have remained forever a barren and forgotten promontory of the primeval Asiatic continent. We live indeed in a new world; the barrier between the West and the East, that seemed insurmountable, has vanished. The East is ours, we are its heirs, and claim by right our share in its inheritance.

We know what it was for the Northern nations, the old barbarians of Europe, to be brought into spiritual contact with Rome and Greece, and to learn that beyond the small, poor world in which they had moved, there was an older, richer, brighter world, the ancient world of Rome and Athens, with its arts and laws, its poetry and philosophy, all of which they might call their own and make their own by claiming the heritage of the past. We know how, from that time, the Classical and Teutonic spirits mingled together and formed that stream of modern thought on whose shores we ourselves live and move. A new stream is now being brought into the same bed, the stream of Oriental thought, and already the colors of the old stream show very clearly the influence of that new tributary. Look at any of the important works published during the last twenty years, not only on language, but on literature, mythology, law, religion, and philosophy, and you will see on every page the working of a new spirit. I do not say that the East can ever teach us new things, but it can place before us old things, and leave us to draw from them lessons more strange and startling than anything dreamt of in our philosophy.

Before all, a study of the East has taught us the same lesson which the Northern nations once learnt in Rome and Athens, that there are other worlds beside our own, that there are other religions, other

of

mythologies, other laws, and that the history of philosophy from Thales to Hegel is not the whole history of human thought. In all these subjects the East has supplied us with parallels, and with all that is implied in parallels, viz., the possibility of comparing, measuring, and understanding. The comparative spirit is the truly scientific spirit of our age, nay all ages. An empirical acquaintance with single facts does not constitute knowledge in the true sense of the word. All human knowledge begins with the Two or the Dyad, the comprehension of two single things as one. If in these days we may still quote Aristotle, we may boldly say that "there is no science of that which is unique." A single event may be purely accidental, it comes and goes, it is inexplicable, it does not call for an explanation. But as soon as the same fact is repeated, the work of comparison begins, and the first step is made in that wonderful process which we call generalization, and which is at the root of all intellectual knowledge and of all intellectual language. This primitive process of comparison is repeated again and again, and when we now give the title of Comparative to the highest kind of knowledge in every branch of science, we have only replaced the old word intelligent (i. e., interligent) or inter-twining, by a new and more expressive term, comparative. I shall say nothing about the complete revolution of the study of languages by means of the comparative method, for here I can appeal to such names as Mommsen and Curtius, to show that the best among classical scholars are themselves the most ready to acknowledge the importance of the results obtained by the intertwining of Eastern and Western philology.

But take mythology. As long as we had only the mythology of the classical nations to deal with, we looked upon it simply as strange, anomalous, and irrational. When, however, the same strange stories, the same hallucinations, turned up in the most ancient mythology of India, when not only the character and achievements, but the very names of some of the gods and heroes were found to be the same, then every thoughtful observer saw that there must be a system in that ancient madness, that there must be some order in that strange mob of gods and heroes, and that it must be the task of comparative mythology to find out, what reason there is in all that mass of

unreason.

The same comparative method has been applied to the study of religion also. All religions are Oriental, and with the exception of the Christian, their sacred books are all written in Oriental languages. The materials, therefore, for a comparative study of the religious systems of the world had all to be supplied by Oriental scholars. But far more important than those materials, is the spirit in which they have been treated. The sacred books of the principal religions of mankind had to be placed side by side with perfect impartiality, in order to discern the points which they share in common as well as those that are peculiar to each. The results already obtained by this simple juxtaposition are full of important lessons, and the fact that the truths on which all religions agree exceed those on which they differ, has hardly been sufficiently appreciated. I feel convinced, however, that the time will come when those who at present profess to be most disquieted by our studies, will be the most grateful for our support, - for having

far

shown by evidence which cannot be controverted, that all religions spring from the same sacred soil, the human heart; that all are quickened by the same divine spirit, the still small voice; and that, though the outward forms of religion may change, may wither and decay, yet, as long as man is what he is and what he has been, he will postulate again and again the Infinite as the very condition of the Finite, he will yearn for something which the world cannot give, he will feel his weakness and dependence, and in that weakness and dependence discover the deepest sources of his hope, and trust, and strength.

A patient study of the sacred scriptures of the world is what is wanted at present more than anything else, in order to clear our own ideas of the origin, the nature, the purposes of religion. There can be no science of one religion, but there can be a science of many. We have learnt already one lesson, that behind the helpless expressions which language has devised, whether in the East or in the West, for uttering the unutterable, be it Dyaushpitâ or Ahuramazda, be it Jehovah or Allah, be it the All or the Nothing, be it the First Cause or Our Father in heaven, there is the same intention, the same striving, the same stammering, the same faith. Other lessons will follow, till in the end we shall be able to restore that ancient bond which unites not only the East with the West, but all the members of the human family, and may learn to understand what a Persian poet meant when he wrote many centuries ago (I quote from Mr. Conway's "Sacred Anthology "), "Diversity of worship has divided the human race into seventy-two nations. From among all their dogmas I have selected one -the Love of God."

Nor is this comparative spirit restricted to the treatment of language, mythology, and religion. While hitherto we knew the origin and spreading of most of the ancient arts and sciences in one channel only, and had to be satisfied with tracing their sources to Greece and Rome, and thence down the main stream of European civilization, we have now for many of them one or two parallel histories in India and in China. The history of geometry, for instance, the first formation of geometrical conceptions or technical terms was hitherto known to us from Greece only: now we can compare the gradual elaboration of geometrical principles both in Greece and India, and thus arrive at some idea of what is natural or inevitable, and what is accidental or purely personal in each. It was known, for instance, that in Greece the calculation of solid figures began with the building of altars, and you will hear to-day from Dr. Thibaut, that in India also the first impulse to geometric science was given, not by the measuring of fields, as the name implies, but by the minute observances in building altars.

Similar coincidences and divergences have been brought to light by a comparative study of the history of astronomy, of music, of grammar, but, most of all, by a comparative study of philosophic thought. There are indeed few problems in philosophy which have not occupied the Indian mind, and nothing can exceed the interest of watching the Hindu and the Greek, working on the same problems, each in his own way, yet both in the end arriving at much the same results. Such are the coincidences between the two, that but lately an eminent German professor,1

1 Aristoteles' Metaphysik, eine Tochter der Sankhya-Lehre des Kapila, von Dr. C. B. Schlüter. 1874.