These, you add, are the words of the pious Sir William Jones, whom no man will charge with infidelity. The argument, therefore, must be good. But here a slip of memory has vitiated your reasoning, for you know "the more piety, the more fraud." This, you inform us, is a notorious fact. How, then, could you expect your readers to build any thing on so pious a testimony as that of Sir William Jones? Passing over this contradiction, I shall weigh your argument on its own intrinsic merits. There are three points which solicit our attention. The alleged identity of the words Chrishna and Christ, The similarity of the outline of the history of each. The evidence of Sir William Jones, its outline and extent. First as to the names of Chrishna and Christ. How are words proved to be identical? By the similarity of the letters of which they are composed, and the identity of the root from which they are derived. Is this all? No it must also be seen that their application is the same—all these three conditions must concur to prove a word identical, and the absence even of one of them precludes the possibility of identity. Thomas and Richard not containing the same letters are not identical names: Messiah and Christ are not identical designations for they are derived from two distinct roots. Virtus and virtue are not identical words; the first denotes valour; the second moral excellence. The latter is more extensive in its application than the former. A Jacobite, some centuries ago, and a Jacobin now, express not the same character; for then it meant a partizan of James, and now it means a factious leveller;-a wig as applied to a covering for the head, and a whig as descriptive of an adherent to certain political opinions, are not characteristic of the same things, are not identical words. These three conditions, then, must concur to prove two words In the names identical; and neither of these can you establish. Chrishna and Christ there are four letters similar, and six dissimilar. No two words can be identical as far as their component letters are concerned in which there are six dissimilar letters. It will not, for a moment, be pretended that the words Napoleon and Naples are identical, though in them there are only two dissimilar letters, with five similar ones. In fact, if there was only one letter in the one which was wanting in the other, especially if that letter was a consonant, this would be sufficient to prevent us inferring from the component letters that the two words were identical. The truth of this remark may be strikingly illustrated from the Hebrew language. The words Sereph and Tereph differ only in their first consonant, and yet are very far from being identical words. As far, then, as the letters of which Chrishna and Christ are composed, the two names are not identical. The roots also of the two words are perfectly distinct. The one is Sanscrit, the other Greek-the one meaning to anoint, the other The two roots denoting "dark blue, approaching to black."* then, are totally dissimilar, and the words, therefore, are not identical as far as it regards their derivation. Still less is the application of the words the same; if so-if it is the same, they are indifferently applied to the two persons in question. But the word Christos has never been used to designate the Indian God, nor the word Chrishna to designate the Jewish Messiah. Upon the clearest proof, then, does it appear, that words Christos and Chrishna are not identical. But similar actions are ascribed to both, and therefore they are one and the same person. Similar actions are ascribed to Mr. Carlile and Mr. Taylor; they both eat--drink-sleep. They both read and write; they both live in England, and in the 19th century; they both employ their tongues and pens against Christianity, clearly, therefore, are they the same persons. The argument of Mr. Taylor is founded on this kind of a syllogism. Identity consists in similarity-thus: The sun shines; the moon shines; the sun revolves round its axis; the moon revolves round its axis: the sun is acted upon by gravity; the moon is acted upon by gravity, therefore the sun If this reasoning is not logical, instances of similarity prove nothing as to the identity of objects, if there are other dissimilar qualities essential to their nature. Let us, then, enquire if such dissimilar qualities exist between Chrishna and Christos. is the moon. Mr. Taylor has given in his oration the instances of similarity that exist between the histories of the two, and a little more than I can discover in Sir W. Jones. For he asserts "that there will be found the stories of his miracles, his preaching, and his actions, even to the minuteness of his washing the feet of his disciples." implying that much more is to be found detailed in Sir W. Jones's works correspondent with the actions of Christ, than he has stated; nay, so much more, that it descends even to the minuteness of washing his disciples feet. But Mr. Taylor cannot verify his insinuation. " In the Sanscrit dictionary we have, says Mr. Taylor, the whole story of the incarnate deity born of a virgin, and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning tyrant of his country who sought the young child's life," and put to death all the children of the place of his nativity from "two years old and under." Whether Mr. Taylor would wish to intimate to his readers that the words included by him in italics, namely, 66 sought the young child's life" "from two years' old and under," are quotations from Sir W. Jones, or not, I will not undertake to say, although the impression on reading the passage is that he did so intimate. The ambiguity, however, is sufficient of itself to authorize me in apprizing my readers that they are not to be found * Sir W. Jones's Works, vol i., p. 267. in the pages to which Mr. Taylor has referred. Nor can I there discover the words used by Mr. Taylor "of the place of his nativity," or " miraculously," or " the reigning tyrant of his country, or that Chrishna was "born of a virgin." Making, then, the deductions which the foregoing remarks may justify, from the instances of similarity adduced, or conceived to be adduced by Mr. Taylor, and we have the following:- Instances of Similarity. I. A tyrant at the time of the birth of II. Chrishna performs miracles. IV. Chrishna washes the feet of the Instances of Dissimilarity. I. Chrishna was an incarnate God.