СНАР. Х.

General Reflections.

into the state

To ascertain the true state of the Hindus in the scale of civilization, is not only CHAP. X. an object of curiosity in the history of human nature; but to the people of Great Importance of Britain, charged as they are with the government of that great portion of the the inquiry human species, it is an object of the highest practical importance. No scheme of civilization among the of government can happily conduce to the ends of government, unless it is adapted Hindus. to the state of the people for whose use it is intended. In those diversities in the state of civilization, which approach the extremes, this truth is universally acknowledged. Should any one propose, for a band of roving Tartars, the regulations adapted to the happiness of a regular and polished society, he would meet with neglect or derision. The inconveniences are only more concealed, and more or less diminished, when the error relates to states of society which more nearly resemble one another. If the mistake in regard to Hindu society, committed by the British nation, and the British government, be very great; if they have conceived the Hindus to be a people of high civilization, while they have in reality made but a few of the earliest steps in the progress to civilization, it is impossible that in many of the measures pursued for the government of that people, the mark aimed at should not have been wrong.

The preceding induction of particulars, embracing the religion, the laws, the Origin of the government, the manners, the arts, the sciences, and literature, of this remarkable mistakes on this subject. people, affords, it is presumed, the materials from which a correct judgement may, at last, be formed of their progress toward the high attainments of civilized life. That induction, and the comparisons to which it led, have occupied us long, but not longer, it is hoped, than the importance of the subject demanded, and the obstinacy of the mistakes which it was the object of it to remove.

The reports of a high state of civilization in the East were common even among the civilized nations of ancient Europe. But the acquaintance of the Greeks and Romans with any of the nations of Asia, except the Persians alone, was so imperfect, and among the circumstances which they state so many are incredible

BOOK II. and ridiculous, that in the information we receive from them on this subject, no

confidence can be reposed.

Of the modern Europeans, the individuals who first obtained a tolerable acquaintance with any of the nations of the East, were the popish missionaries, chiefly the Jesuits, who selected China for the scene of their apostolical labours. Visiting a people who already composed a vast society, and exhibited many, though fallacious, marks of riches, while Europe as yet was every where poor; and feeling, as it was natural for them to feel, that the more they could excite among their countrymen an admiration of the people whom they described, the greater would be the portion of that flattering sentiment, which would redound upon themselves, these missionaries were eager to conceive, and still more eager to propagate, the most hyperbolical ideas of the arts, the sciences, and institutions of the Chinese. As it is almost always more pleasing, and certainly far more easy, to believe than to scrutinize; and as the human mind in Europe, at the time when these accounts were first presented, was much less powerful and penetrating than it is at present, they were received with almost implicit credulity. The influence of this first impression lasted indeed so long, that Voltaire, a keeneyed and sceptical judge, makes the Chinese, of almost all nations, the objects of the loudest and most unqualified praise.* The state of belief in Europe has, gradually, through the scrutiny of facts, been of late approximating to sobriety on the attainments of the Chinese, and a short period longer will probably reduce it to the scale of reason and fact.t

It was under circumstances highly similar, that the earliest of the modern travellers drew up and presented their accounts of Hindustan. The empire of the Moguls was in its meridian splendour. It extended over the principal part of India; and the court, the army, and the establishments of Akber or Aurungzebe, exhibited that gorgeous exterior, that air of grandeur and power, which were well calculated to impose upon the imagination of an unphilosophical observer. ‡

*"Any thing proposed to us which causes surprise and admiration, gives such a satisfaction to the mind, that it indulges itself in those agreeable emotions, and will never be persuaded that its pleasure is entirely without foundation." (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, i. 53.)

+ To this good effect, if to no other, the embassy of Lord Macartney, and the writings to which it has given occasion, have largely contributed. See Barrow's two works, Travels in China, and Life of Lord Macartney, and above all, that important document, a volume of the Laws of China, translated by Sir George Staunton. No one has more approximated to a correct judgment of the Chinese, than De Guignes. See Voyage.

Many of the observations of Mr. Barrow upon the panegyrical accounts of the Chinese by the popish missionaries are very applicable to the flattering accounts which travellers have been

J

It was unfortunate that a man so pure and warm in the pursuit of truth, and CHAP. X. so devoted to oriental learning, as Sir William Jones, took up, with that ardour which belonged to him, the theory of a high state of civilization in the principal countries of Asia. This theory he supported with all the advantages of an imposing manner, and a brilliant reputation; and gained for it so much fame and credit, that for a time it would have been very difficult to obtain a hearing against it.

Beside the illusions with which the fancy magnifies the importance of a favourite pursuit, Sir William was actuated by the virtuous design of exalting the Hindus in the eyes of their European masters; and thence ameliorating the temper of the government; while his mind had scope for error in the vague and indeterminate notions which it still retained of the signs of social improvement. The term civilization was by him, as by most men, attached to no fixed and definite assemblage of ideas. With the exception of some of the lowest states of society in which human beings have been found, it was applied to nations in all the stages of social advancement.*

tivated.

It is not easy to describe the characteristics of the different stages of social The species of inquiry not progress. It is not from one feature, or from two, that a just conclusion can be much culdrawn. It sometimes happens that in one feature or two, nations resemble, which are placed at stages considerably remote. It is from a joint view of all the great circumstances taken together, that their progress can be ascertained; and it is from an accurate comparison, grounded on these general views, that a scale of civilization can be formed, on which the relative position of nations may be accurately marked.

