured to him- self from the pages of the New Testament what a Christian country must be, and who when he came to Europe found everything so different from what he had imagined in his lonely meditations at Be- nares ! It was the Bible only that saved him from returning to his old religion, and helped him to discern beneath theological futilities, accumulated during nearly two thousand years, beneath phari- saical hypocrisy, infidelity, and want of charity, the buried, but still living seed, committed to the earth by Christ and His Apostles. How can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and question- ings of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed, and tell them what Christianity was meant to be : unless he may show that, like all other religions, Christianity, too, has had its history ; that the Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that the Chris- INTRODUCTION. 19 tianity of the Middle Ages was not that of the early Councils, that the Christianity of the early Councils was not that of the Apostles, and ' that what has been said by Christ, that alone was Avell said ' ? The advantages, however, which missionaries and other defenders of the faith Avill gain from a com- parative study of religions, though important here- after, are not at present the chief object of these researches. In order to maintaiii their scientific character, they must be independent of all extraneous considerations : they must aim at truth, trusting that even unpalatable truths, like unpalatable medicine, Avill reinvigorate the system into which they enter. To those, no doubt, avIio value the tenets of their re- ligion as the miser valu?s his pearls and precious stones, thinking their value lessened if pearls and stones of the same kind are found in other parts of the world, the Science of Religion will bring many a rude shock ; but to the true believer, truth wher- ever it appears is welcome, nor will any doctrine seem the less true or the less precious because it was seen, not only by Moses or Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Laotse. It should never be forgotten that while a comparison of ancient religions will cer- tainly show that some of the most vital articles of faith are the common property of the whole of mankind, at least of all who seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, the same comparison alone can possibly teach us what is peculiar to Christianity, and Avhat has secured to it that pre-eminent position which now it holds in spite of all obloquy. The gain ^^ili be greater than the c 2 20 INTRODUCTION. loss, if loss there be, which I, at least, can never admit. There is a strong feeling, I know, in the minds of all people against any attempt to treat their own re- ligion as a member of a class, and in one sense that feeling is perfectly justified. To each individual, his own religion, if he really believes in it, is some- thing quite inseparable from himself, something unique, that cannot be compared to anything else, or replaced by anything else. Our own religion is, in that respect, something like our own language. In its form it may be like other languages ; in its essence and its relation to ourselves, it stands alone and ad- mits of no peer or rival. But in the history of the world, our religion, like our own language, is but one out of many ; and in order to understand fully the position of Christianity in the history of the world, and its true place among the religions of mankind, we must compare it, not with Judaism only, but with the religious aspirations of the whole world, with all, in fact, that Christianity came either to destroy or to fulfil. From this point of view Christianity forms part, no doubt, of what people call profane history, but by that very fact, profane history ceases to be profane, and regains throughout that sacred character of which it had been deprived by a false distinction. The ancient Fathers of the Church spoke on these subjects with far greater freedom than we venture to use in these days. Justin Martyr, in his 'Apology' (a.d. 139), has this memorable j)assage (Apol. i. 46) : *' One article of our faith then is, that Christ is the first- begotten of God, and we have already proved Him to be the very Logos (or universal Reason), of which man- INTRODUCTION. 21 kind are all partakers ; and therefore those wlio live ac- cording to the Logos are Christians, notwithstanding they may pass with you for Atheists ; such among the Greeks were Sokrates and Herakleitos, and the like ; and such among the Barbarians were Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others, whose actions, nay whose very names, I know would be tedious to relate, and therefore shall pass them over. So, on the other side, those who have lived in former times in defiance of the Logos or Reason, were evil, and enemies to Christ and murderers of such as lived according to the Logos ; hut they who have made or make the Logos or Reason the rule of their actions are Christians^ and men with- out fear and trembling." * God,' says Clement (200 A.D.), 'is the cause of all that is good : only of some good gifts He is the primary cause, as of the Old and New Testaments, of others the secondai-y, as of (Greek) philosophy. But even philosophy may have been given primarily by Him to the Greeks, before the Lord had called the Greeks also. For that philosophy, like a schoolmaster, has guided the Greeks also, as the Law did Israel, towards Christ. Philosophy, therefore, prepares and opens the way to those who are made perfect by Christ.' 2 ' Thv Xpiffrhv ■irpODT6TOKOv TOvBtov elvai tSiSax^VIJ-f, 'f"' Trpoe/UT/cucrauef Aoyov ovra, ov irar yfi/osavBpiinwv fxertax^ ' ki^^ ol yuera A6yov ^idxravTfs XpKTTiavol elcri, ic^i' &dfot ivofj.l(rdr)crav, oTov (^"EWricri /xev S-tiifpaTTjs Kal 'Hpa/cAeiTOS Kal ol d/j.o'ioi avrols, eV fiap^apois 5« 'Afipaaix Kal 'Ayavlas Kal 'A(apias Kal Mtaar]\ Kal *H\icis Kal &\\oi iroWol, uv ras vpa^fis ^ to. 6v6fiaTa KaTa\4y€iv ixaKpov ilvai i-nicTTa.jj.fvoi, ravvv irapanovfifOa. u'Ctt* Ka\ oi irpoyefdixevoL &vev A6yov ^luxTavres, &XP'nc"''ot Kal exOpol t^ Xpiffrf ?iaav, Kal (povus Toiv fina A6yov ^lovvruv ol 5e ^tra. A6yov fiiwcravrts Kal ^lovvres Xpiffnavol koI &(po$oi Kal arapaxot {mdpxooaiy. * Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. I. cap. v. § 28. HavTwv t^lv yap ofnos 22 INTRODUCTION. And again : ' It is clear that the same God to whom we owe the Old and New Testaments, gave also to the Greeks their Greek philosophy by which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks.' • And Clement was by no means the only one who spoke thus freely a.nd fearlessly, though, no doubt, his knowledge of Greek philosophy qualified him better than many of his contemporaries to speak with authority on such subjects. St. Augustine writes : ' If the Gentiles also had j)0ssibly something divine and true in their doctrines, our Saints did not find fault with it, although for their superstition, idolatrj-, and pride, and other evil habits, they had to be detested, and, unless they improved, to be punished by divine judgment. For the apostle Paul, when he said something about God among the Athenians, quoted the testimony of some of the Greeks who had said something of the same kind : and this, if they came to Christ, would be acknowledged in them, and not blamed. Saint Cyj)rian, too, uses such, witnesses against the Gentiles. For when he speaks of the Magians, he sa^'s that the chief among them, Hostanes, maintains that the true God is invisible, and that true angels sit at His throne ; and that Plato agrees with this, and Twv KaXwv 6 Qehs, aWa roiv jxhv Kara irporiyovjxevov, as t")? re Siadr^Krjs rfjj TraKaias Koi rfis veas, Toiv 5e kot iiraKo\ov6rifx.a, oos rfjy o7i/ roiiv StadiiKaiu x^pvy^s, 6 koi rf/f 'EAXTjrihfjs .aTai. Lassen, 1. c, ii. p. 1073. 76 DECENT ESSAYS. Fall name Samana, a Buddhist friar. Their presence in Bactria is attested somewhat later, at the beginning of the third century A.D., by Clement of Alexandria S who speaks of the Samanaioi as powerful philosophers among the Baetrians, and again by Eusebius - at the beginning of the fourth century, who writes that among the Indians and Baetrians there are many thousands of Brahmans. With regard to Bactria this can refer to Buddhists only, for the old orthodox Brahmans did not leave their country, and Brahmana has always been retained by the Buddhists as a title of honour for themselves. Early traces of the Bud- dhist religion have been discovered likewise in the countries north of Bactria, in Tukhara, and in the towns of Khoten, Yarkand, and Kashyar. M. Dar- mesteter has shown that in the second century B.C. Buddhist missionaries were hard at work in the western part of Persia, and it is a significant fact that the name of Gautcnna, the founder of Buddhism, occurs in the Avesta, in the Fravardin Yasht". This shows how closely the most distant parts of the world had been brought together by the genius of Alexander the Great, and by the genius of that still greater conqueror, Gautama /S'akyamuni. Here, again, it is mainly due to the labours of Oriental scholars that so many traces of the work done by Alexander and his .successors have been rediscovered. With Alexander we have entered on a new period in the history of ^ ' Strom.,' i. p. 359 : ^tXoaotp'ia Toivw—itaXm fj.(v TjKftarre napa Pap$a- pots — vpoiaTqaav — Koi ^afxavaiot Bifcrpcuv — 'IvS&v n 01 Tvpt.vo(TO(piaTai. Lassen, 1. c, ii. p. 1075 ; Schwanbeck, ' Megasllienis Indioa,' p. 139. ^ Praep. Ev. vii. 10 : Tlap' 'IvSoTs Kai Biivrpois elal x'^'aSes iroWai rSiiv \(f»ixfvwv BpaxH^fO'V- Lassen, 1. c, ii. p. 1075. •' 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxiii. p. iS.^. CONGllESS Oi' ORIENTALISTS. 77 the world, a period marked by the first strong re- action of the West against the East, inaugurated in the fifth century B.C. by the victories of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis, which were almost con- temporary with the first victories of Buddha. But while the victories of Miltiades, Leonidas, and Alex- ander the Great belong to history only, Buddha, the Gina, or Victor, as he is called, is still the ruler of the majority of mankind. If now, after having reached a period which is illuminated by the bright daylight of well-authenti- cated history, we turn our eyes back once more to the two preceding periods, we may assert without fear of contradiction, that our knowJedge of the very existence of the first period is entii-ely due to Oriental scholarship, while it is equally due to the discoveries of Oriental scholars that the second period has been invested for the first time with a truly human interest. The ancient history of the world may be said to have assumed, under the hands of Oriental scholars, the character of a magnificent dramatic trilogy. The first drama tells us of the fates of the Aryan and the Semitic race, each a compact confederacy before the separation into various languages and historical nationalities. The second drama is formed by the wars and conquests of the great Eastern Empires in Egypt, Babylon, and Syria, but it shows us that, besides these wars and conquests, there was a con- stant progress of Eastern culture towards the West, towards the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, and lastly towards Greece. The third drama represents the triumphant progress of Alexander, the Greek far more than the Macedonian, 78 KECENT ESSAYS. from Europe through Persia, Palestine, Phenicia, Egypt, Eabylon, Hyrcania, and Factria to India, in fact through all the great empires of the ancient East. Here we see the first attempt at re-estabJishing the union between the East and the West. It is said^ that among the papers of Alexander, a plan was found how to unite all these conquered nations into one Greek Empire by a mixture of families and manners, and by colonies, and thus to raise humanity to a higher level. Common religious services and com- meicial unions were meant to teach Europeans and Asiatics to look upon each other as fellow- citizens. Though this plan, worthy of the pupil of Aristotle, was never realised, his wars and victories have cer- tainly drawn the most distant nations closely together, and enabled them to pour the stores of their ancient wisdom into one common treasury. The rays from the Pharos of Alexandria may be said to have pierced across Egypt, Persia, Babylonia, and Eactria into the dark shades of Indian forests, while the name of the dwellers in these Indian forests, the Samanas or Semnoi, the Venerable, as they were called by the Greeks, might be heard in the halls of the Alexan- drian Library. The very name of Euddha {Bovtto) was not unknown to the later philosophers of Alex- andria, for we see that the mind of Clement of Alexandria^, in the second century A.D., was occupied with the question whether Buddha really deserved to be worshipped as a God, though we know now that * See Johannes von Miiller, ' AUgemeine Oeschichte,' p. 63. * 'Strom.,' i. p. 131, S5II). : Eiai St tuiv 'Ii 5c2if ol rots BovTrn tkiOoikvoi napayffXfjiaatv, ov 5t' tintplioKTjv a(^vuTqTO^ iis 6(bv TfTifiTjKam ; possibly resting on Meg.isthenes ; see ' Megasthenis Iiidica,' etl. Schw.inbeck, p. 46. CONGllESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 79 this was tho very last thing that the real Buddha would ever have desired. Cienient knew also thai the Buddhists built some kind of temple or A'aityas in which they preserved the Lones and other relics of Buddha and his disciples, the earliest specimens of stone architecture in India, some of them preserved to the present day ^. After the seeds which Alexander had transplanted from Greece to Egypt and the different parts of the East had begun to grow and abound, Alexandiia became more and more the centre of gravitation of the ancient world, the point to which all the streams of ancient thought converged. Here in Alexandria the highest aspirations of Semitic thought, embodied in the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews, became blended with the sublime speculations of Aryan thought, as taught in the Platonist and Neo-Platonist schools of philosophy, so that Alexandria may truly be called, after Jerusalem, the second birthplace of that religion of universal love, which more than any other religion was meant to re-unite all the members of the human race, scattered in the East and in the West, into one universal brotherhood. In this way the whole history of the world becomes indeed a Preparatio Evangelica, if only we have eyes to see in Christianity not a mere refacimento of an ancient Semitic faith, but a quick- ening of that religion by the highest philosophical inspirations of the Aryan, and more particularly of the Greek mind. I have so far tried to show you what Oriental * Clem. Alex. 'Strom.,' i. 3, p. 539, ed. Potter: Oi KaXovfifvoi Si ^([ivoi (i. e. Saiiiana) Tar 'IvSwv —ailSovai Tiva irvpa^iiZa ixp' ^v oarta Tivds 6fov vofM^ovai dnoKtiadai. 80 RECENT ESSAYS. scholarship has done for us in helping us to a right appreciation of the historical develojDment of the human race, beginning on the Asiatic continent and reaching its highest consummation on this small Asiatic peninsula of ours, which we call Europe, nay on this very spot where we are now assembled, which has truly been called the centre of the whole world. It is due to Oriental scholarship that the grey twilight of ancient history has been illuminated as if by the rays of an unsuspected sunrise. We see continuity and unity of purpose from beginning to end, when before we saw nothing but an undecipherable chaos. With every new discovery that is made, whether in the royal libraries of Babylonia, or in the royal tombs of Egypt, or in the sacred books of Persia and India, the rays of that sunrise are spreading wider and wider, and under its light the ancient history of our race seems to crystallise, and to disclose in the very forms of its crystallisation, laws or purposes running through the most distant ages of the world, of which our fore- fathers had no suspicion. Here it is where Oriental studies appeal not to specialists only, but to all who see in the history of the human race the supreme problem of all philosophy, a problem which in the future will have to be studied, net as heretofore, by a jjrlori reasoning, but chiefly by the light of his- torical evidence. The Science of Language, the Science of Mythology, the Science of Religion, aye, the Science of Thought, all have assumed a new aspect, chiefly through the discoveries of Oriental scholars, who have placed facts in the place of theories, and displayed before us the historical development of the human race, as a worthy rival of the development of nature, CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 81 displayed before our eyes by the genius and patient labours of Darwin. It seemed to me the most obvious duty of the President in opening an International Congress of Orientalists, to show to the world at large how much Oriental scholarship has contributed to the common stock of human knowledge. In England more par- ticularly, Oriental studies are too often looked upon as interesting to specialists only, and as far removed from the general interests of our age. I thought it right therefore to show once for all that this is wrong, and that Oriental studies are well deserving of general sympathy and support. I hope I have shown that these studies are forming now, and will always form, the only safe foundation for a study of the history of mankind, and, more particularly, for a clear appre- ciation of that intellectual atmosphere in which even we, in the far West, still live and move and have our being. Another prejudice against Oriental studies has found frequent expression of late. It is charged against us that the results of our labours are con- stantly shifting and changing, and that the brilliant discoveries of this year become invariably the exploded errors of the next. This is greatly exaggerated. True, Oriental scholarship has advanced very rapidly during this century ; true, it has had to suffer much from dabblers, babblers, and half-scholars ; but I hope I have shown that the permanent gains of Oriental research are both massive and safe, and that the con- tributions of Oriental scholars to the capitalised wealth of human knowledge need not fear comparison with those of any other scholars. It might no doubt have seemed more attractive if VOL. I. G 82 RECENT ESSAYS. in this inaugural address I had dwelt on the latest discoveries of Oriental scholarship only. But it would have ill become me as the President of this Congress, and in the presence of the very authors of some of these discoveries, if I had tried to act as their inter- preter or ventured to criticise their results. We shall have plenty of this work in our special sections, but in this General Meeting of the Members of all the Sections, I felt convinced that I should best carry out your wishes by trying to sum up, in the presence of the most critical judges, what I consider the safe conquests of that glorious campaign which was opened by Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, Sylvestre de Sacy, Champollion, Ewald, Burnouf, Bopp, and Lassen, was carried on by some of the veterans present here to-day, and will. I feel sure, lead on to even more important conquests under the guidance of those young and bold generals, many of whom we greet here for the first time. But before I conclude, may I be allowed to tax your patience a few minutes longer, and to ask one more question, though I know that many here present are far more competent to return an authoritative answer to it than your President. Is the benefit to be derived from Oriental studies confined to a better understanding of the past, to a truer insight into that marvellous drama, the history of the human race in the East and in the West, whether in historic or prehistoric times ? May not our Oriental studies call for general sympathy and support, as helping us to a better understanding of the present, nay, of the future also, with regard to the ever-increasing intercourse be- tween the East and the West 1 Why should so many CONGRESS Oh' ORIENTALISTS. 83 practical men, so many statesmen, and rulers, and administrators of Eastern countries, have joined our Congress, if they did not expect some important practical advantages from the study of Eastern languages and Eastern literature ? If the old pernicious prejudice of the white man against the black, of the Aryan against the Semitic race, of the Greek against the Barbarian, has been inherited by ourselves, and there are few who can say that they are entirely free from that damnosa haereditas, nothing, I believe, has so powerfully helped to remove, or at least to soften it, as a more widely - spread study of Oriental languages and literature. England is at present the greatest Oriental Empire which the world has ever known. England has proved that she knows not only how to conquer, but how to rule. It is simply dazzling to think of the few thousands of Englishmen ruling the millions of human beings in India, in Africa, in America, and in Australasia. England has realised, and more than realised, the dream of Alexander, the marriage of the East and the West, and has drawn the principal nations of the world together more closely than they have ever been before. But to conquer and rule Eastern nations is one thing, to understand them is quite another. In order to understand Eastern nations, we must know not onlv their languages, but their literature also ; we must in a certain sense become Orientalised, students of the East, lovers of the East. In this respect much remains to be done. I believe that the small kingdom of Saxony, counting fewer inhabitants than the city of London, does more for encouraging the study of Eastern languages and G 2 84 RECENT ESSAYS. literature than England. It is quite true that when new and really important discoveries had to be made, English scholars, men of true genius, have always been in the van of the victorious progress of Oriental scholarship. Their work has always been what in German is called Bahnhrechend, breaking the first road through a dark and impervious forest. But it has long been felt that we are deficient in providing instruction in Eastern languag-es, such as is offered to young men in Russia, France, Italy, and Germany, at the expense of the State. We have lately made one step in the right direction. Under the personal patronage of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, a School of Modern Oriental Studies has at last been established at the Imperial Institute ^. This is the realisation of a plan for which I pleaded forty years ago, and which was warmly advocated at the time by that most far- seeing statesman, the late Prince Consort. But we want help, we want much larger funds, if this excellent scheme is to grow and bear fruit. If the public at large could only be made to see the practical advantages that would accrue to English commerce from a sufiicient supply of young men qualified to travel in the East and to carry on a correspondence in Eastern dialects, we should probably get from our rich merchants that pecuniary support which we want, and which in other countries is suj^plied from the general taxation of the country. But far higher interests than the commercial supremacy of England are at stake. The young rulers and administrators who are sent every year to the East, ought to be able to keep up much more intimate relations with the * See p. 97. CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 85 people whom they are meant to rule and to guide, than exist at present. It is well known that one of our Royal Dukes, during his stay in India, acquired a knowledge of Hindustani in order to be able to converse freely with his soldiers. It is no secret that even our Queen, the first Empress of India, has devoted some of her very precious leisure to a study of the language and literature of India. Here are bright examples to follow. Without an intimate knowledge and an easy conventional command of a common language, a real intimacy between rulers and ruled is impossible. It has been truly said by the Times (July 9, 1892), that if the Transatlantic Cable had been available in 1858, there would have been no Trent Affair. One may say with the same truth, that if there had been a more free and friendly inter- course between the rulers and the ruled, between officers and soldiers in India, an intercourse such as can only be kept up by the electric current of a common language, there would have been no Indian Mutiny. When I accepted the honourable post of President of this Congress, it was chiefly because I hoped that this Congress would help to kindle more enthusiasm for Oriental Scholarship in England. But that enthusiasm must not be allowed to pass away with our meeting. It should assume a solid and lastinn- form in the shape of a permanent and powerful association for the advancement of Oriental learning, having its proper home in the Imperial Institute. If the members of this Congress and their friends will help to carry out this plan, then our Congress might hereafter mark an important epoch in the history of 86 RECENT ESSAYS. this the greatest Eastern Empire, and I should feel that, in spite of all my shortcomings, I had proved not quite unworthy of the confidence which my friends and fellow-labourers have reposed in me. PROPOSAL OF A VOTE OF THANKS TO THE PRESIDENT. [By HOFEATH G. BUHLER, C.I.E., Professor in tlie Imperial and Royal University of Vienna, Austrian Delegate.] The admirable sketch of the achievements of Oriental scholarship during the last fifty years, and of its consequent rise in dignity and importance, which Professor Max Mliller has just given us, must indeed fill the hearts of Orientalists with just pride. And it naturally affords particular gratification to those among us who are able to remember the not very remote times when matters stood very differently. Even so late as thirty-five years ago, war was still being waged, especially in Germany, between the Classicists and the Sanskritists. The simplest and most indisputable results of comparative philology were by no means received with general respect, and in the Universities the study of Sanskrit was by no means viewed favourably. Latine loqui vialumus quarti balLutire Sanskrite, said one of the most distinguished philologists of the time, to a presump- tuous adherent of the new school who dared to express a doubt regarding the all-sufficiency of the two classical languages. His dictum was not rarely repeated with complacency, and among others by one of my own teachers, who wished to warn me against my dangerous proclivities towards the sacred language CONGUKSS OF ORIENTALISTS. b/ of the Brahmans. The study of Arabic and other literary Semitic languages was regarded with more favour, but by many only under the proviso that it laid no claim to any higher position than to that of a humble handmaiden of the study of Divinity. Egyptology and Assyriology, especially the latter, were still looked upon with distrust, and very com- monly declared to bo pursuits unworthy of the attention of serious scholars. In short, though there were no doubt most honourable exceptions, the classical philologists and the historians, as well as the educated public, whom they influenced, mostly regarded special Oriental research with no friendly sentiments ; the Orientalist was often made to feel that he was surrounded by an atmosphere if not of actual hostility, yet of scarcely disguised contempt. If in the present day a great revulsion of feeling has taken place, and the work of the Orientalist is now everywhere regarded with sympathy and followed with intelligent interest, the change is owing partly, as we have been told, to the growth of the quantity and quality of its results, but to a great extent also — and this has not been mentioned — to the indefatigable industry and the consummate skill, displayed by some of the master workmen in setting forth their own and their fellow-labourers' discoveries. Among these men who have conquered the indiffer- ence of the public, and who have brought home the value of Oriental research even to those reluctant to acknowledge it, hardly one has done so much and occupies so prominent a position as our illustrious President, Professor Max Muller. He has laboured for nearly fifty years, and laboured to the very best 88 RECENT ESSAYS. purpose both for the specialists and, what in my opinion and according to my experience is even more difficult, for the general public. To the specialists he has given such works as his ' History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature/ which after the lapse of a genera- tion is still a standard book, and his splendid editions of the E.ig-Veda, the greatest and most extensive among which has just now appeared in a second edition. The large collection of translations, unique of its kind, which appears under his guidance, renders the greatest services both to the specialists and to all interested in the history of religion. Neither the specialist nor the student of general history can aflbrd to pass by the Sacred Eooks of the East. The works, which our President has addressed chiefly, though never exclusively, to beginners and to the general public, refer to an exceedingly great variety of subjects, extending from the highest problems of the science of religion to the history of the alphabets, and even to the art of spelling. Their number makes an attempt at enumeration impossible, and, as they are all admirably adapted for their several purposes, even a selection of titles would be invidious. It must suffice, and, I believe, it will suffice, if I here call attention to the well-known fact that these works have made Professor Max Mliller's name a household word in every country where the English language is spoken or understood, and not less in all lands where his native tongue prevails. These long continued and eminent services to the common cause will, I am sure, make all Orientalists here present agree with me, that it would have been difficult to find anybody better qualified than Professor Max Mliller to fill the CONGRESS OF OEIENTALISTS. 89 most honourable post of President of this our Ninth International Oriental Congress, and to give us in an Inaugural Address a general outline of the results of Oriental research. Turninsr to the other causes of the elevation of Oriental research, I can only agree with Professor Max Miiller, that one of the chief points which has contributed to raise it in dignity and importance is the discovery of connecting-links between its various branches. Much has indeed been done to convert the outcome of the several sections of Oriental studies into connected chapters of the history of the human race. Much also remains to be accomplished, and there is every hope that, if the search for ancient literary documents and the excavation of the old sites, once the homes of civilisation, are carried on with the same vigour and skill as during late years, much more will be effected. Thus there is a gap in the history of the relations of India to its neighbours, the complete filling up of which may be expected wdth full confidence, nay, which indeed now akeady may be said to be half filled. This gap is found in the history of the spread of the Indian civilisation towards the southern portion of the Far East. It has been long known that there are more or less distinct traces of Indian immigra- tions, and of Indian influence in certain islands of the Indian Archipelago, such as Java, Sumatra, Bali, Eorneo, and even in the distant Philippines, as well as in some districts of Further India, such as Siam, Kamboja, and Champa. But it is only since Professor Kern began, and Messieurs Barth, Bergaigne, and iSenart carried on with signal success the examination GO RECENT ESSAYS. of the epigraphic documents collected by M. Aymonier and others, that we have obtained an insight into the true character of the relations of the Hindus with these regions. It now appears that this portion of the Far East did not receive its share of the Indian civilisation, like China and Japan, through the bare- footed friars of the Buddhist persuasion, but after being conquered with the sword by the Brahminical warriors of Eastern India. Not much later than the time when Rome began to extend its sway beyond the fi-ontiers of Italy, the Indian princes and nobles entered on a career of con- quest which probably began with the subjection of portions of Sumatra and Java, and certainly extended as far as Kamboja and Champa, to the south of Cochin China. They carried with them their civilisation and their religion, following, it would seem, the advice addressed by Manu to the successful conquerors, whom he exhorts to settle in newly-acquired king- doms, learned Brahmans, artists, and artisans skilled in various handicrafts. The inscriptions from Kam- boja and Champa, the oldest known among which belongs to the second century of our era, proves that Sanskrit was the official language, and that these countries boasted of poets, able to turn out very respectable Sanskrit verses. We also learn from them that the Samans were sung, the Riks, the Mahabha- rata, the Ramaya-n-a, and the Pura^ia were recited in the Far East just as in Arydvarta, the true abode of the Aryas ; that ^Siva and Vish^iu were worshipped in the new country just as in the old home ; and that temples were dedicated to them, built in the Indian style of architecture, the ruins of which even now CONGRESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 91 strike the beholder with admiration. Much remains still to be done in order to bring out the details of the conquest and of the civilisation of the Far East by the Indian Aryas. But the outlines of the inte- resting story are clearly discernible, and even at present it would be possible to enrich the history of Asia by a chapter which would prove equally attractive to European readers, and to the modern Hindus, the descendants of the conquerors of the Far East. ' Professor Max MUller's practical suggestion for the advancement of Oriental learning has, of course, my warmest sympathies, and I wish it all possible success. As a Sanskritist, I have good reasons for regarding England as the fountain-head of the studies to which I have devoted myself, and, naturally, I can only rejoice at every undertaking calculated to raise the standard of Oriental scholarship in England, and to make England, more and more the headquarters of Oriental learnincj. I now fulfil the pleasant and honourable task, imposed upon me by the Managing Committee, of moving a hearty vote of thanks to our President for the eloquent and impressive address to which we have just listened. VOTE OF THANKS TO THE PRESIDENT. [Seconded by COUNT ANGELO DE GUBERN.\TIR, Piofessor in the Koyal University of Rome, Italian Delegate.] Dopo la parola autorevolissima dal professor Giorgio Blihler, in risposta al vostro alto discorso^ o glorioso Max Muller, potrebbe apparii-vi supertlua ogni altra 93 RECENT ESSAYS. parola ; ed, in ogni modo, piu efficace della mia e piii lusinghiera al vostro orecchio^ avvezzo alle carezze ed agli incensi dell' Olimpo, dove il vostro genio luminoso ha sempre spaziato, giungerebbe 1' assenso di uno de' sommi maestri della linguistica contempo- ranea, del mio illustre collega e concittadino, il sena- tore Graziadio Ascoli, il quale, in una memorabile monografia,, intitolata Lingue e Nazioni, ormai antica, precorse di alcuni anni, gia secondato da un nucleo di valentuomini che sta per divenire falange, il moto felice presente, per mettere in accordo le indagini e divinazioni del linguista comparatore con quelle deir etnologo e preparar conclusioni piu comprensive, le quali permetteranno finalmente di rendere una niaggior giustizia alia parte che ciascun popolo, anche umile, ha preso inconsciamente alia formazione pro- gressiva de' linguaggi e ad ogni palese documento deir umana civilta. Ma e sembrato forse al Coraitato, che, nella mia privata qualita d' indianista, mitologo e folk-lorista, fceguace lontano delle vostre prime orme luminose, o geniale maestro, e di cooperatore assiduo all' opera benefica de' Congressi degli Orientalisti, io potessi portar qui una voce non dissonante e forse simpatica, nel concerto di lodi che saluta, ad un tempo, 1' opera vostra lunga e magnanima a pro' degli studii, special- mente ariani, e il lavoro solerte e meritorio, invano contrastato, de' savii ordinatori di questo nono Con- gresso, continuatore legittimo dello splendido ottavo Congresso che ci riuni, sotto la presidenza augusta del Re di Svezia e di Norvegia, a Stoccolma ed a Christiania. Ne, dopo ch' io consentii al troppo cortese invito, CONGRESS OF ORIEXTALISTS. 93 10 mi scusero piu d' adoperare, in questa occasione solenne, la mia dolce favella nativa, posto che non posso ne pure aver dimenticato come Giuseppe Bai-etti, Ugo Foscolo, Giuseppe Pecchio, Gabriele Rossetti, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giovanni Ruffini, Gerolamo Pic- chioni, Antonio Panizzi, Aurelio Saffi ed altri illustri profughi italiani, lungamente beneficati in questo suolo ospitale, hanno insegnato la lingua di Dante alia parte piu eletta del popolo inglese, non ignaro poi che lo stesso grand old Englishman, il quale regge ora le sorti politiche del Regno Unito e che dovea presiedere una sezione del nostro Congresso, cosi bene architettato, studio gia, con lo stesso amore e con uguale profondita, la lingua di Dante e quella d' Omero. L' opera de' Congressi Internazionali degli Orienta- listi mi appare, del resto, o Signori, per due grandi aspetti, importante. Oltre al porre nuovi capisaldi ed alti segnali visibili a tutti, nella via laboriosa, ma im po' disseminata, degli studii orientali, pel concorso ch^ essi promuovono, d' ogni maniera di studiosi da ogni contrada pi^ remota e dispersa, arrecanti come ad un' ara sacrificale, 1' ultimo ed il miglior frutto delle loro pazienti indagini, accrescono pure visi- bilmente, nel paese stesso dove ogni Congresso felice- mente s' aduna, la gara operosa degli studiosi nazionali, e la mettono in piu nobile evidenza, somministrando ad ogni nuova riunione internazionale un contributo di studii locali di un valore non dispregevole. Ora a me, particolarmente studioso di cose indiane, questo Congresso promosso dalla nobile e forte Inghil- terra, la quale non solo possiede e governa, ma studia, educa e incivilisce tutto il magnifico e portentoso 94) EECENT ESSAYS. universe dell' India, dovea destare nou solo un parti- colare interesse, ma un sense di viva e singolare riconoscenza. Posseduta invano e disputata col ferro e col fuoco, per quasi tre secoli, da tre altre valorose nazioni europee, 1' India sapiente, se proprio non ci fu rivelata, h stata di certo aperta e comunicata, per la prima volta, all' Europa, dalla sola Inghilterra, sul fine del secolo passato. L' Inghilterra trovo poi, in altre nazioni europee, e specialmente nella Francia e nella Germania, le sue cooperatrici piii valide ; e voi, illustre Max Miiller, con la genialita dell' opera vostra, avete certamente, nella vostra sola persona, rappre- sentata 1' anima congrediente di piu civilta, intese del pari a difFondere sopra di noi la luce dell' India. La somma dell' opera vostra, illuminata de' piu centri di vita intellettuale poderosa, e percio stata fruttifera ; e di ottimo augurio ai lavori di questo Congresso Internazionale, ma particolarmente Anglo-Indiano, di Orientalist!, sara 1' inspirazione che gli verra dalla parola luminosa, con la quale oggi li avete iniziati. Onde, fiducioso d' interpretare, alia mia volta, il senti- mento della maggioranza degli studiosi di ogni disci- plina che si riferisce all' Oriente, riuniti in questo Congresso, mi associo, di gran cuore, alia proposta del chiarissimo professor Biihler, perch^ 1' Assemblea, dopo il plauso che gia gli concesse spontanea, risponda con un singolar voto di ringraziamento all' alto e sereno discorso inspiratore del professoro Max Muller. Ed ora, passando ad altro, ad un innamorato del- r India, che ha pure la rara ventura di esser nato nella patria di Marco Polo e di Filippo Sassetti, sia lecito di profittare di questa occasione propizia, per una presentazione che spera poter tornare bene accetta. CONGllESS OF ORIENTALISTS. 95 In questi primi giorni di settembre, si compiono quattrocento anni per 1' appunto che, solo co' suoi alti propositi, sopra una modesta nave spagnuola, dal nome mistico di Santa Maria, quasi uguabnente lontano dalle due rive del mondo, un nuovo argonauta italiano, con la mente rivolta all' India, sostenuto da una forte conscienzaj portato dal suo sogno luminoso, impavido, solcava, per la prima volta, 1' Oceano. Al termine della sua navigazione afFannosa, una meta del mondo, popolata di gente che gli apparve e forse, in origine, era stata indiana, o prossima all' India, balzo per lui fuori dalle acque, lucente ; e di quella luce conquistatrice fu irradiata^ di quella conquista fu beneficata 1' umanita intiera. Sognatore dell' Oriente al pari di noi era il grande ammiraglio Genovese, e pero il suo nome non ci e estraneo, come 1' opera di lui non ci rimane indifFerente. Se egli non fu il vero ritrovatore dell' India asiatica, discoprendo, per sub- lime errore, un' India nuova piu grande, diede pure maggior animo e nuova luce alia conquista porto- ghese di Vasco de Gama. E pero Cristiano Lassen, uno de' piu grandi maestri nell' Indianismo, col nome glorificato del genovese Cristoforo Colombo, apriva degnamente il classico suo libro sopra le Antichitd dell' India. Non rechi dunque meraviglia che uno studioso italiano delle cose d' oriente, messosi d' accordo con un coraggioso editore milanese, abbia promosso un Albo di onoranze internazionali a Cristoforo Colombo e ch' egli abbia trovata molta e cortese adesione non pure tra gli Orientalisti europei, ma fra gli stessi Orientali, e, in particolar modo, fra gli Indiani, i quali andarono a gara per rendere omaggio alia memoria 96 RECENT ESSAYS. del grande navigatore, con ogni maniera di laudi, in ogni lor liDgua, fino a quella piu universale della musica, come si rilevera dal sagcrio d' inno vedico in onore di Colombo, scritto dal Eagia Surindro Mohun Tagor di Calcutta. L' Albo verra soltanto pubblicato il t2 ottobre prossimo pel giorno anniversario del primo memorabile approdo del Genovese all' Isola del Salvatore. Ma i fogli staccati in varie lingue orientali che qui gia depongo riverente, in omaggio al Nono Congresso degli Orientalisti, attestano una specie di misterioso congresso spirituale d' ogni popolo e d' ogni linguaggio, intorno ad un centro di alta luce ideale diffusa sulla terra dal nome di Colombo. La concordia di pensieri e di sentimenti umani innanzi ad uno stesso faro di luce, rende 1' opera conciliatrice e pacifica di questa specie di Congressi intieramente salutare ; la sola arma de' Congressi essendo poi la parola luminosa, la parola cbe ci viene dal religioso Oriente ha piu d' ogni altra 1' obbligo di esser buona, come la luce che investe d' una sola armonia il Creators ed il Creato. A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. YOUR Royal Highness, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, — For more than thirty years, I may honestly say, I have been looking forward to what at last I see realised to-nio-ht. If you could look back to the old numbers of the Times, you would find there, just thirty-two years ago, my last urgent appeal foi* the establishment of a School of Oriental Lani^uages in London. It bears the date of the loth of January, and was published on the T3th of January, 1857. And I may say now, what was not generally known at the time, that he who took the warmest interest in this plan, who saw not only its great literary, but its supreme national importance, and who never gave up his hope that sooner or later that plan would be realised, was, Sir, your Royal Father. You know, Sir, how nothing that concerned the greatness and honour of England was foreign to his noble heart, and how the duties, however distasteful and unpopular at times, which that greatness imposes on all of us, found in him alwaj^s the most faithful and determined champion. The Prince Consort could not bear to see other countries outstripping England in a work which was peculiarly her own. England may have her rivals VOL. I. H 98 EECENT ESSAYS. and competitors in the West ; in the East she stands supreme, unrivalled, unapproached. England rules over nearly 300 millions of people who speak Oriental, languages ; she probably supplies the markets of 1,000 millions of the people of the East, and yet, for culti- vating a practical or scholarlike knowledge of these languages, for educating a sufficient number of young men qualified to serve her interests and to maintain her power in the East. England has hitherto been doing less than either Russia, France, or Germany. When I say England, I mean the Government. For during the many years which have elapsed since the Crimean War, and since the Indian Mutiny, the different Universities and Colleges of the country have indeed bestirred themselves and made the greatest eflorts to supply Oriental teaching according to their means, nay, even beyond their means. The expense incurred by some of them in providing a staff of competent professors and teachers of the ancient, and, more particularly, of the modern languages 6f the East, has been very serious. It is quite right that the ancient and classical languages of the East should be represented in every University by the very best scholars, far more even than they are at present. Eut it cannot be expected that Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Dublin, King's College, and University College should each provide a staff of teachers for Hindi, Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, Guzarathi, Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, Burmese, to say nothing of such vernaculars as Tashon, Baungshe, Chinbok, Chinm^, and others for the study of which, as I see from the Tmies of January ist, the Indian Government has just offered very tempting A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 99 rewards. Notbincr can be more creditaltle than what has been achieved by the two Colleges who have now united their forces under the auspices of the Imperial Institute. Were I free to speak of my own University, I could easily show that the genercsity of Oxford in supplying the necessary funds for Oriental teaching need fear no comparison. The same applies, I know, to Cambrido-e. But when Imperial interests are at stake, the country has a right to expect Imperial, that is, concentrated action. Otherwise, what is the good of having an Empire? We might as well go back to the Heptarchy. The Russian Empire has long been the most liberal patron of Oriental studies. In the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg there has always been a chair for almost every branch of Oriental learning, and the principal spoken languages of the East continue to be taught there by professors, both European and Oriental. In France the Government has long aoro founded a school pour les laiigiies or'ientales vivantes, where Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, and Tibetan are taught by eminent scholars, while the French Institute has always counted among its members the chief representatives of every depart- ment of Oriental research. At Vienna there is ^n Oriental Seminary, and the Imperial Press has acquired one of the richest collec- tions of Oriental types. When other Universities and Academies to which I had applied for assistance hesitated about publishing a translation of the ' Sacred Pooka of the East,' the Austrian Government in the H 2 ]C0 EECEXT ESSAYS. most liberal spirit came forward, ready to bear the expense of an undertaking that was intended to remove the religious prejudices which separate the East from the West. At Berlin a Seminary of Oriental languages has lately been inaugurated which, under the direction of my learned friend, Professor Sachau, bids fair to surpass all the others. As this is the younge&t of these institutions, allow me to tell you what excellent work is being done there at present. According to an official report just received, this Oriental Seminary at Berlin has now the following staff of professors and teachers : One Professor of Chinese ; two Teachers of Chinese, both natives — one for teaching Northern-Chinese, the other Southern-Chinese. One Professor of Japanese, assisted by a native teacher. One Professor of Arabic, assisted bv two native teachers — one for Arabic as spoken in Egypt, the other for Arabic as spoken in Syria. One native teacher of Hindustani and Pei'sian. One native teacher of Turkish. One teacher of Swaheli, an important language spoken on the East coast of Africa, assisted by a native. Besides these special lectures, those given by the most eminent Professors of Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and Chinese in the Universities of Berlin are open to the students of the Oriental Seminary. The number of students amounts at present to 115. Of these, fifty- six are said to belong to the Faculty of Law, which must be taken to include all who aspire A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 101 to any employment in the consular and colonial services. Fifteen belong to the Faculties of Philo- sophy, Medicine, and Physical Science ; four to the Faculty of Theology, who are probably intended for Missionary work. Twenty-three are mentioned as engaged in mercantile pursuits three are technical students, five officers in the armj'-, and nine are returned as studying Modern Greek and Spanish, languages not generally counted as Oriental, though, no doubt, of great usefulness in the East and in America. Suppose that out of this number, fifty only are turned out every year, well grounded in one of the Eastern lano-ua^es — think what a leaven that will be in different parts of the East. Think also of what a power they will constitute, I do not say hostile to England, but at all events in competition and rivalry with her, Avhenever her diplomatic and her commercial interests are at stake ! Of course, diplomatists of the old school will tell you that interpreters are quite sufficient for transacting any official business in the East, and that having to wait for an answer while the dragoman is translating, allows time useful for reflection. Our 3'oung diplo- matists know better. They know that a friendly tete-a-tete is impossible in the presence of a thiid person, however neutral and machine-like. Drago- mans are often irritating, sometimes misleading, sometimes actually dishonest. If a new commercial treaty has to be negotiated in Japan, if a concession has to be seciired in China, if rights of suzei'ainty have to be acquired in Africa, who is likely to be successful? The envoy who 102 EECENT ESSAYS. arrives in full state with a posse of secretaries and dragomans, or the diplomatic agent who can converse freely with natives of all ranks, who can make allow- ance for the prejudices, the temper, the susceptibilities of Eastern potentates, and who in the end may become their best fiiend and adviser? No country has appreciated the importance of Oriental studies more highly than Russia, none has been better served by her polyglot diplomatists. Let me give you one instance only. More than fifty years ago there was at the Imperial Academy of St. Petersbui-g a Professor of Pushtu, then the only one in Europe. People, ignorant of the East, asked what that language might be. We know now, but too well, that it is the language of the Afghans. In 1 S40, Professor Dorn published at St. Petersburg his Gramviaire /fgliane. We are speaking of ancient history, for at that time Dost Mohammed was still the ruler of Afghanistan, Burnes and Macnaghten had not yet been murdered, and the awful tragedy of the Khyber Pass had not yet been enacted. Yet Russia was all that time quietly encouraging the study of Pushtu, of which there is even now, I believe, no teacher in England. Call this what you like, en- lightened patronage of Oriental scholarship, or keen political foresight — in either case Russia deserves full credit, and she has had her reward. But it is not only for the purposes of statecraft and diplomacy that England should follow the example of Russia, and secure a constant supply of well-qualified Oriental scholars. The chief object of diplomacy is to prevent war. But if diplomacy fails, and war breaks out, what is an army to do, how is it to live in Eastern A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 103 countries without officers who can freely communicate with the people, whether friendly or hostile? The German army has always been very proud because it possessed in its ranks one officer who could write a report of the battle of Worth in Sanskrit. This might possibly prove an embarras de richesse, and I am not going to recommend Sanskrit as a panacea for all evils. But at the present moment, whether in the Soudan or in Burmah, we are told that the Commissariat is sadly in want of officers who can freely converse with the natives, who can write letters in Ai'abic or Burmese, and are able to explain to the people whether they want an ox or a cow, a sheep or a goat. The Commissariat always claims, perhaps rightly, that no victory has ever been gained on an empty stomach. Much can, no doubt, be requisitioned by sign language, to say nothing of the language of blows and revolvers. But a good understanding between an army and the people of the country is impossible without officers understanding and speak- ing the language. Many surprises, painful surprises, might have been spared to the English army, if what is called the 'Intelligence Department' had been better cared for in times past. I remember during the Crimean War, a letter from Shamyl arriving in England, and no one being able to I'ead it. It could not well be sent to St. Petersburg for translation. About the same time the Russian Governor of the Caucasus was said to have received the first infor- mation of a carefully-planned conspiracy in Georgia from Georgian scholars at St. Petersburg. I see that at present German officers are studying Chinese, Turkish, and Swaheli in the Oriental Seminary at 104 RECENT ESSAYS, Berlin. Why should we not produce the same article in the School of Oriental Languages which is inaugu- rated to-night under such brilliant auspices 1 And when after war, peace has been restored once more, when commercial intercourse on a large scale has to be established, so as to knit the bonds of peace with the strongest chains, is not a knowledge of the languages more essential to the English than to any other merchants? You would hardly believe the number of letters I receive from time to time from manufacturers, requesting me to translate advertise- ments, inquiring whether advertisements inserted in Oriental newspapers really mean what they are in- tended to mean, or asking for translation of notices in Oiiental journals. I am not responsible for the reputation of Afezz fantiasis, a kind of linguistic Elephantiasis, which I seem to enjoy in certain quarters. I have protested against it again and again. Still people will write to me and address me as ' the Professor of the Oriental Language at Oxford,' evidently imagining that one unknown lan- guage — some Oriental VolapiiJc — is spoken all over the East. No one who knows what it is to know a language would ever imagine that it is possible for any human being to know more than two, or at the utmost, three languages thoroughly. He may be acquainted with many more, he may even handle some of them dexterously enough in conversation, but to know a language is the work of a lil'e. To learn a new language means to become a new man. I hope, therefore, that in future I shall be relieved of the title of Professor of the Oriental Language, and that the Imperial Institute, and more particularly A SCHOOL OF OIUENTAL LANGUAGES. 