ART. V.--Akhlak-i-Jalady, from the Persian of Jany Mohammed Asaad. Practical Philosophy of the Mohammedans. Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund. Translated by W. F. Thomson, Esq. of the Bengal Civil Service. London: 1839. ALTHOUGH the labours of the Oriental Translation Fund have been so long before the British and Foreign public, and though the Society itself, in the years that have elapsed since its formation, has fully sustained the promise of its commencement, and brought to the European eye so many of the treasures that lay till then hidden in the obscurity of oriental languages; although the relations of Europe with the East are hourly and daily increasing both in number and importance; although the connection of these two portions of the globe has long been cemented, and on the part of Great Britain in particular most closely by ties of family or personal interest as well as affection;-though the growing importance of eastern countries commercially and politically, stimulates alike both selfishness and philanthropy, public and private, to foster the cultivation and improvement both of the soil and inhabitants of the various realms of Asia ;though the neglect of these obvious considerations has repeatedly entailed disaster and distress upon whole bodies of individuals in Europe, if not upon its nations; and though these evils have been undeniably brought about by ignorance, not less on the one side than the other:-of the Asiatic, as to sound, enlightened principles of domestic government and foreign intercourse; of the European, as to the real character, prejudices, and peculiarities of the nations with whom he has to deal: still, despite of political existence, of personal interest, of private ties, of philanthropic objects, philosophic views, antiquarian research, religious feelings, and even, far dearest, of pecuniary gain;-the British public, the most deeply interested of any in most, if not all of these questions, has shown the greatest apathy of any in proportion to its situation and facilities with all.

It can scarcely be questioned that this neglect has arisen from want of due consideration in the generality, and in sheer ignorance rather than wilful disregard of more expansive views. So long in that quarter as trade could be pushed and fortunes made by the mercantile community; so long as political alliances were anticipated and forestalled by physical force and absolute subjugation, with the statesman; so long as the scholar could confine his intellect within the narrow and insufficient bounds of classical information, the natural indolence or cupidity of each

class, for its own immediate objects, prevented the attempt and the wish to look beyond: nor is it till the usual consequences of all short-sighted policy are visited upon us with the worst severity, till China has repelled our opium and refused her teas-till from Turkey to Burmah all is trouble, violence, and injustice— till history turns, hopeless, from the pages of Greece, and the key of Egyptian hieroglyphics is broken in that rude and rusted lock-that we begin to suspect there has been something amiss: The rupee-tree of Hindostan has been shaken of its fruit, and the balances of silver syce mock the opium's wakened dream; -if we soothe the ruined Turk, we are hated by Burmah, Cabul and Persia; and the boast of classic elucidation proves but its delusive vanity. Had those three great classes of our countrymen studied with a larger and more comprehensive intellect the spirit of Eastern nations, as developed in their institutions, they would have seen that neither the commerce, the policy, nor the genius of these nations could be actuated by the same rules that form the standard of Europe.

It is the learned who are chiefly to blame for the knowledge derivable from books is their avowed care; through them must it flow in gradual and practical wisdom to the other classes of society; and it is for this that their seminaries are endowed by the liberal, and supported and guarded by the State. The scholar, placed from certain evidences of his ability in situations of honourable competence by the institutions of his country, owes that country a positive duty in return his ease is not consulted that it may degenerate into sloth, his library is not stored that he may close his eyes in repletion, his pockets are not filled to be merely emptied into his chest, nor is the earlier leisure of his college intended as a dormitory. The man of learning, so placed, is bound to look abroad as well as at home; the living world of literature is his proper sphere; mental activity is his duty, to himself and his countrymen; and if he fails in this, and, wrapping himself up in the fat slumbers of contented prejudice, neglects to acquire or circulate the information to which he should be devoted, he injures the charges intrusted to his care, and abuses the hospitality that feeds him; he is a false steward, an ungrateful guest.

A vulgar error has gone forth lately into the world that only a little learning is a useful thing, and shallowness is the order of the day: even the greater number of the really learned who openly oppose this dictum, act, though with some modification, upon its principle. But is it necessary, we would ask, that if a long portion of life should be devoted to studying the wisdom of antiquity, that a still larger portion should be wasted in shutting out, or

rejecting, wisdom from any other entrance? Surely he who has learned to weigh and feel the pure spirit of ancient genius, is the very fittest to weigh and appreciate the sense of other nations. Why, having studied in one point, should he exclude all the rest? Why confine himself to one or two languages when there are twenty open to him? Is there no possibility of a stimulus after manhood? no exercises, no degrees, but those for boys?

Did the statesman assist the formation of new progressions of real knowledge at home, he would not be so often mistaken as to the genius of distant nations. Fellowships might be created, endowments directed to cherish, and honours to reward the cultivators of such wide fields. But his should be, not a direct but a moral influence; his duty is to lead the public energies, not to bribe them: he might act on public opinion, and this would act on the universities.

And here would be the gain of the merchant. He would not by force or fraud violate the laws of man and God so widely and so generally, did he know that the races he scorns as barbarians have rules of conduct and justice, and would yield more profit by cultivation, care, and management, than by treachery and wrong. If sufficiently enlightened himself he would seek to enlighten others, as the surest way to attain his ends at last.

