a great, and noble, and loving soul, such as was Bunsen; with a man intrepid in his thoughts, his words, and his deeds, such as was John Stuart Mill; or with a scholar who, whether he had been quarrying heavy blocks, or chiselling the most brittle filigree work, poured out all his treasures before you with the pride and pleasure of a child, such as was Eugène Burnouf. A Congress therefore, and particularly an International Congress, would certainly seem to answer some worthy purpose, were it only by bringing together fellow-workers of all countries and ages, by changing what were to us merely great names into pleasant companions, and by satisfying that very right and rational curiosity which we all feel, after having read a really good book, of seeing what the man looks like who could achieve such triumphs.

All this is perfectly true; yet, however pleasant to ourselves this social intercourse may appear, in the eyes of the world at large it will hardly be considered a sufficient excuse for our existence. In order therefore to satisfy that outer world, that we are really doing something, we point of course to the papers which are read at our public meetings, and to the discussions which they elicit. Much as I value that feature also in a scientific congress, I confess I doubt, and I know that many share that doubt, whether the same result might not be obtained with much less trouble. A paper that contains something really new and valuable, the result, it may be, of years of toil and thought, requires to be read with care in a quiet corner of our own study, before the expression of our assent or dissent can be of any weight or value. There is too much hollow praise, and occasionally too much wrangling and ill-natured abuse at our scientific tournaments, and the world at large, which is never without a tinge of malice and a vein of quiet humour, has frequently expressed its concern at the waste of "oil and vinegar" which is occasioned by the frequent meetings of our British and Foreign Associations.

What then is the real use of a Congress, such as that which has brought us together this week from all parts of the world? What is the real excuse for our existence? Why are we here, and not in our workshops?

It seems to me that the real and permanent use of these scientific gatherings is twofold.

(1) They enable us to take stock, to compare notes, to see where we are, and to find out where we ought to be going.

(2) They give us an opportunity, from time to time, to tell the world where we are, what we have been doing for the world, and what, in return, we expect the world to do for us.

The danger of all scientific work at present, not only among Oriental scholars, but, as far as I can see, everywhere, is the tendency to extreme specialisation. Our age shows in that respect a decided reaction against the spirit of a former age, which those with grey heads among us can still remember, an age represented in Germany by such names as Humboldt, Ritter, Böckh, Johannes Müller, Bopp, Bunsen, and others; men who look to us like giants, carrying a weight of knowledge far too heavy for the shoulders of such mortals as now be; aye, men who were giants, but whose chief strength consisted in this, that they were never entirely absorbed or bewildered by special researches, but kept their eye steadily on the highest objects of all human knowledge; who could trace the vast outlines of the kosmos of nature or the kosmos of the mind with an unwavering hand, and to whose maps and guide books we must still recur, whenever we are in danger of losing our way in the mazes of minute research. At the present moment such works as Humboldt's Kosmos, or Bopp's Comparative Grammar, or Bunsen's Christianity and Mankind, would be impossible. No one would dare to write them, for fear of not knowing the exact depth at which the Protogenes Haeckelii has lately been discovered or the lengthening of a vowel in the Samhitapátha of the Rig-veda. It is quite right that this should be so, at least, for a time; but all rivers, all brooks, all rills, are meant to flow into the ocean, and all special knowledge, to keep it from stagnation, must have an outlet into the general knowledge of the world. Knowledge for its own sake, as it is sometimes called, is the most dangerous idol that a student can worship. We despise the miser who amasses money for the sake of money, but still more contemptible is the intellectual miser who hoards up knowledge instead of spending it, though, with regard to most of our knowledge, we may be well assured and satisfied that, as we brought nothing into the world, so we may carry nothing out.

Against this danger of mistaking the means for the end, of

making bricks without making mortar, of working for ourselves instead of working for others, meetings such as our own, bringing together so large a number of the first Oriental scholars of Europe, seem to me a most excellent safe-guard. They draw us out of our shell, away from our common routine, away from that small orbit of thought in which each of us moves day after day, and make us realise more fully, that there are other stars moving all around us in our little universe, that we all belong to one celestial system, or to one terrestrial commonwealth, and that, if we want to see real progress made in that work with which we are more specially entrusted, the re-conquest of the Eastern world, we must work with one another, for one another, like members of one body, like soldiers of one army, guided by common principles, striving after common purposes, and sustained by common sympathies. Oriental literature is of such enormous dimensions that our small army of scholars can occupy certain prominent positions only; but those points, like the stations of a trigonometrical survey, ought to be carefully chosen, so as to be able to work in harmony together. I hope that in that respect our Congress may prove of special benefit. We shall hear, each of us, from others, what they wish us to do.