105 tb.e New School of Oriental Languages, will supply to every merchant in England, Scotland and Ii-eland such information as I in my ignorance was often unable to give. Every pound laid out on the proper endowment of this school will bear interest a hundred and a thousandfold, by opening new and splendid channels to British commercial enterprise. England cannot live an isolated life. She must be able to breathe, to grow, to expand, if she is to live at all. Her productive power is far too much for herself, too much even for Europe. She must have a wider field for her unceasing activity, and that field is the East, with its many races, its many markets, its many lanouao-es. To allow herself to be forestalled, or to be ousted by more eloquent and persuasive compe- titors from those vast fields of commerce would be simple suicide. Our school in claiming national support, appeals first of all to the instinct of self- preservation. It says to every manufacturing town in England, Help us ! and, in doing so, help thyself ! Whenever the safety and honour of England are at stake we know what enormous sums Parliament is willing to vote for army and navy, for fortresses and harbours — sums larger than any other Parliament would venture to name. We want very little for our School of Oriental Languages, but we want at least as much as other countries devote to the same object. We want it for the very existence of England ; for the vital condition of her existence is her commerce, and the best markets for that commerce lie in the East. Let the world call England a nation of shop- keepers — omen ciQcipio — but let England show that she means to keep her shops against the world. 103 RECENT ESSAYS. The nobler feeling of patriotism may lie dormant for a time, but if once roused, it awakes with irresistible force and fury, and knows how to defend 'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, Against the envy of less happier lands.' Perhaps I have now said enough, and ought to detain 3 ou no longer. But, if you could spare me some moments more, there is one subject, very near to my heart, on which I should be glad if you allowed me to say a few words. Need I say that it is India. For ruling India in harmony with the wishes and the highest interests of its inhabitants, and at the same time with a due regard for the tremendous responsibility incurred by England in becoming the guardian of that enormous Empire, we want young men who are able to do more than merel}^ chatter Hindustani or Tamil. If we look once more to the Lectures provided in the Oriental Seminary at Berlin, we shall find that they are not confined to teaching Oriental lanouaires, or how to write a commercial letter, how to draw up an official document, and how to draft a political treaty. In every department the professors have to lecture on the history, the geo- graphy the literature, the manners, customs laws, and religions of the principal nations of the East. This is the kind of knowledge which is absolutely necessary for those who are destined to rule over a population nearly ten times as large as the population of Eng- land, a population not only speaking different lan- guages, but thinking different thoughts, believing in different religions, nourished bj^ different historical traditions, and divided by different aspirations for the future. A SCHOOL OF ORIEXTAL LANGUAGES. 107 It is sometimes suppoped to be not altogether easy to govern England, Scotland, and Ii-eland, because on certain points their interests seem divergent. It is said that English statesmen do not understand Ireland, Irish statesmen do not understand England, and Scotch statesmen do not understand either. And yet these three countries speak a common language, have a common religion, and, in spite of occasional jars and bickerings, would resist with a common indignation any insult offered to their common honour, any in- vasion of their commonwealth. Think, then, what a task is imposed on that handful of young English- men, Scotchmen, and Irishmen who are sent out every year to govern India, and how much depends on their being well equipped for that task. The history of England's taking possession of India is more marvellous than any story of the Arabian Kights, and what is the most marvellous in it is tlie apparent absence of any plan or plot from beginning to end. No English statesman was ever so hare- brained as to conceive the plan of sending out an expe- dition for the conquest of India. But though there was neither plan nor plot, nowhere in the whole history of the world is there a higher purpose more visible than in the advance of England towards the East. It was the innate vigour of the Saxon race, its strong political instincts, its thirst for work, its love of enterprise, its craving for progress, that drove its sons across the sea, and made them the founders of new Empires in India and the Colonies. There was no plan, no plot ; but read the history of the English Empire in India, and you will find that the readiness, the presence of mind, the self-reliance, the endurance, 108 RECENT ESSAYS. the heroic bravery in moments of supreme anguish of Encjlish men and Enolish women, and. takinsf it all in all, the political wisdom and moderation of the best of India's rulers and statesmen, would supply materials for a perfect epic, more wonderful than the Iliad and Odyssey. And as in the Iliad and the Odyssey the old poet shows us behind the human heroes the Greek gods fighting their battle, though unseen by mortal eye, the true historian also must try to discover, behind the conflicts of races and rulers in India, the working out of higher purposes, though at the time beyond the ken of the human mind. The great historical drama, of which we are witness- ing the last act in India, began thousands of years ago, when the Aryan family separated, one branch moving towards the North-West, the other towards the South-East. Let us not waste our time on ques- tions which admit of no scientific 4Solution as to the exact spot of the original Aryan home. Nothing new or true has yet been advanced against it having been ' somewhere in Asia.' For us, however, it is enouo-h to know that our ancestors and the ancestors of the Hindus had once a common home, that they lived in the same pastures, spoke the same language, and worshipped the same gods. Their blood may have been mixed, and by mixture may, we hope, have been improved. Eut stronger than the aftinity of mere blood is the affinity of language and thought, which makes Englishmen and Hindus brothers indeed. The ring that was broken tliousands of years ago is now being welded together once more. The world is becoming Tndo European. The young men whom A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LAXGLAGLS. 1C9 England sends to India can greet the Aryan in- habitants, not as conquerors meet the conquered, but as brothers meet brothers, as fiiends meet friends. It is generally said that India has been conquered by England. Eut the true conquest of India, it seems to me, is still to come. The true conquerors of India, of the heart of India, will bo those very men whom our new School of Oriental Langnao-es means to fit for their arduous work. No doubt they have to acquire the spoken vernaculars, but in order to un- derstand the people, in order to take a deep human interest in their own work, in order to sympathise with, nay, to love the people, with whom they are brought into daily contact, they must do more. There ought to be a real plan and plot in this new conquest. There ought to be a will, for we know that where there is a will there is a way. Our new conquerors will have to study the ancient literature of India, which is still the leaven of Indian thought. They must gain an insight into the ancient religion, which is still the best key to the religious convictions and superstitions of the present day. They must enter into the spirit of the ancient law of the country before attempting to reconcile native customs with the principles of modern legislation. They must learn to appreciate the beauty of Indian literature before measuring it with the standard of our own poetry, or condemning it unheard. If our young- statesmen go out to India, half acclimatised already to the intellectual atmosphere in which they are to spend the best part of their lives, they will not look upon the country as an exile, and on its inhabitants as mere strangers. They are not strangers, they are 110 RECENT ESSAYS. brothers. They are made of the same stuff as we ourselves. I have never been in India, but I have known many Indians, both men and women, and I do not exaggerate when I tell you that some of them need fear no comparison with the best men and women whom it has been my good fortune to know in England, France, or Germany. Whether for un- selfishness, or devotion to high ideals, truthfulness, purity, and real, living religion, I know no hero greater than Keshub Chunder Son, no heroine greater than Ramabai, and I am proud to have been allowed to count both among my personal friends. You may say that these are exceptions. No doubt they are, and they would be exceptions in Europe as much as in India. Mount Everest is an exception ; Mont Blanc is an exception ; but if we reckon the height of mountain ranges by their highest peaks, we have a right to measure the sublimity of a whole nation by its best men and its best women. Look for these men and women, and you will find them, if not in the great towns, yet in the countless villa<2:es of India. The great towns in India, more than in Europe, contain the very dregs of Indian society, and it is from them that our opinion of the character of the Hindus has been too often formed. And yet what does Elphinstone say, who knew India, if anybody ever knew it : ' No set of people among the Hindus,' he says, ' are so depraved as the dregs of our own great towns. The villagers are everj'where amiable, aflfectionate to their families, kind to their neighbours, and, towards all but the Government, honest and sincere.' A SCHOOL OP OIIIENTAL LANGUAGES. Ill What does Bishop Heber say? — 'The Hindus are brave, courteous, intelligent, most eager for know- ledge and improvement, sober, industrious, dutiful to parents, atfectionate to their children, uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kind- ness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people I ever met with.' Sir Thomas Muuro bears even stronger testimony. He wa-ites : 'If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and, above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs wdiich denote a civil- ised people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilisation is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am con- vinced that England will gain by the import cargo.' These are the unprejudiced opinions of men who knew the Hindus, their language, literature, and religion thoroughly, who had spent their lives in the Civil Service, and had risen in it to the highest rank — ' Old Indians,' as they are sometimes contemptuously called. Who after that will dare to say that the Hindus are a nation of liars and hypocrites, and that no English gentleman could ever be on terms of inti- macy and friendship with such niggers ! I have hitherto spoken chiefly of Hindus, of those who are still under the sway of their ancient native hterature and religion, and who speak languages de- rived from, or strongly impregnated with, Sanskrit. 112 EECEXT ESSAYS. But what I have said applies with equal truth to the Mohammedan inhabitants of India. No one can understand them, can sympathise \Yitli them, can induence them, who does not know their religion, who cannot read the Koran and the classical works of Arabic literature. We have no idea how often their feelings are hurt by the free and easy way, by the ignorant manner, in which we speak of what is sacred to them. No Hindu likes to hear his religion called idolatry, no Parsi can bear to be called a fire- worshipper. In the same way a Mohammedan does not like to hear his religion curtly called Mohamme- danism, still less to hear Mohammed spoken of as an arch- impostor. Mohammed was no more an im- postor than any of the founders of the great religions of the world. And nothing marks the progress of an enlightened study of religion, of the Science of Eeligion, better than the bright picture which an eloquent and large-hearted Bishop of the Church of England has lately given of Mohammed in his Eampton Lectures. Still, with all their veneration for Mohammed, those who follow him do not quite like to hear their religion called Mohammedanism, though it seems to us a most inoffensive name. Their religion was not made b}'' Mohammed, they say, it was revealed to him, and its true name is Iddm, surrender. I doubt whether a better name has ever been invented for any religion, than surrender, Iddm. It is a knowledge, a thorough knowledge, not onl}"^ of the languages of India, but of its classical litera- ture, its religion, its laws and customs, its supersti- tions and prejudices, its whole social life, that will form the best preparation for those who. after passing A SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES. 113 through this School of Oriental Languages, are to become both the servants and the rulers of India. When I look at the list of those who have already been enrolled on the staff of professors and teachers, I see names that ofler the best security for the success of this institution. And when I see the name of its Royal Patron, I know for certain that whenever this institution requires help and support it will be granted readily and generously. To carry on the work which our fathers had to leave unfinished is the best tribute we can pay to their memory. We could not wish for better auguries than when we see, as we see to-night, the cherished idea of a noble father called back to life by a loyal and devoted son. THE PRINCE OF WALES. Ladies and Gentlemen : I think I may speak in your name, and on behalf of all present, when I say how deeply indebted we are to Professor Max Miiller for the interesting and eloquent lecture which you have just heard from him. To me, especially, it has been a great gratification to preside on this occasion, and to hear such words spoken by one whom, ever since my undergraduate days at the University of Oxford, upwards of thirty years ago, I have had the great advantage and privilege of knowing. I can also say that the Governing Body of the Imperial Institute are especially beholden to him for having so kindly and readily acceded to my request that he VOL. I. I 114 EECENT ESSAYS. would lend his aid — and no one could render more valuable assistance — in the inaufjuration of the School of Modern Oriental Studies which, with the most cordial and important co-operation of the Councils of University and King's Colleges, has recently been organised by the Institute. The sphere of future use- fulness of this new school which Professor Max Muller has foreshadowed is indeed a comprehensive one, and cannot but greatly encourage the Special Committee of Management of the School to increased zeal in the pursuit of the work which they have so kindly under- taken at the request of the Institute. The Professor has directed our serious attention to the important practical results attained by Government schools for Oriental languages in Russia, France, and Austria, and especially by the recently established school in Berlin, and to the great influence which such results (to the attainment of which our new school aspires) must exercise upon the commercial interests of a country. I am sure, ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with me that the Professor's illustrations of the invaluable nature of the assistance which the school is calculated to render to those who are, by their future services, to contribute to a wise and prosperous government of the Indian Empire, were most interest- ing. That the new School of Modern Oriental Studies is a worthy object of material support by this country none can doubt who have listened to the important observations and the eloquent appeal of Professor Max Muller this evening ; but the best aid and sup- port which it can receive will be derived from the extension of an active encouragement, by Public Bodies and by Government Departments, to all those A SCHOOL OF OE-IENTAL LANGUAGES. 115 whose future duties will involve an intimate acquaint- ance with the languages of Oriental countries, to avail themselves freely of the resources for study and prac- tice which the school will place at their disposal. In conveying to you, Professor Max Mliller, my personal thanks, as well as those of all present, for the intellectual treat you have afforded us this even- ing, let me add that I listened with special gi-atification to your reference to the very warm interest my lamented father evinced in the strenuous efforts made by you so many years ago, in the interests of this country, to bring into existejice such an Institution as that which we inaugurate this evening, and the success of which has ni}^ warmest wishes, both for its own sake and because I re2;ard it as an earnest of the useful work which the Imperial Institute is destined to accomplish. 1 2 FEEDEEICK III; EVERY one who last June witnessed the glorious procession of the Queen to and from West- minster Abbey, will for ever remember one royal figure towering above all the rest, the Crown Prince of Germany, as he was then, resplendent in his silver helmet and the while tunic of the Prussian Cuiras- siers — the very picture of manly streugth. He is now the Emperor of Germany, and when we think of him as travellings from San Remo to Berlin through storm and snow, wrapped up in his grey Hohenzollern cloak, a sad and silent man, is there in all history a more tragic contrast ■? But there beats in the breast of Frederick III the same stout heart that upheld Frederick II at Hochkirchen. He does not know what danger means, whether it come from within or from without. ' I face my illness,' he said to his friends, ' as I faced the bullets at Koniggratz and Worth.' And forward he rides undismayed, follow- ing the trumpet-call of duty, and not swerving one inch from the straight and rugged path which now lies open before him. There was a time when his friends imagined a very different career for him. They believed that he might succeed to the throne in the very prime of manhood. ' Contem'porary Review, Apiil, 1888. FEEDERICK III. 117 His father, the late Emperor, then Prince of Prussia, had become very unpopular in 1848, and it was con- sidered by no means impossible that he might think it riffht to decline the crown and to abdicate in favour of his son. The star of Prussia was very low in 1848, and it sank lower and lower during the last years of the afflicted King, Frederick William IV. Few people only were aware of the changes that had taken place in the political views of the Prince of Prussia, chiefly during his stay in England, and the best spirits of the time looked upon his son, Prince Frederick William, as the only man who could be trusted to inaugurate a new era in the history of Prussia. His marriage with the Princess Royal of England gave still stronger zest to these hopes, for while he was trusted as likely to realise the national yearnings after a united Ger- many, she was known as the worthy daughter of her father and mother, at that time the only truly consti- tutional rulers in Europe. England was then the ideal of all German Liberals, and a close political alliance with Eng-land was considered the best solu- tion of all European difficulties. Young men, and old men too, dreamt dreams, little knowing how distant their fulfilment should be, and how dashed with sorrow, when at last they should come to be fulfilled. The Prince himself knew probably nothing about the hopes that were then centred on him, but, for a man of his vigour and his eagerness to do some useful work, the long years of inactivity which fol- lowed were a severe trial. It has been the tradition in Prussia that the heir to the throne is allowed less power and influence than almost anybody else. He 118 RECENT ESSAYS. uiny be a soldier, but, whether as a soldier or as a politician, he is expected to stand aloof, to keep silent and to obey. In the violent constitutional conflicts which began soon after his father's accession to the throne, the young Crown Prince felt himself isolated and unable to side with either party in a struggle the nature of which he could not approve, and the distant objects of which he was not allowed to foresee. What could be more trying to him than this enforced neutrality, when he and those nearest and dearest to him felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that the safety of the throne was being jeopardized, and the great future of Prussia, as the leader of the German people, forfeited for ever ? It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that the years of his manhood were passed in idleness. Good care is taken in Prussia that no one, not even the heir to the Crown, should enjoy a sinecure. It required hard work for the Crown Prince to make himself a soldier, such as he has proved himself in two wars, but he never flinched from these military duties, whether they were congenial to him or not. Then came his social duties, his constant visits to foreign courts, his representative functions on every great occasion in Germany or in Prussia. And, besides these public duties, he made plenty of work for him- self in which, helped and inspired by the Crown Princess, he could more freely follow the natural bent of his mind and his heart. The pupil of Professor Curtius, he preserved through life a warm interest in historical and archaeological researches. When he was able to help he was ready to do so, and a limited sphere of independent action was at last given him. rUEDEllICK III. 119 as the patron of all museums and collections of works of art in Prussia. The conscientious discharge of these duties, often under considerable difficulties, has borne ample fruit, and will not easily be forgotten by those who worked under him and with him. And, as the Crown Princess assisted him, so he was able to support the Crown Princess in her indefatigable endeavours to improve the education of women, the nursing of the poor, the sanitary state of dwellings, and in many other social reforms which were far from popular wdien they were first started in Prussia by an Englishwoman. Only in political questions which were so near his heart he had no voice, nay, his own ideas had often to be kept concealed, lest they might encounter even more determined opposition than they would if advanced by others. The political views of the Crown Prince and those who thought wdth him have often been criticised, and the best answer to them has been found in the success of that policy of which neither he nor his father, when he was still Prince of Prussia, could fully approve. Men think, because they are wiser now, they were wiser then ; but a successful policy is not necessarily the wisest policy. 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends, Piough-hevv them how we will.' Durincf the Crimean war there were most com- petent judges who considered an alliance of Prussia with Austria and the Western Powers as the wisest policy, and who looked on the course adopted by the w^avering brain of Frederick William IV as disastrous to the future of Germany. Those who persuaded the King of Prussia to side with Russia may no doubt 120 RECENT ESSAYS. point with pride to the immense success which their policy has since achieved. They may claim the merit of having cajoled Russia into neutrality during the Austrian campaign, and again of having secured her sympathies by secret promises during the Franco- German war. But they forget that an open, alliance of Prussia and Austria with England, France, and Italy might have prevented the Crimean war alto- gether, and many of the fatal consequences that have sprung from it. Anyhow, we have now reached again the same point where the principal nations of Europe stood before the beginning of the Crimean war. Many changes, no doubt, have taken place in the meantime, but the fundamental question remains the same, How can the permanent peace of Europe be secured ? So long as that question remains un- answered, so long as that old riddle remains unsolved, the new Emperor need not think that even now he has come too late, or that his father has left him no laurels to win. The question is, whether the Germanic nations of Europe and America can be made to combine, and to form a League of Peace which will make war in Europe impossible. It is no secret that the formation of such a League has been the chief aim of German diplomacy ever since 1872. That league was to be formed on the uti jwssidetis principle, not for offensive, but entirely for defensive purposes. Much progress has already been made, and nothing has done so much to clear the political atmosphere of Europe as the recent publication of the treaty, concluded some years ago, between Germany and Austria. Though it may have been known before to those whom it FREDERICK III. 121 most concerns, its simple avowal has opened the eyes of both the Russian and the French people, and has shown them what are the risks which they have to face if they mean once more to disturb the peace of Europe. The treaty of amity between Germany and Italy has not yet been divulged, but politicians must be very dull if they cannot guess its spirit. That Spain and Sweden are animated by the same love of peace as Germany, and that they anticipate danger from the same quarters which threaten Germany on the East and on the West, has likewise been shown by signs that cannot be misunderstood. What re- mains to be done in order to complete the European League of Peace ? Nothing but a clear understanding between Germany and England. This is the work which Providence seems to have carved out for the present Emperor of Germany. There is no time to be lost, and he should try to achieve it with all his might. It is not an easy work ; if it were, it would not have been delayed so long. But never was there a time more favourable than now. Ensrland and America are forgetting their petty rivalries, and there is a strong feeling on both sides of the Atlantic that war between two kindred nations would be an absurdity, and that all questions that might lead to war should be decided by arbitration. The recog- nition of such a principle by two of the most powerful nations in the world must react in time on the minds of European statesmen. England and Germany too are kindred nations, and though divided by the ' silver streak,' they feel more and more, as dynastic policy is giving way before the supremacy of the 122 E.ECENT ESSAYS, national will, that blood is thicker than water. The little squabbles arising from the new colonial enter- prises of Germany are unworthy of two great nations. There is room in the world for both of them, and even side by side no colonists can work so heartily together as Germans and Englishmen. But what makes the present moment particular!}' favourable for diplomatic action is the existence of a strong Government in England, a Government above party, or representing the best elements of both parties. Even those who form the Opposition seem, with few exceptions, to be inspired by the same sentiments with regard to foreign policy as those which Lord Salisbury has very openly expressed. There is, of course, a strong feelino; that England should not with a light heart enter on a quarrel with France, but there is no necessity whatever for that. When- ever England and Germany can come to a perfect mutual understandino;, the League of Peace will become so powerful that no gun can be fired in the whole of Europe against the combined and compact will of England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, and Spain. To no countries will the formation of such a league be a greater blessing than to those against whom it may seem to be formed, France and Russia. If Russia can be taught that wars of conquest in Europe are hereafter a sheer impossibility, she may continue the conquest of Central Asia, or, better still, begin the conquest of Russia herself by means of agriculture, industry, schools, universities, and political organisation. If France finds herself faced once for all by the determined No of England, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain, she may again FREDERICK III. 123 enjoy peace with honour at home, and this her toiling millions will soon learn to appreciate far better than honour without peace abroad. No doubt such a Peace -Insurance requires pre- miums. Each country will have to sacrifice some- thing, and make up its mind once for all as to its alliances in the future. Eno-land has to choose between an alliance with Russia and France, or an alliance with German}', Austria, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. The former means chronic war, the latter peace, at least, for some time to come. As to a mere dallying policy, it is not only unworthy of a great nation, but in the present state of Europe threatens to become suicidal. Nor should there be any secrecy about all this, but, as in the case of the treaty between Germany and Austria, there should be perfect outspokenness between nation and nation. The benefit will be immeasurable. England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, and Spain, all want peace. Not one of them wants an inch of ground in Europe more than they have at present, and yet they are crushed and crippled by their military armaments which are necessitated solely by the unfulfilled ambition of France and Russia. The majority of the French nation is still hankering for war, and if Russia could onh' be persuaded to join the French Republic against the German Empire we should have another war more terrible than any which our century has witnessed. But will not even France and Russia combined recoil before the determined and united will of Europe ? The present Emperor of Germany is a true German, but he knows that above patriotism there soar the higher duties of humanity. The present Government 124 RECENT ESSAYS. in England is a patriotic rather than a party Govern- ment, and it has learnt this one lesson at least from the experience of Free Trade, that the welfare of every country is intimately connected with the wel- fare of its neighbours. The present Government may dare to do what no mere party Government would have power to do. It can speak in the name of the whole nation, and pledge the good faith, not of one party only, but of the English people at large, in support of a foreign policy which would change, as if by magic, the whole face of the world, and relieve millions of toiling and almost starving people from the crushing weight of what is called the armed peace of Europe. There is here a glorious battle to win, more glorious even than Koniggratz and Sedan, and whatever the future may have in store for the new Emperor, this work is distinctly pointed out for him to do. He has often, brave soldier that he is, expressed his horror of war, and has never hesitated to show his love and admiration for England, sometimes perhaps more than his own countrymen have liked. What the feelings of the English people are for him and his consort has been clearly shown during the last weeks. England has been truly mourning, and not even in their own country could more fervent prayers have been offered for the Emperor and the Empress, or more hearty sympathy have been expressed for them in their sore trials. Whatever the terms may be on which England can join the League of Peace, the Emperor may be trusted as an honest friend and mediator. His task will be no easy one, for his loyalty will never allow him to forget what is due FREDERICK III. 125 to Russia as a powerful neighbour, and on many occasions a faithful ally. And if any one is stroug enough in Germany to dare to satisfy some of the national desires of France, it is again he alone who as Crown Prince was ready to sacrifice his life for the reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine. His impulses are generous, sometimes too generous, and will have to be moderated by that wise counsellor to whom the new Emperor looks up with the same trust and loyalty as his father before him. But if the new Emperor cravts for work, real work that is worth living for, the work is there ready for him. As long as there is hfe there is hope, and as long as there is hope there ought to be life and work and devotion to royal duty. The greatest of the Hohenzollerns have always been distinguished by their indefatigable industry, their self-denial, and their exalted sense of duty. The world will wait and watch with the deepest interest whether even the shadow of death, under which, after all, all human endeavour has to be carried on, will be able to darken, or will not rather bring out in fuller relief the noble qualities inherited by the present Emperor, and which from his earliest youth have made him the hope and the darling of his people. WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE/ ri^ HOUGH the ideal of human life, as represented JL to us in the literature of ancient nations, may often have been very far from being realised, yet in one sense even the conception of an ideal is a reality that ought to count in our estimate of a nation's character. It may be said of some of the noblest characters that they must be judged not so much by M^hat they achieved as by what they strove to achieve, and what holds good of individuals holds good of nations also. In niagnis et voluisse sat est. When we read the account which the laws of the Manavas, or, as they are commonly called, the Laws of Manu, give us of social life in ancient India, or w^hen we check these statements by the earlier accounts which we find in the Sutras and the Bralima7(as, we are inclined at first to look upon the picture of early Indian society as a mere Utopia. Nor can it be denied that the laws of the Manavas tell us rather wdiat, according to the ideas of an orthodox Brahman, the world ought to be, than what it ever could have been. We must hope on one side that the privileges of the priestly caste could never have been so excessive, nay, so outrageous, as they are represented in that code. Nor can we believe, on the other side, that the ' New Reiiew, December, i8S8. WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 127 large majority of the inhabitants of India ever took SO unseltish and so elevated a view of life as is preached by their legislators. Still, even a Utopia is never entirely air-drawn, and in its general outlines the social life of India, as described by its law-givers, must have had some real foundation. In judging of what was possible and impossible, we must not forget that many things were possible in the climate of that country which would be simply absurd in more northern latitudes. In a country where even now an agricultural labourer can live on five shilliuf^s a month ; where he can build his hut from the mud of the field, or live in the open air during a great part of the year ; where his clothing costs hardly anything ; where a handful of rice is enough to assuage hunger, while butter and sugar are counted as delicacies — in such a country a kind of village -life is possible which involves no more trying efforts than are necessary for a healthful exercise of the body. If, therefore, we want to understand Manu's ideal of social life, we must not think of London — not even of Calcutta, or Eombay, or Simla — but of the villages which still hold nine-tenths of the population of India. And we must try to realise a time when there existed no railways, few high-roads, few bridges, and when the horizon of their village was to millions of human beings the horizon of their world. Dynasties might come and go, religions might spring up and wither, but the life in these happy villages would go on for generations unconscious of the storms that raged in the camps of powerful conquerors or in the temples of ambitious priests. 128 EKCENT ESSAYS. Life in those village-communities consisted, accord- ing to Manu, of four A&ramas, or stations. Every boy, not only of the first, but of the second and third castes also, was to begin his school-life between his seventh and, at the latest, his eleventh year. The pupil had to live in the house of his teacher, and perform services which seem to us menial, but which in India were looked upon as honourable. He had to keep the fii'es on the hearths or the altars burning, clean the floor, attend to the cattle, collect fu-ewood, and walk daily through the village to collect gifts for his teacher. Morniug and evening he had to say his prayers, and then to receive from his teacher all necessary instruction. This instruction consisted chiefly in learning by heart. Writing is never men- tioned. The whole method of teachiDg is carefully described, how every day the pupil had to learn a few Hues, and to repeat them with the greatest care, distinguishing long and short vowels, acute and grave syllables, surd and sonant consonants and all the rest. Ey going on day after day, the memory of the pupil was strengthened to such a degree that the whole of their sacred literature, instead of being handed down in writing, was handed down by oral tradition with the utmost accuracy from generation to generation, and, to a certain extent, is so handed down to the present day. The time assigned to education and study varied from twelve to forty-eight years. Twenty, therefore, was the earliest time when a young man might take his degree, become a Snataka, or M.A., and think of entering on the second station in life — that of a married man and householder. This is a lesson to WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 129 be taken to heart by those who imagine that early niarriao-es, or child-sacrifices, are in accordance with the spirit of the ancient laws of India. When returned to his home (samav7'itta), the young man had to find a wife, and become a G^^ihastha, or householder. During that second period of life he had to perform all the duties of a husband and a father, offer a number of obligatory and optional sacrifices, continue his study of the Veda, and, if a Brahman, be ready to teach. When, however, his children were grown up and had themselves children, when his hair had turned grey and his skin had become wrinkled, the householder ought to know that the time had come for leaving his house and all its cares, and retiring from the village into the forest. This seems to us a great wrench, and a sacrifice difficult to be^r. It could, however, hardly have been so in India. Life in the forest there was a kind of villeggiatura. Property being almost entirely family-property, the father simply gave up to his sons what he himself no longer required. When he withdrew from the village, he became released from many duties. He was allowed to take his wife with him, and his friends and relations were allowed to see him in his sylvan retreat. He was then called a Vana- prastha, a dweller in the forest, and, released from the duties of a householder, from sacrificial and other ceremonial obligations, he was encouraged to meditate on the great problems of life, to rise above the outward forms of religion, and to free himself more and more from all the fetters which once bound him to this life. Even religion, in the usual sense of the word, was no longer binding on him. He w^a^ VOL. I. K 130 RECENT ESSAYS. above religion, above sacred books, above sacrifices, above a belief in many gods. With the help of the mystical doctrines contained in the Upanishads, he was led to discover the Infinite hidden in the Finite, the True behind the semblances of the senses, the Self behind the Ego, and the indestructible identity of his own true Self with the Supreme Self. During all that time he might be visited, he might be consulted, he certainly continued to be loved and revered by his friends. But when at last life and all its interests ceased to have any attraction, when he lived already more in the next world than in this, then the time came, for members of the first caste at least, to bid farewell to all, to leave the forest-abode near the A village, and to enter on the final Asrama, that of Sajinyasin. Sannyasin means a man who has divested himself of everything, who is free from all fetters, not only from the too great love of things, but also from the too great love of friends and relations. That last stage could not have lasted long. It was simply a preparation for death, which could not tarry much before it released the wanderer (parivr^aka) from his last enemy, and restored him to that bliss of which this life had so long deprived him. This is, no doubt, an ideal scheme of life, and it is ditficult for us to believe that it should ever have been realised in all its fulness. The first and second stages in the life of man are natural enough, and exist more or less in every well-organised society. It is the third stage, the withdrawal from active life, the retire- ment into the forest, and, more particularly, the sur- render of all claim on the family property, that seems to us hardly credible. We receive, however, from an WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 131 unexpected quarter, a confirmation that this retire- ment into the forest was at one time a reality in India. The companions of Alexander were so much impressed with the number of people who led this forest-life away from towns and villages that they invented a new word, and translated the Sanskrit vanaprastha by vAo/^tot, dwellers in the forest. How pleasant such a life must have been in the Indian climate we may gather from the fact that we never hear of any force being used to drive old people away from their home into the forest. It is very important also to observe that while the periods of studentship and of household-life are fixed within narrow limits by legal authority, the time for em- bracing the life of a hermit is far less accurately defined, so as to leave a considerable latitude to individual choice. What strikes us as the most cruel feature in the Indian scheme of life is the fourth period, when old people, incapable of taking care of themselves, seem to have been entirely deprived of the loving attentions of their children, so that they must necessaiily have fallen a prey to hunger or to wild animals. It is curious that this fourth stage is a privilege which the Brahmans claimed exclusively for themselves. The Indians, however, are by no means the only people who seem to us to have been guilty of cruelty towards old people and towards children. In a primi- tive state of society there existed difficulties of which we have no idea. When the struc-ole of life became extreme, and when it was utterly impossible for a community to support more than a given number of lives, it was necessarily left to the parents to K 2 13.3 RECENT ESSAYS. determine what children should be allowed to live or be destroyed. Among Greeks and Komans vestiges of this ancient custom may be discovered \ and among the Germans, also, the right of the father to decide on the life of a child, by raising it from the place where the mother had given birth to it, was long maintained^. The Brahmans also seem to have conceded to the father the right to expose his children, or, at all events, his female progeny ^. But if in an early state of society children became sometimes a burden impossible to bear, a still greater difficulty arose with regard to old people when they were no longer able to support or to defend them- selves. In a nomadic state of life this difficulty is so great that it could not be solved except by killing the old people. For what is to be done when the soil is exhausted and a tribe has to move forward to occupy new pastures ? The old people cannot support the fatigue of the march, and to leave them behind would be to expose them to starvation or a violent death. It was considered merciful under those circumstances, nay, it was believed to be a sacred duty of the nearest relations, to kill the aged members of a family. Storks, before they migrate south, are said to kill the old and lame birds who are unable to follow. In the same way, if we may trust Su- John Lubbock, there are even now among certain tribes whole villages where no old people can be discovered, for the simple reason that they all have been put to death. Mr. Hunt, * Schomann, * Griecliische Alterthiimer,' 3rd ed., i. p. 531; Mar- quardt, ' Privatleben der Romer,' i. p. 3, note i, p. Si. 2 Grimm, ' Deutsche Recht«alterthunier,' p. 455. ' Maitrayanl-samhita IV, 6, 4; Nirukta ITI, 4. WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 133 as quoted by Sir John Lubbock, tells us that one day a young man in whom he took much interest came to him and invited him to attend his mother's funeral. Mr. Hunt accepted the invitation, but as he walked along in the procession he was surprised to see no corpse. When he asked the young man where his mother was, he pointed to a woman who was walking along just in front, to use Mr. Hunt's words, 'as gay and lively as any of those present.' When they arrived at the grave, she took an affectionate farewell of her children and friends, and then sub- mitted to be strancfled. It is not innate cruelty that can account for this barbarous treatment of the aged : it was a dira neces- sitas. Among our own ancestors, the ancient Germans, Grimm tells us that when the master of the house was over sixty years old, if the signs of the weakness of age were of such a character that he no longer had the power to walk or stand or to ride unassisted and unsupported, with collected mind, free will, and good sense, he was obliged to give over his authority to his son, and to perform menial service. Those who had grown useless and burdensome were either killed outright or exposed and abandoned to death by star- vation ^. However strange and horrible these various ways of disposing of old people may seem to us, there is, never- theless, a lesson to be learnt from our savage ancestors, viz. that there is a time Avhen old people ought to retire. Our religion, our morality, our very humanity would make us shrink from any violent measures ' Grimm, ' Deut=che EechtsaUertliumer,' p. 4^:7; Weinhokl, 'Alt- nordiscbes Leben,' p. 473. 134 RECENT ESSAYS. to enforce this lesson ; but we must not, for all that, shut our eyes to the fact that some of the most serious evils of our modern society are due to the encroach- ments of old age on the legitimate functions of youth and manhood. If, in ancient times, the difficulty was what to do with old people, the difficulty in our modern society is what to do with young people. And why 1 Because every sphere of active life in which young men might, naturally and legitimately, hope to find an opening for making themselves useful to the world, and gaining a livelihood for themselves, is filled with men who, nearly or altogether, belong to the class of the Depontani. It will be argued, no doubt, that old age possesses more experience and wisdom than youth and early manhood can possibly possess. Put surely there is a senile as well as a juvenile folly; and even admitting the superior experience of old people, that experience would become far more useful to the world if they were satisfied in their old age to become counsellors, and leave the toil and moil of the daily warfare of life to younger men. Besides, the aflairs of life require not only prudence and caution, but likewise decision and courage ; and when it is considered that the conse- quences of good or bad counsels must fall, after all, on the heads of the next generation, it is but fair that the young should have some share in determining what is to be done. Besides, we cannot stultify nature. Youth and manhood are better than old age ; and with all the advantages that old age may justly be proud of, there are weaknesses which, like grey hairs, steal almost unperceived over old heads. Ko art is able to disguise, and no eflbrt of will strong WHAT TO DO AVITII OUll OLD PEOPLE. 