Notwithstanding all that modern philosophy had performed for the elucidation of history, very little had been attempted in this great department, at

so fond of giving us of the Hindus. "In the same breath that they extol the wonderful strength of filial piety, they speak of the common practices of exposing infants; the strict morality and ceremonious conduct of the people are followed by a list of the most gross debaucheries; the virtues and the philosophy of the learned are explained by their ignorance and their vices: if in one page they speak of the excessive fertility of the country, and the amazing extension of agriculture, in the next thousands are seen perishing with want; and whilst they extol with admiration the progress they have made in the arts and sciences, they plainly inform us that without the aid of foreigners they can neither cast a cannon nor calculate an eclipse." Barrow's Travels in China, p. 31.

* One of the chief circumstances from which Sir William Jones drew conclusions respecting the high civilization of the Hindus, was the supposition, that they never went abroad, a supposition which is now well known to have been erroneous. See Asiat. Res. vi. 531, and i. 271.

BOOK II. the time when the notions of Sir William Jones were formed.

The writings of Mr. Miller of Glasgow, of which but a small part was then published, and into which it is probable that Sir William had never looked, contained the earliest elucidations of the subject. The suggestions offered in his successive productions, though highly important, were but detached considerations applied to particular facts, and not a comprehensive induction, leading to general conclusions. Unfortunately the subject, great as is its importance, has not been resumed. The writings of Mr. Miller remain almost the only source from which even the slightest information on the subject can be drawn. One of the ends which has at least been in view during the scrutiny conducted in these pages, has been to contribute something to the progress of so important an investigation. It is hoped that the materials which are here collected will be regarded as going far to elucidate the state of society in all the leading nations of Asia. Not only the Hindus, the Persians, the Arabians, the Turks, and Chinese of the present day, but the Hindus, Arabians, and Persians of ancient days, the Chaldeans, the Jews, and even the ancient Egyptians, may all be regarded as involved in the inquiry; and to these, with the sole exception of the wandering Tartars and the hyperborean hordes, may be added the second-rate nations; the inhabitants of the eastern peninsula, and of the plains and mountains of Tibet. It is surprising, upon a close inspection, how extensively all these various nations, notwithstanding the dissimilarity in some of the more obvious appearances, resemble one another, in laws and institutions of government, in modes of thinking, in superstition and prejudices, in arts and literature, even in the external forms of manner and behaviour; and as well in ancient, as in modern times.

So crude, on this subject, were the ideas of Sir William Jones, that the rhapsodies of Rousseau on the virtue and happiness of the savage life surpass not the panegyrics of Sir William on the wild, comfortless, predatory, and ferocious state of the wandering Arabs. "Except," says he, " when their tribes are engaged in war, they spend their days in watching their flocks and camels, or in repeating their native songs, which they pour out almost extempore, professing a contempt for the stately pillars and solemn buildings of the cities, compared with the natural charms of the country, and the coolness of their tents: thus they pass their lives in the highest pleasure of which they have any conception, in the contemplation of the most delightful objects, and in the enjoyment of perpetual spring." "If courtesy," he observes," and urbanity, a love of poetry

* Essay on the Poetry of Eastern Nations. Voltaire exclaimed, on reading Rousseau's panegyrics," Jamais n'avais-je tant d'envie de marcher à quatre pattes."

and eloquence, and the practice of exalted virtues, be a just measure of perfect CHAP. X. society, we have certain proof that the people of Arabia, both on plains and in cities, in republican and monarchical states, were eminently civilized for many ages before their conquest of Persia.” * We need not wonder if the man, who wrote and delivered this, found the Hindus arrived at the highest civilization. Yet the very same author, in the very same discourse, and speaking of the same people, declared, "I find no trace among them till their emigration of any philosophy but ethics; "† and even of this he says, "The distinguishing virtues which they boasted of inculcating, were a contempt of riches and even of death; but in the age of the seven poets, their liberality had deviated into mad profusion, their courage into ferocity, and their patience into an obstinate spirit of encountering fruitless dangers." He adds; "The only arts in which they pretended to excellence (I except horsemanship and military accomplishments) were poetry and rhetoric." § It can hardly be affirmed that these facts are less than wonderful as regarding a people " eminently civilized;" a people exhibiting "a just measure of perfect society." ||

The extreme inaccuracy and fluctuation of the ideas of European scholars Inaccuracy of

+ Ibid. p. 9.

Ibid.

the ideas of European scholars on

the subject of

* Sir W. Jones, Asiat. Res. ii. 3. Ibid. P. 14." On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly civilization. wakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life." Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxvi. p. 342.

In the same discourse Sir William further remarks; "That we have none of their compositions in prose before the Koran, may be ascribed, perhaps, to the little skill which they seem to have had in writing, to their predilection in favour of poetical measure, and to the facility with which verses are committed to memory; but all their stories prove, that they were eloquent in a high degree, and possessed wonderful powers of speaking without preparation, in flowing and forcible periods." (Ibid.) "Who," says Dr. Ferguson, "would from mere conjecture suppose, that the naked savage would be a coxcomb and a gamester; that he would be proud and vain, without the distinctions of title and fortune; and that his principal care would be to adorn his person, and to find an amusement? Even if it could be supposed that he would thus share in our vices, and in the midst of his forest vie with the follies which are practised in the town; yet no one would be so bold as to affirm that he would likewise in any instance excel us in talents and virtue; that he would have a penetration, a force of imagination and elocution, an ardour of mind, an affection and courage, which the arts, the discipline, and the policy of few nations would be able to improve. Yet these particulars are a part in the description which is delivered by those who have had opportunities of seeing mankind in their rudest condition: and beyond the reach of such testimony, we can neither safely take, nor pretend to give information on the subject." Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, part ii. sect. 1.