and whether any fubfequent experiments have thrown light on a subject fo abstruse and obfcure that the fublime aftronomy and exquifitely beautiful geometry, with which that work is illumined, should in any degree be approached by the Mathematicians of Afia, while of all Europeans, who ever lived, ARCHIMEDES alone was capable of emulating them, would be a vain expectation; but we must fufpend our opinion of Indian aftronomical knowledge, till the Súrya fiddbánta shall appear in our own language, and even then (to adopt a phrase of CICERO) our greedy and capacious ears will by no means be fatisfied; for in order to complete an historical account of genuine Hindu aftronomy, we require verbal tranflations of at least three other Sanferit books; of the treatise by PARASARA, for the firft age of Indian science, of that by VARA'HA, with the copious comment of his very learned son, for the middle age, and of those written by BHASCARA, for times comparatively modern. The valuable and now acceffible works of the last mentioned philofopher, contain also an univerfal, or fpecious, arithmetick, with one chapter at least on geometry; nor would it, furely, be difficult to procure, through our several residents with the Pifbwá and with SCINDHYA, the older books on algebra, which BHASCARA mentions, and on which Mr. DAVIS would juftly fet a

very high value; but the Sanfcrit work, from which we might expect the most ample and important information, is entitled Cfbétráderfa, or a View of Geometrical Knowledge, and was compiled in a very large volume by order of the illuftrious JAYASINHA, comprising all that remains on that science in the facred language of India: it was inspected in the weft by a Pandit now in the service of Lieutenant WILFORD, and might, I am perfuaded, be purchased at Jayanagar, where Colonel POLIER had permiffion from the Rájá to buy the four Védas themfelves. THUS have I anfwered, to the best of my power, the three firft queftions obligingly transmitted to us by profeffor PLAYFAIR ; whether the Hindus have books in Sanferit exprefsly on geometry, whether they have any fuch on arithmetick, and whether a tranflation of the Súrya fiddhánta be not the great defideratum on the fubject of Indian aftronomy: to his three last questions, whether an accurate fummary account of all the Sanfcrit works on that fubject, a delineation of the Indian celestial sphere, with correct remarks on it, and a description of the astronomical inftruments used by the ancient Hindus, would not feverally be of great utility, we cannot but anfwer in the affirmative, provided that the utmost critical fagacity were applied in distinguishing fuch works, conftellations,

and inftruments, as are clearly of Indian origin, from fuch as were introduced into this country by Mufelman aftronomers from Tartary and Perfia, or in later days by Mathematicians from Europe.

V. FROM all the properties of man and of nature, from all the various branches of science, from all the deductions of human reason, the general corollary, admitted by Hindus, Arabs, and Tartars, by Perfians, and by Chinese, is the fupremacy of an all-creating and all-preferving fpirit, infinitely wife, good, and powerful, but infinitely removed from the comprehenfion of his most exalted creatures; nor are there in any language (the ancient Hebrew always excepted) more pious and fublime addresses to the being of beings, more fplendid enumerations of his attributes, or more beautiful defcriptions of his vifible works, than in Arabick, Perfian and Sanferit, especially in the Koran, the introductions to the poems of SADI, NIZA'MI, and FIRDAUSI, the four Védas and many parts of the numerous Puránas: but fupplication and praise would not fatisfy the boundless imagination of the Vedántì and Sufi theologists, who blending uncertain metaphyficks with undoubted principles of religion, have prefumed to reafon confidently on the very nature and effence of the divine fpirit, and afserted in a very remote age, what multitudes of

Hindus and Mufelmans affert at this hour, that all fpirit is homogéneous, that the spirit of GoD is in kind the fame with that of man, though differing from it infinitely in degree, and that, as material fubftance is mere illufion, there exifts in this universe only one generick fpiritual fubstance, the fole primary caufe, efficient, fubstantial and formal of all fecondary causes and of all appearance's whatever, but endued in its higheft degree, with a fublime providential wisdom, and proceeding by ways incomprehenfible to the fpirits which emane from it; an opinion, which GOTAMA never taught, and which we have no authority to believe, but which, as it is grounded on the doctrine of an immaterial creator fupremely wife, and a conftant preserver fupremely benevolent, differs as widely from the pantheifm of SPINOZA and TOLAND, as the affirmation of a propofition differs from the negation of it; though the last named profeffor of that infane philofophy had the baseness to conceal his meaning under the very words of Saint PAUL, which are cited by NEWTON for a purpofe totally different, and has even used a phrase, which occurs, indeed, in the Véda, but in a fense diametrically opposite to that, which he would have given it. The paffage, to which I allude, is in a speech of VARUNA to his fon, where he fays: "That spirit, from which these created

"beings proceed; through which having pro"ceeded from it, they live; toward which they "tend and in which they are ultimately abforb "ed, that spirit ftudy to know; that spirit is the "Great One.'

The fubject of this difcourfe, gentlemen, is inexhaustible: it has been my endeavour to say as much on it as poffible in the fewest words; and, at the beginning of next year, I hope to close these general difquifitions with topicks measureless in extent, but lefs abftruse than that, which has this day been difcuffed, and better adapted to the gaiety, which feems to have prevailed in the learned banquets of the Greeks, and which ought, furely, to prevail in every symposiack assembly.