the most indispensable qualities of style, and the chief excellencies of which it is capable when it is employed solely to instruct. His writings everywhere breathe pure taste in morals as well as in literature; and it may be said with truth, that not a single sentiment has escaped him which does not indicate the real elegance and dignity which pervaded the most secret recesses of his mind. He had lived perhaps too exclusively in the world of learning for the cultivation of his practical understanding. Other men have meditated more deeply on the constitution of society, and have taken more comprehensive views of its complicated relations and infinitely varied interests. Others have therefore often taught sounder principles of political science; but no man more warmly felt, and no author is better calculated to inspire, those generous sentiments of liberty without which the most just principles are useless and lifeless, and which will, I trust, continue to flow through the channels of eloquence and poetry into the minds of British youth.

It has indeed been sometimes lamented that Sir William Jones should have exclusively directed inquiry towards antiquities. But every man must be allowed to recommend most strongly his own favourite pursuits; and the chief difficulty as well as the chief merit is his who first raises the minds of men to the love of any part of knowledge. When mental activity is once roused its direction is easily changed, and the excesses of one writer, if they are not checked by public reason, are corrected by the opposite excesses of his successor. "Whatever withdraws us from the dominion of the senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, and the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.”

It is not for me to attempt an estimate of those exertions for the advancement of knowledge which have arisen from the example and exhortations of Sir William Jones. In all judgements pronounced on our contemporaries it is so certain that we shall be accused, and so probable that we may be justly accused, of either partially bestowing or invidiously withholding praise, that it is in general better to attempt no encroach

ment on the jurisdiction of Time, which alone impartially and justly estimates the works of men. But it would be unpardonable not to speak of the College at Calcutta, of which the original plan was doubtless the most magnificent attempt ever made for the promotion of learning in the East. I am not conscious that I am biassed either by personal feelings or literary prejudices, when I say that I consider that original plan as a wise and noble proposition, of which the adoption in its full extent would have had the happiest tendency to secure the good government of India, as well as to promote the interest of science. Even in its present mutilated state we have seen, at the last public exhibition, Sanscrit declamations by English youth; a circumstance so extraordinary*, that, if it be followed by suitable advances, it will mark an epoch in the history of learning. Among the humblest fruits of this spirit I take the liberty to mention the project of forming this Society, which occurred to me before I left England, but which never could have advanced even to its present state without your hearty concurrence, and which must depend on your active cooperation for all hopes of future success. You will not suspect me of presuming to dictate the nature and object of our common exertions. To be valuable they must be spontaneous; and no literary society can subsist on any other principle than that of equality. In the observations which I shall make on the plan and subject of our inquiries, I shall offer myself to you only as the representative of the curiosity of Europe. I am ambitious of no higher office than that of faithfully conveying to India the desires and wants of the learned at home, and of stating the subjects on which they wish and expect satisfaction, from inquiries which can be pursued only in India. In fulfilling the duties of this mission, I shall not be expected to exhaust so vast a subject, nor is it necessary that I should attempt an exact distribution of science. A very general sketch is all that I can promise; in which I shall pass over many subjects rapidly,

* It must be remembered that this Discourse was read in 1804. In the present year, 1818, this circumstance could no longer be called extraordinary. From the learned care. of Mr. Hamilton, late Professor of Indian Languages at the East India College, a proficiency in Sanscrit is become not uncommon in an European Institution.

and dwell only on those parts on which from my own habits of study I may think myself least disqualified to offer useful suggestions.

The objects of these inquiries, as of all human knowledge, are reducible to two classes, which, for want of more significant and precise terms, we must be content to call Physical and Moral; aware of the laxity and ambiguity of these words, but not affecting a greater degree of exactness than is necessary for our immediate purpose.