135 enough to resist them. Hygienic science may in our days keep people alive longer than in former centuries, and a proper discipline of body and mind may in some cases preserve a viens sana in cor pore sarto beyond the usual limits. But, as a rule, man is meant to learn in his youth, to act in his manhood, to counsel in his advancing years, and to meditate in his extreme old age. It is the disregard of this clear and simple lesson, conveyed by the four ages of man, which is responsible for the worst of our social evils. A young man is meant to marry ; but how, in the present state of society, is it possible for a young man and a young woman to contract matrimony at the proper time, unless their parents have saved enough to enable them to do so? Almost every career is now closed against the young man who thinks that he ought to be able to earn a livelihood by his arms or his brains. And the principal reason is that old men now remain too long in active service and enjoy large incomes for doing work which their juniors could do as well, if not better. Wo get accustomed to everything which has existed for centuries and has the sanction of custom and of law. We know that a man who has c'.iildren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren may hold the family estate as his exclusive property, only making to his descen- dants such allowance as he thinks proper. What seems quite right and fair to us would seem very wrong and unfair in India, where the law enables the sons, when they have come of age, to insist on a division of the family property, which is considered to be theirs as much as their father's. How many a life iu England has become useless by the ancestral 136 hecent essays. property being managed or mismanaged by a man of eighty, while the son of forty, or even sixty, is care- fully excluded from all participation in the improve- ment of hivS future estate. Young men are often blamed because they imagine they must have as large an income as their parents, before they will condescend to marry. There may be some truth in this, but there is also some truth in the answer of young men that parents, after their children's education is finished, might be satisfied with a quieter and less expensive style of life, and not grudge their children those en- joyments which nature has clearly intended for youth and manhood. In most professions a man w^ho has worked for twenty or twenty-five years ought to be enabled to retire on a pension ; that is, be satisfied with a smaller income. Whatever exceptions may be cited to the contrary, our schools and universities, for instance, are clearly sufferers, because professors and tutors are not enabled, or forced, to retire at the approach of old age. Dr. Arnold expressed a very strong opinion as to the maximum of years that a master or headmaster of a public school should be allowed to carry on his work. Other voices have been raised against the Universities allowing heads of houses, professors, and tutors to retain their offices to the very last day of their life. We know, of course, of exceptions, of men lecturing, and lecturing success- fully, for thirty and forty years. But, as a rule, a professor as ho grows old, however excellent work he may still do by himself, finds it impossible to maintain that warm sympathy with the rising gene- ration which is essential in order to make his lectures WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 137 really efficient. His own studies are apt to become more and more special and narrow, and he often finds it impossible to keep pace with the rapid progress of discovery that changes the whole aspect of every science from year to year. By all means let the old professor continue to lecture, if he likes, but let younger men be appointed as his deputies or asso- ciates. It is a real injustice to younger men, whose lives are passing away, that they should have no opportunity of utilising their knowledge by teaching in our Universities, or that they should succeed to a Chair when they themselves are no longer in the vigour of life. Sometimes the study of a science has been paralysed for years because, all professorial chairs being occupied by men who would not, be- cause they could not, resign, there was no prospect of employment for younger men, and when at last a vacancy occurred there were hardly any candidates fit to be successors. In Continental universities the system of Professores extraordinarii and Privat- doeents supplies a certain remedy of the evil com- plained of, but here, too, the Professores ordinarii become sometimes a drag on the advance of science, because there is too little inducement to make them resign. It would be easy to point out the same mischief in other professions, caused by men remaining in office beyond the limits of time so clearly indicated by nature. Old generals, gouty admirals, deaf judges, and bedridden bishops are not unknown in this as in other countries. But nowhere does this incubus of old age prove more disastrous than in politics. It has often been said that knowing when to retire 138 EECENT ESSAYS. is the true test of a great statesman. But if there is any office which it seems almost impossible to sur- render it is political office. Nearly all Ministers nowadays are over fifty or sixty, and they often cling to office till they are seventy or eighty. It is in their case, more than in any other, that the necessity of experience and wisdom is pleaded as an excuse for their unnatural pretensions. But experience and wisdom are not the exclusive property of old age, while too much experience may even unfit a man for that quick insight which is constantly required for political action. That old men should be consulted is perfectly natural, but that they should have the decision of the fate of the next generation entirely in their hands admits of no justification. The Germans had an old proverb which went much further, and denied to those who could no longer tight the right of giving advice. ' Die niclit init thaten, Die nicht iiiit rathen.* Nor can it be denied that even in council the presence of old men is dangerous. The authority claimed by old age, and the respect naturally paid to it by the younger generation, must interfere with the easy and natural transaction of business. If it is difficult for an old man to bear opposition and to brook rebuke from a younger man, it is equally difficult for a young politician to bow to authority or to believe in the infallibility of old age. What is the result '? The old statesman gradually finds himself deserted by his honest and independent friends, while opportunists and flatterers surround the old chief and help to extinguish in him the last remnants WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 139 of humility and of mistrust in his own judgment. Members of the Cabinet, it has often been said, ought to be on terms of perfect equality, and in discussions concerning the w^elfare of the country argument ought always to be stronger than any amount of authority. Men of about the same age can afford to give and take, but a man of thirty cannot well give to a man of eighty, and a man of eighty cannot W' ell take from a man of thirty. And yet, if we look at the history of the w^orld, political wisdom has certainly not been the exclusive property of old age. A mere stripling, such as Pitt, was a better man at the wheel than even the great Duke of Wellington when, in his old age, he acted as steersman to the vessel of State. In cur days it seems difficult to imagine that a man of twenty or thirty could possibly be an Under-Secretary of State, to say nothing of his being Prime Minister. And yet, take it all in all, for practical work, a man of thirty is a better man than a man of eighty, and the sooner men of eighty learn that lesson the better for them- selves and for the country they profess to serve. There are exceptions, there are brilliant exceptions, at the present moment, both in England and in Germany. Put exceptions in such cases are aj)t here- after to become precedents, and to piove extremely dangerous in less exceptional cases. Outside the fight of parties the voice of the old statesman will always be listened to, and carry conviction to many a waver- ing mind. But if he remains in the turmoil of political warfare he wull meet with harsh usage, his best motives wall be suspected, and the good fame of his youth and manhood will often be tarnished 140 EECENT ESSAYS. Ly the mistakes, however well intentioned, of his old age. To return once more to India, from whence we started. No doubt the ideal scheme of life, traced out by Manu, is no longer possible, after the contact between the ancient civilisation of the East and the modern civilisation of the West. But the spirit of the past still exercises its fascination over some supe- rior minds, and the idea that there is a time when the old should make room for the young, and when meditation should take the place of active life, is not yet quite forgotten among the sons of India. A bio- graphy has lately been published of the Prime Minister of Bhavnagar, Gaorishankar Udayashankar, C.S.I. ^ It relates a life full of hard and most important work, a life of struggle, of temptation, and of wonderful success ; the life not only of a conscientious adminis- trator, but of a determined diplomatist, holding his own against the best men in the Indian service, and in the end recognised by all, from IMountstuart Elphinstone to Lord Reay, as an honest and unselfish man, worthy to be named by the side of such native statesmen as Sir Salar Jung, Sir T. Madao Rao, and Sir Dinkar Rao. Only three years ago, in December, ]886, when Lord Reay had paid a visit to the vener- able statesman, he said of him : ' Certainly, of all the happy moments it has been my good fortune to spend in India, those which I spent in the presence of that remarkable man remain engrafted on my memory. I was struck as much by the clearness of his intellect ' 'Gaorishankar Udayashankar, C.S.I. , Ex-Minister of Bhavnagar, now on retirement as a Sauyasi.' By Javerilal Umiashankar Yajiiik. Bombay, 1889. WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD TEOPLE. 141 as by the simplicity and fairness and openness of his mind ; and if we admire wise administrators, we also admire straightforward advisers, those who tell their chiefs the real truth about the condition of their country and their subjects. In seeing the man who freed the State from all encumbrances, who restored civil and criminal jurisdiction to the villages, who settled grave disputes with Juuaghad, who got rid of refractory Jemadars, I could not help thinking what could be done by singleness of purpose and strength of character.' It would be useless to attempt to give even a short outline of the excellent services rendered to his country, and indirectly to England, by Gaorishankar during the fifty-seven years of his active life. The affairs of Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, the intrigues of King Milan, Queen Natalie, and Prince Karageorgowitch, would seem to be of greater interest to the public at large than the healthy growth and powerful development of the native States of India under English protection. And yet Gaorishankar's life is full of dramatic interest. He had to do battle with many King Milans, with many Queen Natalies, even with some rebellious mountain-chiefs, such as Karageorgowitch, and he has come out victorious from all his fights. He not only established the independence of the state of Bhavnagar, but he introduced a reformed system of administration, founded excellent schools, built model prisons, encouraged useful railways, and made Bhav- nagar a model among the protected principalities of India. In 1878, when- he was seventy - three years of age, and when the idea of retiring from the world had already ripened in his mind, he was once more 142 EECENT ESSAYS. complimented by Sir J. B. Peile in the following terms : — ' Gaorishankar has risen through every stage of a laborious life to this crown and consummation of an honourable public career, a career, which he began in a humble position in the old school of custom and ends as a cautious leader in the new school of reform.' This is the man who, on January 13, 1879, resigned his office as Minister, and, full of years and honours, declared his intention of following the example of the ancient Biahmans, and retiring: into the forest. He prepared himself for that step by a deeper study of the Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy than had been possible to him during the years of his busy life. He then retired to a garden-house outside the old town, where he was still accessible to his friends, and where his chief and his former colleagues often came to consult him. He had become a counsellor, but he no longer interfered in public or private afftiirs. At last, in 1887, his yearning after a purely spiritual life, and his desire to throw off all the fetters and affections that might still bind him to this life, became so strono; that he determined to enter on the fourth stage of life and to become a Sannyasin. The time had come, he declared, that he should prepare himself for holy djing by a complete renunciation of the active conceins of this world and by an exclusive devotion to the thoughts of a life to come. He wrote letters to all his friends, bidding them farewell for this life. I myself was one of those to whom he said good-bye, declaring that he had left the world, that he had changed his name, and that all correspondence between him and the outer world must henceforth WHAT TO DO WITH OUR OLD PEOPLE. 143 cease. These were the last lines of a letter which he addressed to me in July, 1H86 : — ' My health is failing and I have made up my mind to enter into the fourth order or Asrama. Thereby I shall attain that stage in life when I shall be free from all the cares and anxieties of this world and shall have nothing to do with my present circum- stances. 'After leading a public life for more than sixty years, I think there is nothing left for me to desire, except this life, which will enable my Atma [Self] to be one with Paramatma [Supreme Self], as shown by the enlightened sages of old. When this is accom- plished a man is free from births and re-births, and what can I wish more than what will free me from them, and give me means to attain Moksha [spiritual freedom] ? ' My learned Friend, I shall be a Sannyasin in a few days, and thus there will be a total change of life. I shall no more be able to address you, and I send you this letter to convey my last best wishes for your success in life, and my regards which you so well deserve.' Every effort was made by his native friends and by the highest officials of the English Government to dissuade him from his purpose. Every argument that could appeal to his common-sense, his sense of duty, aye, even his vanity, was used, but used in vain. He was not so silly as to attempt to copy slavishly the example of the ancient Sannyasins, and to court death in the wilderness. He remained in his retirement, only he adopted a much stricter discipline, and a more rigorous seclusion from the outer world. He was not 144 RECENT ESSAYS. SO childish, or rather so senile, as to imagine that any one in this life was really indispensable. He knew that 3"ounger men would do his work as well, if not better than himself. And he felt that, having done his duty to the world, he might be free during the few remain- ing years to do his duty to himself. I believe the old man is still alive, now in his eighty-fourth year ^. When I last heard of him, through his son, he was in full possession of his intellectual powers, with a memory unimpaired. He has become, in his old age, a zealous student of Sanskrit, and, to judge from what ho has published, his knowledge of the Vedanta philosophy is profound. He is now simply waiting for death, and fitting himself to die, following the words of Manu (VI, 43) : — ^Let not the hermit long for death, Nor cling to thif? terrestrial state ; Their Lord's behests as servants wait, So let him, called, resign his breath.' It may be said that the Minister of Bhavnagar remained in office long beyond the time when he had a perfect right to retire. He was seventy-four when he surrendered the Ministry. Still, he is one of very few statesmen who, even at that time, would have thought it necessary to make room for others, and to reserve a span of life for themselves, as a preparation for a better life. His intellect was unimpaired, his body vigorous, and his friends were clamorous for him to remain in power. But he did not allow him- self to be persuaded. He was influenced, no doubt, in his choice, by the teaching of the old sages of India, but his own judgment also must have helped * He has departed since. WHAT TO DO WITH OUR, OLD PEOPLE. 145 him to obey the voice of nature. To all who have ears to hear, that voice declares in unmistakable tones that there is a time for everything-. There is a time to be young and there is a time to be old. Our modern society is out of gear because that lesson of nature is not obeyed. To die in harness has become the ideal of almost every old man. But what might be the right ideal for a cab-horse is not necessarily the right ideal for a human being. In several branches of the public service a remedy has been applied — not the drastic remedy of the Bactrians and Caspians, but the more gentle pressure of the Indian law-givers. Men are made to withdraw into the forest on a retiring pension, and it has not been found that the army and navy have suffered under young generals and vigorous admirals. The same system ought to be applied to all other professions, more particularly to our schools and universities. After twenty-five years of hard work a man ought to be enabled to rest from his labours, if he likes, and the young should be allowed to have their day. VOL. I. THE TEUE ANTIQUITY OF OEIENTAL LITEEATUEE/ WHEN people speak of the East, of Oriental languages, Oriental literature, Oriental art, or Oriental religion, their idea generally seems to be that all that belongs to the East is extremely old and very mysterious. There is a charm which it is difficult to account for, but there certainly is a charm that attracts us to everything that is supposed to be very old, and to everything that seems wrapt in mystery. If, then, these lectures which I have the honour to inaugurate to-night are meant to draw the attention of the public at large towards Oriental studies, and to arouse an interest in the languages, the literatures, the art, and the religion of the East, not only among scholars, but among the ever-widen- ing circles of intelligent men and cultivated women, it may not seem very wise to say anything that might break that charm, that might reduce the enormous antiquity so often claimed for Oriental literature to more modest limits, and dispel those golden clouds of mystery which are supposed to surround the sanctuary of the primeval wisdom of the East. * Inaugural Address, delivered before the Eoyal Asiatic Society, on Wednesday, March 4, 1891. TlIK TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 147' And yet, if I were asked to say what in our own time is the distinguishing feature of Oriental research, I should say that it was the endeavour to bring the remote East closer and closer to our own time, and to dispel as much as possible that mystery which used to shroud its language, its literature, and its religion. Oriental scholarship is no longer a mere matter of curiosity. It appeals to higher sympathies, and teaches us that we can study in the East as well as in the West the great questions of humanity — those questions that furnish the first impulse and the highest purpose to all human inquiries. So long as the Egyptian is a mere mummy to us, the Babylonian a mere image in stone, the Jew a prophet, the Hindu a dreamer, the Chinaman a joke, we are not yet Oriental scholars. The Wise Men of the East are still mere strangers to us, coming we know not whence, going we know not whither, and leaving behind them nothing but gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It is only when these strangers cease to be strangers, when they become friends, people exactly like our- selves in their strength and in their weakness, in their ideals and their failures, in their hopes and their despairs — it is then only that we can claim to be Oriental scholars, real students of the East, true lovers of humanity which is always the same, what- ever its age, whatever its language, whatever the many disguises which it has assumed in the different acts of the great drama of history. W^hat charm is there in mere antiquity ? Antiquity seems difhcult to define. Very often what is old is despised, however good it may be ; at other times, L a 148 RECENT ESSAYS. what is old is valued, though its merit seems to consist in nothing but its age. A book printed in the fifteenth century is competed for by all collectors, while many a manuscript of the same date will hardly tempt a buyer. A Greek work of art, say, of 500 B.C., finds a place of honour in any museum. An Egyptian monument of the same age is referred to the decadence of Egyptian art. When we come to one thousand years, to two thousand years, or, as some will have it, to three or four thousand years B. c, everything that can claim descent from those distant ages is valued, and almost worshipped. And yet, what are four thousand, what are six thousand years, when we become geologists ? What are the oldest Egyptian mummies compared to the megathcria embalmed in the sarcophagi of the earth 1 And again, how modern are those stratified cemeteries on the surface of our globe, nay, even the unstratified foundations of this earth, in the eyes of the astronomer, to whom our globe dwindles away into a mere infinitesimal globule that has not yet been touched by the rays of light proceeding from more distant suns ! Mere antiquity, it has always seemed to me, can lend no real charm to Oriental studies. First of all, what we call ancient in literary produc- tions is not so very ancient after all. Our libraries and museums contain little that is more than four thousand yeai's old. If one century is easily spanned by three generations, a little more than one hundred generations would span the whole history of the litera- ture of the world. What the Egyptians said to the Greeks we must learn to say to ourselves — ' We are as 3'et but children.' Man's life on earth is only in its THE TllUE ANTIQUITY OF OIUENTAL LITEEATURE. 149 beginnings. The future before him is immense ; the past that lies behind us is but the short preface to a work that will require many vohimes before it is finished, before man has become what he was meant to be. Secondly, we must not forget that when we speak of literary works of two, or three, or four thousand years before our era, we are not really on what is properly called historical ground. I am by no means a sceptic as to the remote antiquity assigned to Chinese, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Indian literature ; but I think we are too easily tempted to forget the important difference between authentic and construc- tive history. Authentic history, as Niebuhr often pointed out, begins when we have the testimony of a contemporary, or an eye-witness, testifying to the events which he relates, Consti'uctive history and con- structive chronology rest on deduction. Constructive history may be quite as true as authentic history. Still, we should never forget the difference between the two. If we bear this difference in mind, I should say that the authentic history of India does not begin before the third century b,c. We have at that time the inscriptions of the famous king Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, the Sandrokyptos of Greek his- torians. Everything in the history of India before that time is purely constructive. But is it therefore less certain 1 I believe not. The language of these inscriptions, in its various dialects, stands to Sanskrit as Italian stands to Latin. Such changes require centuries. The religion of Asoka is Buddhism, and Buddhism stands to Brahmanism as Protestantism stands to Roman Catholicism. Such changes require 150 llECENT ESSAYS. centuries. Lastly, the literature of Vedic Bralimanism shows three successive layers of language, ceremonial, and thought. Such changes, again, require centuries, and though I never looked upon the two centuries which I assigned to each of these three layers as more than a guess, the layers themselves and their suc- cession cannot be doubted. Constructive history places the earliest Vedic hymns about 1500 B.C. But even at that time the language of these Vedic hymns is full of faded, decayed, and quite unintelligible words and forms, and these in some points more near to Greek than to ordinary Sanskrit. It possesses, for instance, a subjunctive, like Greek, of which there is hardly a trace left in the Epic poems or in the Laws of Manu. Such changes require time. In fact, if we ask our- selves how long it must have taken before a language like that of the Vedic hymns could have become what we find it to be, ordinary chronology seems altogether to collapse, and we should feel grateful if geological chronology would allow us to extend the limits as- signed to man's presence on earth beyond the end of the Glacial Period. Egyptian chronology carries us, no doubt, much funher than the chronology of India. Menes is sup- posed to have reigned 4000 B.C., and, if we do not admit a division of the empire among different royal d3-nasties, the date of Menes might be pushed back even further, to 5600 B. c. Lepsius, however, is satis- fied with 3H92, Bunsen with 3623 B.C. But, whatever date we accept, we must bear in mind that, like all ancient Egyptian dates, they depend on the construc- tion which we put on Manetho's dynasties, and on the fragments of papyri, like the Royal Papyrus of THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 151 Turin. We are dealing again with constructive, not v/ith authentic history^. The chronology of the Old Testament is likewise constructive. Those who have carefully summed up the dates in the Books of Moses fix the day of the Creation in 4160 B.C. — not very long, you see, before the reign of Menes in Egypt — possibly even later. The universal Deluge is fixed by the same scholars in 2504, which is about the time of the twelfth Egyptian dynasty. But in constructing this chrono- logy we must not forget that, whatever the age of the Mosaic traditions may be, the Hebrew text, as we now possess it, can hardly be referred to an earlier date than the sixth century B.C. If, then, we admit with Peter- mann that the Samaritan text was settled in the fourth century, we find that the interval between Adam and Abraham, which is reckoned as 1,948 years in the Hebrew text, has in the Samaritan text been raised to 2,249 years. Lastly, if we admit that the Septuagint translation was made in Egypt between the third and second centuries b. c, we find that there the same interval has been raised to 3,314 years. It ^ The following dates liave been assigned to Menes by hierogljphio scholars : — 6467 B.C. by Henne von Sargana. 5702 » by Boeckh. 5613 ') by Unger. 4717 )> by Lieblein. 4455 1) by Brngjch. 4157 » by Lauth. 39>7 » by von Peffl. 3S92 j» by Lepsius. 3623 tj by Biinsen. 2782 j» by Seyffarth 2387 t7 by Knotel. 2224 t» by Palmer. 152 EECENT ESSAYS. is clear, therefore, that in the history of the Jews also, the ancient dates, though more moderate than those of Egyptian antiquity, are of a purely constructive character. And what applies to Egypt and Judaea applies even more strongly to China. China claims a history of at least four thousand years. Chinese scholars assure us that the date of the emperor Yao is historical. Yet it varies between 2357 B.C. and 2145 B.C., the latter being the date of the Bamboo Annals. Beyond Yao it is generally admitted that Chinese history is fabu- lous, though we are told by some authorities that the emperor Hwang-ti was an historical character, and began his reign in 2697 B.C. All this may be true. The historical traditions of China may reach back very far. But we must never forget the fact, which Chinese historians are very apt to forget^ namely, the destruction of all ancient books by the edict of the emperor Khin in 213 B.C. The edict, we are told, was ruthlessly enforced, and hundreds of scholars who refused obedience to the imperial command were buried alive. The edict was not repealed till 191. It lasted, therefore^ twenty-two years. There are, no doubt, traditions that some of the books were recovered from hiding-places or from memory ; yet authentic history in China cannot be said to date from before the burning of the books and the beginning of the Han dynasty. As to the ancient history of Babylon, it is well to learn to be patient and to wait. The progress of discovery and decipherment is so rapid, that what is true this year is shown to be wrong next year. Our old friend Gisdubar has now, thanks to the ingenious THE TIIUE ANTIQUITY OF OEIENTAL LITERATURE. 153 combinations of Mr. Pinches, become Gilgames ^. This is no discredit to the valiant pioneers in this glorious campaign. On the contrary, it speaks well for their perseverance and for their sense of truth. I shall only give you one instance to show what I mean by calling the ancient periods of Babylonian history also con- structive rather than authentic. My friend Professor Sayce claims 4000 b. c. as the beginning of Babylonian literature. Nabonidus, he tells us (' Hibbert Lectures,' p. 21), in 550 B.C. explored the great temple of the Sun-god at Sippara. This temple was believed to have been founded by Naram Sin, the son of Sargon. Nabonidus, however, lighted upon the actual founda- tion-stone — a stone, we are told, which had not been seen by any of his predecessors for 3,200 years. On the strength of this the date of 3,200 + 550 years, that is, 3750 B.C., has been assigned to Naram Sin, the son of Sargon. These two kings, however, are said to be quite modern, and to have been preceded by a number of so-called Proto-Chaldaean kings, who spoke a Proto- Chaldaean language, long before the Semitic popula- tion had entered the land. It is concluded, further, from some old inscriptions on diorite, brought from the Peninsula of Sinai to Chaldaea, that the quarries of Sinai, which were worked by the Egyptians at the time of their third dynasty, say 6,000 years ago, may have been visited about the same time by these Proto- Chaldaeans. 4000 B.C., we are told, would therefore be a vei-y moderate initial epoch for Babylonian and Egyptian literature. I am the very last person to deny the ingeniousness ' Academy, Jan. 17, 1891 ; see ' Gilgamos' in Aelian, ' Hist. Auim.' xii. 21. 154 RECENT ESSAYS. of these arguments, or to doubt the real antiquity of the early civilisation of Babylon or Egypt. All I wish to point out is, that we should always keep before our eyes the constructive character of this ancient history and chronology. To use a foundation-stone, on its own authority, as a stepping-stono over a gap of 3,200 years, is purely constructive chronology, and as such is to be carefully distinguished from what historians mean by authentic history, as when Herodotus or Thucydides tells us what happened during their own lives or before their own eyes. Eut, whatever the result of these chronological speculations may be — whether Oriental history begins six, or five, or four, or three, or two, or one thousand before our era — I ask again, what is the charm of mere antiquity, if antiquity means no more than what is remote, what is separated from us by wide gaps of millenniums ? I am quite willing to grant that there is a certain charm in what is old, whether its age counts by years, or centuries, or millenniums, only ; that charm must come from ourselves, from the students of antiquity, whether in the East or in the West. We should remember that antiquity means not only what is old. It is derived from ante. It means what is before us, what is anteviov, what is fo? decedent to the present. It means, and it should mean, the firm historical foundation on which we stand. If we can discover in the past the key to some of the riddles of the present ; if we can link the past to the present by the strong chains of cause and effect ; if we can unite the broken and scattered links of tradition into one continuous wire, then the electric THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 155 spark of human sjiiipathy will flash from one end to the other. The most remote antiquity will cease to be remote. It will be brought near to us, home to us, close to our very heart. We shall ourselves become the ancients of the world, and the distant childhood of the human race will be to us like our own childhood. And mark the change, the almost miraculous change, which Oriental scholarship has wrought among the ruins of the past. What was old has become young ; what was young has become old. Take our languages. We call English, French, and German modern, modern languages. But when we have traced back English to Anglo-Saxon, Anglo- Saxon to Gothic, and Gothic to that ' Home of the Aryas ' in which the language spoken in India, San- skrit, had as much right as Persian, as Greek and Latin, and Celtic and Slavonic, nay, as Gothic, Anglo- Saxon, and English — when the student of lanouase has gathered the broken links of that Aryan chain and fitted them together once more into one organic whole — what happens ? Does not the young become old and the old become voung? Our modern Ian- guages stand now before us as the most ancient languages of the world — grey, bald, shrivelled, and wizened ; while the more ancient a lanouacre, the fresher its features, the more vigorous its muscles, the more expressive its countenance. Our oivn words are old ; our own philosophy is old ; our own religion is old ; our own social institutions are old. The youth of the world, the true juventus viuncU, lies far beyond us, far beyond the Greeks, far beyond Troy. And even when we have tracked the young Aryas to their 156 RECENT ESSAYS. common home in Asia, even then we find in their so-called Proto- Aryan speech words full of wrinkles, and thoughts which disclose rings within rings in innumerable succession. Therefore, neither mere old age on one side nor mere youth and childhood on the other can satisfy the true historical student, unless he is a,ble at the same time to discover the laws of growth which explain what is young by what is old, what is secondary by what is primitive, which show that there is and always has been growth and purpose in the world. There lies the true charm of our Oriental studies. China, Egypt, Eabylon, India, and Persia, are no longer distant from us as the East is from the West, They have really become to us the true East — that is, the point of orientation and direction for all the studies of the West. Think of that one word Indo-European, which is now so familiar to us that we actually speak of Indo- European telegraphs, and railways, and newspapers. I remember the time when that word was framed, and the shiver which it sent through the limbs of classical scholarship. Nor do I wonder. Think what the syn- thesis of these two words, India and Europe, implies ! It implies that the people who migrated into India thousands of years before the beginning of our era spoke the same language which we speak in England. When I call English and Sanskrit the same language, I do not wish to raise false hopes in the hearts of candidates for the Indian Civil Service. All I mean is, that English and Sanskrit are substantially the same language— are but two varieties of the same type, rivers flowing from the same source, though each THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 157 running in its own bed. Tlic bold synthesis contained in the term Indo-European brought the words and thoughts of the dark-skinned inhabitants of India, brought those very dark-skinned inhabitants of India themselves, at one swoop as close to us as the Greeks and Romans have been for many centuries. It united the people of Europe, the speakers of English, German, Celtic, and Slavonic, of Greek and Latin, into one family with the speakers of Sanskrit, Persian, and Armenian. It constituted a Unionist-League em- bracing the greatest nations of history, and made them all conscious of a new nobility in thought and word and deed, the nobility of the Indo-European, or, as it is also called, the nobility of the ancient Aryan brotherhood. I have been told again and again by my Hindu friends that nothing has given the intelligent popula- tion of India a greater sense of their dignity, and that nothing has drawn the bonds of fellowship between India and England more closely together, than this discovery of the common origin of their language and of the principal languages of Europe, and more particularly of Enghsh. You know, of course, that we share most of our words in common with Sanskrit and the other members of the Aryan family of speech. You know that the grammar of all the Aryan languages was fixed once for all, and that it is totally different from the grammar of the Semitic and other families of speech. But though these facts have become familiar to us, yet it is difficult to resist sometimes a feeling of oiddiness that comes over us when we see how near 158 RECENT ESSAYS. the past is really to the present, how close the East has really been brought to the West. Let us take one instance. You know, of course, that in every language of the Aryan race all the numerals are the same. Eut think what that means. The decimal system must have been elaborated and accepted by the ancestors of our race before they separated, and every number, from one to one hundred, must have received its name, and all these names must have been sanctioned, not by agreement, but by use, or, if you like, by the survival of the fittest. How old these numerals are is best shown by the fact that they cannot be derived from any of the roots known to us, so that we cannot tell why six was ever called six, or seven seven. And yet in Sanskrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Celtic, and English we find exactly the same series of numerals. But the relationship is even more close in other parts of the language, and the dependence of the English of to-day on the Sanskrit as spoken two or three thousand years ago is sometimes perfectly startling. Allow me to give you one illustration, which, though it is somewhat tedious, will surprise 3^ou by what the French would call the solidarite which still exists between Sanskrit and English. Why do we say in English dead and decdh ? I mean, why is there a d as the termination of the participle, and a th as the termination of the substantive ? This may seem a very far-fetched question. Most people would say tliat it is no use asking such questions, because it is impossible to answer them. Grammar tells us that the participle is formed by d, and the THE THUE ANTIQUITY OF OIUENTAL LITERATURE. 159 substantive by tli, and there must be an end of it. The Science of Language, however, takes a very different view. It holds that everything in language has a reason, and that it is our own fault if we cannot discover it. Now here, in order to discover the reason for d in dead and for th in death, it will be necessary to enter into some minutiae of comparative gi-ammar. You have all heard of Grimms Law. It is a very wonderful law, but we have now got far beyond it. Well, according to Grimm's Law, Avherever we find in Sanskrit, in Greek and Latin, in Celtic and Slavonic a t, we find in Gothic, in Anglo-Saxon, and therefore in English, the aspirated t or th. Even this, if you come to think about it, seems a marvellous fact. There is no exception to this rule ; at least, none that cannot be accounted for. And an exception that can be accounted for is no longer an exception ; on the contrary, it is an exception which was said to prove the rule. If 'three' is tray as in Sanskrit, tres in Latin, Tpet? in Greek, it must be three in English. If ' thou ' is tuam in Sanskrit, tu in Latin, a-v for tv in Greek, it must be thou in English. Thus Latin tonitrus is thunder, tectur)i is thatch, tenuis is tliin. In the middle of a word, also, t becomes th, as in father for pater, mother for mater. And likewise at the end, as in tooth for dens, dentis. With this rule clearly before our mind, let us now advance a step further. The termination of the past participle in all Indo- European languages is formed by t. Thus in Sanskrit we have from yug, 'to join,' yuk-ta, 'joined,' as we have in Latin from Jungo, ' I ]oin' JunctuSy 'joined.' 160 RECENT ESSAYS. If, then, our rule that t becomes th in Anglo-Saxon holds good, that t of the participle should appear in English as th. It should be death (A.-S. death), not dead (A.-S. dead). In the substantive death (A.-S. death), on the contrarj'^, we have quite regularly, and in accordance with Grimm's Law, the th, which corre- sponds to the i of a suffix well known in many Aryan languages, used for forming abstract and other nouns, namely tu. In many cases this suffix tu leaves the accent in Sanskrit on the radical portion of a word. Thus from vas, 'to shine,' we have vas-tu, 'shining,' or the morning. From vas, ' to dwell,' we have vastu, ' a dwelling,' the Greek aarv, ' town.' The Sanskrit kratu, 'might,' appears in Greek as Kparvs, 'might.' In some cases, however, the accent in Sanskrit as in Greek falls on the last syllable, as in ritu, 'season,' gatii, 'going,' 'path.' As forming abstract nouns the same suffix tu is most frequent in Latin, in such words as status, from sta, Ho stand,' tactus, 'touch,' from tangere, and many more. By means of the same suffix, Gothic formed the word dauthu-s, 'death,' and here you see that the rule holds good, and that the original t appears as th. Why, then, we ask, was Grimm's Law broken in the case of the participle dead, and maintained in the case of the substantive death 1 Why is it to be called a law at all, if it can be broken so easily ? You will hardly believe it when I tell you that the reason why in dead the participial t was changed into d and not into th, and the reason why in death the original t has been changed into th, has been discovered in India, and in the language as spoken there three or four thousand years ago. It is a general rule in THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF OIIIEXTAL LITERATURE. 161 the ancient Vedic language that the accent must fall on the vowel following the t of the participle. We have to say, yukta, ki'ita, datta. But in many of the substantives ending in tu, the accent falls on the vowel preceding the t. Hence vastu, kratu, &c. Whenever the accent in ancient Sanskrit falls on the vowel following the t, as in the participle, Grimm's Law does not apply ; t does not become th, but d. But whenever the accent precedes the t, Grimm's Law applies, and t is changed into th, as in death. Grimm'8 Law is therefore not broken. It is rather confirmed by a new law that comes in, and shows once more the marvellous regularity in the growth of language — a regularity which, if we fully realise what it means, seems almost miraculous. The same hidden influences which were at work in producing two such words as dead and death were likewise active in all similar cases. They, and they alone, help us to account for the difference between such words as healed and health, to seethe and sodden, when we have in Anglo- Saxon seothan, seath, but sudon and sodin. My chief object in drawing your attention to this one case was, to show how near such a language as Sanskiit, which has sometimes been called the most ancient language of the world, is really to us. The ghost of that dead language, or of some even more ancient ancestor, still haunts the dark passages of our own speech. Though dead, it still speaketh. Sanskrit ceased to be a spoken language in the third century B, c. Even at that time its accents had ceased to be what they were in Vedic times. Instead of being complicated, like the accent in Greek, they had become simplified, like the accents in Latin or English. We VOL. I. M 162 RECENT ESSAYS. did not even know that Sanskrit had ever been pronounced according to the strict rules of accent till we became acquainted with the literature of the Vedic age. There, and there alone, the accents were marked in our MSS,, and explained to us by the ancient grammarians of India, who composed their grammars in about 500 B. C. Think, then, on the other side, for how many- centuries, if not for how many thousands of years, Teutonic has been a separate and independent branch of Aryan speech, spoken as Gothic on the Danube, as Saxon near the Elbe, as Anglo-Saxon on the banks of the Thames. Think of its free and independent growth within these realms — and then try to under- stand how such a minute point in English grammar, the d of the participles and th of its abstract sub- stantives, is still under the sway of a change of accent from the ultimate to the penultimate syllable, which took place thousands of years ago in the language spoken by the poets of the Veda in the valle3^s of the Penjab. Is not this more marvellous than a ghost story by Rider Haggard ? Does it not make our hair stand on end when we see a dead lanofuaofe standino; before us so much alive, so much able to will us, and to make us say either d or th, whether we like it or not ? We have heard of letters from the Mahatmas of Tibet flying through the air from Lhassa to Calcutta and to London., This does very well for a novel. But here we have in sober earnest the very accents of the ancient language of the Veda flying across thousands of years from the Sutledj to the Thames, so that we, in this very hall here, must say death but dead, health hut healed, to THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 103 seethe but sodden, simply and solely because some dark-skinned poets in the common home of the Aryan race, in Asia, chose to say something like *dhuta for ' dead,' and "^dhavatu for ' death.' I am afraid this illustration may have proved rather tedious and difficult to follow. But it was necessary to give it in order to make you see with your own eyes what I mean when I say that the true charm of antiquity lies in its being so modern — not in its being remote, but in its being so near to us, so closOj so omnipresent. If Sanskrit were simply a piece of antiquity — aye, if it were as old as the megatheria, or as old as the hills — we might stare at it, we might wonder at it, but it would never attract us, it would never make us ponder, it would never help us to learn how we came to be what we are, how we speak as w^e do. I say, therefore, that antiquity by itself is nothing to us, and if Oriental languages, such as the ancient language of India, or of Egypt, Babylon, China, could display no other attractions than the wrinkles of old age, they would never have gained such ardent admirers as they still count among the young and the old members of this society. Sanskrit, no doubt, has an immense advantage over all the other ancient languages of the East. It is so attractive, and has been so widely admired, that it almost seems at times to excite a certain amount of feminine jealousy. We are ourselves Indo-Europeans. In a certain sense we are still speaking and thinking- Sanskrit ; or, more correctly, Sanskrit is like a dear aunt to us, and she takes the place of a mother who is no more. JI 2 164 EECENT ESSAYS, But other languages of the East also have lost their remoteness, and have entered by one way or another into the arena of modern thouf^ht. The monuments of Babjdon and Assyria may be very old, but what would they have been to us if those long rows of wedge-shaped inscriptions had not been deciphered by the brilliant genius and the persevering industry of our honoured Director — and had not disclosed an intimate relationship between the language of the Mesopotamian kingdoms and what we call the Semitic languages, languages still spoken by Arabs, by Syrians, and by Jews ? Nor was it their language only that has brought the cuneiform inscriptions within the sphere of our scientific interests. After all, though we are Aryas in language and thought, our religion has drawn many elements from Semitic sources. The Old Testament is nearer to us than the Veda. It was by showing us the real historical position of the sacred traditions of the Jews among the traditions of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and of the whole Semitic race, that cuneiform studies have taken their place within the sphere of modern research, and are helping us to solve questions which have perplexed Biblical students for centuries. The traditions about the Creation of the world, about the Deluge, about the Tower of Babel, are now known to have been Semitic in a general sense ; they were not, as we imagined — nay, as we were called upon to believe — the exclusive property of the Jewish race. Egypt also has been drawn into this enchanted and enchanting cii'cle. Its hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic literature now claims a voice in the council of the most modern research. The close relations THE TRUE A^'T1QUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 1C5 between Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine in the most ancient times have lately received an unexpected confirmation. A diplomatic correspondence between the Courts of Egypt and Babylon has been discovered which is referred to 1500 b.c.^ That Egypt influenced not only Palestine from the days of Moses, but hkewise Babylon and Nineveh, as, in later times, Greece, can no longer be doubted. With every year new rays of light from the land of the pyramids help us to see how much in our most familiar thoughts comes from Egypt. I will not tell you again the fairy story of the migration of our alphabet. Suffice it to say that, as in speaking English we speak Sanskrit, in writing our letters we are really scrawling hieroglyphic signs. But let us look for a moment at the folk-lore of Egypt. Folk-lore, you know, is very popular just now, and it has not been slow to avail itself of the Mdhrchen of ancient Egypt in order to show how even the nurseries of the whole world are akin. The solemn Egyptians were as fond of stories as any other nations. Some of these stories have lately been translated, and these translations may, on the whole, be accepted as trustworthy. I shall read you one, translated by Professor Brugsch, and which he considers as the prototype of another story with which we have all been familiar from our early childhood : ' The two sons of one father and one mother were, on some beautiful day, doing their work in the field. ' The great brother gave an order to the little brother, saying, " Go away from here, and fetch me seed-corn from the village." The little brother went to find the wife of his great brother, and found her sitting and * See before, p. 65. 166 RECENT ESSAYS. busy plaiting her hair. And he said to her, " Rise and give me seed-corn, that I may return to the field, for my great brother has commanded me, saying, ' Hasten back to me and do not tarry.' " And the woman said to him, " Go and open the seed-chest, that thou mayest take what thy heart desires, and that my hair may not be unfastened while I go." ' Then the youth w^ent to his chamber to fetch a large measure, for he wished to carry off as much seed as possible. After he had loaded himself with barley and buck-wheat, he marched away with his heavy burden. But the woman stood in his way and said, "How heavy is the burden?" He answered, " Three bushels of buck- wheat and two bushels of barley ; together they are five bushels that rest on my shoulders." - ' Thus he spoke to her, and she laid hold of him and said, " Let us rest for an hour. I shall give thee precious garments and all that is most beautiful." * Eut the youth became furious at this base proposal, like a panther from the South, and she was very much terrified, yes, very much. And he addressed her, saying, " Look, thou, O woman, hast been to me like a mother, and thy husband like a father^ because he is older than I, and he has brought me up. Is it not a great sin what thou hast said to me ? Never repeat that speech. Then no man shall hear a word of it out of my mouth." ' Then he lifted his burden and walked to the field, and came to his great brother and they found plenty of work to do. And when the evening drew near, his great brother returned home, but his little brother remained with the fiock, laden with all the good THE TllUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 1G7 thinrrs of the field. And he led the flock home, that it rniofht rest in the stable in the village. ' But lo, the wife of his great brother was afraid on account of the proposal which she had made to the little brother. And she swallowed a potful of fat. and became as one who was sick, for she wished her husband to think that she was sick on account of his little brother. * And when her husband came home in the evening and entered the house, as was his wont, he found his wife lying on her couch, as if going to die. She did not pour water over his hands, according to Custom, nor did she light the lamp before him, so that the house was dark. And she lay still and tvas sick. ' Then her husband said to her, " Who has spoken to thee ? " And she answered, " No one has spoken to me except thou and thy little brother. When he came home to fetch the seed, he found me alone and asked me to rest with him for an hour. But I did not listen to him, and said, ' Am I not thy mother, and is not thy great brother to thee like a father?' Thus I spake to him, but he did not mind my words, but beat me, that I should not inform thee. Now, if you allow him to live, I shall kill myself." ' Professor Brugsch thinks that we have to recognise in this popular Egyptian story the source of the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, as preserved to us in the Book of Genesis. Most students of folk-lore will probably agree with him ; but I think, we ought to pause. We may admit that it is possible, that it is probable ; but we cannot say that it is proven. 168 HECENT ESSAYS. There is one objection pointed out by Professor Brugsch himself. He says that such names as Potl- phar never occur in Egyptian before the ninth century, and that therefore Moses himself could never have heard the name of Potlphar and his wife. Potiphar in Egyptian means the gift of the god Ra, from puti, gift, and ra, the god Ra, with the article p. It would, therefore, have meant the same as the Greek name Heliodoros. Professor Brugsch is, no doubt, a very high authority on such matters, perhaps the highest. Still it seems to me that very important arguments have been brought forward to show that proper names, formed on the same lines as Potiphar, do occur at a much earlier time. On this point we must wait for Professor Brugsch's reply. But even if he were right on this point, folk-lorists would say that the story in Genesis might still have been borrowed from Egyptian, because no scholar now maintains that the text of Genesis, as we possess it, is older than the ninth century, or that it was written down much before the sixth century b. c. What makes me feel doubtful whether the story in Genesis was really borrowed from the Egyptian story is something different. It is the peculiar character of the Egyptian story. The sinfulness of the Egyptian woman consists not so much in her falling in love with a stranger, as in her almost incestuous passion for her husband's younger brother, who had the same father and the same mother, and to whom she herself had been like a mother. These characteristic features are entirely absent in the story of Potiphar's wife. She is simply a frail woman, the wife of a captain of the guard ; and I must leave it to my friends the THE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF OKIENTAL LITERATURE. 