ASIATIC STUDIES.*

A FEW years ago Sir Alfred Lyall, long one of the most distinguished members of the Indian Civil Service, and latterly Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, was happily inspired to give the world, under the modest title of Verses Written in India, some very admirable poems which had been long known to a fortunate few. They gradually made their way ; and now we suppose there are few good judges who would not say that a dozen or so of them indicate the high-water mark which has been reached by Anglo- Indian literary genius. There have been writers, like Maine and Macaulay, who spent part of their lives in India, and whose names have become household words, the first amongst highly educated men, the second through half the world. Neither of these, however, were Anglo-Indians properly so-called ; they did not give the greater part of their lives to India.

Some years before he published his poems, Sir Alfred Lyall printed a volume of prose which he called Asiatic Studies. It was a book both important and interesting, though it had not the unique quality of its author's verse. Sir Alfred has now re- issued that volume with some additions, and has added to it a companion. We do not propose to say anything about the first volume because it is substantially the same as that which a large proportion of the persons, interested in the sort of specu- lations it contains, learnt to know in its former shape. We may, however, express our personal regret at the disappear- ance from it of a paper on Islam in India which was one of the most notable contained in the edition of 1882, and which when it first appeared in, if we remember right, the Theological Review, was recognised by persons in a position to know as a valuable piece of political service, done at the right time and in the right way. We shall limit what we • Asiatic Studies, Religious and Sodal. By Sir Alfred C Lyall, B.C.B., D.C.L. Flint and Second Series. S 'vols. London : John Murray. Deal

have to say to the second volume, which consists chiefly not of new matter, but of matter new in its present form, and much of which may have escaped attention, scattered, as the papers containing it have been, through many pub- lications.

The first part of the first chapter of Vol. II. is written in the character of Vamadeo Shastri, a Brahmin, under whose name Si: Alfred hides himself. It sets forth ex- tremely well the havoc which has been done in India by the new wine we have long been pouring into old bottles. There are some who think that Christian civilisation, as distinguished from Christian beliefs, will ultimately over- spread India ; in other words, that the religion of the Codes will be a sufficient guide to its populations. This is very far indeed from being our Brahmin's view. He sees that what has guided the mind of his countrymen for so many years is going, and that we have nothing, which there is any chance of their accepting, to offer in its stead. The religion preached to them as Christianity is largely founded on metaphysical notions worked out by the subtle brain of the Greek, but then it has become a matter of faith and practice with all orthodox persons not to go behind those metaphysical notions which it is considered impious to treat as anything bat established certainties. The Hindoo will refuse to accept these metaphysical notions as certainties, will treat them as mere phases of thought, and dig down beneath them to all eternity, always pursuing the phantasm of certainty, but not willing to make believe to himself that

he has found it. If this be true, if there is not the faintest chance of Christianity in any of its numerous forms making

any sort of real way in India, even in its least dogmatic shape, the political outlook is hardly likely to point permanently to " Set fair."

The second part of the first chapter is given to Mr. Balfour's Foundations of Belief, and sets forth the impression made upon the mind of the same imaginary Brahmin by that work. It takes the reader into a very rarefied atmosphere indeed, and will find its chief students in two classes,—first, the rather limited company of true philosophers, persons who

really believe that metaphysics represent some substantial reality, and the larger company, chiefly consisting of women, who like to chatter about such grave matters, understanding

of them just about as much as their delightful sister who. after listening with the deepest attention to a very profound discourse on astronomy, much to the delight of the lecturer, surprised him by saying : "There is just one question I should like to ask you. Would you mind telling me what an angle is ? "

The third section of the first chapter treats of the theo- logical situation in India, and is supposed to be written by the same Brahmin. The pith of it is, perhaps, to be found in

the following paragraphs at pp. 93 and 98 :- " In India, therefore, you may behold at this moment an immense and intelligent society much given to dreamy medita- tion over insoluble problems, and practically unanimous in rejecting any solution that stops short of Pantheism. If you offer us a definite religion which circumscribes and controls rationalistic speculation, and includes a moral system that is admirably adapted to human needs and circumstances, we must reply that this would be invaluable if we could only accept and assimilate it intellectually. But, unluckily, this very quality of appropriateness raises in the Hindu mind a suspicion of anthropomorphism of human inventiveness ; while even your highest doctrines contain something that may be felt to be transient and terminable."

This may with advantage be pondered by the theologian,—by

the new Metropolitan in India, amongst others. The next is equally important for the statesman :-

" You will have already discovered that the pacification of a vast territory, which inevitably produces some degree of political stagnation. rather stirs up than silences religious a•ctivities, by facilitating the interchange of ideas, of correspondence, and the combination of rival sects against each other all over the country. Nor can you have failed to notice very recently in Western India the bearing upon politics of Brahnianical revivalism, or to mark the sympathetic connection between increasing devotion to the God Siva, and open commemoration of the Maratha chief Sivaji, who raised the standard of Hindu revolt against a foreign domination."

A great deal of curious information about the relations between the State and religion in China is collected and com- mented upon in chap. 2. Some of this was originally pub..

Mind in the first series, but has now for convenience been transferred to the second.

