Centenary Review of the Asiatic Society of Bengal: From 1784 to 1883

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Thacker, Spink and Company, 1885 - 431 pages

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Page 4 - You will investigate whatever is rare in the stupendous fabric of nature; will correct the geography of Asia by uew observations and discoveries; will trace the annals and even traditions of those nations who, from time to time, have peopled or desolated it; and will bring to light their various forms of Government, with their institutions, civil and religious; you will examine their improvements and methods in arithmetic and...
Page 57 - Linnaeus, without giving pain to the objects of our examination, few studies would afford us more solid instruction, or more exquisite delight; but I never could learn by what right, nor conceive with what feelings, a naturalist can occasion the misery of an innocent bird, and leave its young, perhaps, to perish in a cold nest, because it has gay plumage, and has never been accurately delineated ; or deprive even a butterfly of its natural enjoyments, because it has the misfortune to be rare or beautiful...
Page 10 - It gave me inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the midst of so noble an amphitheatre, almost encircled by the vast regions of Asia, which has ever been esteemed the nurse of sciences, the inventress of delightful and useful arts, the scene of glorious actions, fertile in the productions of human genius...
Page 5 - Let us, if you please, for the present, have weekly evening meetings in this hall, for the purpose of hearing original papers read on such subjects as fall within the circle of our inquiries. Let all curious and learned men be invited to send their tracts to our secretary, for which.
Page 4 - ... their systems of morality, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; their skill in chirurgery and medicine ; and their advancement, whatever it may be, in anatomy and chemistry. To this you will add researches into their agriculture, manufactures, trade; and...
Page 5 - ... it should contain nothing true; and perhaps it may be advisable at first, in order to prevent any difference of sentiment on particular points not immediately before us, to establish but one rule, namely, to have no rules at all.
Page 149 - A DISCOURSE ON THE INSTITUTION OF A SOCIETY, FOR INQUIRING INTO THE HISTORY, CIVIL AND NATURAL, THE ANTIQUITIES, ARTS, SCIENCES, AND LITERATURE, OF ASIA.
Page 18 - Calcutta, from among whom the members of their society were to be selected, observes — that "a mere man of letters, retired from the world and allotting his whole time to philosophical or literary pursuits, is a character unknown among Europeans resident in India, where every individual is a man of business in the civil or military state, and constantly occupied, either in the affairs of government, in the administration of justice, in some department of revenue or commerce, or in one of the liberal...
Page 26 - ... schools of Freyberg and Edinburgh were warmly espoused by devoted partisans, the labours of an individual, unassisted by the advantages of wealth or station in society, were almost unheeded. Mr. William Smith, an English surveyor, published his ' Tabular View of the British Strata ' in 1 790, wherein he proposed a classification of the secondary formations in the West of England. Although he had not communicated with Werner, it appeared by this work that he had arrived at the same views respecting...
Page 62 - In laying open a discovery of this nature, some little explanation is generally expected of the means by which it has been attained. Like most other inventions, when once found it appears extremely simple; and as in most others, accident, rather than study, has had the merit of solving the enigma which has so long baffled the learned.

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