"Why don't you finish this?" "Why don't you publish that?" are questions which we have already heard asked by many of our friends. We shall be able to avoid what happens so often, that two men collect materials for exactly the same work, and we may possibly hear of some combined effort to carry out great works, which can only be carried out viribus unitis, and of which I may at least mention one, a translation of the Sacred Books of Mankind. Important progress has already been made for setting on foot this great undertaking, an undertaking which I think the world has a right to demand from Oriental scholars, but which can only be carried out by joint action. This Congress has helped us to lay the foundation-stone, and I trust that at our next Congress we shall be able to produce some tangible results.

I now come to the second point. A Congress enables us to tell the world what we have been doing. This, it seems to me, is particularly needful with regard to Oriental studies which, with the exception of Hebrew, still stand outside the pale of our schools and Universities, and are cultivated by the very smallest number of

students. And yet, I make bold to say, that during the last hundred, and still more during the last fifty years, Oriental studies have contributed more than any other branch of scientific research to change, to purify, to clear, and intensify the intellectual atmosphere of Europe, and to widen our horizon in all that pertains to the Science of Man, in history, philology, theology, and philosophy. We have not only conquered and annexed new worlds to the ancient empire of learning, but we have leavened the old world with ideas that are already fermenting even in the daily bread of our schools and Universities. Most of those here present know that I am not exaggerating; but as the world is sceptical while listening to orations pro domo, I shall attempt to make good my

assertions.

At first, the study of Oriental literature was a matter of curiosity only, and it is so still to a great extent, particularly in England. Sir William Jones, whose name is the only one among Oriental scholars that has ever obtained a real popularity in England, represents most worthily that phase of Oriental studies. Read only the two volumes of his Life, and they will certainly leave on your mind the distinct impression that Sir William Jones was not only a man of extensive learning and refined taste, but undoubtedly a very great man-one in a million. He was a good classical scholar of the old school, a well-read historian, a thoughtful lawyer, a clearheaded politician, and a true gentleman, in the old sense of the word. He moved in the best, I mean the most cultivated society, the great writers and thinkers of the day listened to him with respect, and say what you like, we still live by his grace, we still draw on that stock of general interest which he excited in the English mind for Eastern subjects.

Yet the interest which Sir William Jones took in Oriental literature was purely aesthetic. He chose what was beautiful in Persian and translated it, as he would translate an ode of Horace. He was charmed with Kâlidâsa's play of Sakuntala-and who is not?-and he left us his classical reproduction of one of the finest of Eastern gems. Being a judge in India, he thought it his duty to acquaint himself with the native law-books in their original language, and he gave us his masterly translation of the Laws of Manu. William Jones was fully aware of the startling similarity between

Sir

Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek. More than a hundred years ago, in a letter written to Prince Adam Czartoryski, in the year 1770, he says: "Many learned investigators of antiquity are fully persuaded that a very old and almost primeval language was in use among the northern nations, from which not only the Celtic dialect, but even Greek and Latin are derived; in fact we find waτýp and μýtnp in Persian, nor is Ovɣáτηp so far removed from dockter, or even ovoμa and nomen from Persian nám, as to make it ridiculous to suppose that they sprang from the same root. We must confess," he adds, "that these researches are very obscure and uncertain, and, you will allow, not so agreeable as an ode of Hafez, or an elegy of Amr'alkeis." In a letter, dated 1787, he says: "You will be surprised at the resemblance between Sanskrit and both Greek and Latin."

Colebrooke also, the great successor of Sir William Jones, was fully aware of the relationship between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, and even Slavonic. I possess some curious MS. notes of his, of the year 1801 or 1802, containing long lists of words, expressive of the most essential ideas of primitive life, and which he proved to be identical in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, and Slavonic.1

Yet neither Colebrooke nor Sir William Jones perceived the full import of these facts. Sir William Jones died young; Colebrooke's energies, marvellous as they were, were partly absorbed by official work, so that it was left to German and French scholars to bring to light the full wealth of the mine which those great English scholars had been the first to open. We know now that in language, and in all that is implied by language, India and Europe are one; but to prove this, against the incredulity of all the greatest scholars of the day, was no easy matter. It could be done effectually in one way only, viz. by giving to Oriental studies a strictly scientific character, by requiring from Oriental students not only the devotion of an amateur, but the same thoroughness, minuteness, and critical accuracy which were long considered the exclusive property of Greek and Latin scholars. I could not think of giving here a history of the work done during the last

1 These lists of common Aryan words were published in the Academy, October 10th, 1874, and in the fourth volume of my Chips, p. 418.