a caricature in some respects of Latin, in other respects of Greek. In another place also Delbrück remarks:

It seems as if we must rather assert that the primitive language resembled the Greek most closely in the diversity of its vocalism, and the Sanskrit in the manifoldness of its consonantism.

We are all familiar with the spirit which denounces and rejects new views for the sufficient reason that they are new; we read of it in history; but we scarcely like to mention the fact that in certain places and under certain forms it lives and works as vigorously as ever, for in the clearer light of "an understanding age," as we see more truly, so we can behave more delicately. New theories and opinions we now welcome with open arms, but we manage to break their force of subversion by contending that to the historic sense there is nothing so very novel in them: Newton we can find in Plato, and Darwin in St. Paul.

A GERMAN TRANSLATION OF THE

VEDÂNTA1

[1888: AET. 25]

F the six orthodox systems of Hindu philosophy, the Vedanta seems to be the most popular in the West. Its reputation is not confined to the narrow circle of specialists, but has reached the ears of the general reader, whose attention may have been aroused by the supposed affinity of its doctrine with that of certain European thinkers of repute, or who perhaps feels in the very name itself a kind of subtle fascination, as of something peculiarly Eastern and esoteric. Translations of the Vedantasâra and the Vedântaparibhâshâ—concise manuals in which the cream or essence of the system may be conveniently tasted-already exist in English; and through Ballantyne's tract, " The Aphorisms of the Vedanta," a glimpse might have been caught of the Sûtras themselves. But, in spite of the existence of such aids and stimulants to serious and special study, Indian philosophy in general and the system before us in particular still remain "more talked about and criticised than known, more overrated and underrated than understood." For while, on one hand, the majority, here as elsewhere, are content with general statements and loose impressions, the select minority, on the other hand, professionally interested in philosophy, are prevented by the prejudices of an exclusive education from admitting a mere Indian curiosity to share, as it were, the same circle with the finished and reasonable products of sober speculation, in much the same way as a god from Greece and a god from Japan would be assigned to very different departments in the same

museum.

1 "Die Sûtra's des Vedânta," oder die Çârîraka-Mîmânsâ des Bâdarâyana nebst dem vollständigen Commentare des Çankara. Aus dem Sanskrit übersetzt von Dr. Paul Deussen. (Leipzig.) "Academy," September 8th, 1888.

Professor Deussen is to be congratulated upon having accomplished a laborious and difficult task with distinguished success. The Vedanta Sûtras—the complete and formal expression of the whole system-are now, for the first time, brought within the reach of the philosophical student, while the closely woven commentary of Çankara is appended as a guide for the perplexed. The channel is now open through which the thoughts of the Indians may find their way to a place within the scope even of lecture and handbook. The new region has been surveyed and mapped; it only remains for the trained bands of academical truthseekers to go in and possess it.

The translator is already known to us through his former work as having taken deep soundings in the ocean of Hindu thought. His contention that herein we have to deal with the product of an isolated activity, no less important for the new light it throws upon our own efforts in the same direction than the thinking of some imaginary Jovian or Saturnian philosopher, were it suddenly to be revealed to us, is opposed to the conclusions of, among others, Weber and Lorinser. The time, however, is not yet come when a satisfactory answer can be given to this or to the larger question whether a progressive activity in the line of art or science is anywhere possible without some kind of "cross-fertilization." But whether, as some suspect, a genuine channel of communication between East and West has yet to be discovered, choked, as it were, and obliterated by the sands of time, is nothing to our present purpose; the fact remains that the Indian attempt at the presentation and solution of the world-old problems of philosophy still awaits formal recognition and reception at the hands of European experts. And to these, as being careful of what may be termed the unwritten law of philosophical society-that a new comer cannot be received entirely on his own merits, but must present himself in one of the regulation uniforms-we beg to commend the statement in the preface (p. viii) to the effect that "the consequences of the fundamental doctrine of Kant lead straight to the cardinal positions of Çankara's philosophy." But it were to take a narrow and unworthy view of the resources and capacity of the system to suppose that Kant's thoughts only can be drawn out of it or poured into it; for a very short sojourn with us in his German dress will be sufficient to put even Çankara in danger of that reductio ad

Hegel, which is now such a popular process in certain quarters, while those who explore his system on the look-out for anticipations of Darwin will doubtless also find much to content them.

Thinkers, in short, of every order may be urged to take advantage of the new facilities for an Indian excursion. They will return to their several stations refreshed and strengthened, as having "breathed another air, another sky beheld." While even those whose palates are somewhat jaded by the intemperate use of philosophical stimulants may be tempted, if only by the novelty of the thing, to make one last effort to strengthen or to sweeten the cup of life with "the drowsy syrups of the East."

THE HIBBERT LECTURES AND THE

GAULISH PANTHEON1

[1888: AET. 25]

HE institution of the Hibbert lectures may be regarded as supplying a want which would otherwise be keenly felt in England as compared with France, Holland, and Germany-the want, namely, of some organized and permanent encouragement for the study of religion from the comparative and scientific as opposed to the sectarian or missionary standpoint. The foundation of the rational criticism of the Bible-the throwing open, that is, to the free application of methods tested and found fruitful in secular inquiries of a field long marked out by a thick wall of traditional prejudice as holy ground-will always rank among the most precious of the many contributions made by Germany to that common fund of deeper culture, maintained, as it were, by international effort, and upon which the liberal education of our own country is becoming more and more dependent, as the insufficiency of our academical machinery to provide for its growing needs is becoming more and more apparent. France and Holland have not been slow to tread the path traced and to a large extent cleared by Germany. Though the glory of the Tübingen school— once so notorious in England-may have departed, its traditions of labour and freedom have found worthy representatives in Leiden: the Collège de France, whose very foundation was at once a promise and a protest, includes in the number of its endowed professors one whose duty it is by widening our knowledge of religions to purify and deepen our conception of religion; but in England-in spite of endowments the magnificence of which the foreigner envies-in spite of the fact that our older academies, unlike their continental Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom" (Hibbert Lecture), by John Rhys, 1888. "Open Court," November 8, 1888.

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