The physical sciences afford so easy and pleasing an amusement; they are so directly subservient to the useful arts; and in their higher forms they so much delight our imagination and flatter our pride, by the display of the authority of man over nature, that there can be no need of arguments to prove their utility, and no want of powerful and obvious motives to dispose men to their cultivation. The whole extensive and beautiful science of natural history, which is the foundation of all physical knowledge, has many additional charms in a country where so many treasures must still be unexplored. The science of mineralogy, which has been of late years cultivated with great activity in Europe, has such a palpable connexion with the useful arts of life, that it cannot be necessary to recommend it to the attention of the intelligent and curious. India is a country which I believe no mineralogist has yet examined, and which would doubtless amply repay the labour of the first scientific adventurers who explore it. The discovery of new sources of wealth would probably be the result of such an investigation; and something might perhaps be contributed towards the accomplishment of the ambitious projects of those philosophers, who from the arrangement of earths and minerals have been bold enough to form conjectures respecting the general laws which have governed the past revolutions of our planet, and which preserve its parts in their present order.

The botany of India has been less neglected, but it cannot be exhausted. The higher parts of the science, the structure, the functions, the habits of

vegetables,-all subjects intimately connected with the first of physical sciences, though unfortunately the most dark and difficult, the philosophy of life,-have in general been too much sacrificed to objects of value indeed, but of a value far inferior: and professed botanists have usually contented themselves with observing enough of plants to give them a name in their scientific language and a place in their artificial arrangement. Much information also remains to be gleaned on that part of natural history which regards animals. The manners of many tropical races must have been imperfectly observed in a few individuals separated from their fellows and imprisoned in the unfriendly climate of Europe.

The variations of temperature, the state of the atmosphere, all the appearances that are comprehended under the words weather and climate, are the conceivable subject of a science of which no rudiments yet exist. It will probably require the observations of centuries to lay the foundations of theory on this subject. There can scarce be any region of the world more favourably circumstanced for observation than India; for there is none in which the operation of these causes is more regular, more powerful, or more immediately discoverable in their effect on vegetable and animal nature. Those philosophers who have denied the influence of climate on the human character were not inhabitants of a tropical country.

To the members of the learned profession of medicine, who are neces sarily spread over every part of India, all the above inquiries peculiarly though not exclusively belong. Some of them are eminent for science, many must be well informed, and their professional education must have given to all some tincture of physical knowledge. With even moderate preliminary acquirements they may be very useful, if they will but consider themselves as philosophical collectors, whose duty it is never to neglect a favourable opportunity for observations on weather and climate; to keep exact journals of whatever they observe, and to transmit through their immediate superiors to the scientific depositories of Great Britain

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specimens of every mineral, vegetable, or animal production which they conceive to be singular, or with respect to which they suppose themselves to have observed any new and important facts. If their previous studies have been imperfect, they will no doubt be sometimes mistaken. But these mistakes are perfectly harmless. It is better that ten useless specimens should be sent to London, than that one curious specimen should be neglected.

But it is on another and a still more important subject that we expect the most valuable assistance from our medical associates: this is the science of medicine itself. It must be allowed not to be quite so certain as it is important. But though every man ventures to scoff at its uncertainty as long as he is in vigorous health, yet the hardiest sceptic becomes credulous as soon as his head is fixed to the pillow. Those who examine the history of medicine without either scepticism or blind admiration will find that every civilized age, after all the fluctuations of systems, opinions, and modes of practice, has at length left some balance, however small, of new truth to the succeeding generation, and that the stock of human knowledge in this as well as in other departments is constantly, though it must be owned very slowly, increasing. Since my arrival here I have had sufficient reason to believe that the practitioners of medicine in India are not unworthy of their enlightened and benevolent profession. From them therefore I hope the public may derive, through the medium of this society, information of the highest value. Diseases and modes of cure unknown to European physicians may be disclosed to them; and if the causes of disease are more active in this country than in England, remedies are employed and diseases subdued, at least in some cases, with a certainty which might excite the wonder of the most successful practitioners in Europe. By full and faithful narratives of their modes of treatment they will conquer that distrust of new plans of cure, and that incredulity respecting whatever is uncommon, which sometimes prevail among our English physicians; which are the natural result of much experience and many disappointments; and which, though indivi