1856.] Monuments of splendid Inutility. India; some natives can tell you nothing but old women's tales of demigods who excavated a cave, or Jins who built a castle, or pious Brahmins at whose intercession or curse a noble work was either com pleted or stopped. But at these ruins hobbles forth, on the appearance of a sightseer, an old Mohammedan (he was living two years since), whose family is proved by the testimony of the whole neighbourhood to have lived on the spot for nine generations of articulate-speaking men. His ancestor was the disciple of an eminent saint, the confessor of Akbar, who is buried in a marble tomb of the great quadrangle of the palace, which in size is not much smaller than the Tom Quad at Christ Church, Oxford, whilst in sublimity, altitude, and style, it is well worthy to be the palace-yard of a great monarch. Under the guidance of this whitebearded conductor, the palace can be visited with peculiar facilities, and the nature and objects of the different buildings can be thoroughly understood. Some edifices tell their own tale; others must be taken on trust and probability. The houses for favourite wives, the royal nursery and hospital, the mint, the stables, the great mosque, the halls of audience, public and private, the chambers where ladies amused themselves with hide and seek or a game resembling blindman's buff, the small square where Akbar played at dice with women for counters, the spot where a faquir sat who taught his imperial master a science, which, by its description, some men think to have been mesmerism, the tomb of the saint with its marble filagree work, the columns carved with knops, and fruits, and flowers, the ceiling decorated with blue and gold, faintly reminding us of the Alhambra Court at Sydenham, but now defaced by the Mahrattas or by time, the situation of the solitary city on a hill, with sandy plains around, the absence of all mercantile, military, or political reasons for its foundation,-all this speaks to us of the high notions which those sovereigns entertained of art, and of the reckless prodigality with which they lavished the accumulated treasures of their empire 209 But on mere luxury and idle display. We are often told of the mighty works which our immediate predecessors wrought in India, and noble lords and indignant senators' confess' with shame that they compare our unfruitfulness with the munificence of Viziers and Nawabs. surely it cannot be contended that we are to imitate their expenditure, and spend thousands and even millions on tombs which would shelter dragoon regiments, palaces which furnish employment to hosts of carvers and gilders, and mosques in which five hundred sons of Islam could bow down at once. Yet what remains, if we except these many monuments of splendid inutility, to show the care and the forethought of Hindu and Mohammedan for the mass of the population? Of the fine road which Jehangir laid down between Agra and Delhi-a distance of less than 150 miles-there is not a trace remaining. The few canals dug by a prudent governor, to fertilize a district or to suit a regal caprice, were neglected long before our accession, and if carefully kept up, they would not altogether equal in length one half the Great Ganges Canal. There are indeed some magnificent serais in the tracts near the Punjab, and one legacy has been left us, which those who care to study the travels of impartial witnesses two hundred years ago-who had neither a party to satisfy nor a policy to support-may readily understand: the legacy, to wit, of faithlessness and corruption generated by a system where there was no medium between poverty and riches, no middle class between the abject and the great; where laws were promulgated by favour, administered with partiality, and evaded by wealth; where the aim of every man was to become rich by sudden means; where coercion begat fear, and servile concealment was an excuse for tyranny. With Agra or Delhi must end an Eastern trip, if not intended to last for more than five months, including the voyage out and back again. But within this time we will guarantee that one not unimportant part of India shall be thoroughly visited: we do not say profoundly studied: we do not say that such a trip will make a stranger, ignorant of the native language, comprehend the revenue system, understand a civil or criminal trial, or say how easy justice may be made attainable for every man, how the natives can best be made capable of some self-government, how the resources of the country can most speedily be 'developed.' But a man who at such a season travels on such a road, and enjoys facilities for intercourse with Europeans resident in the provinces, whether servants of the Government or otherwise, must be singularly unobservant if he does not feel himself on his return more competent to discuss Eastern questions than before. At any rate, he will have learnt to detect and avoid some rather material errors, which, when an Indian debate excites attention as a party question, honourable members are somewhat apt to commit. That the grand Trunk Road is a mere military line for the transport of