169 folk-lorists to determine whether there could only have been one Potiphar's wife in the whole ancient history of Egypt, or whether the chapter of accidents and accidental coincidences is not larger than we imagine. Having thus shown by a few examples how near the language, the literature, the religion, and even the folk-lore of India, Babylon, Nineveh, and Egypt have been brought to us, and how closely they touch even some of the burning questions of our own time, I should like, by way of contrast, to say a few words about China. China claims to possess the most ancient literature of the world, but you see that its extreme old age, supposing it were granted, has proved as yet of very little attraction. Chinese studies are confined to a very small number of scholars. The public at large, which is always ready and anxious to listen to anything new or old fj-om India, from Babylon, Nineveh, or from Egypt, takes little notice as yet of the sayings and doings of the old emperors of China. Why is thaf? Because there are no intellectual bonds that unite us with ancient China. We have received nothing fi-om the Chinese. There is no electric contact between the white and the yellow race. It has not been brought near to our hearts. China is simply old, very old, that is, remote and strange. If Chinese scholars would bring the ancient literature near to us, if they would show us something in it that really concerns us, something that is not merely old but eternally young, Chinese studies would soon take their place in public estimation by the side of Indo- European, Babylonian, and Egyptian scholarship. There is no reason why China should remain so 170 RECEXT ESSAYS. strange, so far removed from our common interests. There is much to be learnt, for instance, in watching the origin and growth of the Chinese system of writing. There is more of psychology and logic to be gathered from the pictorial representation of thought in China than from many lengthy treatises on the origin of language and the classification of concepts. Chinese religion also is a subject well worth the serious atten- tion of the theologian, and the very contrast between their philosophy and our own might teach us at least that one useful lesson that there is more to bs learnt even there than is dreamt of in our philosophy. If the facts which I have so far placed before you are true, what follows "? It follows that Oriental scholarship must no longer rely on the old saying that distance lends enchantment to the scene. Mere distance, mere antiquity, mere strangeness, will not secure to it a lasting hold on our affections. Unless the scholar has a heart, and unless he can discover something in the ancient world that appeals to our hearts, his labour will be in vain. The world will pass by, after a cursory glance at our mummies, and will take its lantern, if possibly it may find a man, somewhere else. It is sometimes supposed that physical science as distinguished from historical science, the study of the works of nature as kept apart from the study of the works of man, possesses great advantages. It deals with tangible facts, it clears up many mysteries, and it often leads to useful and lucrative discoveries. All that is true. But I confess I wonder how my old friend Renan, who has done so much to make the study of Eastern antiquity a living study, could have expressed a regret I'lIE TRUE ANTIQUITY OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 171 at having dedicated his life and energies to Oriental languages and not to chemistry. Man has been, is, and always will be, the centre of the world, the measurer of all things. Take even the chemist's atoms. Who made them? who thought and named them ? Nature gives us no atoms. Nature knows nothing that is not divisible. Men postulated atoms in spite of nature ; and that fundamental concept, that belief in the infinite, in the infinitely small, as well as in the infinitely great, is more important to a thouohtful student than the whole table of atoms of the chemist. It is man who has to find the key to all the mysteries of nature, and when all these mysteries have been solved, there still remains the greatest mystery of all mysteries — man. However much we may forget it wdien absorbed in minute researches, man is, and will always remain, the hidden subject of all our thoughts. Philosophers imagine that they can study man in the abstract, or that they are able to discover all his secrets by introspection. Much, no doubt, has been achieved by that method ; but, at the very best, all it can teach us is what man is, not how man has come to be what he is. To solve this problem, the most important of all problems that concern us, our age has discovered a new method, the iiidorical method. What is called the Historical School has taken posses- sion not only of philosophy, but likewise of the wide fields of language, mythology, religion, customs, and laws. The study of all these subjects has been com- pletely reformed — has received a fresh foundation and a new life by being based on historical research, and by being pervaded by the historical spirit. 172 RECENT ESSAYS. Here, then, in the study of the past lies the bright future of Oriental studies. Let Oriental scholars remember that they have to work for a great object, and let them never mistake the means for the end. That is the danoer that besets Oriental more than any other studies. It is, no doubt, very creditable to learn to read hieroglyphics, to understand cunei- form inscriptions, to decipher the language of the Vedic hymns, to read Arabic, Persian, or Hebrew. But unless, while engaged in our special studies, whatever they may be, we can contribute some stones, however small, to the building of that temple which is dedicated to the knowledge of man, and therefore to the knowledge of God, we are but beasts of burden, carrying, it may be, heavy loads, but throwing them down by the road, where they are more likely to impede than to help the progress of true knowledge. Give us men who are not only scholars but thinkers, men like Sir W. Jones and Colebrooke in England, like Champollion and Eugene Burnouf in France, like Schlegel and Humboldt in Germany, and Oriental scholarship will soon take the place that of right belongs to it among the studies of mankind. Man loves man. Discover what is truly human, not only what is old, in India, Persia, Arabia, in Babylon and Nineveh, in Egypt — aye, and in China also — and Oriental studies will not only become popular — that may be worth very little — but they will become helpful to the attainment of man's highest aim on earth, which is to study man, to know man, and, with all his weaknesses and follies, to learn to love man. A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES.' IT is very satisfactory to watch the steady and healthy gi'owth of anything, whether it be a tree in our garden, or a child in our family, or some good work in which we have been allowed to take an active share. In this life so many plans that seem excellent in themselves are doomed to failure, that we feel all the more gi'ateful whenever one of them succeeds. When some years ago my friends first explained to me their plan of extending the benefits of University teaching to a wider area, and when at a later time they suggested the idea of inviting those who had attended the lectures given by members of our Uni- versity in different centres, to spend some weeks in this centre of all centres, within the ancient ivy-clad walls of Oxford, I must confess that I did not feel very confident of success. Still it seemed to me a plan worth trying, if only in order to prove that the Uni- versities, which enjoy so many ancient privileges, are always ready to respond to any demand which the countiy at large may make on them in the interest of national education and general enlightenment. The success of this experiment has been much ' Inaugural address delivered at the Opening of the Oxford University Extension Lectures, August i, 1S90. 174 RECENT ESSAYS. greater than any of us could have expected. It has really taken even the most sanguine among us by surprise. Think that these Oxford University Extension Lectures were started only five years ago. In 1885 to 1886 we began with 27 courses ; in the year 1889 to 1890 the number of courses had risen to 148. In the first year the number of places which invited our ' lecturers was 21 ; in the last year the number of so- called centres was 109. We do not know what was the exact number of students in the first year, from 1885 to 1886, But last year the number of students reported by the local committees as being in average attendance amounted to 17,904. This surely is not what the French call une quantite ne'gligeahle. It exceeds, I believe, the number of students at all the Universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland taken together. And what is more im- portant still, attendance on all these courses of lectures is purely voluntary; nay, it often entails an effort and a sacrifice of time and money, and it does not cost the country a single penny. I know that some of my friends consider that we have a very strong claim on Government assistance. I do not deny it. All I say is that nothing gives us such confidence in the healthy growth of what we may call the Peoples University, as seeing it walk so vigorously without the help of crutches. But this ver}^ success ought to make us careful, ought to maJie us consider whether we are really doing the best we can. We have had, no doubt, the approval of the most competent judges, but we have also had our critics, and all through life I have always A LECTURE IN DEFEXCE OF LECTURES. 175 found it far more useful to listen to those who are against us than to those who are wdth us. You are aware that the system of imparting in- struction by means of lectures, the system on w^hich we chiefly rely, has for some time been subjected to an uncompromising criticism. Lectures are said to be a mere survival of the Middle Ages. Before the invention of printing, and so long as MSS. were rare, it is admitted that teaching could only be carried on by word of mouth. It has been so from the time of Pythagoras and Plato to the time of Justinian, in Greece and in Rome ; it is so to the present day among the Brahmans of India, who, if they adhere to their ancient orthodox system of education, have to learn their sacred writings, the Vedas, from the mouth of a teacher, and not from a MS., still less from a printed book. But it is now four centuries and a-half since print- ing was invented. Books have not only been rendered accessible, but they have in our days become so cheap that it certainly entails less expense of moneys and time to buy a book and read it than to attend a course of lectures. We are told, therefore, that the time for oral teaching has gone by, and that we are fighting against the spirit of the age in trying to maintain, and even to extend, the antiquated system of impart- ing instruction by means of public lectures. This sounds very plausible, nay, I am willing to admit, it contains some truth, but not, as we shall see, the whole truth. We may readily admit that the old style of lecturing admits of improvement, but we need not therefore discard lecturing altogether as used up, useless, nay, even mischievous. 176 RECENT ESSAYS. First of all, it is quite clear that the system of oral instruction will always remain the only possible system with boys and gii-ls at school. Try to imagine what schools would be with books only, and without masters ! To the boys it might seem an earthly paradise, to others, I fear, more like the opposite place. It is difficult enough with the best of teachers and the most attractive of books to lead our young barbarians to the water and to make them drink. Without a master to guide them, to help them, to drive them, to coax them, if not to cram them, I am afraid that but few would slake their thirst at the fountain of knowledge of their own free will. We need not dwell on this point. Everybody admits it. Eut it may be useful to remember that, during that early stage at all events, the personal element, the human influence of the teacher, is altogether indispensable. The question with which ire have to deal is whether that human influence is, if not indispensable, at all events useful at a later stage also, or whether a system which has proved itself useful at school becomes, for some reason or other, really hurtful at the Univer- sities, and if at the Universities, then all the more so in our attempt at extending the benefits of University teaching to larger classes, who of necessity remain debarred from some very important advantages of our academic life. That lectures have their drawbacks who would deny ? I have suftered in my youth from lectures as a passive hearer, and I am well aware how often I must have inflicted the same suffering on other passive hearers by my own lectures in later life. A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTUllES. 177 Let US openly confess what these drawbacks are. First of all, most lectures are too long. A whole hour is very long, even for a sermon, which we may follow with our eyes closed ; it is certainly too long for a lecture that requires us to be wide awake from beginning to end. It is generally the last quarter of an hour that does all the mischief, that makes us impatient, dissatisfied, angry — that often ruins the very best of lectures. I strongly recommend, there- fore, the remedy which has been accepted in all German Universities, the so-called Academic Quarter. The German professor begins punctually at a quarter- past and ends punctually as the clock strikes. This gives the German students a quarter of an hour breathing time — I won't say, smoking time— between two lectures. Secondly, our audiences are generally too large, or, I should rather say, they are too mixed. This is a very serious drawback, particularly from the lecturer's point of view. If we aim at one target we may possibly hit it ; if we have to aim at two or three or four, we are almost sure to miss them all. Here also I speak feelingly. It might be supposed that in a university which is protected by a matricu- lation examination, this difficulty did not exist. But it does exist. We have in Oxford the ablest and best-taught young men, who need not fear comparison with the first-class men of any other country. But we have also a very large number of students to whom real academic teaching can be of no use what- ever. To them professorial lectures, as I know from sad experiences, are hurtful rather than useful. Often when in former days I looked over the notes of some VOL. I. N 178 RECENT ESSAYS. of my pupils or listened to their questions, I was perfectly amazed at the utter confusion of thought. Not only had what I said been completely misunder- stood, but I seemed to have laboured for a whole hour in order to inculcate the very opposite of what I wished to convey. I shall give you one instance of what happened to me — not at Oxford, for one ought not to tell tales out of school — but at the Royal Institution in London. Tlie audience there is certainly the most enlightened, the most brilliant, the most learned and critical audience one has to face anywhere in the world — but it is mixed. Years ago, when it was still necessary to prove that Hebrew was not the primitive language of all mankind, I had devoted a whole lecture to showing the impossibility of this opinion. I explained how it arose, and I placed before my audience a complete genealogical tree of the Aryan and Semitic languages, where everybody could see with his own eyes the place which Hebrew really holds in the historical pedigree of human si^eech. After the lecture was over one of my audience came up to me to shake hands and thank me for having shown so clearly how all languages, including Sanskrit and English, were derived from Hebrew^, the language spoken in Paradise by Adam and Eve. Imagine my consternation ! I well remember how I went to Faraday, who had listened to my lecture, and told him that after that it really was no use lecturing any more. He smiled, and with a twinkle in his dark eyes, he said : ' You need not complain. I have been lecturing in this Institution for many A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES. 179 years, and over and over again, after I have explained and shown before their very eyes how water consists of hydrogen and oxygen, some stately dowager will march up to me after the lecture and say in a confi- dential whisper, " Now, Mr. Faraday, you don't really mean to say that this water here in your tumbler is nothing but hydrogen and oxj'gen'?" Go on lec- turing,' he said, ' something will always stick,' I believe Faraday was right. Something will always stick, and light will sometimes spring from the very densest confusion of thought in which a pupil leaves the lecture-room. Still a large and mixed audience is a real evil, and I do not see why our Society should not devise some means of sifting and dividing audiences, instead of depending altogether on the all-powerful principle of natural selection, which no doubt will keep most people away from lectures that seem to them both useless and tedious. All other objections, however, which have been raised against the usefulness of lectures, our delegacy has cai'efully considered, and, as I hope to be able to show, has met as successfully as they can be met. It has been said that, when there is a really good book, it is better to read that book than to attend a course of lectures. This sounds very plausible, no doubt. The best book on any subject must contain more valuable and more trustworthy information than can possibly be claimed by any of the ninety-nine professors who lecture on the same subject. But supposing Ihat there is such a best book — one of those mythical Hundred Best Books of which we have heard so much of late — that book may be a monument of N 2 180 EECENT ESSAYS. industiy, a storehouse of learning, a perfect work of genius, but is it the best book, therefore, for the purposes of teaching ? No man will become a painter by looking at a Raphael. No one will become a musician by listening to a symphony of Beethoven. And no one will become a philosopher by pondering over the pages of Kant's ' Critique of Pure Reason.' A young man may not want the same amount of guidance as a boy, but he wants help, advice, en- couragement, and human sympathy, and these he can get from a man only, not from a book. It has been said that in reading a book we can sit and ponder silently over a difficult passage, we can turn back to a former chapter, and wait till the fog has lifted and the air has become clear again, while a professor has to talk on for ever and ever, without stopping. Now^ it is quite true, we cannot interrupt a professor and say : ' Stop, stop, sir, I have not quite taken in your argument.' But surely a professor who is worth his salt will himself pause occasionally, will go over the same ground again, because he feels, nay he sees, if he has eyes to see, fiom the bewildered looks of his pupils, that he has not treated the subject quite successfully. I remember professors who lectured on Metaphysics — for instance, Professor Weisse at Leipzig, who paused very often, who seemed, indeed, to wrestle, like Jacob with the angel, till he found the right name and the right words for what he wished to say. It was often like an intellectual stammer and stutter, and yet that very stammer and stutter has left a deep impression on my mind of an honest thinker, of a real wi'cstler with truth. A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTIRES. 181 Every professor in Germany publishes books, but he seldom publishes his lectures. I do not think that this arises from the sordid motive attributed to him, that he does not like to part with the goose that lays the golden eggs. It arises chiefly from the fact that if written at all, his lectures arc written in a didactic, conversational, a Socratic style. Besides they must always contain so much that has been said by others that there seldom is any demand for such lectures outside the lecture-room. In cases where they have been published, generally after a professor's death, they have seldom added much to his reputation, though, of course, there are exceptions, such as, for instance, ' Niebuhr's Lectures,' published by my late friend, Dr. Schmitz. They are certainly more read- able and more enjoyable than his ' History of Rome.' Much, however, depends, of course, on the lecturer. It is by no means necessary that every lecturer should be an original genius, a great discoverer, or an elo- quent orator. What is necessary is that he should be an honest man, a man who has acquired his know- ledge by patient study, who has made it entirely his own, and who feels so perfectly at home in his own subject that be is willing to answer any reasonable questions that may be addressed to him, without being ashamed to say occasionally, ' I don't know.' That kind of lecturer does not simply teach facts ; his object is to teach how to master the facts, how to arrange, how to digest, how to remember them. He knows his own struggles in acquiring knowledge, and he fights, as it were, his own battles over once more before the eyes of his pupils. If he has faith in what 182 RECENT ESSAYS. he teaches, his voice appeals more powerfully to our imagination than a silent page. No italics, no signs of exclamation, can equal in impressiveness the natural emphasis of conviction that issues at times, like an electric current, from the voice of a teacher, or even of the most unimpassioned preacher. We must not forget that there is room for preaching as well as for teachino* lectures. When we want to stimulate interest before we convey information, we have to plead for our subject, we have to exhibit its charms, expound its usefulness, and show our pupils how they themselves may in time take their place in the noble army for the conquest of truth. No doubt a book also may sometimes kindle en- thusiasm, but the shortest and safest way from the heart to the heart is, and always will be, the human voice. Most of our own lectures here are no doubt meant to be teaching' lectures. And with regard to them I quite agree with our critics that they ought to be based on a text- book. A teacher should either dictate the outlines of his lectures, or he should prepare a very full syllabus, giving what may be called by an ugly name the skeleton of his lectures, which by his oral teaching he has to endow with flesh, with muscles and nerves and life. Such a syllabus ought likewise to contain bibliographical notices, recommending certain books or portions of books for private study — nay, if it were not too invidious, giving warnings also against useless books. The time that is wasted by students in the country by reading useless, stupid, nay, mischievous books is incredible. I know it from numerous letters which I receive^ and which I have A LECTLTtE IN DEFENCE OF LECTUllES. 183 often to answer by saying, 'Try to forget all that you have read in that book.' I must not mention these books by name. Some of them are very popular, and enjoy a large circu- lation. I can only say that some of them are intended to prove the descent of the Anglo-Saxon race from the Lost Tribes of Israel. I never could understand why so many people, particularly old ladies, should be so anxious to prove themselves lineal descendants of these lost tribes. Another favourite subject which attracts a large number of readers, to judge from the numerous letters which I receive, is Esoteric Bud- dhism. I always recommend as an antidote a dose of Exoteric Buddhism, of real historical Buddhism, as we find it in the sacred books of its numerous sects. But, alas ! to most people esoteric sounds so much better than exoteric, and fiction is so much more attractive than dry facts ! Next follow books, pamphlets, and even regular journals on Spiritism, Mesmerism, Fetishism, Comtism, and all the rest, and the amount of mischief that is done by these different propagandas is incalculal)le. But even if the compilers of a syllabus should be afraid of issuing such warnings, a new kind of an Index expurgatorius of ignorant or really dangerous books, their recommendation of useful books would prevent many of the accidents wdiich, we are told, happen to those who attend public lectures. With a syllabus in his hands no hearer need carry away wrong dates or misspelt names. The misfortune that happened to a student of metaphysics, who spelt the Universal I or Ego, Eye, is ludicrous, no doubt. But is it really so serious as it seems 1 Would there really be much 384 EECENT ESSAYS. (lifFerence between the Universal I or Ego and the Universal Eye or Oeuhis ? Both are metaphors, and it seems to me the Universal Eye or Percipient would convey much the same lesson as the Universal I or Ego, that is, the universal ^56?•so)^, the persona, literally, the mask. Still, I quite admit we must not spell I, eye ; it is not even phonetic spelling. I doubt whether those who profess an entire want of confidence in our so-called Extension-lectures are really aware of all the pains that are taken in order to ensure the efficiencyof our lectures. Remember what our lectui'crs have to do. They have, first of all, to prepare a very elaborate syllabus. They have then to lecture a whole hour before a somewhat mixed audience. They have then to go over the same subject with those who remain for another hour, answer questions, and give advice for private reading. Before they give their next public lecture they have to examine essays and answers to questions sent in by their pupils, and again advise and direct them in their home work. At the end of each course, consisting of six, of twelve, sometimes of twenty such lectures, examiners are appointed to test the progress made by the pupils, and those only who have satisfied both the examiners and the lec- turers have a right to receive a certificate. I really doubt whether our critics could be aware of all these safeguards which our delegacy has devised in order to make these University lectures really effective. I confess I do not see what fault even the most captious critic can find with them. Anyhow, if a book by itself could really do all that we try to do by means of lectures and books, I doubt whether our A LECTUHE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES. 185 lecturers would have been so thoroughly appreciated in the various provincial centres as they evidently have been hitherto. Si argumentum quaeris, cir- c um spice f And as to our annual gatherings here at Oxford, though they have been called mere picnics, we know that they are more than that, and that they have borne good fruit. They are no doubt intended as a mixture of what is sweet and what is useful. A fort- night or a month spent at Oxford at the best time of the year is certainly delightful, and it is meant to be so. But I believe it is also a lesson, and, it may be, a very important lesson. The mere sight of our venerable and beautiful University, so full of historical memories, wherever you look, must leave on those who come to visit us an impression of reverence for what is old and of sympathy for what is young. Ruins are very eloquent, but Oxford is not all ruins. You all know the story of the j'oung American lady who was lost in admiration in the cloisters of Mao-- dalen College. Suddenly a window was opened, and a young man looked out. '0, my!' she exclaimed, ' are these ruins inhabited ? ' Yes, they are inhabited ; these old ruins of ours are full of young life. I re- member many years ago another visitor at Oxford, Frederick William IV, the King of Prussia. He also was lost in admii-ation of our ruins. ' Gentlemen,' he said, when he left us, ' Oxford is a wonderful place ; everything old in it is young, everything young is old.' In these few words you have the whole secret of the political and social life of England — reverence for the past, faith in the future. And here is a lesson 186 RECEXT ESSAYS. which Oxford can teach and does teach without any lecturer and without any book. But let it not be supposed that these summer meetings are all play and no work. If you look at the programme of our lectures this year, you will see liow carefully they have been arranged, and if you look at our lecture-rooms you will see how zealously these lectures are attended. But you must not expect that lectures can work miracles. It requires two people to make a lecture : one who is willing to teach and one who is anxious to learn. Lectures run off like water from a duck's back, or, as the Hindus say, like rain from a lotus leaf, unless we are determined to drink them in ; and, not only to drink them in, but, in the true sense of the word, to masticate, to denticate, to chump, and to grind them, and then only to swallow them. It is not enough to be simply passive or receptive, while listening to a lecturer. We should be active ourselves, nay, even independent, and always try to combine the new knowledge which we receive with the old know- ledge which we already possess. I do not mean to say that our attitude in listening to a lecturer should always be sceptical or captious. Far from it. But it should always be free and critical, and critical not so much with regard to facts as with regard to words. There are many facts which we must all accept on trust. Life would be too short if every one had to go step by step through the whole process by which the knowledge of certain events has reached us. There are few scholars, I believe, who could explain by what process of chronological calculation even so simple a fact as the date of the battle of Marathon has been A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES. 187 established ; still fewer wlio could tell how it has been proved that Buddha, the founder of the Euddhist religion, was preaching about the same time in India the doctrines of a new faith. We know that there are scholars who have devoted their whole attention to special subjects, and who could tell us how to deter- mine the date when the Old Testament was for the first time reduced to writing ; how to distino-uish between the genuine and the spurious books of Aristotle ; how to prove, what sounds at first almost incredible, that English is intimately related with Sanskrit, and how to silence those who represent Sanskrit literature as a mere forgery of wily Brah- mans. But unless we feel ourselves specially inter- ested in any one of these questions, we must accept the answers on the authority of special students, just as many of us accept the Copernican system of the world and Newton's law of gravitation, without being able to defend either the one or the other aafainst all gainsayers. It is not so much with regard to facts as with regard to words that we have to assert our indepen- dence. "Words are the wings of our mind, but they often become the most dangerous snares. When last year I had the pleasure of delivering Itefore this meeting some lectures on the Science of Language ^, my chief object was to warn you against the snares of words, and, at all events, to call your attention to the superlative importance of language in all the operations of our mind. If language and thought are inseparable, if they are but the two sides of one and the same process, it must be clear how ' 'Three Lectures on the Science of Language,' Lonsmans, 1889. 188 IlECENT ESSAYS. much accuracy of thought depends on accuracy of language. Now, I am glad to say, these lectures of mine were listened to as all lectures ought to he listened to, in an independent and a critical spirit. Some of my hearers found it hard to give up the usual terminology which distinguishes between language and thought, as we distinguish between body and soul. It required an effort with many to adopt the old Greek termi- nology, which has but one term. Logos, both for language and for thought. They did not see at once that worded thought or Logos is but the highest sphere of our mental life, and lays no claim on the lower strata, such as perception, emotion, intuition, calculation, which do not require the help of language, and which, therefore, we share in common with the dumb creation. But all of my correspondents — some of them quite as intelligent as my critics in the Nineteenth Century and the Conteviiporary Review — came to see in the end that what is called discursive thought was altogether impossible and inconceivable without lani^uajxe. As all lectures have, we may hope, to deal with discursive and deliberate thought, let me impress once more on my hearers that they should themselves deliberate on the words in which information is con- veyed to them. It is chiefly by taking so many words on trust that we find ourselves entangled in so many difficulties, so many contradictions, or, to use a Kantian phrase, so many antinomies of thought. Consider that the materials of our knowledge, the objects around us, have always been the same. Consider that the instruments of our knowledge, call them the senses, A LECTURE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES, 189 the understanding, the reason, or anything else, are likewise the same. How, then, can we account for the fact that every system of philosophy, from Thales to Kant, is contradicted by another system ? It is chiefly, if not entirely, language that has thrown the apple of discord among us. We call the same thing by different names, and different things by the same name, and then we wonder that, as at the time of the Tower of Babel, so even now, we do not understand one another's speech. But this is neither the time nor the place for a lecture on metaphysics. Nor is it so much from philosophical or technical terms that the evil of con- fused thought, or what is called intellectual fog, arises. Some of the most familiar terms are really causing the greatest mischief, terms which look so simple, so innocent, that it seems almost an imperti- nence to ask them what they are and what they mean. Take such a term as heredity. If a child has blue eyes and the father has blue eyes, of course the child has inherited the father s blue eyes. If the child has brown eyes and the mother has brown eyes — again, the child has, of course, inherited the mother's brown eyes. And if the child has green eyes, and neither his father nor his mother was a green-eyed monster, nevertheless the eyes of the child are again inherited. Their green colour is due either to some obscure mixture of blue and brown, or to some atavismal influence, going back ever so far. Heredity, you see, is always right ; it cannot possibly be wrong, whatever happens. Yet it requires but little reflection to see that heredity, as applied to peculiarities of body and mind, 190 EECENT ESSAYS. is one of the boldest of poetical metaphors which, as I said, form both the wings and the snares of that strange bird which we call our mind. What we want is a definition of heredity, when applied either to acquired or to non-acquired peculiarities of living- beings. Those who had the advantage of listening to some thoughtful lectures on heredity, delivered here last year, will remember how difficult a subject heredity really is, and how carefully it has to be defined and subdivided before it can be used for sound, scientific speculation. Another word used at random, which seems to explain everything and really explains nothing, is race. If you ask what is meant by that word, you are generally told that race means blood, common blood. But we are told, not only in the Bible, but by Darwin also, that the whole human race is of the same blood, and we know that, if it were otherwise, such has been — in historic and pre-historic times — the mixture of blood by war, extirpation, captivity, and migration, that a race, or a family, or a single individual of unmixed blood, would in these latter days be an utter impossibility. What applies to blood, applies to bones, skull, hair, skin, and all that constitutes the outward character of an organic being. And yet this undefined word race is called in to explain almost anything. Historians will tell us that the Jews worshipped one God, because they belonged to the Semitic race, and the Semitic race has a mono- theistic instinct. Politicians will tell us that the Irish and the Welsh hate union with England because they belong to the Celtic race, and Celtic blood has an instinctive aversion to Saxon blood. All this is meta- A LECTUllE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES. 191 phor, nothing but metaphor. No chemist can distin- guish, as yet, between Semitic and Aryan, or between Celtic and Saxon blood. No physiologist can define what he means by an Aryan or Semitic skull, by Aryan or Semitic hair, by Aryan or Semitic coloured skin. What holds these so-called races together is not common blood or common bone, or common hair, but the intellectual bond of a common language, of a common literature, or of a common religion, in fact, of common lonsf-continued historical traditions. If CD race is once defined in that ssnse, lectures on racial peculiarities or similarities will become really useful, far more so than if the word is accepted as an in- explicable something which nevertheless has to explain everything. And what applies to race applies to species also. Darwin, as you know, has written a whole book on the ' Origin of Species,' without ever giving, so far as I remember, any real definition of what is meant by that term. If I understand the drift of his argument rightly, what he has really proved in his ' Origin of Species ' is that in nature there is no room for species at all. Nature knows of individuals and of genera. Individuals, in order to be individuals, must differ from each other, however slight and imperceptible their differences may be. For our own purposes, we may call individuals which share certain more or less stable peculiarities in common, species. But no species has an independent existence in nature, apart from the genus to which it belongs. Species are entirely of our own making ; they are names by which we comprehend and classify individuals, be- longing to the same genus, and sharing certain more 192 RECENT ESSAYS. or less variable peculiarities in common. If we once see this clearly, then we can enter into the true spirit of Darwin's speculations, and see how intimately they are connected with the oldest problems that have occupied the mind of man — how to name, that is, how to know, the endless variety of the phenomenal world. Take whatever words you like, and you will find that the}^ require to be examined from time to time. You remember how when we start on a railway jour- ney there is a tapping noise all along the line of carriao'es. It arises from a man striking each wheel with an iron hammer, to see whether it is sound and has the right ring. That is what we ought to do with our words, at least with the more important ones, before we start on a course of reading, or while we are attending a course of lectures. We ought from time to time to tap our words with the iron hammer of the Science of Language, to see whether they have the rio-ht rinor. How often of late, when listening to the wrangling about Home Rule, have I said to my- self, ' Oh, that some one, whoever he be, would tap that word, and give us a definition of what is meant and what is not meant by Home Rule.' Nothing would be more useful for shortening the Sessions of Parliament. Or, when theologians are for ever dis- puting about inspiration, how much bad blood and bad language might be saved if some Bishop or Archbishop would give us an accurate definition of inspiration, so that we might know once for all what is comprehended by that name and what is not. Though I have tried to defend lectures, and have endeavoured to show how even in these days, when the deluge of books seems to have set in, we cannot A LECTUUE IN DEFENCE OF LECTURES. 1S3 do without lectures, I must admit that there is with lectures, more particularly with eloquent lectures, this great danger, that they produce too implicit a defer- ence to authority. Jurare in verba magistri, to swear by the words of a professor, is a real danger, against which we must be on our guard. And the best safeguard is that which the Science of Language supplies in showing us the intimate connexion be- tween language and thought, and letting us see how words arise, how they change from generation to generation, how they grow old and corrupt, and have often to be discarded altogether. Words will govern us unless we govern them. This is perhaps the most valuable lesson which the Science of Language has taught us. It is not a new lesson, but it is a lesson which has to be inculcated again and again, on the teacher as well as on the learner. Most of those who, not without a considerable effort, have come to attend our lectures, are men and women who have thought for themselves, who have grappled with time-honoured watchwords, who have retained their faith in some, and have rejected others. I congratulate our lecturers on having such classes to teach, where they may reckon on a genuine desire to learn, and, at the same time, on a strong independence of thought in accept- ing instruction. And I doubt not that while teachers and learners are exploring together in this place, the ruins of ancient thought, and the labyrinths of modern science, they will feel the silent influence of Oxford, and take to heart the lesson which our University has taught to so many generations of Englishmen, Scotchmen, and L-ishmen — respect for what is old and the warmest sympathy for what is new and true. VOL. I. o SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY/ AWELL- KNOWN student once expressed his admiration for Oxford, by saying that it would be Paradise Regained, if only the Long Vacation lasted the whole year. But remember, he was not an idle Fellow, but one of those who construe vacare with a dative, when it means to be free from all interrup- tions for the pursuit of study. Well, this peaceful sanctuary of Oxford was suddenly changed last summer into a perfect bee-hive. The Colleges, the libraries, the gardens, the streets, the river were all swarming with visitors. As the clock struck, from ten in the morning till five in the afternoon, streams of gentlemen and ladies were seen coming out and going back to the lecture-rooms. Every lecture-room was as full as it could hold, and the eager faces and the quick-moving pens and pencils showed that the students had come on earnest business bent. It was in fact a realised dream of what a University might be, or what it ought to be, perhaps, what it will be again, when the words of our President are taken to heart that' man needs knowledge, not only as a meana of livelihood, but as a means of life.' • An Address delivered at the Mansion House, February 23, 1889, before the Society for the Extension of University Teaching. SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 195 This sudden metamorphosis of Oxford was duo to the first meeting of students under the University Extension system. Tliey had been invited to reside in Oxford for the first ten days in August. Nearly a thousand availed themselves of this invitation, of whom about seven hundred were University Exten- sion students from the Oxford, Cambridge, and London centres. Sixty-one lectures were delivered during the ten days, on literature, history, economics, and science. Besides these lectures, conferences were held for discussing questions connected with extended University teaching. All these lectures and confer- ences were remarkably well attended from beginning to end, and yet there was time for afternoon excur- sions and social gatherings. The antiquities of Oxford, the Colleges, libraries and chapels, were well explored, generally under the guidance of the Head or the Fellows of each College. The success of the whole undertaking, thanks very much to the exertions of Mr. Sadler and Mr, Hewins, was so brilliant that at the end of the meeting it was unanimously decided to repeat the experiment next year. To my mind that gathering at Oxford, though it was but little noticed by the outer world, was an historical event, the beginning of a new era in the history of national education. And I rejoiced that this new growth should have sprung from the old Universities, because it had thus secured a natural soil and an historical foundation on which to strike root, to grow, and to flourish. There is no doubt a strong feeling abroad that the instruction which is given by the old Universities is antiquated and useless in the fierce struggle for exist- o 2 196 RECENT ESSAYS. ence. We are told that we teach dead languasres, dead literatures, dead philosophy, as if there could be such a thing as a dead language, a dead literature, a dead philosophy. Is Greek a dead language ? It lives not only in the spoken Greek, it runs like fire through the veins of all European speech. Is Homer, is Aeschylos, is Sophocles a dead poet? They live in Milton, RacinC;, and Goethe, and I defy any one to understand and enjoy even such living poets as Tennyson or Browning without having breathed at school or at the Universities, the language and thought of those ancient classics. Is Plato a dead philosopher ? It is impossible for two or three philo- sophers to gather together without Plato being in the midst of them. I should say, on the contrary, that all living languages, all living literatures, all living philosophy would be dead, if you cut the historical fibres by which they cling to their ancient soil. What is the life-blood of French, Italian, and Spanish, if not Latin ? You may call French an old and wizened speech, not Latin. You may call Comte's philosophy effete, but not that of Aristotle. You may see signs of degeneracy in the mushroom growth of our modern novels, not in the fresh and life-like idylls of Nausikaa or Penelope. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not want everybody to be a classical scholar or antiquarian, but I hold that it is the duty of all university teach- ing never to lose touch with the past. It seems to me the highest aim of all knowledge to try to under- stand what is, by learning how it has come to be what it is. That is the true meaning of history, and that SOME LESSOXS OF ANTIQUITY. 197 seems to me the kind of knowledge which schools and universities are called upon to cultivate and to teach. I believe it is in the end the more useful knowledge also. It is safe and sound, and by being safe and sound, it not only eni'iches the intellect, but it forms and strengthens the character of a man. A man who knows what honest and thorough knowledge means, in however small a sphere, will never allow himself to be a mere dabbler or smatterer, whatever subject he may have to deal with in later life. He may abstain, but ho will not venture in. What is the original meaning of all instruction? It is tradition. It was from the beginning the handing over of the experience of one generation to the other, the establishment of some kind of continuity between the past, the present, and tho future. This most primitive form of education and instruction marks everywhere the beginning of civilised life and the very dawn of history. History begins when the father explains to his son how the small world in which he has to live came to be what it is ; when the present generation accepts the inheritance of the past, and hands down a richer heirloom to the future ; when, in fact, the present feels itself connected and almost identified with the future and the past. It is this solidarity, as the French call it, this consciousness of a common responsibility, w^hich distinguishes the civilised and historical from the uncivilised and unhistorical races of the world. There are races for whom the ideas of the past and the future seem hardly to exist. We call them un- civilised races, savages, ephemeral beiugs that are born and die without leaving any trace behind them. 198 KECENT ESSAYS. The only bond which connects them with the past is their language, possibly their religion, and a few customs and traditions which descend to their suc- cessors without any effort on either side. But there were other races — not many — who cared for the future and the past, who were learners and teachers, the founders of civilised life, and the first makers of history. Such were the Egyptians and the Babylonians, and those who afterwards followed their example, the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. To us it seems quite natural that the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians should have erected monuments of an almost indestructible character and covered them with inscriptions to tell, not only the next generation, but all generations to come, what they had achieved during their short sojourn on earth. Why should they and they alone have conceived such an idea? The common answer is, because they possessed the art of writing. But the truer answer would be that they in- vented and perfected the art of writing because they had something to say and something to write, because they wished to communicate something to their chil- dren, their grandchildren, and to generations to come. They would have carried out their object even without hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic alphabets. For we see that even among so-called savage tribes, in some of the Polynesian islands, for instance, a desire to perpetuate their deeds manifests itself in a kind of epic or historical poetry. These poems tell of wars, of victories and defeats, of conquests and treaties of peace. As writing is unknown in these islands, they are committed to memory and entrusted to the safe keeping of a separate caste who are, as it were, tho SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQllTY. 199 living archives of the island. They are the highest authorities on questions of disputed succession, on the doubtful landmarks of tribes, and the boundaries of families. And these poems are composed according to such strict rules and preserved with such minute care, that when they have to be recited as evidence on disputed frontiers, any fraudulent alteration would easily be detected. Mere prose evidence is regarded as no evidence ; it must be poetical, metrical, and archaic Whenever this thought springs up in the human mind, that we live not only for ourselves, but that we owe a debt to the future for what we have received from the past, the world enters upon a new stage, it becomes historical. The work which was beeun tentatively in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt was carried on in the cuneiform records of Babylon, in the mountain edicts of Darius and Xerxes, till it reached Greece and Rome, and there culminated in the masterworks of such historians as Herodotus and Thucydides, Livy and Tacitus. It may seem to j-ou that these early beginnings of tradition and history are far removed from us, and that the knowledge which we possess and wdiich we wish to hand down to future generations in schools and universities is of a totally different character. But this is really not the case. We are what we are, we possess what we possess even in the very elements of our knowledge, thanks to the labours of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, Persians, to say nothing of Greeks and Romans. What should we be without our ABC, without being able to wi-ite? Mere illiterate savages, know- ing nothing of the past except by hearsay, caring 200 RECENT ESSAYS. little for the future except for our own immediate posterity. Now whenever we read a book or write a letter we ought to render thanks in our heart to the ancient scholars of Egypt who invented and per- fected writing, and whose alphabetic signs are now used over the whole civilised world, with the excep- tion of China. Yes, whenever you write an a or a 6 or a c 3'ou write what was originally a hieroglyphic picture. Your L is the crouching lion, your F the cerastes, a serpent with two horns ; your H the Egyptian picture of a sieve ^. There is no break, no missing link between our ABC and the hieroglyphic letters as you see them on the obelisk on the Thames Embankment, and on the much older monuments in Egypt. The Egyptians handed their letters to the Phoenicians, the Phoeni- cians to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Romans, the Romans to us. All the Semitic alphabets also, as used in Persian and Arabic, and the more important alphabets of India, Ceylon, Burmah, and Siam, all come in the end from Phoenicia and Egypt. The whole of Asia, except that part of it which is over- shadowed by Chinese influence, Europe, America, Africa, and Australia, so far as they write at all, all write Egyptian hieroglyphics. The chain of tradition has never been broken, the stream of evolution is more perfect here than anywhere else. Reading and writing, theiefore, have come to us from ancient Egypt. But whence did we get our arithmetic? When I say our arithmetic I do not mean our numerals only, or our knowledge that two and two make four. That kind of knowledge is * See p. 286. SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 201 home-grown, and can be traced back to that common Aryan home from which we derive our language, that is to say, our whole intellectual inheritance. I mean our numerical figures. There are many people who have numerals, but no numerical figures like our own. There are others, such as the Chiquitos in Columbia, who count with their fingers, but have no numerals at all ; at least we are told so by the few travellers who have visited them ^ There are others again who have a very perfect system of numerals, but who for numerical notation depend either on an abacus or on such simple combinations of strokes as we find in Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylon, China, India, and even among the redskins of America. There are others again, like the Greeks and the Hindus, who, under certain circumstances, use letters of their alphabet instead of figures. You may imagine that with such contrivances arithmetic could never have advanced to its present stage of perfection, unless some one had invented our numerical figures. Whence then did we get our figures ? We call them Arabic figures, and that tells its own tale. But the Arabs call them Indian figures, and that tells its own tale likewise. Our figures came to us from the Arabs in Spain, they came to them from India, and if you consider wdiat we should be without our figures from one to nine, I think you will admit that we owe as much grati- tude to India for our arithmetic, as to Egypt for our readinj^c and writing. When I am sometimes told that the Hindus w^ere mere dreamers and never made • Brett, ' History of the British Colonies in the West Indies,' 4th eJ., London, 1887. 