- II. Chrishna was the son of Devaci and III. Chrishna was the predicted de- 7. The birth of Chrishna was conceal- 71. Chrishna is fostered by a herdsman surnamed Ananda.-No such thing read or said of Christ. VII. Chrishna while a boy slays a terrible serpent with a number of giants and monsters.-No such thing read or said of Christ. VIII. At a more advanced age Chrishna puts to death his cruel enemy Cunsa, and foments and conducts a cruel war. No such thing read or said of Christ. IX. Chrishna passes his youth with X. Chrishna is also called Vandiva, and your " its plenitude and magnificence.-No such thing read or said of Christ. XIV. Chrishna exhibited an appearance of excessive libertinism, and had wives and mistresses in number at command. No such thing read or said of Christ. "The And if to this list I was to add all the actions ascribed to Christ, to which nothing parallel can be found in the history of Chrishna, which ought to be done in order to judge of the identity of the persons, the instances of dissimilarity would occupy no small part of this reply. We have seen then that the two persons in question have different names; were born in different countries; of different parents; are possessed of essentially different characters and consequently they cannot be identical. One or two instances of similarity indeed have been adduced, but they are such as may be found to exist between persons confessedly distinct. The sun, therefore, is not more dissimilar, Mr. Taylor, to the moon, than is Chrishna to Christ. Neither are their names alike, nor their signification, nor their histories. So much for proof demonstrative;" so much for your "clearly-established alibi." Nor are my readers to imagine that Sir W. Jones was a man to be led away by this kind of demonstration. adamantine pillars of our faith (he says) cannot be shaken by any investigation of Heathen mythology.' Another passage confirmatory of my statement is to be found in vol. i. p. 233. of his works." I who cannot help believing the divinity of the Messiah, (that is, the divinity of his mission) from the undisputed antiquity and manifest completion of many prophecies, especially those of Isaiah, in the only person recorded by history to whom they are applicable, am obliged of course to believe the sanctity of the venerable books to which that sacred person refers as genuine," (that is, the books of the Old Testament.) And if the result of his observations had been totally different, if he had seen the force of Mr. Taylor's demonstration, there can be no doubt that he would have acknowledged it, as he himself informs us, that if this had been the case in reference to the Mosaic account of the primitive world, namely, if he had found that account contradicted instead of confirmed by his historical researches, he would have published his conclusions, "not indeed with equal pleasure, but with equal confidence, for truth is mighty, and, whatever be its consequences, must always prevail." The avowed adherence then of such a man as Sir W. Jones, of so great a lover of truth, of one who had the best means of judging of the cogency of Mr. Taylor's demonstration-the avowed adherence to Christianity of Sir W. Jones, after the most accurate and minute investigation, is no mean presumption against the correctness of Mr. Taylor's inference, and in favour of my exposure of its supposed justness. But even supposing my analysis of the pretended demonstration to be incorrect, of which I have no apprehension, but supposing, for the sake of argument, that the premises set up by Mr. Taylor remain good, the inconclusiveness of his deduction may be made apparent, and that in two ways:-First, Mr. Carlile tells us that Dr. Lardner's quotations from the works of early Christian writers in proof of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament, establish nothing, because these books may be made up of those very quotations themselves. In other words, Paul and John may have copied from Justin Martyr and Tertullian, instead of the latter quoting from Paul and John. The argument itself may be good, and its application in this case absurd. But not to dispute the propriety of either, it is clear by the shewing of unbelievers themselves, that the Indians may have borrowed from the Christians (if any loan at all be made which cannot be proved) as well as the Christians from the Indians. But it is said the outline was anterior to the time of our Saviour. Yes, but not the detail. This is not included in the "we know very certainly" of Sir W. Jones. Nay, the very reverse is implied, for he gives it as his opinion, that "the spurious Gospels had been brought to India, and the wildest parts of them repeated to the Hindus, who engrafted them on the old fable," or, in other words, on the general outline. Secondly: No one has ever suspected that Sir I. Newton borrowed his doctrine of attraction from India. Yet there, we are assured by Sir W. Jones, it existed long before the birth of our great philosopher, and the following is the chief passage in the writings of the Hindus on which he builds his opinion. "There is a strong propensity which dances through every atom, and attracts the minutest particle to some particular object; search this universe from its base to its summit, from fire to air, from water to earth, from all below the moon to all above the celestial spheres, and thou wilt not find a corpuscle destitute of that natural attractability; the very point of the first thread in this apparently entangled skein, is no other than such a principle of attraction, and all principles beside are void of a real basis; from such a propensity arises every motion perceived in heavenly or in terrestrial bodies; it is a disposition to be attracted which taught hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself on the magnet; it is the same disposition which impels the light straw to attach itself firmly on amber; it is this quality which gives every substance in nature a tendency towards another, and an inclination forcibly directed to a determinate point."* Two things then may present the most perfect resemblance and yet be derived from different sources, originate with different persons in different countries. Indeed this is nothing more than we now see daily before our eyes in the discoveries which are made * Vol. I. p. 171: |