guns and stores that there is no such thing as a steam engine at work in the Bengal presidency: that troops of agriculturists are daily seen to decamp, bag and baggage, into the territories of a native prince, for the pleasure of being tortured and ground down by a ruler of their own caste or colour: that European functionaries connive at torture: that the British Government is desirous of keeping its subjects in ignorance that the amount of labour undergone by a magistrate in a district of Bengal is about equal to that of a country justice of the peace who sits in an empty room in a village inn, once a week or fortnight, for a couple of hours, to try a small boy for stealing turnips: that an Indian collector is an individual in a rusty suit of black, with a pale face, who calls at inconvenient times for the Queen's taxes, and is grumbled at as a matter of conscience,' -these, and similar absurdities he will have learnt to value as they ought to be valued, as the offspring of inveterate prejudices or ignorant malignity. If debates on Indian questions are ever to become frequent or popular, it were as well that light should be thrown on them by men of independence, who can command a hearing. We do not expect that a visit to the Taj Mahal can soon become as popular as one to the Pyramids. The time and the expense-for such a trip as we have been describing could not well cost less than £350 to £400 : would place it out of the reach of all but men of energy, leisure, and secure incomes. But that the journey will pay, in one sense of the word, we have no matter of doubt. The tombs and temples, the palaces and mosques ought to satisfy even those who can admire nothing in Europe but classical or medieval architecture whilst a man fond of statistics may return with note-books crammed full of details on the politics, the commerce, and the resources of the country. For a third, passionately fond of field sports, it will be easy to join a party under the guidance of some veteran woodsman, about to start for their annual visitation to the uncleared tracts where yet lurk the striped tiger and tusky boar. A fourth may care to visit the bench and the school-room, and hope that the lawlessness and the outrages now daily arraigned in the one may gradually give way to the civilization which the rising generation are learning in the other; or in some central college he may see the rival races of Hindu and Mussulman busily intent on their respective literatures, the young Brahmin with his rhetoric, and the young Mohammedan with his Koran and his seven famous poems, while a third literature, attracting more disciples, threatens in time to displace its rivals-the literature, which annihilates caste and prejudice in the language of Shakespeare and Milton, and in the discoveries of Copernicus and Herschel, undermines the very bulwarks of Hinduism; nor is it less amusing to enter the magasin of some rich native merchant in one of the large internal towns, and see him obligingly display all the wealth of upper India to his wondering visitor. The outward appearance of his dwelling may be humble, unimposing, even sordid: the interior conceals the superb wares, the costliest brocades, the most delicate fabrics of Cashmere, Amritsir, Benares, and Delhi. Political economists may well stand amazed at the art which, with sim 1856.] Native Bankers and Merchants. ple utensils, aided by no machinery, and increased by no additional power, weaves the flowery tissues, carves the stone and ivory, and unites the purple lace to the yellow gold, on scarfs, not wholly unworthy the notice of a dowager in May Fair. If the British Government has created nothing else, it has created and preserved the present race of bankers and merchants; not that the Hindu was averse to traffic in former times, but we know from old travellers that the monied men under the Moguls were forced to conceal or deny their wealth: that their caravans on their journeys were subject to repeated demands for tolls and to attacks from robbers, and that they were frequently compelled to disgorge large portions of their wealth to minister to the exigencies of the state,-the invasion of an enemy's territory or the marUnder riage of a king's eldest son. the present rule, this class of men enjoys the amplest opportunities for extensive traffic and for amassing capital, while they literally pay no one tax to Government. They have no lands, consequently they pay no land tax; they have comparatively little incentive to litigation, and an income tax is not likely to be tried soon in the East. With justice to these men it must be said that in Upper and Central India they are generally very much well attached to the Company: knowing how they thrive under that strong administration, they have been signally liberal in contributing to the erection of schools, hospitals, and similar buildings: their influence in directing the minds of their countrymen in times of agitation has been felt and acknowledged by several Governments, and were Lord Canning to require a loan of two millions or so to-morrow, we really believe that it would be contributed, on the