202 RECENT ESSAYS. any useful discovery, such as our steam-engines and electric telegraphs, I tell my friends they invented that without which mechanical and electric science could never have become what they are, that without which we should never have had steam-engines or electric telegraphs — they invented our figures from i to 9 — and more than that, they invented the nought, the sign for nothing, one of the most useful discoveries ever made, as all mathematicians will tell you. Let us remember then the lessons which we have learnt from antiquity. We have learnt reading and writing from Egypt, we have learnt arithmetic from India. So much for the famous three R's. But that is not all. If we are Egyptians whenever we read and write, and Indians whenever we do our accounts, we have only to look at our watches to see that we are Babylonians also. We must go to the British Museum to see what a cuneiform inscription is like ; but it is a fact nevertheless that eveiy one of us carries something like a cuneiform inscription in his waistcoat pocket. For why is our hour divided into sixty minutes, each minute into sixty seconds, and so forth "? Simply and solely because in Babylonia there existed, by the side of the decimal system of notation, another system, the sexagesimal, which counted by sixties. Why that number should have been chosen is clear enough, and it speaks well for the practical sense of the ancient Babylonian merchants. There is no number which has so many divisors as sixty. The Babylonians divided the sun's daily journey into twenty-four parasangs or 720 stadia. Each parasang or hour was subdivided into sixty minutes. A parasang is about a German mile, and Babylonian astronomers SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 203 compared the progress made by the sun during one hour at the time of the equinox to the progress made by a good walker during the same time, both accomplish- ing one parasang. The whole course of the sun during the twenty-four equinoctial hours was fixed at twenty- four parasaugs or 730 stadia, or 360 degrees. This system was handed on to the Greeks, and Hipparchus, the great Greek philosopher, who lived about 150 B.C., introduced the Babylonian hour into Europe. Ptolemy, who wrote about 150 a.d., and whose name still lives in that of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, gave still wider currency to the Babylonian way of reckon- ing time. It was carried along on the quiet stream of traditional knowledge through the Middle Ages, and, strange to say, it sailed down safely over the Niagara of the French Revolution. For the French, when revolutionising weights, measures, coins, and dates, and subjecting all to the decimal system of reckoning, were induced by some unexplained motive to respect our clocks and watches, and allowed our dials to remain sexagesimal, that is, Babylonian, each hour consisting of sixty minutes. Here you see again the wonderful coherence of the world, and how what we call knowledge is the result of an unbroken tradition, of a teaching descending from father to son. Not more than about a hundred arms would reach from us to the builders of the palaces of Babylon, and enable us to shake hands with the founders of the oldest pyramids and to thank them for what they have done for us. And allow me to point out what I consider most important in these lessons of antiquity. They are not mere guesses or theories ; they are statements r 04 EECENT ESSAYS. resting on historical facts, on evidence that cannot be shaken. Suppose five thousand years hence, or, let us be more merciful and say fifty thousand years hence, some future Schliemann were to run his shafts into the ruins of what was once called London, and discover among the debris of what is now the British Museum, charred fragments of news- papers, in which some Champolion of the future might decipher such names as centimetre or niilUmetre. On the strength of such evidence every historian would be justified in asserting that the ancient inha- bitants of London — we ourselves — had once upon a time adopted a new decimal system of weights and measures from the French, because it was in French, in primaeval French only, that such words as centi- metre or millimetre could possibly have been formed. We argue to-day on the strength of the same kind of evidence, on the evidence chiefly of language and inscriptions, that our dials must have come from the Babylonians, our alphabets from Egypt, our figures from Lndia. We indulge in no guesses, no mere possi- bilities, but we go back step by step from the Times of to-day till we arrive at the earliest Babylonian inscription and the most ancient hieroglyphic monu- ments. What lies beyond, we leave to the theoretic school, which begins its work where the work of the historical school comes to an end. I could lay before you many more of these lessons of antiquity, but the Babylonian dial of my watch reminds me that my parasang, or my German mile, or my hour, is drawing to an end, and I must confine myself to one or two only. You have heard a great deal lately of bi-metallism. I am not going to inflict SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 205 on this audience a lecture on that deeply interesting subject, certainly not in the presence of our chairman, the Lord Mayor, and with the fear of the Chancellor ol the Exchequer before my eyes. But I may just men- tion this, that when I saw that what the bi-metallists were contending for was to fix and maintain in per- petuity a settled ratio between gold and silver, I asked myself how this idea arose ; and being of an historical turn of mind, I tried to find out whether antiquity could have any lessons to teach us on this subject. Coined money, as you know, is not a very ancient invention. There may have been a golden age when gold was altogether unknown, and people paid with cows, not with coins. When precious metals, gold, silver, copper, or iron began to be used for payment, they were at first simply weighed \ Even we still speak of a pound instead of a sovereign. The next step was to issue pieces of gold and silver properly weighed, and then to mark the exact weight and value on each piece. This was done in Assyria and Babylonia, where we find shekels or pounds of gold and silver. The commerce of the Eastern nations was carried on for centuries by means of these weights of metal. It was the Greeks, the Greeks of Phocaea in Ionia, who in the seventh century B.C., first conceived the idea of coining money, that is of stamping on each piece their city arms, the phoca or seal, thus giving the warranty of their state for the right weight and value of those pieces. From Phocaea this art of coin- ing spread rapidly to the other Greek towns of Asia Minor, and was thence transplanted to Aegina, the Peloponnesus, Athens, and the Greek colonies in Africa 1 See p. 288. 206 RECENT ESSAYS. and in Italy, The weight of the most ancient gold coin in all these countries was originally the same as that of the ancient Babylonian gold shekel, only stamped with the arms of each country, which thus made itself responsible for its proper weight. And this gold shekel or pound, in spite of historical dis- turbances, has held its own through centuries. The gold coins of Croesus, Darius, Philip, and Alexander have all about the same weight as the old Babylonian gold shekel, sixty of them going to one onina of gold ; and what is stranger still, our own sovereign, or pound, or shekel, has nearly the same weight, sixty of them going to an old Babylonian mina of gold. In ancient times twenty silver drachmas or half- shekels went to one gold shekel, just as with us twenty silver shillings are equivalent to one sovereign. This ancient shilling was again subdivided into sixty copper coins, sixty being the favourite Babylonian figure. Knowing therefore the relative monetary value of a gold and silver shekel or half-shekel, knowing how many silver shekels the ancient nations had to give for one gold shekel, it was possible by merely weigh- ing the ancient coins to find out whether there was then already any fixed ratio between gold and silver. Thousands of ancient coins have thus been tested, and the result has been to show that the ratio between gold and silver was fixed from the earliest times with the most exact accuracy. That ratio, as Dr. Brugsch has shown, was one to twelve and a half in Egypt; it was, as proved by Dr. Brandis, one to thirteen and one-third in Babylonia and in all the countries which adopted the Babylonian standard. There have been slight flue- SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 207 tuations, and there are instances of debased coinage in ancient as "well as in modern times. But for international trade and tribute, the old Babylonian standard was maintained for a very long time. These numismatic researches, which have been carried on with indefatigable industry by some of the most eminent scholars in Europe, may seem simply curious, but like all historical studies they may also convey some lessons. They prove that, in spite of inherent difficulties, the great political and commercial nations of the ancient world did succeed in solving the bi-metallic problem, and in maintaining for centuries a fixed standard between gold and silver. They prove that this standard, though influenced, no doubt, by the relative quantity of the two metals, by the cost of production, and by the demand for either silver or gold in the markets of the ancient world, was maintained by the common sense of the great commercial nations of antiquity, who were anxious to safeguard the interests both of their whole- sale and retail traders. They prove lastly that, though a change in the ratio between gold and silver cannot be entirely prevented, it took place in ancient time by very small degrees. From the sixteenth century e.g., or, at all events, if we restrict our remarks to coined money, from the seventh century B.C., to nearly our own time, the appreciation of gold has been no more than 1 1, namely, from 13^ to 15. If now, within our own recollection, it has suddenly risen from 15 to 20, have we not a rio;ht to ask whether this violent disturbance is due altogether to natural causes, or 208 RECENT ESSAYS. whether what we are told is the effect, is not to a certain extent the cause of it —I mean the sudden resolution of certain Governments to boycott for their own purposes the second precious metal of the world. But I must not venture further on this dangerous ground, and shall invite you in conclusion to turn your eyes from the monetary to the intellectual currency of the world, from coins to what are called the counters of our thoughts. The lessons which antiquity has taught us with regard to language, its nature, its origin, its growth and decay, are more marvellous than any we have hitherto considered. What is the age of Alexander and Darius, of the palaces of Babylon and the pyramids of Egypt, com- pared with the age of language, the age of those very words which we use every day, and which, forsooth, we call modern ? There is nothing more ancient in the world than every one of the words which you hear me utter a-t present. Take the two words ' there is,' and you can trace them step by step from English to Anglo-Saxon, from Anglo-Saxon to Gothic; you can trace them in all the Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic languages, in the language of Darius and Cyrus, in the prayers of Zoroaster, finally in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Instead of there is, the old Vedic poets said tatra asti. It is the same coin, it has the same weight, only it has suffered a little by wear and tear during the thousands of years that it has passed from hand to hand or from mouth to mouth. Those two words would suffice to prove that all the languages of the civilised races of Europe, the languages of Persia and India also, all SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 209 sprang from one source ; and if you place before your imagination a map of Europe and Asia, you would see all the fairest portions of these two continents, all the countries where you can discover historical monu- ments, temples, palaces, forums, churches, or houses of parliament, lighted up by the rays of that one language which we are speaking ourselves, the Aryan language, the classical language of the past, the living language of the present, and in the distant future the true Volapuk, the language of the world. I have no time to speak of the other large streams of historical speech, the Semitic, the Ugro- Altaic, the Chinese, the Polynesian, the African, and American. But think what a lesson of antiquity has here been thrown open to us. We learn that we are bound together with all the greatest nations of the world by bonds more close, more firm and fast, than flesh, or bone, or blood could ever furnish. For what is flesh, or bone, or blood compared to language? There is no continuity in flesh, and bone, and blood. They come and go by what we call birth and death, and they change from day to day. In ancient times, in the struggle of all against all, when whole tribes were annihilated, nations carried away into captivity, slaves bought and sold, and the centres of civilised life over- whelmed again and again by a deluge of barbarian invasions, what chance was there of unmixed blood in any part of the world? But language always remained itself, and those who spoke it, w^hatever their blood may have been, marched in serried ranks along the highroad of history as one noble army, as one spiritual brotherhood. What does it matter whether the same blood runs in our veins and in the VOL. I. p 210 RECENT ESSA-XS. veins of our black fellow-men in India? Their lan- guage is the same, and has been the same for thousands of years, as our own language ; and whoever knows what language means, how language is not only the vestment, but the very embodiment of thought, will feel that to be of the same language is a great deal more than to be of the same flesh. With the light which the study of the antiquity of language has shed on the past, the whole world has been changed. We know now not only what we are, but whence we are. We know our common Aryan home. We know what we carried away from it, and how our common intellectual inheritance has grown and grown from century to century till it has reached a wealth, unsurpassed anywhere, amounting in English alone to 250,000 words. What does it matter whether we know the exact latitude and longitude of that Aryan home, though among reasonable people there is, I believe, very little doubt as to its whereabouts ' somewhere in Asia.' The important point is that we know that there was such a home, and that we can trace the whole intellectual growth of the Aryan family back to roots which sprang from a common soil. And we can do this not by mere guesses only, or theoretically, but by facts, that is, historically. Take any word or thought that now vibrates through our mind, and we know now how it was first struck in countries far away, and in times so distant that hardly any chronology can reach them. If anywhere it is in language that we may say. We are what we have been. In language everything that is new is old, and everything that is old is new. That is true evolution, true historical continuity. A man who knows his SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 211 language, and all that is implied by it, stands on a foundation of ages. He feels the past under his feet, and feels at home in the world of thought, a loyal citizen of the oldest and widest republic. It is this historical knowledge of language, and not of language only, but of everything that has been handed down to us by an uninterrupted tradition from father to son, it is that kind of knowledge which I hold that our Universities and schools should strive to maintain. It is the historical spirit with which they should try to inspire every new generation. As we trace the course of a mighty river back from valley to valley, as we mark its tributaries, and watch its meanderings till we reach its source, or, at all events, the watershed from which its sources spring ; in the same manner the historical school has to trace every current of human knowledge from century to century, back to its fountain-head, if that is possible, or at all events as near to it as the remaining records of the past will allow. The true interest of all knowledge lies in its growth. The very mistakes of the past form the solid ground on which the truer knowledge of the present is founded. Would a mathematician be a mathematician who had not studied his Euclid? Would an astronomer be an astronomer who did not know the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, and had not worked his way through its errors to the truer views of Copernicus ? Would a philosopher be a philosopher who had never grappled wuth Plato and Aristotle ? Would a lawyer be a lawyer who had never heard of Roman law 1 There is but one key to the present— that is the past. There is but one way to understand the continuous growth of the human P 2 212 RECENT ESSAYS. inind and to gain a firm grasp of what it has achieved in any department of knowledge — that is to watch its historical development. No doubt, it will be said, there is no time for all this in the hurry and flurry of our modern life. There are so many things to Jearn that students must be satisfied with results, without troubling themselves how these results were obtained by the labours of those who came before us. This really would mean that our modern teaching must confine itself to the surface, and keep aloof from what lies beneath. Know- ledge must be what is called cut and drv, if it is to prove serviceable in the open market. My experience is the very opposite. The cut-and- dry knowledge which is acquired from the study of manuals or from so-called crammers is very apt to share the fate of cut flowers. It makes a brilliant show for one evening, but it fades and leaves nothing behind. The only knowledge worth having, and which lasts us for life, must not be cut and dry, but, on the contrary, it should be living and growing knowledo;e, knowledo-e of which we know the becjin- ning, the middle, and the end, knowledge of which we can produce the title-deeds whenever they are called for. That knowledge may be small in appearance, but, remember, the knowledge required for life is really very small. We learn, no doubt, a great many things, but what we are able to digest, what is converted in succuin et sanguinem, into our very life-blood, and gives us strength and fitness for practical life, is by no means so much as we imagine in our youth. There are cer- tain things which we must know, as if they were part SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 213 of ourselves. But there are many other things which we simply put into our pockets, which we can find there whenever we want them, but which we do not know as we must know, for instance, the grammar of a lan^ua^e. It is well to remember this distinction between what we know intuitively, and what we know by a certain effort of memory only, for our suc- cess in life depends greatly on this distinction — on our knowing what w^e know, and knowing what we do not know, but what nevertheless we can find, if wanted. It has often been said that we only know thoroughly what we can teach, and it is equally true that we can only teach what we know thoroughly. I therefore congratulate this Society for the extension of Univer- sity teaching, that they have tried to draw their teachers from the great Universities of England, and that they have endeavoured to engage the services of a large number of teachers, so that every single teacher may teach one subject only, his own subject, his special subject, his hobby, if you like — anyhow, a sub- ject in which he feels perfectly at home, because he knows its history from beginning to end. The Uni- versities can afford to foster that race of special students, but the country at large ought to be able to command their services. If this Society can bring this about, if it can help to distribute the accumulated but often stagnant knowledge of university professors and tutors over the thirsty land, it will benefit not the learners only, but the teachers also. It will im- part new life to the universities, for nothing is so inspiriting to a teacher as an eager class of stu- dents, not students who wish to be drilled for an ^14 RECENT ESSAYS. examination, but students who wish to be guided and encouraged in acquiring real knowledge. And nothing is so delightful for students as to listen to a teacher whose whole heart is in his subject. Learning ought to be joy and gladness, not worry and weari- ness. When I saw the eagerness and real rapture with which our visitors at Oxford last summer listened to the lectures provided for them, I said to myself, This is what a university ought to be. It is what, if we may trust old chronicles, universities were in the beginning, and what they may be once more if this movement, so boldly inaugurated by the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and London, and so wisely guided by Mr. Goschen and his fellow- workers, be- comes what we all hope it may become, a real and lasting success. Fo8tscri2)t. As the correctness of my statements with regard to the relative weight of silver and gold coins in ancient times was doubted, I had to send the following letter to the Times, to say that thousands of coins in our museums and in private collections had been weighed by men like Brandis and Brugsch, that the results of their labours had been published, and could not be put aside by critics who had never weighed a single coin. '&" THE SILVER QUESTION. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, — I am not aware that any learned treatise dealing with the difhculties arising from the deprecia- tion of silver has been discovered as yet among the SOME LESSONS OF ANTIQUITY. 215 papp'i of Egypt. But there is l)ettcr evidence of how the ancient people dealt with this difficulty — namely, their gold and silver coins which exist in our museums. Though, as your correspondent 'B. S.' remarks in the Times of to-day, ' silver was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon,' and ' Solomon made silver to be as stones in Jerusalem,' yet the ratio between silver and gold, when coined, seems to have been strictly maintained, and the commercial trans- actions between Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece were never seriously disturbed by the depreciation of one of the two metals. After weigh- ing thousands of gold and silver coins Professor Brugsch has shown that tho ratio between silver and gold in the Egyptian coins was always maintained at I to 125, while Dr. Brandis has shown that in Baby- lonia and all the countries which adopted the Babylonian standard, it was i to 13^. There have been slight fluctuations, and there are instances of debased coinage in ancient as well as in modern times. But for international trade and tribute the old Babylonian standard was maintained for a very long time. How, in spite of tho uncertain quantity of silver and gold in the markets of the ancient world, in spite of the varying cost of production and of the fluctuat- ino- demand for either silver or gold at different times and in different countries, this standard was main- tained it is difficult to say, unless we suppose that the right of coining money was reserved for tiie king, and that in ancient times this warranty was considered of greater value than it is in our days of free coin- age and sliorht seigniorage. Whatever it was, the fact 0000 ' 216 hecent essays. remains that from the sixteenth century b. c, or, at all events, if we restrict our remarks to coined money, from the seventh century b, c, to nearly our own time, the appreciation of gold has not been more than i|, that is from 13 J to i5- We know that at various periods in the history of the world — for instance, at the time of the Persian wars, of the discovery of the East Indies, and of the conquest cf America — there was a sudden influx of one or the other of the precious metals ; yet the common senf-e of the great commercial nations of antiquity, in their anxiety to safeguard the interests both of their whole- sale and retail traders, seems to have been able to maintain the respect for the relative value of silver and gold coin, if safeguarded by the warranty of the State. I am not going to rush into the question of bimetal- lism, where wrens make prey and eagles dare not perch, but remain, silentio et spe, Your obedient servant, F. Max Muller. Oxford, Dec. 27, 1889. ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND BY LANGUAGE OR BY BLOOD.' IT was forty-four years ago that for the first and for the last time I was able to take an active part in the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It was at Oxford, in 1847, when I read a paper on the 'Relation of Ben- gali to the Aryan and Aboriginal Languages of India,' which received the honour of being published in full in the ' Transactions ' of the Association for that year. I have often regretted that absence from Ensrland and pressure of work have prevented me year after year from participating in the meetings of the Asso- ciation. But, being a citizen of two countries — of Germany by birth, of England by adoption — my long vacations have generally drawn me away to the Con- tinent, so that to my great regret I found myself precluded from sharing either in your labours or in your delightful social gatherings. I wonder whether any of those who were present at that briUiant meeting at Oxford in 1847 ^^'^ present here to-day. I almost doubt it. Our President then ' Presidential Address to the Anthropological Section of the Briti.sh Association; Cardiff, 1891. 218 RECENT ESSAYS. was Sir Robert Inglis, who will always be known in the annals of English history as having been preferred to Sir Robert Peel as Member of Parliament for the University of Oxford. Among other celebrities of the day I remember Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir David Brewster, Dean Buckland, Sir Charles Lyell, Professor Sedgwick, Professor Owen, and many more — a galaxy of stars, all set or setting. Young Mr. Ruskin acted as Secretary to the Geological Section. Our Section was then not even recognised as yet as a Section. We ranked as a sub-Section only of Sec- tion D, Zoology and Botany. We remained in that subordinate position till 1851, when we became Sec- tion E, under the name of Geogrcq^hy and Ethnology. From 1869, however, Ethnology seems almost to have disappeared again, being absorbed in Geography, and it was not till the year 1884 that we emerged once more as what we are to-day, Section H, or Anthro- iwlogy. In the year 1H47 our sub-Section was presided over by Professor Wilson, the famous Sanskrit scholar. The most active debaters, so far as I remember, were Dr. Prichard, Dr. Latham, and Mr. Crawfurd, well known then under the name of the Objector-General. I was invited to join the meeting by Bunsen, then Prussian Minister in London, who also brought with him his friend, Dr. Karl Meyer, the Celtic scholar. Prince Albert was present at our debates, bo was Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. Our Ethnological sub-Section was then most popular, and attracted \Qvy large audiences. When looking: once more throuirh the debates carried on in our Section in 1847 I was very much surprised CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 219 when I saw Low very like the questions which occupy us to-day are to those which we discussed in 1847. I do not mean to say that there has been no advance in our science. Far from it. The advance of linguistic, ethnological, anthropological, and biological studies, all of which claim a hearing in our Section, has been most rapid. Still that advance has been steady and sustained ; there has been no cataclysm, no deluge, no break in the advancement of our science, and nothing seems to me to prove its healthy growth more clearly than this uninterrupted continuity which unites the past with the present, and will, I hope, unite the present with the future. No paper is in that respect more interesting to read than the address which Bunsen prepared for the meeting in i(S47, and which you will find in the ' Transactions ' of that year. Its title is ' On the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology, and the Classifica- tion of Languages.' But you will find in it a great deal more than what this title would lead you to expect. There are passages in it which are truly prophetic, and which show that, if prophecy is possible any- where, it is possible, nay, it ought to be possible, in the temple of science, and under the inspii-ing in- fiuence of knowledge and love of truth. Allow me to dwell for a little while on this remark- able paper. It is true, we have travelled so fast that Bunsen seems almost to belong to ancient history. This very year is the hundredth anniversary of his birth, and this very day the centenary of his birth is being celebrated in several towns of Germany. In 220 RECENT ESSAYS. England also his memory should not be forgotten. No one, not being an Englishman by birth, could, I believe, have loved this country more warmly, and could have worked more heartily, than Bunsen did to bring about that friendship between England and Germany which must for ever remain the corner- stone of the peace of Europe, and, as the Emperor of Germany declared the other day in his speech at the Mansion House, the sine qua non of that advance- ment of science to which our Association is devoted. Bunsen' s house in Carlton Terrace was a true inter- national academy, open to all who had something to say, something worth listening to, a kind of sanctuary against vulgarity in high places, a neutral ground where the best representatives of all countries were welcome and felt at home. But this also belongs to ancient history. And yet, when we read Bunsen's paper, delivered in 1847, it does not read like ancient history. It deals with the problems which are still in the foreground, and if it could be delivered again to-day by that genial representative of German learn- ing, it would rouse the same interest, provoke the same applause, and possibly the same opposition also, which it roused nearly half a century ago. Let me give you a few instances of what I mean. We must remember that Darwin's ' Origin of Spe- cies ' was published in 1 859, his ' Descent of Man ' in 1871. But here in the year 1847 one of the burning questions which Bunsen discusses is the question of the possible descent of man from some unknown animal. He traces the history of that question back to Frederick the Great, and quotes his memorable answer to D'Alembert. Frederick the Great, you CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 221 know, was not disturbed by any qualms of orthodoxy. ' In my kingdom/ he used to say, ' everybody may save his soul according to his own fashion.' But when D'Alembert wished him to make what he called the salto mortale from monkey to man, Frederick the Great protested. He saw what many have seen since, that there is no possible transition from reasonless- ness to reason, and that with all the likeness of their bodily organs there is a barrier which no animal can clear, or which, at all events, no animal has as yet cleared. And what does Bunsen himself consider the real barrier between man and beast ? ' It is language,' he says, ' which is unattainable, or at least unattained, by any animal except man.' In answer to the argu- ment that, given only a sufficient number of years, a transition by imperceptible degrees from animal cries to articulate language is at least conceivable, he says : ' Those who hold that opinion have never been able to show the possibility of the first step. They attempt to veil their inability by the easy but fruit- less assumption of an infinite space of time, destined to explain the gradual development of animals into men ; as if millions of years could supply the want of the agent necessary for the first movement, for the fii-st step, in the line of progress! No numbers can effect a logical impossibility. How, indeed^ could reason spring out of a state which is destitute of reason ? How can speech, the expression of thought, develop itself, in a year, or in millions of years, out of inarticulate sounds, which express feelings of plea- sure, pain, and appetite ? ' He then appeals to Wilhelm von Humboldt, whom he truly calls the greatest and most acute anatomist 222 RECENT ESSAYS. of almost all human speech. Humboldt goes so far as to say, ' Rather than assign to all language a uniform and mechanical march that would lead them step by step from the grossest beginnings to their highest perfection, I should embrace the opinion of those who ascribe the origin of language to an imme- diate revelation of the Deity. They recognise at least that divine spark which shines through all idioms, even the most imperfect and the least cultivated.' Bunsen then sums up by saying : ' To reproduce Monboddo's theory in our days, after Kant and his followers, is a sorry anachronism, and I therefore regret that so low a view should have been taken of the subject lately in an English work of much correct and comprehensive reflection and research respecting natural science.' This remark refers, of course, to the ' Vestiges of Creation \' which was then producing the same commotion that Darwin's ' Origin of Species ' produced in 1 859. Bunsen was by no means unaware that in the vocal expression of feelings, whether of joy or pain, and in the imitation of external sounds, animals are on a level with man. ' I believe with Kant,' he says, 'that the formation of ideas or notions, embodied in words, presupposes the action of the senses and impressions made by outward objects on the mind.' ' But,' he adds, ' what enables us to see the genus in the individual, the whole in the many, and to form a word by connecting a subject with a predicate, is the power of the mind, and of this the brute creation exhibits no trace.' You know how for a time, and chiefly owing to * See an axticle in the Edinburgh Review, July, 1845. CLASSIFICATION 01-' MANKIND. 223 Darwin's predominating influence, every conceivable effort was made to reduce the distance which lano-uage places between man and beast, and to treat language as a vanishing line in the mental evolution of animal and man. It required some courage at times to stand up against the authority of Darwin, but at present all serious thinkers agree, I believe, with Bunsen, that no animal has developed what we mean by rational language, as distinct from mere utterances of pleasure or pain, from imitation of sounds and from communication by means of various signs, a sub- ject that has lately been treated wdth great fullness by my learned friend Professor Romanes in his ' Mental Evolution of Man.' Still, if all true science is based on facts, the fact remains that no animal has ever formed what we mean by a language. There must be a reason for that, and that reason is reason in its true sense, namely the power of forming general concepts, of naming and judging. We are fully justified, therefore, in holding with Bunsen and Hum- boldt, as against Darwin and Professor Romanes, that there is a specific difference between the human animal and all other animals, and that tliat difference consists in language as the outward manifestation of what the Greeks meant by Logos. Another question which occupies the attention of our leading anthropologists is the proper use to be made of the languages, customs, laws, and religious ideas of so-called savages. Some, as you know, look upon these modern savages as representing human nature in its most primitive state, while others treat them as representing the lowest degeneracy into which human nature may sink. Here, too, we have learnt 224 EECENT ESSAYS, to distinguish. We know that certain races have had a very slow development, and may, therefore, have preserved some traces of those simple institutions which are supposed to be characteristic of primitive life. But we also know that other races have de- generated and are degenerating even now. If we hold that the human race forms but one species, we cannot, of course, admit that the ancestors even of the most savage tribes, say of the Australians, came into the world one day later than the ancestors of the Greeks, or that they passed through fewer evolutions than their more favoured brethi-en. The whole of humanity would be of exactly the same age. But we know its history from a time only when it had probably passed already through many ups and downs. To suppose, therefore, that the modern savage is the nearest approach to primitive man would be against all the rules of reasoning. Because in some countries, and under stress of unfavourable influences, some human tribes have learnt to feed on human flesh, it does not follow that our first ancestors were cannibals. And here, too, Bunsen's words have become so strikingly true that I may be allowed to quote them: 'The savage is justly disclaimed as the prototype of natural, original man ; for linguistic inquiry shows that the languages of savages are degraded and decaying fragments of nobler formations.' I know well that in unreservedly adopting Bunsen's opinion on this point also I run counter to the teaching of such well-known writers as Sir John Lubbock, Reclus, and others. It might be supposed that Mr. Herbert Spencer also looked upon savages CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 225 as representing the primitive state of mankind. But if he ever did so, he certainly does so no longer, and there is nothing I admire so much in Mr. Herbert Spencer as this simple love of truth, which makes him confess openly whenever he has seen occasion to change his views. ' What terms and what con- ceptions are truly primitive,' he writes, * would be easy if we had an account of truly primitive men. But there are sundry reasons for suspecting that existing men of the lowest type forming social groups of the simplest kind do not exemplify men as they originally were. Probably most of them, if not all, had ancestors in a hieher state ^.* Most important also is a hint which Bunsen gives that the students of lano^uao-e should follow the same method that has been followed with so much success in Geology ; that they should begin by studying the modern strata of speech, and then apply the principles, discovered there, to the lower or less accessible strata. It is true that the same suggestion had been made by Leibniz, but manv sujTorestions are made and are forgotten again, and the merit of rediscovering an old truth is often as great as the discovery of a new truth. This is what Bunsen said : ' In order to arrive at the law which we are endeavouring to find (the law of the development of language) let us fii'st assume, as Geology does, that the same principles which we see working in the (recent) development were also at work at the very beginning, modified in degree and in form, but essentially the same in kind.' We know how fruitful this suggestion has proved, and how much light an accurate study of • Open Court, No. 205, p. 2896. VOL. T. Q 226 EECENT ESSAYS. modern languages and of spoken dialects has thrown on some of the darkest problems of the science of language. But fifty years ago it was Sanskrit only, or Hebrew, or Chinese, that seemed to deserve the attention of the students of Comparative Philology. Still more important is Bunsen's next remark, that language begins with the sentence, and that in the beginning each word was a sentence in itself. This view also has found strong supporters at a later time, for instance, my friend Professor Sayce, though at the time we are speaking of it was hardly thought of. I must here once more quote Bunsen's own words : ' The supreme law of progress in all language shows itself to loe the progress from the substantial isolated word, as an undeveloped expression of a whole sen- tence, towards such a construction of language as makes every single word subservient to the general idea of a sentence, and shapes, modifies, and dissolves it accordingly.' And again : ' Every sound in language must originally have been significative of something. The unity of sound (the syllable, pure or consonantised) must therefore originally have corresponded to a unity of conscious plastic thought, and every thought must have had a real or substantial object of perception. . . . Every single word implies necessarily a com- plete proposition, consisting of subject, predicate, and copula.' This is a most pregnant remark. It shows as clearly as dayhght the enormous difference there is between the mere utterance of the sound Pah and Mah, as a cry of pleasure or distress, and the pronunciation of the same syllable as a sentence, when Pah and CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 227 Nail are meant for ' This is Palt^ ' This is Mah ;' or, after a still more characteristic advance of the human intellect, ' This is a Fah,' 'This is a Mah^ which is net very far from saying, ' This man belongs to the class or o-enus of fathers.' Equally important is Bunsen's categorical state- ment that everything in language must have been originally significant, that everything formal must originally have been substantial. You know what a bone of contention this has been of late between what is called the old school and the new school of Comparative Philology. The old school maintained that every word consisted of a root and of certain derivative suffixeS; prefixes, and infixes. The modern school maintained that there existed neither roots by themselves nor suffixes, prefixes, and infixes by themselves, and tliat the theory of agglutination — of gluing suffixes to roots — was absurd. The old school looked upon these suffixes as originally in- dependent and significative words ; the modern school declined to accept this view except in a few irrefrag- able instances. I think the more accurate reasoners are coming back to the opinion held by the old school, that all formal elements of language were originally substantial, and therefore significative ; that they are the remnants of predicative or demonstrative words. It is true we cannot always prove this as clearly as in the case of such words as hard-ship, luls-dom, rtian-hood, where hood can be traced back to hdd. which in Anglo-Saxon exists as an independent word, meaning state or quality. Nor do we often find that a suffix like mente, in claramente, dairenient, con- tinues to exist by itself, as when we say in Spanish 228 Ri:CKNT ESSAYS. clara, concisa y elegantemente. It is perfectly true that the French, when they say that a hammer falls lourdement, or heavily, do not deliberately take the suffix ment — originally the Latin mente, ' with a mind ' — and glue it to their adjective lourd. Here the new school has done good service in showing the working of that instinct of analogy which is a most important element in the historical develop- ment of human speech. One compound was formed in which mente retained its own meaning ; for in- stance, forti mente, ' with a brave mind.' P'ut when this had come to mean bravely, and no more, the working of analogy began ; and if fortement, from fort, could mean ' bravel}^,' tlien why not lourde- ment, from lourd, 'heavily'? But in the end there is no escape from Bunsen's fundamental principle that everything in language was originally language — that is, was significative, was substantial, was material — before it became purely formal. But it is not only with regard to these general problems that Bunsen has anticipated the verdict of our own time. Some of his answers to more special questions also show that he was right when many of his contemporaries, and even successors, were wrong. It has long been a question, for instance, whether the Armenian language belonged to the Iranic branch of the Aryan family, or whether it formed an inde- pendent branch, like Sanskrit, Persian, or Greek. Bunsen, in 1H47, treated Armenian as a separate branch of Aryan speech ; and that it is so was proved by Professor Hiibschmann in 1^^^. Again, there has been a long controversy whether the language of the Afghans belonged to the Indie or CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 229 the Iranic branch. Dr. Trurapp tried to show that it belonged, by certain peculiarities, to the Indie or Sanskritic branch. Professor Darmesteter has proved but lately that it shares its most essential charac- teristics in common with Persian. Here, too, Bunsen guessed rightly — for I do not mean to say that it was more than a guess — when he stated that ' Pushtu, the language of the Afghans, belongs to the Persian branch.' I hope you will forgive me for having detained you so long with a mere retrospect. I could not deny myself the satisfaction of paying this tribute of gratitude and respect to my departed friend^ Baron Bunsen. To have known him belongs to the most cherished recollections of my life. But though I am myself an old man — much older than Bunsen was at our meeting in 1847 — do not suppose that I came here as a mere laudator temporis acti. Certainly not. If one tries to recall what Anthi-opology was in 1847, and then considers what it is now, its progress seems most marvellous. I do not think so much of the new materials which have been collected from all parts of the world. These last fifty years have been an age of discovery in Africa, in Central Asia, in America, in Polynesia, and in Australia, such as can hardly be matched in any previous century. But what seems to me even more important than the mere increase of material is the new spirit in which Anthropology has been studied during the last generation. I do not mean to depreciate the labours of so-called dilettanti. After all, dilet- tanti are lovers of knowledge, and in a study such A 30 RECENT ESSAYS. as the study of Anthropology the labours of these volunteers, or francs-tlreurs, have often proved most valuable. But the study of man in every part of the world has ceased to be a subject for curiosity only. It has been raised to the dignity, but also to the responsibility, of a real science, and it is now guided by principles as strict and as rigorous as any other science— such as Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, and all the rest. Many theories which were very popular fifty years ago are now completely exploded ; nay, some of the very principles by which our science was then guided have been discarded. Let me give you one instance — perhaps the most important one — as determining the right direction of anthropological studies. At our meeting in 1847 it was taken, for granted that the study of Comparative Philology would be in future the only safe foundation for the study of Anthropology. Linguistic Ethnology was a very favourite term used by Bunsen, Prichard, Latham, and others. It was, in fact, the chief purpose of Punsen's paper to show that the whole of man- kind could be classified accordino- to language. I protested against this view at the time, and in 1853 I published my formal protest in a letter to Bunsen, ' On the Turanian Languages.' In a chapter called ' Ethnology vertus Phonology ' I called, if not for a complete divorce, at least for a judicial separation between the study of Philology and the study of Ethnology. ' Ethnological race ' I said, ' and phonological race are not commensurate, except in antehistorical times, or, perhaps, at the very dawn of history. With the migration of tribes, CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 231 their wars, their colonies, their conquests and alli- ances, which, if we may judge from their effects, must have been much more violent in the ethnic than ever in the political periods of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language should continue to run paralleh The physiologist should pursue his own science, unconcerned about language. Let him see how far the skulls, or the hair, or the colour, or the skin of different tribes admit of classification ; but to the sound of their words his ear should be as deaf as that of the ornithologist's to the notes of caged birds. If his Caucasian class includes nations or individuals speaking Aryan (Greek), Turanian (Turkish), and Semitic (Hebrew) languages, it is not his fault. His system must not be altered to suit another system. Tiiere is a better solution both for his difficulties and for those of the phonologist than mutual compromise. The phonologist should collect his evidence, arrange his classes, divide and combine as if no Elumenbach had ever looked at skulls, as if no Camper had ever measured facial angles, as if no Owen had ever examined the basis of a cranium. His evidence is the evidence of language, and nothing else ; this he must follow, even though in the teeth of history, physical or political. . . . There ought to be no compromise between ethnological and phonological science. It is only by stating the glaring contradic- tions between the two that truth can be elicited.' At first my protest met with no response ; nay, curiously enough, I have often been supposed to be the strongest advocate of the theory which I so fiercely attacked. Perhaps I was not entirely with- out blame, for, having once delivered my soul, I 232 RECENT ESSAYS. allowed myself occasionally the freedom to speak of the Aryan or the Semitic race, meaning thereby no more than the people, whoever and whatever they were, who spoke Aryan or Semitic languages. I wish we could distinguish in English as in Hebrew between nations and languages. Thus in the Book of Daniel, iii. 4, 'the herald cried aloud, . . . O people, nations and languages.' Why then should we not distinguish between nations and languages ? But to put an end to every possible misunderstanding, I declared at last that to speak of 'an Aryan skull would be as great a monstrosity as to speak of a dolichocephalic language.' I do not mean to say that this old heresy, which went by the name of linguistic ethnology, is at present entirely extinct. But among all serious students, whether physiologists or philologists, it is by this time recognised that the divorce between Ethnology and Philology, granted if ordy for incompatibility of temper, has been productive of nothing but good. Instead of attempting to classify mankind as a whole, students are now engaged in classing skulls, in classing hair, and teeth, and skin. Many solid results have been secured by these special researches ; but. as yet, no two classifications, based on these charac- teristics, have been made to run parallel. The most natural classification is, no doubt, that according to the colour of the skin. This gives us a black, a brow^n, a yellow, a red, and a white race, with several subdivisions. This classification has often been despised as unscientific ; but it may still turn out far more valuable than is at present supposed. The next classification is that by the colour of the CLASSinCATlOX OF MANKIND. 