But mere philology was never considered by Sir William Jones as the end of his studies, nor as any thing more than the medium through which knowledge was to be acquired; he knew, that "words "were the daughters of earth, and things the sons "of heaven," and would have disdained the character of a mere linguist. In the little sketch of a treatise on Education, which has been inserted in these Memoirs, he describes the use of language, and the necessity of acquiring the languages of those people who in any period of the world have been distinguished by their superior knowledge, in order to add to our own researches the accumulated wisdom of all ages and nations. Accordingly, with the keys of learning in his possession, he was qualified to unlock the literary hoards of ancient and modern times, and to display the treasures deposited in them, for the use, entertainment, or instruction of mankind. In the course of his labours, we find him elucidating the laws of Athens, India, and Arabia; comparing the philosophy of the Porch, the Lyceum, and Academy, with the doctrines of the Sufis and Bramins; and, by a rare combination of taste and erudition, exhibiting the mythological fictions of the Hindûs in strains not unworthy the sublimest Grecian bards. In the eleven discourses which he addressed to the Asiatic society, on the history, civil and natural, the antiquities, arts, sciences, philosophy, and literature of Asia, and on the origin, and families of nations, he has discussed the subjects which he professed to ex plain, with a perspicuity which delights and instructs, and in a style which never ceases to please, where his arguments may not always convince. In these disquisitions, he has more particularly displayed his profound Oriental learning in illustrating topics of great importance in the history of mankind; and it is much to be lamented, that he did not live to revive and improve them in England, with the advantages of accumulated knowledge and undisturbed leisure*. A mere * Of these discourses, the subjects of the two first have been noticed in the Memoirs; the seven following, from the third to the ninth inclusive, are appropriated to the solution of an important problem, whether the five nations, viz. the Indians, Arabs, Tartars, Persians, and Chinese, who have divided amongst themselves, as a kind of inheritance, the vast continent of Asia, had a common origin, and whether that origin was the same that is generally ascribed to them. To each of these nations a distinct essay is allotted, for the purpose of ascertaining, who they were, whence and when they came, and where they are now settled. The general media through which this extensive investigation is pursued, are, first, their languages and letters; secondly, their philosophy; thirdly, the actual remains of their old sculpture and architecture; and, fourthly, the written,memorials of their sciences and arts: the eighth discourse is allotted to the borderers, mountaineers, and islanders of Asia; and the ninth, on the origin and families of nations, gives the result of the whole enquiry. To state all the information which is curious, novel, and interesting, in these discourses, would be nearly to transcribe the whole, and the very nature of them does not admit of a satisfactory abridgment; the conclusion adopted by Sir William Jones, may be given in his own words: but this without the arguments from which it is deduced, and the facts and observations on which those arguments are founded, must be imperfectly understood. I must therefore refer the reader, who is desirous of investigating the great problem of the derivation of nations from their parental stock, or in other words, of the population of the world, to the discourses themselves; and in presenting him with a faint outline of some of the most important facts and observations contained in them, I mean rather to excite his curiosity than to gratify it. I shall follow the discourses in the order in which they stand; and, A mere catalogue of the writings of Sir William Jones, would shew the extent and variety of his erudition; to avoid unnecessary phraseology, I shall, as far as possible, use the language of Sir William Jones himself. The first discourse, which is the third of the series in which they were delivered, begins with the HINDUS. The civil history of the inhabitants of India, beyond the middle of the nineteenth century from the present time, is enveloped in a cloud of fables. Facts, strengthened by analogy, may lead us to suppose the existence of a primeval language in Upper India, which may be called Hindi, and that the Sanscrit was introduced into it, by conquerors from other kingdoms in some very remote age. 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 form 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. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family... The Deb-nagari characters, in which the languages of India were originally written, are adopted with little variation in form, in more than twenty kingdoms and states, from the borders of Cashgar and Khoten, to the Southern extremity of the peninsula; and from the Indus to the river of Siam. That the square Chaldaïc characters, in which most Hebrew books are copied, were originally the same, or derived from the same prototype, both with the Indian and Arabian characters, there can be little doubt; and it is probable that the Phoenician, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets were formed, had a similar origin. The deities adored in India, were worshipped under different names in Old Greece and Italy, and the same philosophiaal tenets which were illustrated by the lönick and Attick writers, with all the beauties of their melodious language, are professed in India. The six philosophical schools of the Indians, comprise all the metaphysicks of the old Academy, the Stôa, and the Lyceum; nor can we hesitate to believe, that PYTHAGORAS and PLATO, derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India. The Scythian and Hyper borean erudition; a perusal of them, will prove, that it was no less deep than miscellaneous. Whatever topic he discusses, borean doctrines and mythology are discovered in every part of the Eastern regions, and that WOD or ODEN, was the same with BUDH of India, and Fo of China, seems indisputable. The remains of architecture and sculpture in India, seem to prove an early connection between that country and Africa. The letters on many of the monuments appear partly of Indian, and partly of Abyssinian or Ethiopick origin; and these indubitable facts seem to authorize a probable opinion, that Ethiopia and Hindustan were colonized by the same race. The period of the subjugation of India, by the Hindûs under Rama, from Audh to Silan, may be dated at about 36 centuries before the present period. The ARABS come next under investigation. The Arabic language is unquestionably one of the most ancient in the world. That it has not the least resemblance either in words, or in the structure of them to the Sanscrit, or great parent of the Indian dialects, is established by the most irrefragable arguments. With respect to the characters in which the old compositions of Arabia were written, little is known except that the Koran originally appeared in those of Kufah, from which the modern Arabian characters were derived, and which unquestionably had a common origin with the Hebrew and Chaldaic. It has generally been supposed, that the old religion of the Arabs was entirely Sabian; but the information concerning the Sabian faith, and even the meaning of the word, is too imperfect to admit of any satisfactory conclusion on the subject. That the people Yemen soon fell into the common idolatry of adoring the sun and firmament, is certain; other tribes worshipped the planets and fixed stars, but the religion of the poets seems to have been pure theism: of any philosophy but ethics, there are no traces among them; and their system of morals was miserably depraved for a century, at least, before Mohammed. Few monuments of antiquity are preserved in Arabia, and of these the accounts are uncertain. Of sciences, the Arabs of Hejaz were totally ignorant, and the only arts successfully cultivated by them, (horsemanship and military accomplishments excepted,) were poetry, and rhetoric. The people of Yemen had possibly more mechanical arts, and perhaps more science. Thus it clearly appears, that the Arabs both of Hejaz and Yemen, sprang from a stock entirely different from that of the Hindus; and if we give credit to the universal tradition of Yemen, that Yoktan, the son of Eber, first settled his family in Arabia, their first establishments in discusses, his ideas flow with ease and perspicuity; his style is always clear and polished ; animated and for cible in their respective countries were nearly coeval, about eighteen centu ries before the Christian æra. The TARTARS furnish the subject of the fifth discourse. In general, they differ wholly in feature and complexion from the Hindûs and Arabs. The general traditional history of the Tartars begins with Oghuz, as that of the Hindûs does with Rama; and according to Visdelou, the king of the Hyumnus or Huns, began his reign about 3560 years ago, not longer after the time fixed, in the former discourses, for the regular establishments of the Hindûs and Arabs in their several countries. The enquiry concerning the languages and letters of the Tartars, presents a deplorable void, or a prospect as barren and dreary as their deserts; they had in general no literature, (a proposition, which is not affected by admitting with Ibnu Arabshah the existence of Dilberjin and Eighuri letters); and all that can be safely inferred from the little information we have on the subject, is the probability that the various dialects of Tartary descended from one common stock, essentially dif ferent from that from which the Indian and Arabian tongues severally came. The language of the Brahmans affords a proof of an immemorial and total difference between the savages of the mountains, as the Chinese call the Tartars, and the studious, placid, contemplative inha bitants of India. Pure theism appears to have prevailed in Tartary for some generations after Yafet; the Mongals and Turcs some ages afterwards relapsed into idolatry; but Chingis was a theist. Thus it has been proved beyond controversy, that the far greater part of Asia has been peopled, and immemorially possessed by three considerable nations, whom for want of better names we may call Hindûs, Arabs, and Tartars; each of them divided and subdivided into an infinite number of branches, and all of them so different in form and features, language, manners, and religion, that if they sprang originally from one common root, they must have been separated for ages. The sixth and next discourse is on PERSIA or IRAN. There is solid reason to suppose, that a powerful monarchy had been established in Iran, for ages before the Assyrian Dynasty, (which commenced with Cayumers, about eight or nine centuries before Christ) under the name of the Mahabadian Dynasty, and that it must be the oldest in the world. When Mohammed was born, two languages appear to have been generally prevalent in the great empire of Irân; that of the court, thence |