The Works of Sir William Jones: With the Life of the Author, Volume 3

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J. Stockdale and J. Walker, 1807

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Page 34 - The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
Page 124 - Think not that they were adorers of fire ; for that element was only an exalted object, on the lustre of which they fixed their eyes ; they humbled themselves a whole week before God ; and if thy understanding be ever so little exerted, thou must acknowledge thy dependence on the Being supremely pure.
Page 227 - The fundamental tenet of the Vedanti school consisted, not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure, (to deny which would be lunacy) but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending, that it has no essence independent of mental perception, that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms...
Page 323 - In seven days from the present time, O thou tamer of enemies, the three worlds will be plunged in an ocean of death ; but, in the midst of the destroying waves, a large vessel sent by me for thy use shall stand before thee. Then...
Page xix - I here omit remarking, what may probably have attracted your observation as well as mine, the candour and complacency with which he gave his attention to all persons, of whatever quality, talents, or education : he justly concluded that curious or important information might be gained even from the illiterate ; and wherever it was to be obtained, he...
Page 33 - ... names both for things and for actions; as it has happened in every country, that I can recollect, where the conquerors have not preserved their own tongue unmixed...
Page 2 - I consoled myself with a hope, founded on opinions which it might have the appearance of flattery to mention, that, if in any country or community, such...
Page iv - Italian, he fpoke and wrote with the greateft fluency and precifion ; and the German and Portuguefe were familiar to him. At an early period of life, his application to oriental literature commenced ; he...
Page 374 - Varanes, mean only the powers of nature, and principally those of the Sun, expressed in a variety of ways, and by a multitude of fanciful names.
Page 235 - ... perceived in heavenly or in terrestrial bodies: it is a disposition to be attracted which taught hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet : it is the same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itself firmly on amber: it is this quality which gives every substance in nature a tendency toward another, and an inclination forcibly directed to a determinate point.

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