233 eyes, as black, brown, hazel, grey, and blue. This subject also has attracted much attention of late, and, within certain limits, the results have proved very valuable. The most favourite classification, how^ever, has always been that according to the skulls. The skull, as the shell of the brain, has by many students been supposed to betray something of the spiritual essence of man ; and who can doubt that the general features of the skull, if taken in large averages, do correspond to the general features of human character? We have only to look round to see men with heads like a cannon-ball and others with heads like a hawk. This distinction has formed the foundation for a more scientific classification into bixicly cephalic, dolicho- cephalicy and viesocephalic skulls. The proportion 80 : ICO between the transverse and longitudinal diameters gives us the ordinary or mesocephalic type, the proportion of 75 : 100 the dolichocephalic, the proportion of 85 : 100 the brachycephalic type. The extremes are 70 : 100 and 90 : 100. If we examine any large collection of skulls, w^e have not much difficulty in arranging them under these three classes ; but if, after we have done this, we look at the nationality of each skull, we find the most hopeless confusion. Pruner Eey, as Peschel tells us in his ' Volkerkunde,' has observed brachycephalic and dolichocephalic skulls in children born of the same mother ; and if we consider how many women have been carried away into captivity by Mongolians in their inroads into China, India, and Germany, we cannot feel surprised if we find some longheads among the roundheads of those Central Asiatic hordes. 234 RECENT ESSAYS. Only we must not adopt the easy expedient of certain anthropologists who, when they find dolichocephahc and brachyeephalic skulls in the same tomb, at once jump to the conclusion that they must have belonged to two different races. When, for instance, two doli- chocephalic and three brachyeephalic skulls were dis- covered in the same tomb at Alexanderpol, we were told at once that this proved nothing as to the simul- taneous occurrence of different skulls in the same family ; nay, that it proved the very contrary of what it might seem to prove. It was clear, we were assured, that the two dolichocephalic skulls belonged to Aryan chiefs and the three brachyeephalic skulls to their non- Aryan slaves, who were killed and buried with their masters, according to a custom well known to Hero- dotus. This sounds very learned, but is it really quite straightforward ? resides the general division of skulls into doli- chocephalic, brachyeephalic, and mesocephalic, other divisions have been undertaken, according to the height of the skull, and again, according to the maxil- lary and the facial angles. This latter division gives us orthognathic, 2^Tog7iuthlc, and mesognathic skulls. Lastly, according to the peculiar character of the hair, we may distinguish two great divisions, the people with woolly hair ( Ulotriclies) and people with smooth hair [Lis8otrichei<). The former are subdivided into Lophocomi, people with tufts of hair, and Eriocomi, or people with fleecy hair. The latter are divided into Euthyco'mi, straight-haired, and Euplocanii^, wavy- haired. It has been shown that these peculiarities of the hair depend on the peculiar form of the hair-tubes, * 'i^oX iEuplo-comic, \vav\ -haired, as Brinton gives it. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIXD. 235 •u-hich, in cross- sections, are found to be either round or elongated in different ways. Now all these classifications, to which several more might be added, those according to the orbits of the eyes, the outlines of the nose, the width of the pelvis, are by themselves extremely useful. But few of them only, if any, run strictly parallel. It has been said that all dolichocephalic races are prognathic, and have w^oolly hair. I doubt whether this is true without exception ; but, even if it were, it would not allow us to draw any genealogical conclusions from it, because there are ceitainly many dolichocephalic people who are not woolly-haired, as, for instance, the Eskimos ^ Now let us consider whether there can be any organic connection between the shape of the skull, the facial angle, the conformation of the hair, or the colour of the skin on one side, and what we call the great families of language on the other. That we speak at all may rightly be called a work of nature, ojjera oiaturale, as Dante said long ago ; but that we speak thus or thus, cosi o cosi, that, as the same Dante said, depends on our pleasure — that is, our work. To imagine, therefore, that as a matter of necessity, or as a matter of fact, dolichocephalic skulls have any- thing to do with Aryan, mesocephalic with Semitic, or brachycephalic with Turanian speech, is nothing but the wildest random thought ; it can convey no rational meaning whatever. We miirht as well say that all painters are dolichocephalic, and all musicians brachycephalic, or that all lophocomic tribes work in gold, and all lissocomic tribes in silver. If anything must be ascribed to prehistoric times, ' Eriuton, ' Races of People,' p. 249. 236 RECENT ESSAYS. surely the differentiation of the human skull, the human hair, and the human skin, would have to be ascribed to that distant period. No one, I believe, has ever maintained that a mesocephalic skull was split or differentiated into a dolichocephalic and a brachycephalic variety in the bright sunshine of history. But let us. for the sake of argument, assume that in prehistoric times all dolichocephalic people spoke Aryan, all mesocephalic, Semitic, all brachycephalic, Turanian languages ; how would that help us ? So long as we know anything of the ancient Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian languages, we find foreign words in each of them. This proves a very close and historical contact between them. For instance, in Babylonian texts of 3000 B. c. there is the word sindhu for cloth made of vegetable fibres, linen. That can only be the Sanskrit sindhu, the Indus, or saindhava, what comes from the Indus. It might be the same word as the Homeric a-ivb^v, fine cloth ^. In Egyptian we find so many Semitic words that it is difficult to say whether they were borrowed or derived from a common source. I confess I am not convinced, but Egyptologists of high authority assure us that the names of several Aryan peoples, such as the Sicilians and Sardinians, occur in the fourteenth century B. c, in the inscriptions of the time of Menephthah I. Again, as soon as we know anything of the Turanian lanouaojes — Finnish, for instance — we find them full of Aryan words. All this, it may be said, applies to a very recent period in the ancient history of humanity. Still, we have no access to earlier docu- * 'Physical Religion,' p. 87. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. S37 ments, and we may fairly say that this close contact which existed then existed, probably, at an earlier time also. If, then, we have no reason to doubt that the ancestors of the people speaking Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian languages lived in close proximity, would there not have been marriages between them, so long as they lived in peace, and would they not have killed the men and carried off the women in time of war ? What, then, would have been the effect of a marriage between a dolichocephalic mother and a brachy- cephalic father? The materials for studying this question of metissage, as the French call it, are too scanty as yet to enable us to speak with confidence. But whether the paternal or the maternal type pre- vailed, or whether their union gave rise to a new permanent variety, still it stands to reason that the children of a dolichocephalic captive woman might be found, after fifty or sixty years, speaking the language of the brachy cephalic conquerors. It has been the custom to speak of the early Arj-an, Semitic, and Turanian races as large swarms — as millions pouring from one country into another, and it has been calculated that these early nomads would have required immense tracts of meadow land to keep their flocks, and that it was the search of new pastures that drove them, by an irresistible force, over the whole inhabitable earth. This may have been so, but it may also have not been so. Anyhow, we have a right to suppose that, before there were millions of human beings, there were at first a few only. We have been told of late that there never was a first man ; but we may be 238 RECENT ESSAYS. allowed to suppose at all evenfs, that there were at one time a few first men and a few first women. If, then, the mixture of blood by marriage and the mixture of language in peace or war took place at that early time, when the world was peopled by some individuals, or by some hundreds, or by some thousands only, think what the necessary result would have been. It has been calculated that it would require only 600 years to populate the whole earth with the descendants of one couple, the first father being dolichocephalic and the first mother brachycephahc. They might, after a time, all choose to speak an Aryan language, but they could not choose their skulls, but would have to accept them from nature, whether dolichocephalic or brachycephalic. Who, then, would dare at present to lift up a skull and say this skull must have spoken an Aryan language, or lift up a language and say this language must have been spoken by a dolichocephalic skull? Yet, though no serious student would any longer listen to such arguments, it takes a long time before theories that were maintained for a time by serious students, and were then surrendered by them, can be completely eradicated. I shall not touch to-day on the hackneyed question of the ' Home of the Aryas,' except as a warning. There are two quite distinct questions concerning the home of the Aryas. When students of Philology speak of Aryas, they mean by Aryas nothing but people speaking an Aryan language. They afiirm nothing about skulls, skin, liair. and all the rest, for the simple reason that nothing can be knov.m of them. When, on the contrary, students of Physiology speak of dolichocephalic, orthognathic, CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 239 euthycomic people, they speak of their physiological characteristics only, and affirm nothing whatever about lanjTuage. It is clear, therefore, that the home of the Aryas, m the proper sense of that word, can be determined by linguistic evidence only, while the home of a blue- eyed, blond-haired, long-skulled, fair-skinned people can be determined by physiological evidence only. Any kind of concession or compromise on either side is simply fatal, and has led to nothing but a promis- cuous slaughter of innocents. Separate the two armies, and the whole physiological evidence collected by D'Omalius d'Halloy, Latham, and their followers will not fill more than an octavo page ; while the linguistic evidence collected by Benfey and his followers will not amount to more than a few words. Everything else is mere rhetoric. The physiologist is grateful, no doubt, for any ad- ditional skull whose historical antecedents can be firmly established; the philologist is grateful for any additional word that can help to indicate the historical or geographical whereabouts of the unknown speakers of Aryan speech. On these points it is possible to argue. They alone have a really scientific value in the eyes of a scholar, because, if there is any difference of opinion on them, it is possible to come to an agree- ment. As soon, however, as we go beyond these mere matters of fact, which have been collected by real students, everything becomes at once mere vanity and vexation of spirit. I know the appeals that have been made for concessions and some kind of compro- mise between Physiology and Philology ; but honest students know that on scientific subjects no compro- 240 RECENT ESSAYS, mise is admissible. With reo-ard to the home of the Aryas, no honest philologist will allow himself to be driven one step beyond the statement that the un- known people who spoke Aryan languages were, at one time, and before their final separation, settled somewhere in Asia. That may seem very small com- fort, but for the present it is all that we have a right to say. Even this must be taken with the hmitations which, as all true scholars know, apply to speculations concerning what may have happened, say, five thou- sand or ten thousand years ago. As to the colour of the skin, the hair, the eyes of those unknown speakers of Arj^an speech, the scholar says nothing ; and when he speaks of their blood he knows that such a word can be taken in a metaphorical sense only. If we once step from the narrow domain of science into the vast wilderness of mere assertion, then it does not matter what we say. We may say, with Penka, that all Aryas are dolichocephalic, blue-eyed, and blond, or we may say, with Pietrement, that all Aryas are brachycephalic, with brown eyes and black hair \ There is no difference between the two assertions. They are both perfectly unmeaning. They are vox et 2^raeterea nihil. May I be allowed to add that Latham's theory of the European origin of Sanskrit, which has lately been represented as marking the newest epoch in the study of Anthropology, was discussed by me in the Edinburgh Review of 1851 ? My experiences during the last forty years have only served to confirm the opinion which I expressed forty years ago, that there ought to be a complete » V. d. Gheyn, 18S9, p. 26, CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 241 separation between Philology and Physiology. And yet, if I were asked whether such a divorce should now be made absolute, I should say, No. There have been so many unexpected discoveries of new facts, and so many surprising combinations of old facts, that we must always be prepared to hear some new evidence, if only that evidence is brought forward accordinof to the rules which orovern the court of true science. It may be that in time the classification of skulls, hair, eyes, and skin may be brought into har- mony with the classification of language. We may even go so far as to admit, as a postulate, that the two must have run parallel, at least in the beginning of all things. But with the evidence before us at present mere wrangling, mere iteration of exploded assertions, mere contradictions, will produce no effect on that true jury which in every country hardly ever consists of more than twelve trusty men, but with whom the final verdict rests. The very things that most catch the popular ear will by them be ruled altogether out of court. But every single new word, common to all the Aryan languages, and telling of some climatic, geographical, historical, or physiological circumstance in the earliest life of the speakers of Aryan speech, will be truly welcome to philologists quite as much as a skull from an early geological stratum is to the physiologist, and both to the an- thropologist, in the widest sense of that name. But, if all this is so, if the alliance between Philo- logy and Physiology has hitherto done nothing but mischief, what right, it may be asked, had I to accept the honour of presiding over this Section of Anthro- pology ? If you will allow me to occupy your valu- VOL. I. R 242 RECENT ESSAYS. able time a little longer, I shall explain, as shortly as possible, why I thought that I, as a philologist, might do some small amount of good as President of the Anthropological Section. In spite of all that I have said against the unholy alliance between Physiology and Philology, I have felt for years — and I believe I am now supported in my opinion by all competent anthropologists — that a knowledge of languages must be considered in future as a sine qua non for every anthropologist. Anthropology, as you know, has increased so rapidly that it seems to say now, N'ihil humani a me alienum puto. So long as Anthropology treated only of the anatomy of the human body, any surgeon might have become an excellent anthropologist. But now, when Anthropology includes the study of the earliest thoughts of man, his customs, his laws, his traditions, his legends, his religions, ay, even his early philoso- phies, a student of Anthropology without an accurate knowledge of languages, without the conscience of a scholar, is like a sailor without a compass. No one disputes this with regard to nations who possess a literature. No one would listen to a man describing the peculiarities of the Greek^ the Roman, the Jew, the Arab, the Chinese, without knowing their languages and being capable of reading the master-works of their literatui'e. We know how often men who have devoted the whole of their life to the study, for instance, of Hebrew differ not only as to the meaning of certain words and passages, but as to the very character of the Jews. One authority states that the Jews, and not only the Jews, but all Semitic nations, were possessed of a monotheistic CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 243 instinct. Another authority shows that all Semitic nations, not excluding the Jews, were polytheistic in their religion, and that the Jehovah of the Jews was not conceived at first as the Supreme Deity, but as a national god only, as the God of the Jews, who, according to the latest view, was originally a fetish or a totem (?), like all other gods. You know how widely classical scholars differ on the character of Greeks and Romans, on the meanino- of their customs, the purpose of their religious cere- monies — nay, the very essence of their gods. And yet there was a time, not very long ago, when anthro- pologists would rely on the descriptions of casual travellers, who, after spending a few weeks, or even a few years, among tribes whose language was utterly unknown to them, gave the most marvellous accounts of their customs, their laws, and even of their religion. It may be said that anybody can describe what he sees, even though unable to converse with the people. I say, Decidedly no ; and I am supported in this opinion by the most competent judges. Dr. Codring- ton, who has just published his excellent book on the ' Melanesians : their Anthropology and Folk-Jore,' spent twenty- four years among the Melanesians, learn- ing their dialects, collecting their legends, and making a systematic study of their laws, customs, and super- stitions. But what does he say in his preface? 'I have felt the truth,' he says, ' of what Mr. Fison, late missionary in Fiji, has written: "When a European has been living for two or three years among savages, he is sure to be fully convinced that he knows all about them ; when he has been ten years or so amongst them, if he be an observant man, he knows that he 244 EECENT ESSAYS. knows very little about therrij and so begins to learn.'" How few of the books in which we trust with regard to the characteristic peculiarities of savage races have been written by men who have lived among them for ten or twenty years, and who have learnt their languages till they could speak them as well as the natives themselves ! It is no excuse to say that any traveller who has eyes to see and ears to hear can form a correct estimate of the doings and sayings of savage tribes. It is not so, and anthropologists know from sad experience that it is not so. Suppose a traveller came to a camp where he saw thousands of men and women dancing round the image of a young bull. Suppose that the dancers were all stark naked, that after a time they began to fight, and that at the end of their orgies there were three thousand corpses lying about weltering in their blood. Would not a casual traveller have described such savages as worse than the negroes of Dahomey ? Yet these savages were really the Jews, the chosen people of God. The image was the golden calf, the priest was Aaron, and the chief who ordered the massacre was Moses. We may read the 32nd chapter of Exodus in a very different sense. A traveller who could have conversed with Aaron and Moses might have under- stood the causes of the revolt and the necessity of the massacre. But without this power of interrogation and mutual explanation, no travellers, however graphic and amusing their stories may be, can be trusted ; no statements of theirs can be used by the anthropo- logist for truly scientific purposes. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 245 From the clay when this fact was recognised by the highest authorities in Anthropology, and was sanctioned by some at least of our anthropological, ethnological, and folk-lore societies, a new epoch began, and Philology received its right place as the handmaid of Anthropology. The most important paragraph in our new charter was this, that in future no one is to be quoted or relied on as an authority on the customs, traditions, and more particularly on the relio-ious ideas of uncivilised races who has not ac- quired an acquaintance with their language, sufficient to enable him to converse with them freely on these difficult subjects. No one would object to this rule when we have to deal with civilised and literary nations. But the languages of Africa, America, Polynesia, and even Australia are now being studied as formerly Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit only were studied. You have only to compare the promiscuous descriptions of the Hottentots in the works of the best ethnologists with the researches of a real Hottentot scholar like Dr. Hahn to see the advance that has been made. When we read the books of Bishop Callaway on the Zulu, of William Gill and Edward Tregear on the Polynesians, of Horatio Hale on some of the North American races, we feel at once that we are in safe hands, in the hands of real scholars. Even then we must, of course, remember that their knowledge of the languages cannot compare with that of Bentley, or Hermann, or Burnouf, or Ewald. Yet we feel that we cannot go altogether wrong in trusting to their guidance. I venture to go even a step further, and I believe 246 RECENT ESSAYS. the time will come when no anthropologist will venture to write on anything concerning the inner life of man without having himself acquired a know- ledge of the lanffupge in which that inner life finds its truest expression. This may seem to be too exacting, but you have only to look, for instance, at the descriptions given of the customs, the laws, the legends, and the religious convictions of the people of India about a hundred years ago, and before Sanskrit began to be studied, and you will be amazed at the utter caricature that is often given there of the intellectual state of the Brahmans compared with what we know of it now from their ow^n literature. And if that is the case with a people like the Indians, who are a civilised race, possessed of an ancient literature, and well within the focus of history for the last two thousand years, what can be expected in the case of really savage races ? One can hardly trust one's eyes when one sees the evidence placed before us by men whose good faith cannot be ques- tioned, and who nevertheless contradict each other flatly on the most ordinary subjects. We owe to one of our secretaries, Mr. Ling Roth, a most careful collection of all that has been said on the Tasmanians by eye-witnesses. Not the least valuable part of this collection is that it opens our ej^es to the utter untrustworthiness of the evidence on which the an- thropologist has so often had to rely. In an article on Mr. Roth's book in ' Nature,' I tried to show that there is not one essential feature in the religion of the Tasmanians on which different authorities have not made assertions diametrically opposed to each other. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 247 Some say that the Tasmanians have no idea of a Supreme Being, no rites, no ceremonies ; others call their religion Dualism, a worship of good and evil spirits. Some maintain that they had deified the powers of nature, others that they were Devil- worshippers. Some declare their religion to be pure monotheism, combined with belief in the immortality of the soul, the efficacy of prayers and charms. Nay, even the most recent article of faith, the descent of man from some kind of animal, has received a religious sanction among the Tasmanians. For Mr. Horton, who is not given to joking, tells us that they believed ' they were originally formed with tails, and without knee-joints, by a benevolent being, and that another descended from heaven and, compassionating the sufferers, cut off their tails, and with grease softened their knees.' I would undertake to show that what applies to the descriptions given us of the now extinct race of the Tasmanians applies with equal force to the descriptions of almost all the savage races with whom anthropologists have to deal. In the case of larofe tribes, such as the inhabitants of Australia, the contradictory evidence may, no doubt, be accounted for by the fact that the observations were made in different localities. But the chief reason is always the same— ignorance of the language, and therefore want of sympathy and impossibility of mutual ex- planation and correction. Let me in conclusion give you one of the most flagrant instances of how a whole race can be totally misrepresented by men ignorant of their language, and how these misrepresentations are at once removed 248 RECENT ESSAYS. if travellers acquire a knowledge of the language, and thus have not only eyes to see, but ears to hear, tongues to speak, and hearts to feel. No race has been so cruelly maligned for centuries as the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. An Arab writer of the ninth century states that their com- plexion was frightful, their hair frizzled, their counte- nance and eyes terrible, their feet very large and almost a cubit in length, and that they go quite naked. Marco Polo (about 1285) declared that the inhabitants are no better than wild beasts, and he goes on to say: 'I assure you, all the men of this island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are just like biff mastiff dogs.' So long as no one could be found to study theii language there was no appeal from these libels. But when, after the Sepoy mutiny in 1857, it was neces- sary to find a habitation for a large number of convicts, the Andaman Islands, which had already served as a penal settlement on a smaller scale, became a large penal colony under English officers. The havoc that was wrought by this sudden contact between the Andaman Islanders and these civilised Indian convicts was terrible, and the end will prob- ably be the same as in Tasmania — the native popula- tion will die out. Fortunately one of the English officers (Mr. Edward Horace Man) did not shrink from the trouble of learning the language spoken by these islanders, and, being a careful observer and perfectly trustworthy, he has given us some accounts of the Andaman aborigines which are real masterpieces of anthropological research. If these islanders must CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 249 be swept away from the face of the earth, they will now at all events leave a better name behind them. Even their outward appearance seems to be- come different in the eyes of a sympathising ob- server from what it was to casual travellers. They are, no doubt, a very small race, their average height being 4 ft. lof in. But this is almost the only charge brought against them which Mr. Man has not been able to rebut. Their hair, he says, is fine, very closely curled, and frizzly. Their colour is dark, but not absolutely black. Their features possess little of the most marked and coarser peculiarities of the negro type. The projecting jaws, the promi- nent thick lips, the broad and flattened nose of the genuine negro are so softened down as scarcely to be recognised. But let us hear now what Mr. Man has to tell us about the social, moral, and intellectual qualities of these so-called savages, who had been represented to us as cannibals ; as ignorant of the existence of a deity ; as knowing no marriage, except what by a bold euphemism has been called communal mar- riage ; as unacquainted with fire ; as no better than wild beasts, having heads, teeth, and eyes like dogs — being, in fact, like big mastiffs. ' Before the introduction into the islands of what is called European civilisation, the inhabitants,' Mr. Man writes, ' lived in small villages, their dwellings built of branches and leaves of trees. They were ignorant of agriculture, and kept no poultry or domestic animals. Their pottery was hand-made, their cloth- ing very scanty. They were expert swimmers and divers, and able to manufacture well-made duff-out 250 RECENT ESSAYS. canoes and outriggers. They were ignorant of metals, ignorant, we are told, of producing fire, though they kept a constant supplj^ of burning and smouldering wood. They made use of shells for their tools, had stone hammers and anvils, bows and arrows, har- poons for killing turtle and fish. Such is the fertility of the island that they have abundance and variety of food all the year round. Their food was invariably cooked, they drank nothing but water, and they did not smoke. People may call this a savage life. I know many a starving labourer who would gladly exchange the benefits of European civilisation for the blessings of such savagery.' These small islanders who have always been repre- sented by a certain class of anthropologists as the lowest stratum of humanity need not fear comparison, so far as their social life is concerned, with races who are called civilised. So far from being addicted to what is called by the self-contradictory name of communal marriage, Mr. Man tells us that bigamy, polygamy, polyandry, and divorce are unknown to them, and that the maiTia^e contract, so far from being regarded as a merely temporary contract, to be set aside on account of incompatibility of temper or other such causes, is never dissolved. Conjugal fidelity till death is not the exception but the rule, and matrimonial differences, which occur but rarely, are easily settled with or without the intervention of friends. One of the most striking features of their social relations is the marked equality and affection which exist between husband and wife, and the con- sideration and respect with which women are treated might, with advantage, be emulated by certain classes CLASSIFICATION 01' MAXKIXD. 251 in our own land. As to cannibalism or infanticide, they are never practised by them. It is easy to say that Mr. Man may be prejudiced in favour of these little savages whose language he has been at so much pains to learn. Fortunately, however, all his statements have lately been con- firmed by another authority, Colonel Cadell — the Chief Commissioner of these islands. He is a Victoria Cross man, and not likely to be given to overmuch sentimentality. Well, this is what he says of these fierce mastiffs, with feet a cubit in length : — They are merry little peoj^le, he says. One could not imagine how taking they were. Every one who had to do with them fell in love with them (these fierce mastiffs). Contact with civilisation had not improved the morality of the natives, but in their natural state they were truthful and honest, generous and self-denying. He had watched them sitting over their fires cooking their evening meal, and it was quite pleasant to notice the absence of greed and the politeness with which they picked off the tit-bits and thrust them into each other's mouths. The forest and sea abundantly supplied their wants, and it was therefore not surprising that the attempts to induce them to take to cultivation had been quite unsuccess- ful, highly though they appreciated the rice and Indian corn which were occasionally supplied to them. All was grist that came to their mill in the shape of food. The forest supplied them with edible roots and fruits. Bats, rats, flying foxes, iguanas, sea- snakes, molluscs, wild pig, fish, turtle, and last, though not least, the larvae of beetles, formed welcome ad- ditions to their larder. He remembered one morninir 252 RECENT ESSAYS. landing by chance at an encampment of theirs, under the shade of a gigantic forest tree. On one fire was the shell of a turtle, acting as its own pot, in which was simmering the green fat delicious to more edu- cated palates ; on another its flesh was being broiled, together with some splendid fish ; on a third a wild pig was being roasted, its drippings falling on wild yams, and a jar of honey stood close by, all delicacies fit for an alderman's table. These are things which we might suppose anybody who has eyes to see, and who is not wilfully blind, might have observed. But when we come to tra- ditions, laws, and particularly to religion, no one ought to be listened to as an authority who cannot converse with the natives. For a long time the Mincopies have been represented as without any religion, without even an idea of the Godhead. This opinion received the support of Sir John Lubbock, and has been often repeated without ever having been re-examined. As soon, however, as these Min- copies began to be studied more carefully — more particularly as soon as some persons resident among them had acquired a knowledge of their language, and thereby a means of real communication — their religion came out as clear as daylight. According to Mr. E. H. Man, they have a name for God — Puluga. And how can a race be said to be without a knowledge of God if they have a name for God ? Puluga has a very mythological character. He has a stone house in the sky ; he has a wife, whom he created himself, and from whom he has a large family, all, except the eldest, being girls. The mother is supposed to be green (the earth ?}, the daughters CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 253 black ; they are the spirits, called Morowin ; his son is called Fijchor. He alone is permitted to live with his father and to convey his orders to the Murowin. But Puluga was a moral character also. His appear- ance is like fire, though nowadays he has become invisible. He was never born, and is immortal. The whole world was created by him, except only the powers of evil. He is omniscient, knowing even the thoughts of the heart. He is angered by the com- mission of certain sins — some very trivial, at least to our mind — but he is pitiful to all who are in distress. He is the judge from whom each soul receives its sentence after death. According to other authorities, some Andamanese look on the sun as the fountain of all that is good, the moon as a minor power ; and they believe in a number of inferior spirits, the spirits of the forest, the water, and the mountain, as agents of the two higher powers. They believe in an evil spirit also, who seems to have been originally the spirit of the storm. Him they try to paciiy by songs, or to frighten away with their arrows. I suppose I need say no more to show how in- dispensable a study of language is to every student of Anthropology. If Anthropology is to maintain its high position as a real science, its alliance with linguistic studies cannot be too close. Its weakest points have always been those where it trusted to the statements of authorities ignorant of language and of the science of language. Its greatest triumphs have been achieved by men such as Dr. Hahn, Bishops Callaway and Colenso, Dr. W. Gill, and last, not least, Mr. Man, who have combined the minute ac- 254 HECENT ESSAYS. curacy of the scholar with the comprehensive grasp of the anthropologist, and were thus enabled to use the key of language to unlock the perplexities of savage customs, savage laws and legends, and, par- ticularly, of savage religions and mythologies. If this alliance between Anthropology and Philology becomes real, then, and then only, may we hope to see Bunsen's prophecy fulfilled, that Anthropology will become the highest branch of that science for which this British Association is instituted. Allow me in conclusion once more to quote some prophetic words from the Address which Bunsen delivered before our Section in 1 847 : — ' If man is the apex of the creation, it seems right, on the one side, that a historical inquiry into his origin and development should never be allowed to sever itself from the general body of natural science, and in particular from Physiology. But, on the other side, if man is the apex of the creation, if he is the end to which all organic formations tend from the very beginning, if man is at once the mystery and the key of natural science, if that is the only view of natural science worthy of our age, then Ethnological Philology (I should prefer to say Anthropology), once established on principles as clear as the physiological are, is the highest branch of that science for the advancement of which this Association is instituted. It is not an appendix to Physiology or to anything else ; but its object is, on the contrary, capable of becoming the end and goal of the labours and trans- actions of a scientific association.' Much has been achieved by Anthropology to justify these hopes and fulfil the prophecies of my old friend CLASSIFICATION OP MANKIND, 255 Bimsen. Few men live to see the fulfilment of their own prophecies, but they leave disciples whose duty it is to keep their memory alive, and thus to preserve that vital continuity of human knowledge which alone enables us to see in the advancement of all science the historical evolution of eternal truth. LETTER TO MR. RISLEY ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. Oxford, the 20th July, 1SS6. I HAVE read with real interest and pleasure the papers referring to an Ethnological Purvey of India which 30U have done me the honour to send to me. Both from a practical and scientific point of view the inquiries which, with the sanction of the Indian Government, you have set on foot will, I have no doubt, be productive of most valuable results. They will enable the statesman to understand more thoroughly many of the traditional beliefs, local customs, and deep-rooted prejudices of those whom he has to influence and to control, — nay, they may possibly help the native inhabitants of India also to gain a truer insight into the meaning of many of their apparently irrational customs and a more correct appreciation of the original purport of their religious faiths and superstitions. But apart from the practical utility of such a survey as is contemplated by you and your colleagues, its value to the scholar and the student of ethnology can 256 EECENT ESSAYS. hardly be overestimated. India, with the immense variety of its inhabitants, representing almost every stage, from the lowest to the highest, in the progress of civilisation, is the most promising country for a scientific study of the development of the human race. Ethnology, though a science of very ancient date, has of late attracted very general attention, and has extended its influence over many important branches of philosophy. The words of Charron's repeated by Pope, ' La vraye science et la vraye etude de Vhomvie c'est rkomme,' seem at last to have come true, and there is hardly a problem connected with the origin of man and the faculties of the human mind which has not been illuminated of late by fitful rays pro- ceeding from the science of ethnology. But, as you truly observe, 'many of the ethnological speculations of recent years have been based far too exclusively upon comparatively unverified accounts of the customs of savages of the lowest type,' and, as an inevitable result, the whole science of ethnology has lost much of the prestige which it formerly commanded. It has almost ceased to be a true science in the sense in which it was conceived by Prichard, Humboldt, Waitz and others, and threatens to become a mere collection of amusing anecdotes and moral paradoxes. It is a science in which the mere amateur can be of great use, but which requires for its successful cultivation the wide knowledge of the student of physical science and the critical accuracy of the scholar. The questions which you have drawn up, and the leading principles which you recommend for the guidance of your coUahorateurs, seem to me excellent. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 257 If you could consult the Annual Reports of the American Bureau of Ethnology, and more particu- larly the excellent papers of its Director, Mr. J. W. Powell, you would find them, nnUatis mutandis, very useful for your own purposes. If I may point out some dangers which seem to me to threaten the safe progress of ethnological inquiry in India and everywhere else, they are the same to which you yourself have called attention. Foremost among them I should mention the vague- ness of the ordinary ethnological terminology, which has led to much confusion of thought and ought to be remedied ferro et igne. You are fully aware of the mischief that is produced by employing the ter- minology of Comparative Philology in an ethnological sense. I have uttered the same warning again and again. In my letter to the Chevalier Bunsen, on the Turanian languages, published as far back as 1853, I devoted a whole chapter to pointing out the necessity of keeping these two lines of research — the philo- logical and the ethnological — completely separate, at least for the present. In my later works, too, I have protested as strongly as I could against the unholy alliance of these two sciences — Comparative Philo- logy and Ethnology. But my warnings have been of little effect; and such is the influence of evil communications, that I myself cannot plead quite not-guilty as to having used linguistic terms in an ethnological sense. Still it is an evil that ought to be resisted with all our might. Ethnologists persist in writing of Aryas, Skemites, and Turanians, Ugrians, Dravidians, Munda, Bantu races, &c., forgetting that these terms have nothing to do with blood, or VOL. I. s 258 RECENT ESSAYS. bones, or hair, or facial angles, but simply and solely with language. Aryas are those who speak Aryan languages, whatever their colour, whatever their blood. In calling tliem Aryas we predicate nothing of them except that the grammar of their language is Aryan. The classification of Aryas and Shemites is based on linguistic grounds and on nothing else ; and it is only because languages must be spoken by somebody that we may allow ourselves to speak of language as synonymous with peoples. In India we have, first of all, the two principal ingredients of the population — the dark aboriginal inhabitants and their, more fair-skinned conquerors. Besides these two, there have been enormous floods of neighbouring races, — Scythians from the North- West, Mongolians from the North-East, overwhelming from time to time larsje tracts of Northern India. There have, besides, been im-oads of Persians, Greeks, Eomans, Mohammedans of every description, Afghans, and last, but not least, Europeans, — all mingling more or less freely with the original inhabitants and among themselves. Here, therefore, the ethnologist has a splendid opportunity of discovering some tests, apart from language, by which, even after a neigh- bourly intercourse lasting for thousands of years, the descendants of one race may be told from the descendants of the others. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by sacred law books. The veiy fact of their forbidding- intermarriages between different races shows that human nature was too strong for them. Inter- marriages, whether forbidden or sanctioned by the law, took place ; and we know that the consequence CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 259 of one single intermarriage might tell in a few gene- rations on thousands of people. Here, then, there is a promising field for the ethnologist, if only he will shut his ears to the evidence of language. As the philologist classifies his languages without asking a single question by whom they were spoken, let the ethnologist classify his skulls without inquiring what language had its habitat in them. After each has finished his classification, it will be time for the ethnologist or the linguist to compare theii* results, but not till then ; otherwise wo shall never arrive at truly scientific conclusions. To give one instance. When Mr. Hodgson had published his valuable vocabularies of the non-San- skritic dialects spoken in India, he, like Lassen, seems to have been so convinced that the people who spoke them in the interior of India must have been either the aboriginal races or their fair-skinned Brahmanic conquerors, that in spite of most characteristic differ- ences he referred that whole cluster of dialects which we now call Munda or Kolarian to the Dravidian family of speech. Trusting simply to the guidance of language, and without paying the slightest regard to the strangely conflicting accounts as to the physical characteristics of these Munda tribes, I pointed out in 1853 that these dialects differed as much from the Dravidian as from the Sanskritic type, and that they must be admitted as a separate family of speech on the soil of India. Everybody accepted my discovery, but unfortunately very soon the term Munda or Kolarian, which was intended as a linguistic term only, was used ethnologically ; and we now constantly read of a Kolarian race, as if we knew anything to prove s 2 260 EECENT ESSAYS. that the people who speak Kolarian languages share all the same unmixed blood. If you were to issue an interdict against any of your collahorateurs using linguistic terms in an ethno- logical sense, I helieve that your Ethnological Survey of India would inaugurate a new and most important era both in the science of language and in the science of man. And while I am speaking of the confusion of terms with regard to language and race, may I point out a similar danger which seems to me to threaten your searches into the origin of castes and tribes in India. On this point also you have to a certain extent anticipated my apprehensions, and I need not fear that you will misapprehend my remarks, though they can only be very short and imperfect. Caste is a European word, but it has become so completely naturalised in India that the vagueness of its meaning seems to have reacted even on the native mind. The Sanskrit word for caste is var^ia, literally ' colour,' or (/ati, literally ' kith.' But though the original meaning of these words is clear, it is well known how much their meaning has varied during different periods in the history of Indian society. As to colour, there are now true Brahmans in the south of India as black as Pariahs ; as to kith and kin, whatever the orthodox doctrine may be, the Brahmans themselves are honest enough to confess that even in the earliest times Kshatriyas became Brahmans, such as Visvamitra ; nay more, outsiders, such as the carpenters under Bribu, were admitted to the Brahmanic community and endowed with Brahmanic gods the i^ibhus (see ' Chips from a German Workshop,' ii. p. 131, and my article on Caste, ibid., CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 261 pp. 301-359). What took place during the Vedic period is taking place, as Sir Alfred Lyall has so well shown, at the present day, only we must take care not to ascribe to the proselytising spirit of the Brah- mans what is simply the result of the religious and social flunkcj' ism of the lower races of India. Caste ought to be carefully distinguished from school, Jiarana — from race and family, gotra and kula. This subject is beset with many difficulties, and I do not myself profess to see quite clearly on the many intricate questions connected with it. With regard to the early history of races and families there is a rich literature in Sanskrit, and it would be very desirable if you could secure the assistance of a really learned pundit to give you a clear and full account of what can be known from these sources. Some of them are of very ancient date. Thus you will find in the Vedic Gi'ihya-siitras a list of Brahmanic gotras (see my ' History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,' pp. 379-3SS), and, strange to say, you will see that the interdict against marriages between members of the same gotra is by no means so universal as it is supposed to be. Even if some of the statements set forth in these Brahmanic treatises may seem to repre- sent pia vota rather than real facts, we must not forget that such theories have often very power- fully influenced the later development of social life in India. I have no doubt that with proper pre- cautions you might derive most valuable help from educated natives, who know the meaning of the terms taken from their own language and how far they really correspond with the terms which we use in English. 262 EECENT ESSAYS. It seems to me a dangerous habit to transfer terms which have their proper and well-defined meaning in one country to similar objects in other countries. It is, of course, very tempting when we see in India — nay, almost in every country of the world, — two or more vertical stones with another on the top of them to greet them as cromlechs. But a cromlech is a stone monument erected by Celtic people, and to speak of cromlechs in India is apt to be misleading. It is far better to describe each class of rude stone monuments by itself, and, if possible, to call them by their own local name. In that way their individual features will not be overlooked ; and this is of great importance, — nay, often of greater importance than to perceive the general similarity of such stone monu- ments in the most distant quarters of our globe. I am even afraid of such words as totemism, fetibltisin, and several other isrtis, which have found their way into ethnological science. They are very convenient and commodious terms, and, if used with proper care, quite unobjectionable. But they often interfere with accurate observation and distinction. A fetish, from meaning originally something very defi- nite in the worship of the Negroes on the west coast of Africa, has become a general name of almost any inanimate object of religious worship. The Palladium, the Cross, the black stone of Kaaba, have all been called fetishes as much as the tail of a dog worshipj^ed on the Congo, as if we could arrive at any sound conclusions by throwing together, regardless of their antecedents, objects of worship belonging, it is sup- posed, to the earliest and to the latest phases of religious belief. CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 203 Again, if there is anything like totemism in India, let us have a full and detailed description of each individual case, instead, of hiding all that may be really enlightening under the large bushel of totemism. Almost anything that outwardly distinguishes one race from another is now called totem, though what seems to be the same, and even what answers the same purpose, is by no means always the same in its origin. Think only of the different nagas or snakes in India. People are called nagas, they worship nagaSj they use emblems of nagas, and we may believe that they do not eat nagas. Is the naga or serpent therefore to be simply classed as a totem ? There are fagots et fagots, and any one who has lived in India knows that in India, as elsewhere, nothing has such various antecedents, and nothing serves such different purports, as naga, the serpent. I have written down these few remarks, not with a view of offering you advice in the prosecution of your ethnological inquiries in India, but in order to Bhow to you how entirely I agree with the spirit in which you have hitherto conducted your Ethno- logical Survey of India, and I hope will continue it and bring it to a successful issue. HORATIO HALE ON ' THE TRUE BASIS OF ANTHROPOLOGY V The Nestor of American philologists, and at the same time the indefatigable Ulysses of comparative ^ * L^ngnage as a Test of Slental Capacity.' By Horatio Kale. From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1891. 264 RECENT ESSAYS. philology in that country, Mr. Horatio Hale, has just published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, an important essay on ' Language as a Test of Mental Capacity,' being an attempt to demonstrate the true basis of anthropology. His first important contribution to the science of language dates back as far as 1838-42, when he acted as ethnographer to the United States Exploring Expedition, and published the results of his observations in a valuable and now very scarce volume, ' Ethnography and Philology.' He has since left the United States and settled in Canada. All his contributions to American ethnology and philology have been distinguished by their originality, accuracy, and trustworthiness. Every one of them marks a substantial addition to our knowledge, and, in spite of the hackneyed disapproval with which reviewers receive reprints of essays pub- lished in periodicals, it is much to be regretted that his essays have never been published in a collected form. Mr. Horatio Hale's object in the essay before us is to show that language separates man from all other animals by a line as distinct as that which separates a tree from a stone, or a stone from a star. ' A treatise,' he writes, ' which should undertake to show how inanimate matter became a plant or an animal, would, of course, possess great interest for biologists, but it would not be accepted by them as a treatise on biology. In like manner a work dis- playing the anatomy of man in comparison with that of other animals cannot but be of great value, and a treatise showing how the human frame was probably developed from that of a lower animal must be of CLASSIFICATION Of MANKIND. 