English
In proof of this assertion, we may allege, that if Christianity be the only religion capable of universal extension, it is also the only religion, ■which, if confined to a single nation, woulH allow and enable that nation to preserve a neces- sary intercourse with the rest of the world, and 'to maintain its rank in the political scale, without violating any of its fundamental precepts or departing from its genuine spirit. This cannot be said of- any other religion ever promulgated. Experience must have taught us how frequently nationSj not professing the Christian Religion, have been obstrufted in their necessary exertion, either of precaution- 'ary defence, or in the cultivation of many ,of the arts of peace. But " the Kingdom of God" is not confined to place, nor bounded by the barriers of the earth or ocean. It has not restri£ted the spirit of inquiry and adventure, the pursuit of knowledge, or the prosecution of commercial industry : nor has it fixed a river, or a chain of mountains, as the limit, beyond which to pass, is an aft not only of danger, but of 221 impiety. Of many forms of religion we may almost say, that they are indigenous. They derive their efficacy, and even their substance^ from some local peculiarity ; and are like any other natural production of the soil. But "the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink," it is connected with no national ordinances, which prohibit, the use of any of the bounties which nature has fg^ely dispensed, but they are left to be enjoyed as expediency may dire6t, or as choice may dictate. And, if a single Christian nation could preserve a necessary intercourse, with others of a different faith, without violating any.injunftipn of Christian morality, ; so a single individual professing the Christian faith, might Jive, in any part of the world, with any seft, under any climate, under any form of government, without tranS'gressing any command of his, own religion, without any privation of necessary enjoyment, and without any sacrifice of integrity. The method by which all other religions have established their authority, and preserved, their influence over the minds of their votaries, has been exaftly the reverse. They have begun by binding, under religious saaftions, what might 222 properly be left to the regulation of human laws. They have included every obje£t, either of specu- lative science, or of pra£tical wisdom. They have even modelled the forms of social inter- course ;' and, from regulating the disputations of the schools, they have descended to prescribe the beverage of the banquet. Thus they have con^ tributed to fetter the mind, by confining the exercise of its powers, by fixing , limits to its pursuits, and impeding its free exertions. Form- ed to meet the present exigency, and without any prospeftive view to the condition, the inte- rests, and the wants of distant generations, they have marked out a state of society which is to admit of no change or improvement. They have always opposed, with inflexible obstinacy, any attempt to alter those stationary manners, which they had originally introduced. Thus many Pagan liations are, at the present time, what they have ever been, since the earliest periods of authentic history : the state of India in the time of Alexander, is, with little varia- tion, its present state. The same distinftions in society take place ; nearly the same objefits of worship are holden in veneration ; the same arts are cultivated. With the progressive improve- ments of the world, either in natural philosophy. 323 or in 'inord and political wisdom, the inhabitants of India have had no concern. The light which has been reflefted on them, by their intercourse with those nations, whom avarice, ambition, and curiosity have allured tp their shores, they havie endeavoured as far as possible to resist ; and the very slight variation, which has arisen in their manners, from their contaft with their different conquerors, may be said to proceed from a neces- sity almost physical. In the preceding discourse, some of the defefts, inherent in the Brahminical system were pointed out, with respeft to the pra£llcal influence which their ideas, and representations, of the Supreme Being, were calculated to produce on their nation- al charafter. It yet retnalns to consider the in- fluence of their religious Institutions on the intel- le£lual faculties, and on the social afFe£);lons. The present discourse' will be confined to the former of these subjefts, reserving to another oc- casion the consideration of their efFe£ts on thq af- fe£tions of the heart, and their tendency to promote private happiness, and universal benevolenee. Without discussing the question, whether man- kind may be -gradually though slowly increasing in wisdom and virtue, with the age of the world : 22.4 or whether the world may be in a perpetual revolution from ignorance to knowledge, and from barbarism to refinement ; it is certain, that a variation in local circumstances has caused, in different periods of society, a different application of the intelleftual powers of man. They cannot without violence be continually dire£ted to the same pursuits. Perhaps the difference between one age and another, consists, rather in the diversity of the objefts to which the mental faculties have been applied, than to any diflference in the natural powers of the mind itself. If, for instance, a knowledge of the powers of mecha- nism, has, in former ages, been applied, to raise the massive column, to ereft the, lofty pyramid, and to form those vast struftures, which seem to deride the pigmy efforts of more degenerate days ; in the present times it has been more successfully dire£led, to augment the comforts of domestic life, to operations^ which, though more minute are not less useful; which demonstrate equal fertility of invention, and equal comprehen- sion of genius. But this difference in the appli- cation of the intelleOiual powers, is, perhaps necessary, to prevent their total stagnation ; and eminence in either science or art, has never been attained, but by the free exertion of the mind, uncontrolled by civil regulations, or by the more powerful sanftions of religious opinion. 225 The first institution then, in the Brahrainical system, which more than any other, contributes to check this necessary freedom, , and to depress the mental energies, is that artificial line of divi> sion, which has been drawn between the different orders, of society } a line of separation, which it is impossible to pass j and which is not only guarded by the prescriptions of law, but fortified by the < adamantine and impregnable barriers of the divine decree. At the creation of the world, cach.of the four primary casjtes, is said to have procefeded immediately from -the Divinity ; and to mingle, or to confound, what He has thus originally separated, must be a deed of the most daring impiety. To enquire minutely into the: numerous sub- divisions, which have branched out from these primary orders, an^ to ascertain the different mod^cations of caste, which have taken place ' throughout Hindoostan, might present a subjefil worthy of attention. But the effefts of such an institution can be argued, here, only on a general view. . : ^" Unnatural and arbitrary as this division has eventually proved, and favourable, as it must necessarily be,, to the exercise of despotism, it 226 has, not unfrequently,heen defended, as singular- ly adapted to secure the end, which must have been in the view of those, who first formed it. It has been said, that the human mind accom- modated itself, without a murmur, to tbe^ law of necessity j that the native of Hindoostan patiently acquiesces in an institution so repugnant to our feelings ; and that thus knowing, from his birth, the station allotted to him, and the duties peculiar to that station ; as the obje£l:s which relate to these, are the first and sole presented to his view, he has no other to inflame his desires. He is there- fore a stranger to the fatal effe£ls of inordinate ambition. It has been also alleged, that this division is the most undoubted proof of the early and high civilization of the Hindoos, and of their perfeftion in the art of government; and that the arrangements of government are judiciously made, not for the Few, but for the Many ; not for individual convenience, but for public advan- tage. It has been finally asserted, that to this institutioh may be attributed the astonishing pierfe£iion i of the inhabitants of India in their manufaftures, which exhibit a dexterity, unrivalled by Europeans, with all the advaiitages of superior science. .r ' If we may be allowed to assign a cause for 227 an Institution so singular, we may Imagine it to have been, at hs commencement, nothing more than a necessary division of labor, among the diiFerent orders of society. It might, at first, have been morally innocent, as well as politically useful. It must have been long, before the different gradations in society, could have been hnmutably fixed, i and rivetted by the chains of an inexorsblte superstition. But, that in its pre- sent state, and its present state is the necessary result of sucha regulation, it can have a tendency to increase national prosperity, is a position that equally contradifts reason, and experience. From the time when our acquaintance with ' the history of India begins, its inhabitants, so fair frdm possessing any political importtoce, have ever groaned under the dominion of a foreign yoke. They have dragged the chains^of an igno- minious servitude' for ages, under a people, whose numbers have scarcely exceeded a tenth part of their owin population.