human life, for any one to reach to that perfection of which you speak.

BR. Of that fact I am well aware, and I believe that most modern philosophers of the Sanchya school admit that the present life is not sufficient for the purpose of arriving at a transcendental perfection: therefore, you perceive that a wider field is opened for the operation of the principle, and therefore you will probably be somewhat more ready, or at least less reluctant, to receive the Sanchya theory.

EUR. Nay, indeed, I must freely and fairly tell you, that I can never be brought to an acquiescence in such extravagances, which do violence to all feeling and reason.

BR. Exactly so; you acknowledge that your prejudices against the Sanchya philosophy are insuperable even by reasoning, and that therefore the force of affirmation, on which your own philosophy rests, is the most convincing proof to you of that which you believe. Now, permit me to ask you, do you not admit that the future state of being is endless in duration?

EUR. I do admit it.

BR. And do you not also admit that improvement in wisdom and power may be continually progressing in that state?

EUR. I see no reason to deny it.

BR. Furthermore, do you regard infinite power and wisdom as stationary or progressive?

EUR. Clearly, it must be admitted that they are stationary, for it would be a contradiction in terms to say that infinity could receive addition or acces

sion.

BR. If then the mind is continually making progress in wisdom and power, must it not be арproaching nearer and nearer to infinite wisdom and infinite power, that is, to what you call omniscience and omnipotence?

EUR. The mind may make approaches, and may be susceptible of vast improvements, but still it may fall far short of omniscience and omnipotence.

BR. But if the mind is making progress towards infinitude of wisdom and power, and yet never reaches or never can reach that point, this inability must arise from some impediment to its progress. You say, that the mind may make continued progress in wisdom and power-you say, that it may make this progress in a state of being which has no end; now, how can it fail of arriving at infinitude in an infinity of duration, unless some stop be put to its progress? And what is it that makes the interruption? And at what period does improvement cease?

EUR. We cannot speak positively of a future state.

BR. You have spoken so positively as to affirm of it that its duration is infinite, and that it is a state of progressive improvement. I wish you then only to say, what prevents the mind from arriving at omniscience and omnipotence, if it be continually making progress thereunto.

EUR. If I were to admit that the mind of a created being could ever attain unto infinite power and wisdom, I should make a concession that it was possible for man to become god, and so I should virtually uphold a system of atheism.

BR. You are not the first that has affirmed that the Sanchya doctrines are essentially atheistic; but I can assure you that there are many who hold those doctrines who are very far from atheism : indeed, I will say that your views of philosophy are far more atheistic than mine; for though you admit the existence of a deity having infinite wisdom and power, yet your notions of infinite wisdom and power seem to be very limited and imperfect.

EUR. My notions are, that omniscience and omnipotence belong only to one supreme being, and that they are unattainable by any created being.

BR. But notwithstanding that you deny the attainableness of omniscience and omnipotence, you acknowledge the existence of those principles on which they are manifestly attainable. There is

somewhat in this that is inconsistent, and that is quite as perplexing as the affirmation that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time. Either the mind goes on increasing in wisdom and power, or it does not. If it goes on increasing to all eternity, it must arrive at infinity of power and wisdom; but if it does not arrive at omnipotence and omniscience, how, when, and where, is its progress interrupted?

EUR. Truly, I must say that to answer you in this matter is not in my power. I cannot suppose that the created should ever attain unto the power of the uncreated. And now, after all that we have said on this topic and on others connected with the Sanchya philosophy, I am of opinion that the discussion has not produced any, even the slightest, assimilation of sentiment between us. We leave off nearly, if not quite, as we began. I must, however, be permitted one remark, and that is, that I do not know any one system of philosophy, or, if I may so speak, of antiphilosophy, which may not be pushed into absurdity by an ingenious arrangement of questions. And I think that when we quit sense, we talk nonsense.

BR. So do I.

504

PAUPIAH BRAHMINY, THE DUBASH OF

MADRAS

THERE may be an appearance of pedantry in the phrase, but it is not the less true as a proposition, that there are two histories of India, an esoteric and an exoteric history. By the latter, is meant only the general course of political and civil events, in our relations with the people, whom Providence has placed under our rule; the mere outline, in which great changes and momentous transactions are, as it were, mapped and delineated ;—by the other, the interminglings of our respective domestic histories, and which, though never formally recorded, are still valuable, inasmuch as they lift up the curtain to features of character peculiar to each, and are perhaps the more valuable, because, being beneath the diguity of regular history, they are chiefly oral traditions, which in a few years are forgotten, and sometimes impossible to be recovered with tolerable exactness. Yet, as moral pictures