265 extreme interest ; but these -would be works, not of anthropology, but of physiology or biology. Anthro- pology begins where mere brute life gives way to something widely different and indefinitely higher. It begins with that endowment which characterises man, and distinguishes him from all other creatures. The real basis of the science of anthropology is found in articulate speech, with all that it indicates and embodies.' He does not hesitate to maintain that solely by their languages can the tribes of men be scientifically classified, their affiliations discovered, and their mental qualities discerned. These premises, he says, compel us to the logical conclusion that linguistic anthropology is the only ' Science of Man.' These words explain at once the whole character of this important essay. Mr. Horatio Hale is a great admirer of Darwin, but not of the Darwinians. He contrasts Darwin's discernment of the value of language with the blindness of his followers, who are physiologists and nothing else. Why anthropology has of late been swamped by physiology, Mr. Horatio Hale explains by the fact that the pursuit of the latter science is so infinitely the easier. ' To measure human bodies and human bones, to compute the comparative number of blue eyes and black eyes in any community, to determine whether the section of a human hair is circular, or oval, or oblong, to study and compare the habits of various tribes of man, as we would study and compare the habits of beavers and bees, these are tasks which are comparatively simple. Put the patient toil and protracted mental exertion i-equii'ed to pene- trate into the mysteries of a strange language, and to acquire a knowledge profound enough to afford the 206 RECENT ESSAYS, means of determining the intellectual endowments of the people who speak it, are such as very few men of science have been willing to undergo.' Mr. Horatio Hale has a right to speak with authority on this point, for, besides having studied the several lan- guages of North America, of Australia and Polynesia, no one has more carefully measured skulls, registered eyes, measured hair, and collected antiquities and curiosities of all kinds than he has done during his long and busy life. His knowledge of the customs of uncivilised races is very considerable. No one knows the Indian tribes and likewise the Australians better than he does, and he is in consequence very severe on mere theorisers who imagine they have proved how the primitive hordes of human beings, after herding together like cattle, emerged slowly through wife- capture, mother-right, father-right, endogamy, exo- gamy, totemism, fetichism, and clan systems, to what may be called a social status. He holds -with Darwin that man was from the beginning a pairing animal, and that the peculiar usages of barbarous tribes are simply the efforts of men, pressed down by hard conditions, below the natural stage, to keep them- selves from sinking lower. He gives a most graphic description of changes of civilisation produced by change of surroundino-s in the case of the savage Athapascans, and their descendants, the quick-witted and inventive Navajos. He holds that the inhabitants of Australia were originally Dravidians, and that their social and linguistic deterioration is due to the miserable character of the island in which they had taken refuge, possibly from the Aryans, when pressing upon the aboriginal inhabitants of the Dekhan. He points out CLASSIFICATION OF MANKIND. 267 a few grammatical terminations in the Dravidian languages which show some similarity to the ter- minations of Australian dialects. The dative, for instance, is formed in the Dravidian Tulu by ku, and in the Lake Macquarie and Wiradhurei dialects of Australia by ho. In both families the h of hu and ho is liable to be changed into g. The plural suffix in Tamil is gal, in Wiradhurei galan. Thus in Tamil maram, tree, forms the nom. plur. marangal, the dat. plur. marangaluh-hu ; while in Wiradhurei, bagai, shell, appears in the nom. plur. as hagaigalan, in the dat. plur. as hugaigalan-gu. On this point, however, Mr. Horatio Hale ought to produce fuller evidence, particularly from numerals, and the common house- hold words of uncivilised tribes. The pronouns show- many coincidences with Dravidian and Australian languages. No one is better qualified for that task than he is, for we really owe to him the first trust- worthy information about the Australian dialects. He considers all the dialects spoken in Australia as varieties of one original speech, and he has proved their wonderful structure by several specimens con- tained in his first book, published nearly fifty years ago, and again in this last essay of his. There is no doubt that this essay will provoke much opposition, but no one can read it without deriving most valuable information from it, and without being impressed with the singularly clear and unbiassed judgment of the author. It is to be hoped that if there is any controversy it may be carried on in the same scientific and thoroughly gentlemanlike tone in which Mr. Horatio Hale deals with those whom he has to reprove. Thus, when Prof. Whitney, a fertile 268 RECENT ESSAYS. writer on linguistic science in America, commits himself to the statement that the Dravidian languages have ' a general agglutinative structure ivlth prefixes only' Mr. Horatio Hale good-naturedly remarks, ' this is doubtless a misprint for iv'dh suffixes only! And when Prof. Geiiand, in his continuation of Waitz's invaluable work, 'Die Anthropologie der Naturvolker,' refers to Mr. Horatio Hale as describing the hair of the Australians as long, fine, and woolly, he points out that he, on the contrary, described their hair as neither woolly, like that of the Africans and Mela- nesians ; nor frizzled, like that of the Feejeeans ; nor coarse, stiff, and curling, as with the Malays ; but as long, fine, and wavy, like that of Europeans. He naturally protests against Prof. Friedrich Miiller charging him with having committed such a blunder, which, as he remarks, would be as bad as if he had described the Eskimos as having black skins. But there is not a single offensive expression in the whole of his essay, though the opportunities would have been many for adopting the style of hitting in- discriminately above and below the belt. Though he differs from Prof. Whitney, he evidently ranks him very high, and treats him with that courtesy with which every scholar ought to treat his fellow- labourers. ON FEEEDOM.' NOT more than twenty years have passed since John Stuart Mill sent forth his plea for Liberty 2. If there is one amonsf the leaders of thought in England who, by the elevation of his character and the calm composure of his mind, deserved the so often misplaced title of Serene Highness, it was, I think, John Stuart Mill. But in his Essay ' On Liberty,' Mill for once * An Address delivered on the 20th October, 1879, before the Bir- mingham and Midland Institute. * Mill tells us that his Essay 'On Liberty* was planned and written down in 1854. It was in mounting the steps of the Capitol in January, 1855, that the thought first arose of converting it into a volume, and it was not jniblished till 1S59. '^^^ author, who in his Autobiography speaks with exquisite modesty of all his literary performances, allows himself one single exception when speaking of his Essay ' On Liberty.' 'None of my writing?,' he says, ' Lave been either so carefully com- posed or so sedulously corrected as this.* Its final revision was to have been the work of the winter of 1858 to 1859, which he and his wife had arranged to pass in the South of Europe, a hope which was frustrated by his wife's death. ' The " Liberty," ' he writes, ' is likely to survive longer than anything else that I have written (with the possible exception of the "Logic"), because the conjunction of her mind with mine has rendered it a kind of philosophic text-book of a single truth, which the changes progressively taking place in modern, society tend to bring out into stronger relief : the importance, to man and society, of a large variety of cliaracter, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.* 270 EECENT ESSAYS. becomes passionate. In presenting his Eill of Rights, in stepping forward as the champion of individual liberty, a new spirit seems to have taken possession of him. He speaks like a martyr, or the defender of martyrs. The individual human soul, with its unfathomable endowments, and its capacity of growing to something undreamt of in our philosophy, becomes in his eyes a sacred thing, and every encroachment on its world-wide domain is treated as sacrilege. Society, the arch-enemy of the rights of individuality, is represented like an evil spirit, whom it behoves every true man to resist with might and main, and whose demands, as the}^ cannot be altogether ignored, must be reduced at all hazards to the lowest level. I doubt whether any of the principles for which Mill pleaded so warmly and strenuously in his Essay ' On Liberty ' would at the present day be challenged or resisted, even by the most illiberal of philosophers, or the most conservative of politicians. Mill's demands sound very humble to out ears. They amount to no more than this, ' that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions so far as they concern the interests of no person but himself, and that he may be subjected to social or legal punishments for such actions only as are prejudicial to the interests of others.' Is there any one here present who doubts the justice of that principle, or who would wish to reduce the freedom of the individual to a smaller measure? Whatever social tyranny may have existed twenty years ago, when it wrung that fiery protest from the lips of John Stuart Mill, can we imagine a state of society, not totally Utopian, in which the individual ON FEEEDOM. 271 man need be less ashamed of his social fetters, in which he could more freely utter all his honest convictions, more boldly propound all his theories, more fearlessly agitate for their speedy realisation ; in which, in fact, each man can be so entirely himself as the society of England, such as it now is, such as generations of hard-thinking and hard-working Englishmen have made it, and left it as the most sacred inheritance to their sons and daughters ? Look through the whole of history, not excepting the brightest days of republican freedom at Athens and Rome, and I know you will not find one single period in which the measure of Liberty accorded to each individual was larger than it is at present, at least in England. And if you wish to realise the full blessings of the time in which we live, compare Mill's plea for Liberty with another written not much more than two hundred years ago, and by a thinker not inferior either in power or boldness to Mill himself. According to Hobbes, the only freedom which an individual in his ideal state has a ri^-ht to claim is what he calls ' freedom of thought,' and that freedom of thought consists in our being able to think what we like — so long as we keep it to ourselves. Surely, such freedom of thought existed even in the days of the Inquisition, and w^e should never call thought free, if it had to be kept a prisoner in solitary and silent confinement. By freedom of thought we mean freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of action, whether individual or associated, and of that freedom the present generation, as compared with all former generations, the English nation, as compared with all other nations, enjoys, there can be no doubt, a good 272 RECENT ESSAYS. measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and sometimes running over. It may be said that some dogmas still remain in politics, in religion, and in morality ; but those who defend them claim no longer any infallibility, and those who attack them, however small their minority, need fear no violence, nay, may reckon on an impar- tial and even sympathetic hearing, as soon as people discover in their pleadings the true ring of honest conviction and the warmth inspired by an unselfish love of truth. It has seemed strange therefore to many readers of Mill, particularly on the Continent, that this cry for Liberty, this demand for freedom for every individual to be what he is, and to develop all the germs of his nature, should have come from what is known as the freest of all countries, England. We might well understand such a cry of indignation if it had reached us from Russia ; but why should English philo- sophers, of all others, have to protest against the tyranny of society ? It is true, nevertheless, that in countries governed despotically, the individual, unless he is obnoxious to the Government, enjoys greater freedom, or rather licence, than in a country like England, which governs itself. Russian society, for instance, is extremely indulgent. It tolerates in its rulers and statesmen a haughty defiance of the simplest rules of social propriety, and it seems amused rather than astonished or indignant at the vagaries, the frenzies, and outrages, of those who in brilliant drawing-rooms or lecture-rooms preach the doctrines of what is called Nihilism or Individualism^, ^ Herzen defined Nihilism as * the most perfect freedom from all ON rHEEDOM. 273 viz. ' that society must Lc regenerated by a struggle for existence and the survival of the strongest, pro- Cfsses which Nature has sanctioned^ and which have proved successful among wild animals.' If there is danger in these doctrines the Government is expected to see to it. It may place watchmen at the doors of every house and at the corner of every street, but it must not count on the better classes coming forward to enrol themselves as special constables, or even on the co-operation of public opinion which in England would annihilate that kind of Nihilism with one glance of scorn and pity. In a self-governed country like England, the re- sistance which society, if it likes, can oppose to the individual in the assertion of his rio:hts, is far more compact and powerful than in Russia, or even in Germany. Even where it does not employ the arm of the law, society knows how to use that softer, but more crushing pressure, that calm, but Goi-gon-like look which only the bravest and stoutest hearts know how to resist. It is rather against that indirect repression which a well-organised society exercises, both through its male and female representatives, that Mill's demand for Liberty seems directed. He does not stand up for unlimited licence ; on the contrary, he would liave been the most strenuous defender of that balance of power between the weak and the strong on which all social life depends. But he resents those smaller penalties which society likes to inflict on those who settled concepts, from all inherited restraints and impediments which hamper the progress of the Occidental intellect with the historical drag tied to its foot.' VOL. I. T 274 EECENT ESSAYS. disturb its dignified peace and comfort : — avoidance, exclusion, a cold look, a stinging remark. Had Mill any right to complain of these social penalties 1 Would it not rather amount to an interference with individual liberty to wish to deprive any individual or any number of individuals of those weapons of self-defence? Those who themselves think and speak freely, have hardly a right to complain, if others claim the same privilege. Mill himself called the Conserva- tive party the stupid party par excellence, and he took great pains to explain that it was so, not by accident, but by necessit3% Need he wonder if those whom he whipped and scourged used their own whips and scourges against so merciless a critic. Freethinkers, and I use that name as a title of honour for all who, like Mill, claim for every indi- vidual the fullest freedom in thought, word, or deed, compatible with the freedom of others, are apt to make one mistake. Conscious of their own honest intentions, they cannot bear to be mistrusted or slighted. They expect society to submit to their often very painful operations as a patient submits to the knife of the surgeon. That is not in human nature. The enemy of abuses is always abused by his enemies. Society will never yield one inch without resistance, and few reformers live long enough to receive the thanks of those whom they have reformed. Mill's unsolicited election to Parliament was a triumph not often shared by social reformers ; it was as exceptional as Bright's admission to a seat in the Cabinet, or Stanley's appointment as Dean of West- minster. Such anomalies will happen in a country fortunately so full of anomalies as England ; but, as ON FEEEDOM. 275 a rule, a political reformer must not be angry if he passes through life without the title of Right Honour- able ; nor should a man, if he will always speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, be disappointed if he dies a martyr rather than a Eishop. But granting even that in Mill's time there existed some traces of social tj^ranny, where are they now ? Look at the newspapers and the journals. Is there any theory too wild, any reform too violent, to be openly defended ? Look at the drawing-rooms or the meetino-s of learned societies. Are not the most eccentric talkers the spoiled children of the fashionable world 1 When young lords begin to discuss the pro- priety of limiting the rights of inheritance, and young tutors are not afraid to propose curtailing the long- vacation, surely we need not complain of the intoler- ance of English society. Whenever I state these facts to my German and French and Italian friends, who from readings Mill's Essay ' On Liberty ' have derived the impression that, however large an amount of political liberty England may enjoy, it enjoys but little of intellectual freedom, they are generally willing to be converted so far as London, or other great cities, are concerned. But look at your Universities, they say, the nurseries of English thought ! Can you compare their mediaeval spirit, their monastic institutions, their scholastic philosophy, with the freshness and freedom of the Continental Universities ? Strong as these prejudices about Oxford and Cambridge have always been, they have become still more intense since Professor Helm- holtz, in an inaugural address which he delivered at T 2 276 EECENT ESSAYS. his installation as Rector of the University of Berlin, lent the authority- of his great name to these miscon- ceptions. 'The tutors/ he says ^ 'in the English Universities cannot deviate by a hair's-breadth from the dogmatic system of the English Church, witliout exposing themselves to the censure of their Arch- bishops and losing their pupils.' In German Univer- sities, on the contrary, we are told that the extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, the boldest speculations within the sphere of Darwin's theoiy of evolution, may be propounded without let or hin- drance, quite as much as the highest apotheosis of Papal infallibility. Here the facts on which Professor Helmholtz relies are not quite correct, and the writings of some of our most eminent tutors supply a more than sufKcient refutation of his statements. Archbishops have no ofiicial position whatsoever in English universities, and their censure of an Oxford tutor would be resented as impertinent by the whole University. Nor does the University, as such, exercise any very strict con- trol over the tutors, even when they lecture not to their own College only. Each Master of Arts at Oxford claims now the right to lecture [venia doceiidi), and I doubt whether they would ever submit to those restrictions which, in Germany, the Faculty imposes on every Privat-docent. Privat-docents in German Universities have been rejected by the Faculty for incompetence, and silenced for insubordination. I know of no such cases at Oxford during my residence * Ueber die akademische Freiheit der deutschen Universitaten, Eede beim Antritt des Rectorats an der Friediich-Wilhelnis Univeraitiit in Berlin, am 15. October, 1877, gebalteu von Dr. H. Helmholtz, ON FllEKDO.VI. 277 of more than thirty years, nor can I think it likely that they should ever occur. As to the extreme conclusions of materialistic metaphysics, there are Oxford tutors who have grap- pled with the systems of such giants as Hobbes, Locke, or Hume, and who are not likely to be frightened by Blichner and Vogt. I know comparisons are odious, and I am the last man who w^ould wish to draw comparisons between English and German Universities unfavourable to the latter. But with regard to freedom of thought, of speech, and action, Professor Helmholtz, if he would spend but a few weeks at Oxford, would find that w^e enjoy a fuller measure of freedom here than the Professors and Privat-docents in any Continental University. The publications of some of our pro- fessors and tutors ought at least to have convinced him that if there is less of brave words and turbulent talk in their w^ritings, they display throughout a determination to speak the truth, which may be matched, but could not easily be excelled, by the leaders of thought in France, Germany, or Italy. The real difference between English and Conti- nental Universities is that the former govern them- selves, the latter are governed. Self-government entails responsibilities, sometimes restraints and re- ticences. I may here be allowed to quote the words of another eminent Professor of the University of Berlin, Du Bois Eeymond, who, in addressing his colleagues, ventured to tell them \ ' We have still to ' Ueber eine Akadeinie der deiitsclien Sprache, p. 34. Another keen observer of English life, Dr. K. Hillebrand, in an article in the October number of tlie Nineteenth Century, remarks: 'Nowhere is 278 KECENT ESSAYS. learn from the English how the greatest independence of the individual is compatible with willing sub- mission to salutary, though irksome, statutes.' That is particularly true when the statutes are self-imposed. In Germany, as Professor Helmholtz tells us himself, the last decision in almost all the more important affairs of the Universities rests with the Government, and he does not deny that in times of political and ecclesiastical tension, a most inconsiderate use has ])een made of that power. There are, besides, the less important matters, such as raising of salaries, leave of absence, scientific missions, even titles and decorations, all of which enable a clever Minister of Instruction to assert his personal influence among the less inde- pendent members of the University. In Oxford the University does not know the Ministry, nor the Ministry the University. The acts of the Govern- ment, be it Liberal or Conservative, are freely dis- cussed, and often powerfully resisted by the academic constituencies, and the personal dislike of a Minister or Ministerial Councillor could as little injure a pro- fessor or tutor as his favour could add one penny to his salary. But these are minor matters. What gives their own peculiar character to the English Universities is a sense of power and responsibility: power, because they are the most respected among the numerous corporations in the country ; responsibility, because the higher education of the whole country has been committed to their charge. Their only master is public opinion as represented in Parliament, their t'riere greater individual libeity than in England, and nowhere do people renounce it more readily of their own accord." ON FREEDOM. 279 only incentive their own sense of duty. There is no country in Europe where Universities hold so exalted a position, and where those who have the honour to belong to them may say with greater truth, Noblesse oblige. I know the dangers of self-government, particularly where higher and more ideal interests are concerned, and there are probably few who wish for a real reform in schools and Universities who have not occasionally yielded to the desire for a Dictator, for a Bismarck or a Falk. But such a desire springs only from a momentary weakness and despondenc}' ; and no one who knows the difference between being governed and governing oneself, would ever wish to descend from that higher though dangerous position to a lower one, however safe and comfortable it might seem. No one who has tasted freedom would ever wish to exchange it for anything else. Public opinion is sometimes a hard taskmaster, and majorities can be great tyrants to those who want to be honest to their own convictions. But in the struggle of all against all, each individual feels that he has his rightful place, and that he may exercise his rightful influence. If he is beaten, he is beaten in fair fight ; if he conquers, he has no one else to thank. No doubt despotic Governments have often exercised the most beneficial patronage in encouraging and rewarding poets, artists, and men of science. But men of genius who have conquered the love and admiration of a whole nation are greater than those who have gained the favour of the most brilliant Courts ; and we know how some of the fairest reputations have been wrecked on the patronage which they had to 280 KECENT ESSAYS. accept at the hands of powerful Ministers or ambitious Sovereigns. Eut to return to Mill and his plea for Liberty. Though I can hardly believe that, were he still among us, he would claim a larger measure of freedom for the individual than is now accorded to every one of us in the society in which we move, yet the chief cause on which he founded his plea for Liberty, tho chief evil which he thought could be remedied only if society would allow more elbow-room to individual genius, exists in the same degi-ee as in his time — aye, even in a higher degree. The principle of Indi- viduality has suffered more at present than perhaps at any former period of history. The world is be- comino; more and more orreo-arious, and what t^e French call our nature moutonniere, 'our mutton- like nature,' our tendency to leap where any bell- wether has leapt before, becomes more and more prevalent in politics, in religion, in art, and even in science. M. de Tocqueville expressed his surprise how much more Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another than did those of the last generation. The same remark, adds John Stuart Mill, might be made of England in a greater degree. ' The modern regime of public opinion,' he writes, ' is in an unor- ganised form what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an organised ; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noblo antecedents and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.' I fully agree with Mill in recognising the dangers of uniformity, but I doubt whether what he calls the ON FREEDOM. 281 regime of public opinion is alone, or even chiefly, answerable for it. No doubt there are some people in whose eyes uniformity seems an advantage rather than a disadvantage. If all were equally strong, equally educated, equally honest, equally rich, equally tall, or equally small, society would seem to them to have reached tho highest ideal. The same people admire an old French garden, with its clipped yew- trees, forming artificial walls and towers and pyramids, far more than the giant yews which, like large ser- pents, clasp the soil with their coiling roots, and overshadow with their dark green branches the white chalk cliffs of the Thames. Eut those French gardens, unless they are constantly clipped and prevented from growing, soon fall into decay. As in nature, so in society, uniformity means but too often stagnation, while variety is the surest sign of health and vigour. The deepest secret of nature is its love of continued novelty. Its tendency, if unrestrained, is towards con- stantly creating new varieties, which, if they fulfil their purpose, become fixed for a time, or, it may be, for ever; while others, after they have fulfilled their purpose, vanish to make room for new and stronger types. The same is the secret of human society. It con- sists and lives in individuals, each being meant to be different from all the rest, and to contribute his own peculiar share to the common wealth. As no tree is like any other tree, and no leaf on the same tree like any other leaf, no human being is exactly like any other human being, nor is it meant to bo. It is in this endless, and to us inconceivable, variety of human souls that the deepest purpose of human life is to be realised ; and the more society fulfils that 282 RECENT ESSAYS. purpose, the more it allows free scope for tlie develop- ment of every individual germ, the richer will be the harvest in no distant future. Such is the mystery of individuality that I do not wonder if even those philosophers who, like Mill, reduce the meaning of the word sacred to the very smallest compass, see in each individual soul something sacred, something to 1)6 revered, even where we cannot understand it, some- thing to be protected against all vulgar violence, even where we cannot agree with it. Where I differ from Mill and his school is on the question as to the quarter from whence the epidemic of uniformity springs which threatens the fiee de- velopment of modern society. Mill points to the society in which we move ; to those who are in front of us, to our contemporaries. I feel convinced that our real enemies are at our back, and that the heaviest chains which are fastened on us are those made, not by the present, but by past generations — by our ancestors^ not by our contemporaries. It is on this point, on the trammels of individual freedom with which we may almost be said to be liorn into the world, and on the means by which we may shake off these old chains, or at all events carry them more lightly and gracefully, that I wish to speak to you this evening. You need not be afi-aid that I am going to enter upon the much discussed subject of heredity, whether in its physiological or psychological aspects. It is a favourite subject just now, and the most curious facts have been brought together of late to illustrate the working of what is called heredity. But the more we know of these facts, the less we seem able to ox FREEDOM. 283 comprehend the underlying principle. Inheritance is one of those numerous words which by their very simplicity and clearness are so apt to darken our counsel. If a father has blue eyes and the son has blue eyes, what can be clearer than that he inherited them ? If the father stammers and the son stammers, who can doubt but that it came by inheritance ? If the father is a musician and the son a musician, we say very glibly that the talent was inherited. But what does inherited mean? In no case does it mean what inherited usually means — something external, like money, collected by a father, and, after his death, secured by law to his son. Whatever else inherited may mean, it does not mean that. But unfortunately the word is there, it seems almost pedantic to chal- lenge its meaning, and people are always grateful if an easy word saves them the trouble of hard thought. Another apparent advantage of the theory of hei^dity is that it never fails. If the son has blue, and the father black, eyes, all is right again, for either the mother, or the gi-andmother, or some his- toric or prehistoric ancestor, may have had blue e3'es, and atavism, we know, will assert itself after hundreds and thousands of years. Do not suppose that I deny the broad facts of what is called by the name of heredity. What I deny is that the name of heredity offers any scientific solution of a most difficult problem. It is a name, a metaphor, quite as bad as the old metaphor of inmate ideas ; for there is hardly a single point of similarity between the process by which a son may share the black eyes, the stammering, or the musical talent of his father, and that by which, after his father's death, the law 284 ItECENT ESSAYS. secui'es to the son the possession of the pounds, shillings, and pence which his father held in the Funds. But whatever the true meaning of heredity may be, certain it is that every individual comes into the world heavy-laden. Nowhere has the consciousness of the burden which rests on each generation as it enters on its journey through life found stronger expression than among the Buddhists. What other people call by various names, ' fate or providence,' 'tradition or inheritance,' 'circumstances or environ- ment,' they call Karma n, deed — what has been done, whether by ourselves or by others, the accumulated work of all who have come before us, the consequences of which we have to bear, both for good and for evil. Originally this Karman seems to have been conceived as personal, as the work which we ourselves have done in former existences. But, as personally we are not conscious of having done such work in former aijes, that kind of Karman, too. might be said to be impersonal. To the question how Karman began, the accumulation of what forms the condition of all that exists at present. Buddhism has no answer to give, any more than any other system of religion or philosophy. The Buddhists, as the disciples of the Vedantists, say it began with aviJyd, i.e. ignorance ^ They are much more interested in the question how Karman may be annihilated, how each man may free himself from the influence of Karman, and Nirvajza, the highest object of all their dreams, is often defined by Buddhist philosophers as ' freedom from Karman ^.' What the Buddhists call by the general name of * Spencer Hardy, ' Manual of Buddliism,' p. 391. « Ibid., p. 39. ON FREEDOM. 285 Kavnian, comprehends all influences which the past exercises on the present, both physically and mentally ^ It is not my object to examine or even to name all these influences, though I confess nothing is more interesting than to look upon the surface of our modern life as we look on a geological map, and to see the most ancient formations cropping out every- where under our feet. Difhcult as it is to colour a geological map of England, it would be still more difficult to find a sufficient variety of colours to mark the different ingredients of the intellectual surface of this island. I'hat all of us, whether we speak English or German, or French or Russian, are really speaking an ancient Oriental tongue, incredible as it would have sounded a hundred years ago, is now admitted by everybody. Though the various dialects now spoken in Europe have been separated many thousands of years from the Sanskrit, the ancient classical language of India, yet so unbroken is the bond that holds the West and East together that in many cases an intelligent Englishman might still guess the meaning of a Sanskrit word. How little difference is there between Sanskrit sllnu and English son, between Sanskrit duhitar and English daughter, between Sanskrit vid, to know, and English to luit, between Sanskrit vaksh, to grow, and English to ivax ! Think how we value a Saxon urn, or a Roman coin, or a Celtic weapon ! ' ' As one generation dies and gives way to another, the heir of the consequences of all its virtues and all its vices, the exact result df pre- existent causes, so each individual, in the long chain of life, inherits all, of good or evil, vphich all its predecessors have done or been; and takes up the struggle towards enlightenment precisely there where they left it.' — Rhys Davids, ' Buddhism,' p. 104. 286 EECENT ESSAYS. how we dig for them, clean them, label them, and carefully deposit them in our museums ! Yet what is their antiquity compared with the antiquity of such words as son or daughter, fatJier and rtiother'^ There are no monuments older than those collected in the handy volumes which we call Dictionaries, and those who know how to interpret those English antiquities — as you may see them interpreted, for instance, in Grimm's Dictionary of the German, in Littr^'s Dictionary of the French, or in Professor Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English language — will learn more of the real growth of the human mind than by studying many volumes on logic and psychology. And as by our language we belong to the Aryan stratum, we belong through our letters to the Hamitic. We still write English in hieroglyphics ; and in spite of all the vicissitudes throuo-h which the ancient hieroglyphics have passed in their journey from Egypt to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England, when wo wiite a capital F ^, when we draw the top line and the smaller line through the middle of the letter, we really draw the two horns of the cerastes, the horned serpent which the ancient Egyptians used for repre- senting the sound of f. They write the name of the king whom the Greeks called Cheops, and they them- selves Chu-fu, like this ^ : f''^^ ^hu ^^^'^ ^^® ^^^^ sign, the sieve, is to be pro- ^^-^ f^ nounced cku ; the second, the horned ser- tk u pent, fu, and the little bird, again, u. In Vrz^ the more cursive or Hieratic writing the horned serpent appears as ^ ; * Bunsen, 'Egypt,' ii. pp. 77, 150. ON FRKEDOM. 287 in the later Demotic as y and ^. The Phoenicians, who borrowed their letters from the Hieratic hiero- glyphics, wrote ^ and y . The Greeks, who took their letters from the Phoenicians, wrote -I. When the Greeks, instead of writing like the Phoenicians from right to left, began to write from left to right, they turned each letter, and as ^ became K, our k, so "1, vau, became F, the Greek so-called Digamma, the Latin F. The first letter in Chu-fn, too, still exists in our alphabet, and in the transverse line of our H we must recognise the last remnant of the lines which divide the sieve. The sieve appears in Hieratic as Q, in Phoenician as ^, in ancient Greek as B, which occurs on an inscription found at Mycenae and elsewhere as the sign of the spii-itus asper, while in Latin it is known to us as the letter H ^. In the same manner the undulating line of our capital JjP still recalls very strikingly the bent back of the crouching lion, which in the later hieroglyphic inscriptions represents the sound of L. If thus in our language we are Aryan, in our letters Egyptian, we have only to look at our watches to see that we are Babylonian. Why is our hour divided into sixty minutes, our minutes into sixty seconds? Would not a division of the hour into ten, or fifty, or a hundred minutes have been more natural ■? We have sixty divisions on the dials of our watches simply because the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, ' M^moire sur I'Origine Egyptieime de 1' Alphabet Phenicien, par E. de Roug^, Paris, 1874. 288 HECENT ESSAYS. who lived in the second century B.C., accepted the Babylonian system of reckoning time, that system being sexagesimal. The Babylonians knew the decimal system, but for practical purposes they counted by sossi and sari, the sossos representing 60, the saros 60 x 60, or 3,600. From Hipparchus that system found its way into the works of Ptolemy, about 150 A. D., and thence it was carried down the stream of civilisation, finding its last resting-place on the dial-plates of our clocks. And why are there twenty shillings to our sovereign 1 Again the real reason lies in Babylon. The Greeks learnt from the Babylonians the art of dividing gold and silver for the purpose of trade. It has been proved that the current gold piece of Western Asia was exactly the sixtieth part of a Babylonian onnd, or oiiina. It was nearly equal to our sovereign. The difficult problem of the relative value of gold and silver in a bi-monetary currency had been solved to a certain extent in the ancient Mesopotamian kingdom, the proportion between gold and silver being fixed at 1 to 13^. The silver shekel current in Babylon was heavier than the gold shekel in the proportion of 135 to 10, and had therefore the value of one-tenth of a gold shekel ; and the half silver shekel, called by the Greeks a drachma, was worth one-twentieth of a gold shekel. The drachma, or half silver shekel, may therefore be looked upon as the most ancient type of our own silver shilling in its relation of one- twentieth of our gold sovereign ^. I shall mention only one more of the most essential ' See Bramlis, ' Das Miinzwesen.' ON PREEDOM. 289 tools of our mental life — namely, our figures, which we call Arabic, because we received them from the Arabs, but which the Arabs called Indian, because they received them from the Indians — in order to show you how this nineteenth century of ours is under the sway of centuries long past and forgotten ; how we are what we are, not by ourselves, but by those who came before us, and how the intellectual ground on which we stand is made up of the detritus of thoughts which were first thought, not on these isles nor in Europe, but on the shores of the Oxus, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Indus. Now you may well ask Qtcortum liaec omnia? — What has all this to do with freedom and with the free development of individuality ? Because a man is born the heir of all the ages, can it be said that he is not free to grow and to expand, and to develop all the faculties of his mind ? Are those who came before him, and who left him this goodly inheritance, to be called his enemies ? Is that chain of tradition which connects him with the past really a galling fetter, and not rather the leading-strinu's without which he would never learn to walk straight ? Let us look at the matter more closely. No one would venture to say that every individual should begin life as a young savage, and be left to form his own language, and invent his own letters, numerals, and coins. On the contrary, if we comprehend all this and a great deal more, such as religion, morality, and secular knowledge, under the general name of education, even the most advanced defenders of in- dividualism would hold that no child should enter society without submitting, or rather without being VOL. I. u 290 EECENT ESSAYS. submitted, to education. Most of us would even go further, and make it criminal for parents or even for communities to allow children to grow up uneducated. The excuse of worthless parents that they are at liberty to do with their children as they like, has at last been blown to the winds. I still remember the time when pseudo-Liberals were not ashamed to say that, whatever other nations, such as the Germans, might do, England would never submit to compulsory education. That wicked sophistry, too, has at last been silenced, and among the principal advocates of compulsory education, and of the necessity of curtailing the freedom of savage parents of savage children, have been Mill and his friends, the apostles of liberty and individualism ^. A new era may be said to date in the history of every nation from the day on which ' compulsory education ' becomes part of their statute- book ; and I may congratulate the most Liberal town in England on having proved itself the most inexorable tyrant in carrying out the principle of compulsory education. But do not let us imagine that compulsory education is without its dangers. Like a powerful engine, it must be carefully watched, if it is not to produce, what all compulsion will produce, a slavish recep- tivity, and, what all machines do produce, monotonous uniformity. We know that all education must in the begriming be purely dogmatic. Children are taught language, * ' Is it not almost a self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the education, up to a certain standard, of every human being vi'ho is born its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognise and assert this truth ? ' — ' On Liberty,' p. 188. ON FREEDOM. 291 religion, morality, patriotism, and afterwards at school, history, literature, mathematics, and all the rest, long before they are able to question, to judge, or choose for themselves, and there is hardly anything that children will not believe if it comes from those in whom they believe. Reading, writiiig, and arithmetic, no doubt, must be taught dogmatically, and they take up an enormous amount of time, particularly in English schools. English spelling is a national misfortune, and in the keen international race between all the countries of Europe, it handicaps the English child to a degree that seems incredible till we look at statistics. I know the difficulties of a Spelling Reform, I know what people mean when they call it impossible ; but I also know that personal and national virtue consists in doing so-called impossible things, and that no nation has done, and has still to do, so many impossible things as the Eno;lish. Eut, granted that reading, writing, and arithmetic occupy nearly the whole school-time and absorb the best powers of the pupils, cannot something be done in play-hours ? Is there not some work that can be turned into play, and some play that can be turned into work ? Cannot the powers of observation be called out in a child while collecting flowers, or stones, or butterflies? Cannot his judgment be strengthened either in gymnastic exercibes, or in measuring the area of a fleld or the height of a tower 1 Might not all this be done without a view to examinations or payment by results, simply for the sake of filling the little dull minds with some sunbeams of joy, such sunbeams being more likely hereafter to call hidden U 3 292 RECENT ESSAYS. precious germs into life than the deadening weight of such lessons as, for instance, that th-ougk is though, thr-ough is through, en-ough is enough. A child who believes that will hereafter believe anything. Those who wish to see Natural Science introduced into elementary schools frighten schoolmasters by the very name of Natural Science. But surely every school- master who is worth his salt should be able to teach children a love of Nature, a wondering at Nature, a curiosity to pry into the secrets of Nature^ an acquisitiveness for some of the treasures of Nature, and all this acquired in the fresh air of the field and the forest, where, better than in frouzy lecture -rooms, the edge of the senses can be sharpened, the chest be widened, and that freedom of thought fostered which made England what it was even before the days of compulsory education. But in addressing you here to-night it was my intention to speak of the higher rather than of elementary education. All education, as it now exists in most countries of Europe, may be divided into three stages — elementary, Siholadlc, and academical ; or call it primury, secondary, and tertiary. Elementary education has at last been made com- pulsory in most civilised countries. Unfortunately, however, it seems impossible to include under com- pulsory education anything beyond the very elements of knowledge — at least for the present ; though, with proper management, I know from experience that a well-conducted elementary school can afford to provide instruction in extra sulyects — such as natural science, modern languages, and political economy — ON FREEDOM. 293 and yet, with the present system of Government grants, be self-supporting ^. The next stage above the elementary is scholastic education, as it is supplied in grammar schools, whether public or private. According as the pupils are intended either to go on to a university, or to enter at once on leaving school on the practical work of life, these schools are divided into two classes. In the one class, which in Germany are called Real- schulen, less Latin is taught, and no Greek, but more of mathematics, modern languages, and physical science; in the other, called Gymnasia on the Conti- nent, classics form the chief staple of instruction. It is during this stage that education, whether at private or public schools, exercises its strongest levelling influence. Little attention can be paid at large schools to individual tastes or talents. In Germany, even more perhaps than in England, it is the chief object of a good and conscientious master to have his class as uniform as possible at the end of the year ; and he receives far more credit from the ofhcial examiner if his whole class marches well and keeps pace together, than if he can parade a few brilliant and forward boys, followed by a number of stra gosling lao'gards. And as to the character of the teaching at school, how can it be otherwise than authoritative or do^- matic? The Socratic method is very good if we can find the viri Socratici and leisure for discussion. But at school, which now may seem to be called almost in mockery axoA?/, or leisure, the true method is, after ' See rjme. ' Sacred Books of the East,' edited by M. M., vols, i, ii, iii ; Claren- don Press, Oxford, 1879. ox FEEEDOII. 301 it is to separate the concave side of a lens from its convex side. This is something to learn and to understand, for, if properl}^ understood, it will supply the key to most of our intellectual puzzles^ and serve as the safest thread through the whole labyrinth of philosophy. ' It is evident,' as Hobbes remarks \ ' that truth and falsity have no place but amongst such living creatures as use speech. For though some brute creatures, looking upon the image of a man in a glass, may be affected with it, as if it were the man himself, and for this reason fear it or fawn upon it in vain ; yet they do not apprehend it as true or false, but only as like ; and in this they are not deceived. Wherefore, as men owe all their true ratiocination to the light understanding of speech, so also they owe their errors to the misunderstanding of the same ; and as all the ornaments of philosophy proceed only from man, so from man also is derived the ugly absurdity of false opinion. For speech has something in it like to a spider's web (as it was said of old of Solon's laws), for by contexture of words tender and delicate wits are ensnared or stopped, but strong wits break easily through them.' Let me illustrate my meaning by at least one instance. Among the words which have proved spiders' webs, ensnarinc: even the greatest intellects of the world from Aristotle down to Leibniz, the terms genus, species, and individual occupy a very prominent place. The opposition of Aristotle to Plato, of the Nominalists to the Realists, of Leibniz to Locke, of Herbart to 1 < Computation or Logic,' t. iii. viii. p. 36. 302 RECENT ESSAYS. Hegel, turns on the true meaning of these words. At school, of course, all we can do is to teach the received meaning of genus and sjjecies ; and if a boy can trace these terms back to Aristotle's yivo'i and etSo?, and show in what sense that philosopher used them, every examiner would be satisfied. Eut the time comes when we have to act as our own examiners, and when we have to give an account to ourselves of such words as genus and species. Some people write, indeed, as if they had seen a species and a genus walking about in broad daylight ; but a little consideration will show us that these words express subjective concepts, and that, if the whole world were silent, there would never have been a thought of a genus or a species. There are languages in which we look in vain for corresponding words ; and if we had been born in such a lang-uaofe, these terms and thoughts would not exist for us at all. They came to us, directly or indii'ectly, from Aristotle. But Aristotle did not invent them, he only defined them in his own way, so that, for instance, according to him, all living beings would constitute a genus, men a species, and Socrates an individual. No one would say that Aristotle had not a perfect right to define these terms, if those who use them in his sense would only always remember that they are thinking the thoughts of Aristotle, and not their own. The true way to shake off' the fetters of old words, and to learn to think our own thoughts, is to follow them up from century to century, to watch their development, and in the end to bring ourselves face to face with those who first found and framed both words and thoughts. If we do this with genus and ON FREEDOM. c03 species, we shall find that the words which Aristotle defined — viz. yivos and dbos — had originally a very different and far more useful application than that which he gave to them, FeVos, genus, meant genera- tion, and comprehended such living beings only as were known to have a common origin, however they might differ in outward appearance, as, for instance, the spaniel and the bloodhound, or, according to Darwin, the ape and the man. EtSos or species, on the contrary, meant appearance, and comprehended all such things as had the same form or appearance, whether they liad a common origin or not, as if we were to speak of a species of four-footed, two-footed, horned, winged, or blue animals. That two such concepts, as we have here explained, had a natural justification we may best learn from the fact that exactly the same thoughts found expres- sion in Sanskrit. There, too, we find ga,ii, genera- tion, used in the sense of genus, and opposed to akr iti, appearance, used in the sense of species. So long as these two words or thoughts were used independently (mvich as we now speak of a genealo- gical as independent of a morphological classification) no harm could accrue. A family, for instance, might be called a -/(vos, the gens or clan was a y(vos, the nation (gnatio) was a yho^, the whole human kith and kin was a yevoi ; in fact, all that was descendei-. r.irch at the J!ritish Miiseuiii, for these and a huge number of fciiuikir inscriptions found among Egyptian antiquities. GOETHE AND CARI.YLE. 331 tions, one of them was certainly their love or fear of humanity, their dim conviction that they belonged to a race which would go on for ever filling the eartl), and to which thc}^ were bound by some kind of moral responsibility. They wrote for the world, and it is in that sense that I call their writings the first germs of a world -literature. And as in Egypt so it was in Babylon, Nineveh, and Persia. When the dwellers on the Euphrates and Tigris had learnt that nothing seemed to endure, that fire and water would destroy wood and stone, even silver and gold, they took clay and baked it, and hid the cylinders, covered with cuneiform writing, in the foundations of their temples, so that even after the destruction of these 'temples and palaces future generations might read the story of the past. And there in their safe hiding-places these cylindei-s have l)een found again after three thousand years, unharm.ed by water, unscathed by fire, and fulfilling the very purpose for which they were intended, carrying to us the living message which the ancient rulers of Chaldaea wished that we, their distant descendants, should receive. Often these inscriptions end with imprecations against those who should dare to injure or efftice them. At Khorsabad, at the very interior of the construc- tion, was found a large stone chest, which enclosed several inscribed plates in various materials — one tablet of gold, one of silver, others of copper, lead, and tin ; a sixth text was engraved on alabaster, and the seventh document was written on the chest itself. They all commemorate the foundation of a city by 33.2 EECKNT ESSAYS. a famous king, commonly called Sargon, and they end with an imprecation : ' Whoever alters the works of my hand, destroys my constructions, pulls down the walls which I have raised — may Asshur, ISiinib, Raman, and the great gods who dAvell there, pluck his name and seed from the land, and let him sit hound at the feet of his foe ^' The famous inscription of Behistun, a lasting monument of the victories of Darius and of the still more glorious victory of Sir Henry Rawlinson, was placed high on a mountain wall, where no one could touch and but few could read it. It was written not in Persian only, not for the Persians only, but in three dialects — an Aryan, a Semitic, and a Turanian, so that the three peoples, nations, and languages might all read and remember the mighty deeds of Darius, the Achaemenian, the King of Kings. And when all is finished and all is said, Darius, the king, adds : ' Be it known to thee what has been done by me, thus publicly, on that account that thou conceal not. If thou publish this tablet to the world, Ormazd shall be a friend to thee, and may thy offspring benumerous, and mayest thou live long. But if thou shalt conceal this record, thou shalt not be thyself recorded. May Ormazd be thy enemy and mayest thou be childle.'