Chap. 3 is a dissertation on Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough, and begins by reintroducing us to the Arician priest, that Pr'Ore de Nem whom not even the genius of Renan could

make interesting. Sir Alfred treats Mr. Frazer with much respect, which we doubt not he thoroughly deserves, but the drift of the criticism contained in the chapter may be gathered from the following words on p. 2215:—" I apprehend that it is not possible to range into classes and orderly succession of types a miscellany of fanciful tales and usages, ancient and modern, raked together from among Polynesian savages and English harvesters ; or to distinguish the products of aboriginal Nature-worship from the other ingredients, real or fabulous, by which the whole mass of superstitious obser- vances has been formed and leavened." We may be per- mitted to doubt whether these wanderings in dim folk-lore regions, where "nought is everything and everything is nought," can ever lead to very much. The result is surely but too often to give us dreams about dreams. We are glad to observe that Sir Alfred has still a good word to say for Eallemerus and Euhemerists, creatures, we think, "not so black as they be painted."

Chap. 4 belongs to Miss Kingsley considered as an example of a careful observer and recorder of savage customs; to Mr. Jevons as an eminent student of all recent writings upon these obscure subjects, anxious to apply "evolutionary prin- ciples, with certain reservations," to the study of the history of religion ; and to Professor Max Muller as the great authority upon the early Aryan world. It is one of the chapters which will be read with most interest both by those

who do and who do not need Sir Alfred's wise caution on p. 285 :- "The attempt to solve the problem of origins requires, as Renan has said, a keen eye to discriminate between things certain, probable, and plausible, a profound sense of the realities of life, and the faculty of appreciating strange and remote psychological situations. And even with all these rare qualities, it is very difficult to attain certitude in the problem's solution There must be always wide gaps and obscure interspaces where one can only measure possibilities, draw cautious inferences, note half-seen indications, and where after all one can but choose the least unlikely clue among many."

Compare Bagehot in the preface to his Universal Money : "He is a bold man who speaks of origins ; most common

things are older than history, and we can only tell by con- jecture how they occurred."

The fifth chapter, on " Natural Religion in India," was delivered as the Bede Lecture at Cambridge in 1891, and is perhaps the portion of the volume to which the attention of any one should be directed who is more curious about the mind of its distinguished author, than about the subjects with which his book is chiefly concerned. It is fall of subtle remarks well put. Such are the definition of the word " Hindoo' as not exclusively a religions denomination, but denoting also

a country and, to a certain degree, a race ; the idea that what Sir Alfred describes as "the first and most formidable law, the endless succession of births, deaths, and revivals, comes home to all men, and partly, perhaps, to some of the higher animals "; the account of Siva on p. 306, which is a prose rendering of part of one of its author's finest poems; and the observations on human sacrifice towards the end of the lecture.

The last chapter is headed " Permanent Domination in

Asia," and, coming nearer the business and bosom of the ordinary Briton, discusses the question whether Mr. Charles

Pearson's prediction that China would become a dominant Power, or the common notion that it is a mere derelict vessel,

is the more correct. In spite of appearances, which just at present are decidedly in favour of the second of these views Sir Alfred wisely suspends his judgment. A few years ago the men who knew China best were far from averse to the conclusion which found favour with the highly gifted Australian statesman who had reflected so deeply both on history and politics. Early in 1883 one who had no superior amongst Englishmen in knowledge of China considered that the war with France would be far from disagreeable to the younger men. They thought that China's defeat would wipe out the old fossils, and that then they, the men of the future, would have their way. The incalculable element in the problem is, " What is the real strength of the

younger and relatively enlightened section of the Chinese people?" Is it so weak as to be silenced by the recent Palace revolution, or is it growing and becoming great ? No one seems able quite to answer that question, and Sir Alfred has too long dealt with public affairs to be ready with any offhand conjectures. His last words are :-

" It is to be feared that the reformation of China is still so far beyond measurable distance as to be out of the range of effective political discussion except for the purpose of reminding those whom it may concern that, if the Japanese war does prove to have been a turning-point in Chinese history, there is still a possibility of its leading toward revival instead of decadence or disintegration."

We should have been better pleased if Sir Alfred Lyall had strung his observations about things Asiatic upon a thread of narrative, which his long sojourn in India would have en- abled him to do. Nothing, however, is more foolish on the part of a reviewer than to blame a writer for not doing what he never wished or intended to attempt. By the method we suggest he might have obtained a more ready entrance for his views into many minds, but he knew his public. He knew that his most zealous students would be found, not in the ranks of those who wished to be carried to definite con- clusions, but of those who preferred to be led by an able guide into the mazes of speculation and then to find their own way out, by the help of such Ariadne clue as he saw fit to leave them. If the book had Leen thrown into a form more attractive to us they would not have

read it. Unmitigated India would have certainly frightened them, while India wrapt in philosophical mists may perhaps

attract them very much. Long may Sir Alfred live to supply them with essays like those in these two volumes ; but will he not also give to another circle of his admirers, if not more political papers. about which perhaps there is a difficulty while he remains a portion of the machine connecting our great Indian despotism with our Parliamentary system at home, at least some more poetry ? Half a dozen verses a year would be far better than nothing, and there are, even amongst the speculatively minded, persons who are set speculating much more agreeably by a poem than by a prose dissertation, however able. Let him remember that not a few of us are dust, and be merciful !