If the statesman is less obviously interested in the question, it can be only because the interests of the community are vested in him, to be maintained in preference to his own. But if his own glory and the good of his country are at heart he will duly feel the advantages to be derived from the progress of civilization and enlightenment, not only in those lands but at home, and with himself: since by becoming, so to say, practically conversant with the habits and feelings of distant and barbarous nations he learns to know and appreciate their position, capabilities, and wants, and is prepared to avail himself of these for the welfare of his native land, the consolidation of her strength, enlargement of her relations, the increase of her influence, and diffusion of her commerce. It is only by a thorough acquaintance with all that is around him that he learns to enter into and familiarize himself with the spirit and national feeling of every part;-a point too long neglected:-and it is only by the distribution of this information, thoroughly infused into the daily nutriment of his nation at home, that he can expect to be supported by them, as the vigilant guard and watch-post of their communital rights. Had such measures been taken and such vigilance exerted in proportion to the growing interests of our political and commercial relations with the East, would Dost Mahommed have been rejected as an ally till he was forced or won over into enmity?

would Turkey have been neglected till she sank, or Persia affronted till roused into querulous wrath? would Central Asia have to be only now explored, to ascertain her political and commercial tendencies? would the Indus trade be but now attempting? would indigo be growing wild, and opium till lately unknown, in Ceylon? and would not Assam, if explored and cultivated some very few years sooner, have by this time afforded an ample supply of that tea, which is the sole link of China to Europe, beyond the infamy of national smuggling? These are not considerations for the minister alone; they are the vital points of that commerce on which the greatness of England depends; and private fortunes and public welfare alike demand exertions, new and ceaseless, and forbid the statesman's slumbering at his arduous post, or confining his views and energies to the narrow scale of Europe alone, unless he would cramp, embarrass, depress, and finally ruin, the merchant.

In all questions of national and other importance the Future, to be successful, should be the child of the Past; and the speculations that are to bias and control the former must be based on the experience acquired through ages of existence. The moments of the Present are but the passing steps by which life mounts from that Past, to the Future of unhorizoned and indefinite Time. If we would that this shall bring something more than barren repentance for ourselves, and a legacy of errors for our descendants to correct while they execrate, we must strive to extract the spirit of ancient and modern information, and shape it into the Ethics of political and national conduct. Yet to examine but a portion of the world is to dismember reason, and destroy half the reign and more than half the efficiency of wisdom. Where has information been narrowed that it has not become a mockery? and when has inquiry rejected a whole series of facts without turning the rest into a destructive fallacy?

If such are the data of the active world, they do not change their form in the speculative. We would ask the renowned scholars of England and Europe, and centuries upon centuries stand included in the question, How much of antiquity is really known to them-how many ascertained facts they have disinterred by their labours? The statements of Sanchoniatho are given up as a hopeless jumble; the traditions of Berosus as unsupported and unsupportable; the early texts of Holy Writ are but the Pelion and Ossa of successive strife: the realm of Creation but a listed battle-field for the church militant of Geology! Where are the first fourteen dynasties of Egypt-and where the mocking promise of hieroglyphic revelations? Whence came the Greeks, whom we know to have sprung from the ground; though we know also that they descended from ancestors, of whom also we

know that they and we know nothing? Who were the Etruscans, and whence arose their rites? What was the early history of Rome? and how comes it better known to two modern Germans than to its actual inhabitants? Cannot 3000 years of Classics assist us to a few facts?

If then their scope is inefficient, should not learning extend its range, instead of sitting down in the Professor's chair of ignorance? Surely the eagle wings of European science had long enough been spread over the barren East, before the Chinese loadstone and printing were known to Europe: Eastern niceties of mathematical measurement, even late in our days, have been brought in to rectify, and enlarge, the calculations of the West: and an earlier effort than the recent and rational inquiry might long ago have taught Britain the ready manufacture of steel by the principles of chemistry, known in India ages before the days of Alexander! The oversight is surely a stigma upon our unquestionable intelligence, and no less unquestionable indolence and self-sufficiency.

If Science, thus improved, will still ignore all Eastern advances, is Learning to follow her example and be content to stop her career altogether? How can the heart of the scholar rest satisfied to rely, in his ignorance of antiquity, upon those classical authorities, whereof the Greek is fable, and the Roman, falsification! Both fall confessedly short of the truth he seeks, or at least affects to seek; and yet he is content to be told by one or two earliest labourers in Oriental fields that nothing there will assist him. Surely the scansion of Greek writers in Greek tragedies is not a more important inquiry than to discover how the Greeks (the Romans after them only), the Indians, and the Chinese came to have a theatre, so totally unknown to the Babylonian, Persian, Celt, Arab, and Turk. Yet judge for himself he will not and so long as he can shroud his senses in the thick cloud of a dreaming mythology, the Modern will know nothing with which his favoured Ancients were unacquainted, and rests ignorant of learning lest he lose the name of learning with the ignorant.

Yet can Universities, British or Foreign, answer the difficulties, purely CLASSICAL, or connected with the Classics? And if they cannot, ought they to withhold assistance from those societies that are striving directly and indirectly for the solution of such?

The tree-dwelling Kookies of Dr. Spry would not have astonished the reading world had the account of that race, published forty years ago, been better known to Europe or the Vedahs of Ceylon, who live in the same manner, shunning all intercourse; and who, when in want of an arrow-head, &c. leave the weapon, with a leaf shaped like the intended head, by night, near the dwelling of some more civilized smith, and pay his labour by the present of a deer, left in the same manner afterwards. -See the forthcoming work on Ceylon by J. W. Bennett, F. L. S.