^s -.' It seems to me that such w^ords w^ere written in the prophetic spirit of a world-literature. And the same spirit may be traced in Greece, in Rome, and else- where. When Thucydides writes his history of the Pelo- ponnesian war, he looks back to the past and forward 1 ' Ch.aldea,' Ly Z. R:ig(>zin, p. ii6. 2 KawliiLS' n, ' Inscriplidiis of Beliistuii,' p. 36. OOETIIE AND CAIILYLE. 333 to the future, and then pronounces with complete assurance his conviction that this book of his is to last for ever, that it is to teach future generations not only Avhat has happened, but what may happen again ; that it is to be a Kviiixa €s aet, a possession for ever. Few historians now would venture to speak like this, even those who write their works here in London, the centre of the whole world, and with all the recol- lections of two thousand years behind them. But the Ivomans had inherited the same spirit. We all admire Horace, but there have been many poets like him, both before and after his time, and it required a considerable amount of self-esteem and a strong belief in the future destinies of Rome and Roman literature to end his odes with the words : ' JExegi monumentum aere perennius ' — ' I liave built a uiDiunnent tlian bronze more lasticjj, Soaring more high than royal pyramids, \Vhich nor the stealthy gnawing of tlie rain-drops, Nor tlie vain rush of Boreas shall destroy ; Nor shall it pass away with the unnumbered Series of ages and the flight of time — I shall not wholly die ^' Even when we proceed to the literature of the Middle Ages, we seldom find any trace of national exclusivc- ness. The only literary language was Latin — the lanQ;ua2:e of the Church, the lan»uaG;e of law, the language of diplomacy — and what was written in that language was meant to be understood by the whole civilised world. A world-literature, therefore, so far from being a modern dream, was one of the most ancient historical realities. It was not till the ' Sir Theodore Martin's translation. 334 llECENT ESSAYS. fleventh and twelfth centuries that national literatures arose, and that, as before in the land of Shinar, the language of men was confounded so that they did not understand one another's speech. This dispersion of literatures has had its advantages : it has increased the wealth and variety of European thought. But it had its dangers also. It divided the greatest thinkers of the world, and thus retarded the victory of many a truth which cannot triumph except by the united efforts of the whole human race. It also produced a certain small self-sufficiency among poets wlio thought that they might accept the applause of their own country as the final judgment of the world. Many writers before Goethe had protested against this provincialism or nationalism in literature. Schiller declared that the poet ought to be a citizen not only of his country, but of his time. But Goethe was the first to give powerful expression to these longings after a universal literature. Goethe was not such a dreamer as to beheve in the near approach of a universal language, though even that dream has been dreamt by men of far more powerful intellect than their deridino- critics seem to be aware of. Goethe accepted the world as it w^as, but he endeavoured to make the best of it. What he aimed at was a kind of intellectual free-trade. Each country should pro- duce what it could produce best, and the ports of every country should welcome intellectual merchandise from whatever part of the world it might be sent. Some articles, no doubt, particularly in poetry, would always be reserved for home-consumption only; but the great poets and great thinkers ought never to forget that they belong to the whole human race, and GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 33') that the hijjher the aim the stroDLrer the effuit, auJ the greater the triumph. When you look at the numerous passages, more particularly in his posthumous writings, you will easily perceive that though Goethe's sympathies were very universal, yet his strongest leauiug was towards England. Had he not been nursed in his youth, and reinvigorated in his manhood, by Shakespeare 1 Was not Sir Walter Scott his favourite food in later life, and did not Lord Byron's poetry excite him even in his old age to a kind of dithyrambic enthusiasm i And England at that time responded with equal warmth to Goethes advances. ' Line upon line,' as an eminent writer said in the Edinhurgh Review, 1 850 — ' line upon line, precept upon precept, Goethe's writings have found their way into English literature, and he is as much one of the fathers of the present educated generation of Englishmen as our own Gibbon, or Johnson, or Wordsworth.' No episode, however, during the closing years of Goethe's life is more instructive as to his endeavours after a world-literature than his friendship with Carlyle. Carlyle, as you may remember from reading Mr. Froude's eloquent volumes, learnt German with nothing but a granniiar and dictionary to help him, because he wanted to see with his own eyes what those men, Schiller and Goethe, realiy were — names which, as he tells us, excited at that time ideas as vague and monstrous as the words Gorgon and Chimaera. The first tasks which he set himself was to write a 'Life of Schiller,' and to translate Goethe's ' Wilhelm Meister.' Carlyle at that time would have seemed the very last person to feel any real sympathy 336 RECEXT EvSSAYS. for Goethe. Ho was still a raw, narrow-mi nderl, scrappily educated Scotchman, with strong moral sentiments and a vao-ue feelinfr that ho was meant to do some great work in the world. But otherwise his ideals were very different from Goethe's ideals of lite. Nor does he make any secret to himself or to his friends of what his true feelings towards Schiller and Goethe were at that time. Schiller, who, we might suppose, would have attracted him far more strong!}^ than Goethe, repelled him by what he calls his o esthetics. ' Schiller V he writes, 'was a ver}^ worthy character, possessed of great talents, and fortunate in always finding means to employ them in the attainment of worthy ends. The pursuit of the beautiful, the representing it in suitable forms, and the diffusion of feelings arising from it, operated as a kind of religion in his soul. He talks in some of his essays about the aesthetic being a necessary means of improvement among political societies. His efforts in this cause accordingl}^ not only satisfied the restless activity, the desire of creating and working upon others, which form the great want of an educated mind, but yielded a sort of balance to his conscience. He viewed, himself as an apostle of the sublime. Pity that he had no better way of satisfying it. One is tired to death with his and Goethe's palahra about the nature of the fine arts. They pretend that Nature gives people true intimations of true, hearty, and just principles in art ; that the hildende Kundler and the richtende (the creative and the critical artist) ought to investi- ' Froiule, ' Tliouias rarl3'1e,' vol. i. p. 196, GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 337 gate the true foundation of these obscure intimations, and set them fast on the basis of reason. Stuff and nonsense, I fear it is ! . . . . Poor silly sons of Adam ! you have been prating on these things for two or three thousand years, and you have not advanced a hair's breadth towards the conclusion. Poor fellows, and poorer me, that take the trouble to repeat such insipidities and truisms.' Here we see a Saul, not likely yet to be turned into a Paul. Miss Welsh, too, whom Carlyle at that time was worshipping as a distant star far beyond his reach, could not bear Goethe and poor little Mignon. Carlyle tries to reprove her. ' O, the hardness of man's and still more of woman's heart ! ' he exclaimed. And yet he gives in. ' Do what you like,' he adds ; ' seriously, you are right about the book. It is worth next to nothing as a novel.' Still, the book told slowly and surely on the rugged, stone-hearted critic ; but perhaps more even than the book the personal kindness of Goethe. Goethe was in a good mood when he received Carlyle's translation of ' Wilhelm Meister.' He was thinkings of his world- literature, and here, quite unexpectedly, came the first fruits of it. We must remember that at that time a translation of a German book was an event. At present an English translation is generally a mere bookseller's speculation. People do not ask whether the book is good, original, classical, but whether it is possible to sell a thousand copies of it with the help of a few telling reviews. With Carlyle the translation of ' Wilhelm Meister' was a labour of love, and he was probably sui-prised when an English publisher offered him £i8o for the first edition, and afterwards £200 for VOL. I. Z 338 RECENT ESSAYS. every new edition of a thousand copies. * Any way,* he says, ' I am paid sufficiently for my labours.' This was in 1824. Goethe was then seventy-five, Carlyle twenty-nine. The correspondence was carried on till the year 1831, Goethe's last letter being dated the 2nd of June of that year, while he died on the 22nd of March, 1832. It may be imagined how Carlyle valued Goethe's letters, how he treasured them as the most precious jewels of his household, I was told that he gave them to Mrs. Carlyle to keep in a safe place. Eut, alas ! after her death they could nowhere be found. It was a painful subject with the old man, and a grievous loss to his biographer. Mr. Froude tells us in his ' Life of Carlyle ' that copies of one or two of Goethe's letters, which Carlyle had sent to his brother, were recovered, and these have been translated and published by Mr. Froude. As soon as I heard that the archives of the Goethe family had become accessible, having been bequeathed by the last of his grandsons, Walther Wolfgang, to Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, I made inquiries whether possibly Goethe, as he was wont to do in his later years, had preserved copies of his letters to Carlyle. I was informed by Professor Erich Schmidt that copies of most of Goethe's letters to Carlyle existed ; and on making application for them in the name of my old friend, Mr. Froude, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess gave permission that copies should be made of them, which Mr. Froude mio-ht publish in his new edition of the * Life of Carlyle,' and which I might use for my opening address as President of the English Goethe Society. It was really the unexpected possession of this GOETHE AND CARLYLE, 339 literary treasure^ which emboldened me to accept your kind invitation to become the first President of the English Goethe Society, and which induced me to select as the subject of my inaugural address Goethe's ideal of a World Literature, a subject which I might thus venture to treat with the hope of bringing some- thing new even to such experienced students of Goethe as I see to-day assembled around me. For it is in his letters to Carlyle that this idea finds its fullest expres- sion. Carlyle was the very man that Goethe wanted, for. however different their characters might be, they liad one object in common, Carlyle to preach German literature in England, Goethe to spread a taste for English literature in Germany. And how powerful personal influence can be, we see in the very relation which soon sprang up between the mature and stately German and the impetuous Scot. Carlyle, as we saw, was as yet but a half-hearted admirer of Schiller and Goethe, but the nearer he was brought to Goethe and the more he came to know the man and his ideals in life, the stronger grew his admiration and his love of the old prophet, whose name, he says, had floated through his fancy like a sort of spell over his boy- hood, and whose thouixhts had come to him in his maturer years almost with the impressiveness of revelations. Goethe seems from the first to have trusted Carlyle's honesty, and to have formed a right opinion of his literary powers. Of course, Carlyle was hardly known in England at that time, much less in * There is a rumour that the originals have lately been found in an old box and forwarded to America, to be published by Mr. Charles Norton. See Dr. Eugen Oswald's article in the Mwjazin fiir die Literatnr dcs Anslandes, April 24, 1886. These letters have since been published by Mr. Charles Norton (Macniillan). Z 2 3<0 EECENT ESSAYS. Germany, and there is a curious entry in Goethe's Diary, or, as he calls them, Concept-hefte, from which it appears that he made private inquiries about him and his character. In a note addressed to Mr. Skinner who spent some time at Weimar, and died there in 1829 ^, Goethe writes on the 20th May, 1827 : — ' Thomas Carlyle, domiciled at Edinburgh, translator of " Wilhelm Meister," author of a " Life of Schiller," has published lately in four volumes octavo a work entitled " German Eomance," containino: all tales in prose of any name. I should like much to learn what is known of his circumstances and his studies, and what English and German journals may have said of him. He is in every respect a highly interesting man. If you like sometimes to spend an hour with me in the evening, you are always welcome. There are always many things to discuss and to communicate. Written in my garden, the 20th May, 1827.' At that time, however, the correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle was already progressing. Carlyle tells us himself, in a letter to his brother, with what delight he received Goethe's first letter which was written the 26th of October, 1824^. He was then lodging in Southampton Street, in very bad humour with the world at large, and particularly with the literary world of London, which he calls the poorest part of its population at present. On the 18th of December, he writes to his brother, John Carlyle : — ' The other afternoon, as I was lying dozing in a brown study after dinner, a lord's lackey knocked at the door and presented me with a little blue parcel, ^ In Goethe's letter dated 25th June, 1829 (8). 2 Froude, ' Thomas Carlyle,' i. 265. GOETUE AND CARLYLE. 341 requiring for it a note of delivery. I opened it, and found two pretty stitched little books and a letter from Goethe. I copy it and send it for your edifica- tion. The patriarchal style of it pleases me much ^ ' "Weimar, October 26, 1824. "'My dearest Sir, '" If I did not acknowledge on the spot the safe arrival of your welcome present, it w^as because I was unwilling to send you an empty acknowledgment merely, but I purposed to add some careful remarks on a work so honourable to you. ' " My advanced years, however, burdened as they are with many unavoidable duties, have prevented me from comparing your translation at my leisure with the original text — a more difficult undertaking, per- haps, for me than for some third person thoroughly familiar with German and English literature. Since, however, I have at the present moment an opportunity, through Lord Bentinck, of forwarding this note safely to London, and at the same time of bringing about an acquaintance between yourself and Lord Bentinck which may be agreeable to both of you, I delay no longer to thank you sincerely for the interest which you have taken in my literary works as well as in the incidents of my life, and to entreat you earnestly to continue the same interest for the future also. It may be that hereafter I shall yet hear much of you. 1 send herewith a number of poems which you will scarcely have seen, but with which I venture to hope ^ Froude, • Life of Carlyle,' i. p. 265. The translation haa been but el'glitly altered in one or two places in accordance with the original of Goethe's letter sent to me from Weimar. 342 RECENT ESSAYS. that you will feel a ceiiain sympathy. With the most sincere good ^Yishes, your most obedient '"J. W. Goethe.'" After this there seems to have been a long pause, for the next letter from Goethe is dated Weimar, May 15, 1827. This is only a short acknowledgment of a pleasant parcel received from Oarlyle, evidently containing his ' Life of Schiller,' and a promise of a fuller letter which is to follow. *To Me. Thomas Caelyle, Edinburgh. *I announce hurriedly that the pleasant parcel accompanied by a kind letter, dispatched from Edin- burgh on the 15th of April, via Hamburg, reached me on the 1.5th May, and found me in good health and busy for my friends. To my sincerest thanks to the esteemed couple (Carlyle was married by this time), I will add the information that a packet will shortly be dispatched from here, likewise via Ham- burg, to attest my sympathy and to recall me to your minds. I take my leave with best and sincerest wishes.' In the meantime Goethe, after reading Carlyle's ' Life of Schiller,' had evidently taken his young friend's true measure. He thought he had found in him the very man he had been looking for to be the interpreter of German thought in England, and in July of the same year he wrote him a very full letter, which may almost be called an essay on World- literature ^ In his conversations with Eckermann he speaks of Carl} le ' as a moral power of great ^ Froude, i. 399. GOETHE AND CATILYLE. 343 importance. There is much future in him,' he adds, 'and it is quite impossible to see all that he may do and produce ^.' Before I read you some of the more important passages of this and the following letters, I wish to call your attention to a curious fact which I discovered while examining the copies sent me from Weimar. Several passages seemed to me so familiar that I began to look through Goethe's works, and here, particularly in the volumes published after his death, I found long passages of his letters to Carlyle worked up into short reviews. Here and there Goethe has made slight alterations, evidently intended as improvements, and these, too, are curious as allowing us an insi(2rht into Goethe's mind. I also came across several letters of Carlyle's to Goethe, probably trans- lated into German by Goethe himself. These are interestino: too, but as the orio-inals have now been found in the Goethe Archives, and will soon be pub- lished by Mr. Charles Norton, I need not quote them at present. In his third letter to Carlyle, after the usual pre- liminaries, Goethe writes : 'Let me, in the first place, tell you, my dear sir, how very highly I esteem your" Biography of Schiller." It " is remarkable for the careful study which it dis- plays of the incidents of Schiller's life, and one clearly perceives in it a study of his works and a hearty sympathy with him. The complete insight which you have thus obtained into the character and high merits of this man is really admirable, so clear it is ^ Gesprache mit Eckermann, July 25, 1828. ■■' From here to 'his task accomijlished,' the text is found iu Goetlie's Works (1833), vol. xxxvi. p. 230. 344 EECENT ESSAYS. and so appropriate, so far beyond what inlght Lavo been looked for in a writer in a distant country. ' Here the old saying is verified, " A good will helps to a full understanding." It is just because the Scot can look with affection on a German, and can honour and love him, that he acquires a sure eye for that German's finest qualities. He raises himself into a clearness of vision which Schiller's own countrymen could not arrive at in earlier days. For those who live with superior men are easily mistaken in their judgments. Personal peculiarities irritate them. The swift-changing current of life displaces their points of view, and hinders them from perceiving and recog- nising the true worth of such men. Schiller, however, was of so exceptional a nature that the biographer had only to keep the idea of an excellent man before his eyes, and carry that idea through all his individual destinies and achievements^ and he would see his task accomplished \' * The next paragraphs are found, with slight alterations, evidently of later date, in Goethe's Works (1833), xlvi. p. 254. Whereas in his draft Goethe wrote Kenntniss, he altered it to Vorkenntniss in the letter he sent to Carlyle, and retained that word in his notice of ' Ger- nian Romance.' There is one paragraph added by Goethe, when speaking of the impartiality with which a foreigner treats the history of German literature, which deserves to be translated. In his letter he breaks off after 'he gives individuals their credit each in his place.' In his review of ' German Romance,' he continues : * And thus to a certain extent settles the conflict which within the literature of every nation is inevitable; for to live and to act is much the same as to form or to join a party. No one can be blanjed if he fights for place and rank, which secures his existence, and gives him influence which promises future happy success, 'Ifthustlie horizon is often darkened during many years for those who live within a literature, the foreigner lets dust, mist, and darkness settle down, disperse and vanish, and sees those distant regions revealed in brigiit and dark spots with the same calmness which we are wont to observe the moon in a clear night.' GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 345 After some remarks on Carlyle's ' German Romance,' Goethe is evidently anxious to unburden himself on the subject of World-literatui-e, which was nearest to his heart. Probably he had jotted down his own thoughts on several occasions before, and so he abruptly says to Carlyle — ^ Let me add a few observations, which I have long harboured in silence, and which have been stirred up by these present works.' It is curious that in the published review of ' German Romance,' too, Goethe uses the same artifice. After he has compared the mind of the foreign his- torian to the calm and brightness of a moonlight night, he writes : 'In this place, some observations, written down some time ago, may stand interpolated, even if people should find that I repeat myself, so long as it is allowed at the same time that repetition may serve some useful purpose.' Then follow his observations on the advantage of international literary relations, which I shall read to you: ' It is obvious that for a long time the efforts of the best poets and aesthetic writers throughout the world have been directed towards what is universal, and common to all mankind. In every single work, be it historical, mythological, fabulous, more or less arbi- trarily conceived, we shall see the universal more and more showing and shining through what is merely national and individual^.' ' Goethe, in his letter to Carlyle, wrote : ' Durch Nationnlitat und Fers'dnlichkeit hintlnrch . . . durchleachten und durchschimmem ethn.' — In the printed paper he changed hinduich into hin. 346 RECENT ESSAYS. *In practical life we perceive the same tendency, which pervades all that is of the earth earthy, crude, wild, cruel, false, selfish, treacherous, and tries every- where to spread a certain serenity. We may not indeed hope from this the approach of an era of universal peace ; but yet that strifes which are un- avoidable may grow less extreme, wars less savage, and victory less overbearing. * Whatever in the poetry of all nations aims and tends towards this, is what the others should appro- priate. The peculiarities of each nation should be studied, so that we should be able to make allowance for them— nay, gain by their means real intercourse with a nation. For the special characteristics of a people are like its language and its currency : they facilitate exchange— nay,, they first make exchange possible.' The next paragraph is not in the printed text of Goethe's review ; it was meant for Carlyle alone : ' Pardon me, my dear sir^ for these remarks, which perhaps are not quite coherent, nor to be scanned all at once. They are drawn from the great ocean of observations, which, as life passes on, swells up more and more round every thinking person.' A truly Goethe-like sentence, which I must repeat in German : ' Verzeihen Sie mir, mein Werthester, diese vielleicht nicht ganz zusammenhangcnden, noch alsbald zu uberschauenden Ausserungen. Sie sind geschopft aus dem Ocean der Betrachtungen, der um jeden Den- kenden mit den Jahren imuier mehr anschwillt.' He then continues : * Let me add some more observations, which I wrote GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 347 down on another occasion, but which ax)ply specially to the business on which you are now engaged.' What follows next, on the advantages of a free literary exchange between nation and nation, has been utilized by Goethe in the same article on ' German Romance ' : ' We arrive best at a true toleration when we can let pass individual peculiarities, whether of persons or peoples, without quarrelling with them ; holding fast, nevertheless, to the conviction that genuine excellence is distinguished by this mark, that it belongs to all manJcmd. To such intercourse and mutual recognition the Germans have long contri- buted. 'He who knows and studies German finds himself in a market where the wares of all countries are offered for sale ; while he eni'iches himself he is officiating as interpreter. 'A translator, therefore, should be regarded as a trader in this great spiritual commerce, and as one who makes it his business to advance the exchange of commodities. For, say what we will of the in- adequacy of translation, it always will be among the weifrhtiest and worthiest factors in the world's afiairs. ' The Koran says that God has given each people a prophet in his own tongue. Each translator is also a prophet to his people. The effects of Luther's translation of the Bible have been immeasurable, though criticism has been at work picking holes in it to the present day. What is the enormous business of the Bible Society but to make known the Gospel to every nation in its own tongue ? ' Carlyle felt proud, as well he might, as the recipient 34-8 EECENT ESSAYS. of such letters from Goethe. ' A ribbon with the order of the Garter,' he wrote to his mother, ' would scarcely have flattered either of us more.' In his replies he expressed his warmest sympathy with Goethe's ideas. I wish I could give you some frag- ments at least of Carlyle's correspondence, but the originals, which are preserved at Weimar, have been confided to much worthier hands, and will soon be published, I hope, by Mr. Charles Norton. In the meantime, all I can do is to try to re-translate one of Carlyle's letters from Goethe's German translation into English — a bold undertaking, I confess, but one for which, under the circumstances, I may claim your induloence : o 'December 22, 1829. *I have read a second time, with no small satis- faction, the " Correspondence " (between Schiller and Goethe), and send off to-day to the Foreign Review an article on Schiller, founded on it. You will be pleased to hear that a knowledge and appreciation of foreign, and particularly of German, literature is spreading with increasing speed as far as rules the English tongue, so that among the Antipodes, even in New Holland, the wise men of your country are preaching their wisdom. I heard lately that even at Oxford and Cambridge, our two English Universities, which have hitherto been considered the strongholds of our peculiar insular conservatism, things begin to move. Your Niebuhr has found an able translator at Cambridge, and at Oxford two or three Germans have sufficient occupation as teachers of their language. The new light may be too strong for certain eyes, but GOETHE AND CAELYLE. 349 BO one can doubt of the g'ood results which in the end will arise from it. Let only nations, like individuals, know each other, and the mutual hatred will be changed into mutual help, and instead of natural enemies, as neighbouring countries are sometimes called, we shall all become natural friends.' In another letter from Goethe to Carlyle, dated August 8, 1828, there are some more interesting remarks on the hio^h functions of the translator. They are called forth by Coleridge's translation of Schiller's ' Wallenstein/ and though they have been used by Goethe in a short review of this work, they deserve to be quoted here in their freshness as addressed to Carlyle ^ : ' The translation of " Wallenstein " made quite a peculiar impression upon me. The whole time that Schiller was working at this drama I hardly left his side ; and after I had thus become thoroughly ac- quainted with the piece, I co-operated with him in putting it on the stage. In this task I met wnth more trouble and vexation than I might fairly have expected, and I had finally to be present at the successive representations, in order to bring the difficult theatrical presentation to higher and higher perfection. You may imagine, therefore, that this glorious piece became at length quite trivial, nay, even tedious to me. For twenty years I have neither seen nor read it. But now that quite unexpectedly I see it again in the language of Shakespeare, it suddenly appears before me in all its details, like a newly varnished picture, and I delight in it as of yore, but also in a new and peculiar way. Tell this to the translator with my ^ Goethe's Works, 1853, xlvi. p. 258. 350 EECENT ESSAYS. greetings, and do not omit to add that the preface, written just in that same sympathetic tone which I referred to before, gave me great pleasure. Let me also know his name, so that he may stand forth sm an individual person in the chorus of Philo-Germans. This suggests to me a new observation, perchance hardly realised, and probably never uttered before — • namely, that the translator does not work for his own nation only, but also for the nation from whose lano-uage he has transferred the work. For it happens oftener than one imagines that a nation draws the sap and thought out of a work, and absorbs it so entirely in its own inner life, that it can no longer take any pleasure in it or draw from it any nourishment. This is particularly the case with the Germans, who use up all too quickly anj'thing that is offered them, and who, by reproducing and altering a work in many ways, annihilate it to a certain extent. Hence it is very salutary if what is their own appears before them again at a later time, en- dowed with fresh life by the help of a successful translation.' With the same warmth with which Goethe greeted ColeridQ;e's translation of ' Wallenstein,' he received Sii' Walter Scott's 'Life of Napoleon.' In a letter to Carlyle, dated December 27, 1827, he writes : ' If you see Mr. Walter Scott thank him most warmly in my name for his dear, cheerful letter, written exactly in that beautiful conviction that man must be dear to his Maker. I have also received his " Life of Napoleon," and have in these winter evenings and nights read it through attentively from beginning to end. To me it was highly significant to see how GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 351 the first master of narrative in this century takes upon himself so uncommon a task, and brings before us in calm succession those momentous events which we ourselves were compelled to witness. The division by chapters into large and well-defined portions, renders the complicated events distinct and compre- hensible ; and thus the narration of single events becomes, what is most inestimable, perfectly clear and visible. I read it in the original, and thus it impressed me as it ought. It is a patriotic Briton who speaks, who cannot well look on the acts of the enemy with favourable eyes, and who, as an honest citizen, wants to see all political undertakings brought into harmony with the demands of morality, who, in the happy course of his enemy's good fortune, threatens him with disastrous consequences, and is unable to pity him even in. his bitterest disgrace. 'And further, this work was of the greatest im- portance to me, in that it not only reminded me of things which I had myself witnessed, but brought before me afresh much that had been overlooked at the time. It placed me on an unexpected standpoint ; made me reconsider what I had thouo-bt settled, while I was also enabled to do justice to the opponents who cannot be wanting of so important a work, and to appreciate fairly the exceptions which they take from their point of view. You will see by this that no more valuable gift could have reached me at the end of the year.' And now follows a truly Goethe-like sentence, which it is difficult to render in Eno:lish : ' Es ist dieses Werk mir zu einem goldenen Netzo geworden, womit ich die Schattenbilder meines ver- 352 EECENT ESSAYS. oano-encn Lebens aus den letheischen Fluthen mit reichem Zuge heraufzufischen mich beschaftige.' ' This work has become to me a kind of golden net, wherewith I have been busily drawing up in a mira- culous draught the shadows of my past life from the flood of Lethe.' Thus we see Goethe busy day and night in gathering-in the treasures of foreign literature, and establishing friendly relations with the foremost representatives of poetry, art, and science, not only in England, but in every country in Europe. He saw the era of a World-literature approaching, and he did his best in the evening of his life to accelerate its advent. In a letter of Goethe's dated October 5, 1830, we see how anxious the old man became that the threads which he had spun, and which united him with so many eminent correspondents in different parts of the world, should not be broken after his death. Goethe himself had become an international poet in the full sense of the word. Ho knew the excellent effects which had been produced, even during his lifetime, from the more intimate relations established between himself and some representative men in England, France, Italy, and Spain, and he wished to see them perpetuated. Thus, when sending Carlyle the German translation of his ' Life of Schiller,' he tells him that he wished to bring him and his Berlin friends into more active and fruitful intercourse. He had Carlyle elected an honorary member of the Berlin Society for Foreign Literature, and requested him to send some acknowledgment in return. *At my time of life,' he writes, 'it must be a GOETHE AND CAllLYLE. 353 matter of concern to me to see the various ties wliich centred in me linked on again elsewhere, so as to hasten the object which every good man desires and must desire, namely, to spread, even unobserved and often hindered, a certain harmonious and liberal sentiment throughout the world. Thus many things can settle down peaceably at once, without being Urst scattered and driven about before they are brought into some kind of order, and even then not without great loss. May you be successful in making the good points of the Germans better known to your nation, as we, too, are unceasing in our endeavours to make the good points of foreign nations clear to our own people.' In another letter (dated Weimar, December 27, 3827) Goethe dwells on the softening influence which travelling in Germany, and prolonged stays in German towns, produced on young Englishmen, fitting them to become in later life connecting links between the two countries. As this letter throws some lio-ht on the simple, yet refined, life at Weimar, to which I referred in the beginning of my address, I shall give a longer extract from it : — ' While books and periodicals at present join na- tions, so to speak, by the mail-post, intelligent travellers also contribute not a little to the same object. Mr. Heavyside who visited you (Carlyle never refers to this visit) has brought back to us many pleasant tidings of yourself and your surround- ings, and will probably have given you a full de- scription of our life and doings in Weimar. As tutor of the young Hopes, he spent some pleasant and useful years in our modest, yet richly endowed and animated VOL. I. A a 35i llECENT ESSAYS. circle. I hear that the Hope family are quite satisfied with the education which the youEg men were enabled to acquire here. And, indeed, this place unites many advantages for young men, and especially for those of your nation. The dou)3le court of the reigning and the hereditary family, where Ihey are always received with kindness and liberality, forces them by the very favour which is shown them, to a refined demeanour, at various social amusements. The rest of our society keeps them likewise within certain pleasant restraints, so that anything rude and un- becoming in their conduct is gradually eliminated. In intercourse with our beautiful and cultivated women they find occupation and satisfaction for heart, mind, and imagination, and are thus preserved from all those dissipations to which youth gives itself up more from ennui than from necessity. This free discipline is perhaps inconceivable in any other place, and it is pleasant to see that those members of our society who have gone from here to try life at Berlin or Dresden have very soon returned to us again. Moreover, our women keep up a lively correspondence with Great Britain, and thus prove that actual pre- sence is not absolutely essential to keep alive and continue a well-founded esteem. And I must not omit that all friends, as, for instance, just now Mr. Lawrence, return to us from time to time, and delight in taking up at once the charming threads of earlier intercourse. Mr. Parry has concluded a residence of many years with a good marriage.' Goethe, however, was not simply a literary man ; he was a man, a complete man, and his interests in a world-literature had their deepest roots in his GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 355 strong human heart. ' He was neither noble nor plebeian,' to quote the words of the Foreign Review (iii. ii']), 'neither liberal nor servile, neither infidel nor devotee, but the best excellence of all of them, joined in pure union, a clear and universal 7)ian.' Napoleon, too, when he had seen Goethe and con- versed with him, could say no more than Voild un hominie ! His own countrymen, however, often blamed Goethe for his wide human symj)athies, and his want of national sentiment — most unjustly, I think, for when the time of trial came, he proved himself as good a patriot as many who tried to be more eloquent than Goethe in their patriotic songs and sermons. Goethe had his faults and weaknesses, but there is one redeeming feature in his character which atones for almost everything — he was thoroughly true. He was too great to dissemble. He could not pretend to be a patriot in the sense in which Arndt, Jahn, and Schill were patriots. 'I should have been miserable,' he says, ' if I had made up my mind ever to dissemble or to lie. But as I was stronij enough to show myself exactly as I was and as I felt, I was con- sidered proud.' O that we had more of that pride, and less of the miserable pretence of uni-eal senti- ment ! National sentiment is right and good, but we must not forget that national sentiment is a limited and limiting sentiment, particularly to a mind of such universal grasp as Goethe. We were told not long ago by the greatest English orator ' that there is a local patriotism which in itself is not bad, but good. The Welshman is full of local patriotism, the Scotchman is full of local patriotism, the Scotch nationalitv is as strons: as it ever was, A & % 356 RECENT ESSAYS. and should the occasion arise — which I believe it never can — it will be as ready to assert itself as in the days of Banuockburn. I do not believe that that local patriotism is an evil. I believe it is stronger in Ireland even than in Scotland. Englishmen are eminently English, Scotchmen are profoundly Scotch, and, if I read Irish history aright, misfortune and calamity have wedded her sons to her soil. The Irishman is more profoundly Irish, but,' Mr. Glad- stone adds, 'it does not follow that because his local patriotism is keen, he is incapable of Imperial pa- triotism,' Nor does it follow that because our Imperial patriotism is keen, our hearts are incapable of larger sympathies. There is something higher even than Imperial patriotism. Our sympathies are fostered at home, but they soon pass the limits of our family and our clan, and embrace the common interests of city, county, party, and country. Should they stop there 1 Should we for ever look upon what is out- side our Chinese Walls as foreign, barbarian, and hateful, we more particularly, the nations of Europe in whose veins runs the same Teutonic blood, and who profess a religion which, if it is anything, is a world-religion ? Goethe, feeling at home among the monuments of past greatness, and in harmony with the spirits of all true poets and prophets of the world, could not confine his sympathies within the narrow walls of Weimar, not even within the frontiers of Germany. Wherever he found beauty and nobility there he felt at home ; wherever he could make himself truly useful, there was his country. Patriotism is a duty, and in times of danger it may GOETHE AXU CAELYLE. 357 become an enthusiasm. We want patriotism, just as we want municipal spirit, nay, even clannishness and family pride. But all these are steps leading higher and higher till we can repeat with some of the greatest men the words of Terence, ' I count nothing strano-e to me that is human/ There is no lack of international literature now. The whole world seems writing, reading, and talking together. The same telegrams which we are reading in London are read at nearly the same time in Paris, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg, New York, Alexandria, Calcutta, Sydney, and Peking. The best newspapers, English, French, or German, are read wherever people are able to read. Goethe was struck with the number of lanofuaofes into which the Bible had been translated in his time. What would he say now, when the British and Foreign Bible Society alone has published translations in 267 languages ? Goethe was proud when he saw his ' Wilhelm Meister ' in an English garb. Every season now produces a rich crop of sensational international novels. Our very school- books are largely used not only in America, but in Burmah, Siam, China, and Japan. Newton's ' Prin- cipia ' are studied in Chinese, and the more modern works of Hersehell, Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Lockyer, have created in the far East the same commotion as in Europe. Even books like my own, which stir up no passions, and can appeal to the narrow circle of scholars only, have been sent to me, translated not only into the principal languages of Europe, but into Bengali, Mahratti, Guzerathi, Tamil, Japanese — nay, even into Sanskrit. A world-literature, such as Goethe longed for, has 358 RECENT ESSAYS. to a great extent been realised, but tlie blessings which he expected from it have not yet come, at least not in that fulness in which he hoped for them. There have been, no doubt, since Goethe's time great thinkers and writers, who felt their souls warmed and their powers doubled by the thought that their work would be judged, not by a small clique of home critics only, but by their true peers in the whole world. Goethe himself points out how much more unprejudiced, how much more pure and sure the opinion of foreign critics has been to him and to Schiller, and the old saying has often been confirmed since, that the judgment of foreign nations anticipates the judgment of posterit3^ But the greatest blessing which Goethe hoped for from the spreading of a world-literature — namelj', that there should spring up a real love between nation and nation — has not yet been vouchsafed. Of this he speaks in one of his letters to Carlyle with a kind of patriarchal unction. Goethe had received the early numbers of the Foreign Quarterly Review, and was much pleased with an article on German Literature, on Ernst Schulze, Hofimann, and the German Theatre, which he ascribed to Carlyle's pen. ' I fancy,' he writes in a letter dated December 27, 1S27, 'I recognise in it the hand of my English friend, for it would be truly wonderful if old Britain should have produced a pair of Menaechmi, both equally capable and willing to picture the literary culture of a foreign continental country, divided from their own by geographical, moral, and aesthetic differences ; and to describe it in the same quiet, cheerful tone. GOETHE AND CARLYLE. STjO and with tlie same tlioiightfulness, modest}-, tliorougli- ness, clear-sightedness, perspicuity, exhaustiveness, and whatever good qualities might still he added. The other criticisms, too, in so far as I have read them, seem to me to show insight, mastery, and moderation on a solid basis of national feeling. And though I esteem very highh' the cnsmopolitan works, such as, for instance, Du pin's, still the I'emarks of the reviewer on p. 496 of vol. ii. were very welcome to me. The same applies to much that is stated in connection with the religious strife in Silesia. ' I intend in the next number of Kunst und Alter- tlium, to make friendly mention of these approaches from afar, and shall recommend such a reciprocal treatment to my friends at home and abroad, finally declaring as my own, and inculcating as the essence of true wisdom, the Testament of St. John, " Little children, love one another." I may surely hope that this saying may not seem so strange to my con- temporaries as it did to the disciples of the Evangelist, who expected from him a very different and higher revelation.' And yet these last words of Goethe sound strange to us also, stranger even, it may be, than to his contemporaries. The great nations of Europe have been brouG^ht nearer too-ether. We have international exhibitions, international congresses, international journals, but of international love and esteem we have less than ever. Europe has become like a menagerie of wild beasts, ready to fly at each other whenever it pleases their keepers to open the grates. Why should that be so? Sweet reason has been able to compose fsimily quarrels. In society at large 360 RECENT ESSAYS. people do not come to blows ; and duels, though tolerated in some countries as survivals of a bar- barous age, are everywhere condemned by the law. Why should it be considered seemly for every country to keep legions of lighting men, ready to kill and to be killed for their country, if it should please emperors and kings, or, still more frequently, ministers and ambassadors, to lose their temper. Goethe did not hope for universal peace, but he certainly could not have anticipated that chronic state of war into which we have, drifted, and which in the annals of future historians w'ill place our vaunted nineteenth century lower than the age of Huns and Vandals. I believe that the members of this English Goethe Society can best prove themselves true students of Goethe, true disciples of Goethe, by helping, each one according to his power, to wdpe out this disgrace to humanity. With all the ill-feeling against England that has been artificially stirred up, Shakespeare Societies flourish in all the best tow^ns of Germany. And I have never yet met a Shakespearian scholar who was not, I will not saj^ an Anglomaniac, but a friend of England, a fair judge of all that is great and noble in this great and noble race. Shakespeare has done more to cement a true union between Germany and England than all English Ministers and ambassadors put together. Let us hope that Goethe may do the same, and that each and every member of this English Goethe Society may work in the spirit which he, who has often been called the Great Heathen, expressed so well and so pow^erfully in the simple words of the great Apostle of Love, ' Little children, love one another.' Let Goethe and Shake- GOETHE AND CARLYLE. 361 speare remain the perpetual ambassadors of these two nations, and we may then hope that those who can esteem and love Shakespeare and Goethe, may learn once more to esteem and love one another. And do not suppose that I exaggerate the influence of literature on politics. If Mr. Gladstone had not ]>een so devoted a student of Italian literature, possibly we should not have had, as yet, a united Italy. If our fathers had not been so full of enthusiasm for their Homer, their Sophocles, their Plato, possibly Greece would never have been freed from the Turkish yoke. And whenever I hear that Prince Bismarck know^s his Shakespeare by heart, 1 gather courage, and seem to understand much in the ground-swell of his policy which on the curling surface appears often so perplexing. Let us hope that we may soon count some of the leading: statesmen of Eni^land among the members of our Society. If they have once learnt to construe a German sentence, they may learn in time to construe the German character also, which, though it differs on some points from the English, is, after all, bone of the same bone, flesh of the same flesh, soul of the same soul. We do not wish that our Society shall ever become a political society, and it would be against the cosmo- politan spirit of Goethe if it were to be narrowed down to English and German members only. There are Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, Danes, and Swedes who have proved themselves excellent students of his works. Gcethe himself, when speaking of the difterent ways in which different nations appreciated the character of his Helena, gives credit to the French- 362 RECENT ESSAYS. man, the Englishman, and the Russian, for having, each in his own way, interpreted the poet's thoughts. Writing to Carlyle, on August 8, i82cS, he says : ' All the more deliohtful w^as it to me to see how you had treated my '• Helena." You have here, too, acted in your own beautiful manner, and as at the same time there arrived articles from Paris and Moscow on this work of mine— a work which had occupied my mind and my heart for so many years — I expressed my thoughts somewhat laconically in the following way : the Scot tries to penetrate, the Frenchman to comprehend;, the Russian to appro- priate it. These three have therefore in an unpre- concerted manner represented all possible categories of sympathy which a work of art can appeal to ; though, of course, these three can never be quite separated, but each must call the other to its aid.' Penetrated by the same world-embracing spirit, the Goethe Society calls to its aid all lovers of Goethe's genius, to whatever nation they may belong ; and it may promise them that of politics, in the narrow sense of the word, they shall within these w^alls hear as little as in Goethe's garden at Weimar. But literature, too, has its legitimate influence, at first on individuals only, but in the end on whole nations ; and if we consider what literature is — the embodi- ment of the best and hio-hest thou