felves, and that, instead of returning evil for evil, we fhould confer benefits even on those who injure us; but the firft rule is implied in a fpeech of LYSIAS, and expreffed in diftinct phrafes by THALES and PITTACUS; and I have even seen it word for word in the original of CONFUCIUS, which I carefully compared with the Latin tranflation. It has been ufual with zealous men, to ridicule and abufe all thofe, who dare on this point to quote the Chinese philosopher; but, instead of supporting their caufe, they would shake it, if it could be thaken, by their uncandid afperity; for they ought to remember, that one great end of revelation, as it is most expressly declared, was not to inftruct the wife and few, but the many and unenlightened. If the converfation, therefore, of the Pandits and Maulavis in this country fhall ever be attempted by protestant missionaries, they must beware of afferting, while they teach the gospel of truth, what those Pandits and Maulavis would know to be falfe the former would cite the beautiful Aryá couplet, which was written at least three centuries before our era, and which pronounces the duty of a good man, even in the moment of his deftruction, to confift not only in forgiving, but even in a defire of benefiting, his deftroyer, as the Sandal-tree, in the inftant of its overthrow, fheds perfume on the axe, which fells it; and the latter 66 would triumph in repeating the verse of SADI, who represents a return of good for good as a flight reciprocity, but says to the virtuous man, Confer benefits on him who has injured thee," ufing an Arabick fentence, and a maxim apparently of the ancient Arabs. Nor would the Mufelmans fail to recite four diftichs of HAFIZ, who has illuftrated that maxim with fanciful but elegant allufions; Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe, And store with pearls the hand, that brings thee wo; Now there is not a fhadow of reafon for believing, that the poet of Shiraz had borrowed this doctrine from the Christians; but, as the cause of Chriftianity could never be promoted by falfehood or errour, so it will never be obstructed by candour and veracity; for the leffons of CON-` FUCIUS and CHANACYA, of SADI and HA'FIZ, are unknown even at this day to millions of Chinese and Hindus, Perfians and other Mahommedans, who toil for their daily fupport; nor, were they known ever so perfectly, would they have a divine fanction with the multitude; fo that, in order to enlighten the minds of the ignorant, and to enforce the obedience of the perverse, it is evidently a priori, that a revealed religion was neceffary in the great fyftem of providence; but my principal motive for introducing this topick, was to give you a specimen of that ancient oriental morality, which is comprised in an infinite number of Perfian, Arabick, and Sanferit compofitions. Nearly one half of jurisprudence is closely connected with ethicks; but, fince the learned of Afia confider most of their laws as positive and divine inftitutions, and not as the mere conclufions of human reason, and fince I have prepared a mass of extremely curious materials, which I referve for an introduction to the digeft of Indian laws, I proceed to the fourth division, which confifts principally of Science tranfcendently fo named, or the knowledge of abstract quantities, of their limits, properties and relations, impreffed on the understanding with the force of irresistible demonftration, which, as all other knowledge depends.at beft on our fallible fenfes, and in great measure on ftill more fallible teftimony, can only be found, in pure mental abftractions; though for all the purposes of life, our own fenfes, and even the credible testimony of others, give us in most cases the highest degree of certainty, phyfical and moral, IV. I HAVE already had occafion to touch on the Indian metaphyficks of natural bodies according to the most celebrated of the Afiatick schools, from which the Pythagoreans are fuppofed to have borrowed many of their opinions; and, as we learn from CICERO, that the old fages of Europe had an idea of centripetal force and a principle of univerfal gravitation (which they never indeed attempted to demonstrate), so I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the neverfading laurels of our immortal NEWTON, that the whole of his theology and part of his philofophy may be found in the Védas and even in the works of the Sufis: that moft fubtil fpirit, which he suspected to pervade natural bodies, and, lying concealed in them, to cause attraction and repulfion, the emiffion, reflection, and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, fenfation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a fifth element endued with thofe very powers; and the Védas abound with allufions to a force univerfally attractive, which they chiefly ascribe to the Sun, thence called Aditya, or the Attractor; a name designed by the mythologists to mean the child of the Goddefs ADITI; but the moft wonderful paffage on the theory of attraction occurs in the charming allegorical poem of SHIRI'N and FERHAD, or the Divine Spirit and a human Soul difintereftedly pious; a work which from the first verse to the laft, is a blaze of religious and poetical fire. The whole passage appears to me fo curious, that I make no apology for giving you a faithful tranflation of it: "There " is a strong propensity, which dances through 66 every atom, and attracts the minutest particle "to fome peculiar object; fearch this universe "from its bafe to its fummit, from fire to air, "from water to earth, from all below the Moon "to all above the celeftial spheres, and thou "wilt not find a corpufcle deftitute of that na"tural attractibility; the very point of the first "thread, in this apparently tangled skein, is no "other than such a principle of attraction, and "all principles befide are void of a real bafis; "from fuch a propenfity arifes every motion perceived in heavenly or in terrestrial bodies; "it is a difpofition to be attracted, which taught "hard steel to rush from its place and rivet itself "on the magnet; it is the fame disposition, "which impels the light ftraw to attach itself firmly on amber; it is this quality, which gives every fubftance in nature a tendency toward another, and an inclination forcibly directed "to a determinate point." These notions are vague, indeed, and unfatisfactory; but permit me to afk, whether the laft paragraph of NewTON's incomparable work goes much farther, |