mere word of 211 an English official, by half a : Doubtless there is much still to be done in India, much to be reformed, much to be actually created. We have to build bridges, and lay down roads to educate generally, and not partially, natives for employment, and then to find situations for them when educated: to clear away gangs of robbers, especially in our lower Gangetic valley to render speedy justice accessible to every man, and to make the rich feel that they can no longer set law at defiance. But we envy not the frigid philosophy' of those men who, after due consideration, and with a knowledge of the subject, can look coldly on the great improvements which have been steadily carried out, within the last ten years, in the Bengal Presidency, and most of all in the Punjab; or who regard India only as a field for the employment of English capital, and Indian labourers merely as valuable consumers of English produce.' 6 W. S. S-K. BAIN ON THE SENSES AND THE INTELLECT.* MOST people who know anything cared little, but his doctrines, for of the history of metaphysics which he cared a great deal, were in this country, must remember the in peril. Trained up under Stewart account given by Dr. Thomas himself in the Common-sense phiBrown's biographer of the manner losophy of Reid, Brown no sooner in which that brilliant metaphysi- found himself in possession of Stewcian of the Scottish series prepared art's chair than he began to start his Lectures on the Philosophy of away in all directions from that phithe Human Mind. Having been losophy, and, under the pretext of appointed, in the year 1810, assist- differing from Reid, to propound ant and successor to Dugald Stewart views equally subversive of what in the Moral Philosophy Chair at Stewart had taught. Nor was the Edinburgh, chiefly on account of influence only local and temporary. his general reputation for ability Brown's premature death indeed, and accomplishment, though partly in 1820, left Stewart the survivor, also on account of his special apti- and with eight years of life still tude for metaphysical researches, as before him during which to diffuse shown in his essay On Causation, in his calm mild way, through the and his writings and lectures in pre- press, doctrines similar to those vious years, he came to his high post which Brown had assailed; but rather with a few scattered notions Brown's Lectures, prepared in the on speculative topics, and a few manner in which we have described, decided tendencies of thought, than were published after his death verwith a consistent body of already batim from his manuscripts, and elaborated doctrine. He had, in these, as all know, have continued fact, to extemporize his system as his influence. There are still here he went on with his class. He per- and there among us contented performed the feat most character- sons who swear by Brown; and istically. Every evening, after tea, some of his trains of thinking have he sat down to prepare his lecture entered, with changes, into the spefor the next day; he wrote usually culations of subsequent philosophers far into the night, and then, after a of harder grain than himself, who, few hours of sleep, resumed the without swearing by him, think he work in the morning; and the result did good service. On the whole, was that, being an acute and subtle however, the fate of his doctrines thinker, capable of analysing and has corresponded with the manner reasoning with extraordinary ra- of their origin. In more senses than pidity and delicacy, and having at one, Brown's position in the history the same time an easy flow of words, of Philosophy might be indicated by and plenty of poetical quotations to calling him the author of the Whig draw upon when his own matter fell system of British Metaphysics. It short in quantity, he was always was Lord John Russell, then a stuready by twelve o'clock with a lec- dent in Edinburgh, who headed the ture which seemed to his class the deputation appointed to congratulate acme of originality and ingenuity, Dugald Stewart on his recovery and drew forth from the crowded from the illness which had caused benches, at every well-spoken pashim first to have recourse to sage of verse, a round of sympa- Brown's help, and to thank him for thetic applause. Poor Dugald Stew- having procured for his class so art, Plato of the Scottish school,' splendid a substitute. One might as he had for years been esteemed, generalize the incident, and say that and majestic though he was, as never there are subtle points of sympathy Professor had before been, in gait, between Brown's system as a phase look, and garb, was for the time quite of British philosophy, and the eclipsed by this deft little Aristotle system of British politics of which of his own choosing. Not his repu his Lordship has so long been the tation only, for which he probably representative. We should suppose The Senses and the Intellect. By Alexander Bain, A.M. London: John W. Parker and Son. 1855. 1856.] Nature of Mr. Bain's Work. that, so far as Brown still has contented disciples, they would be found principally among the strict elderly Whigs. At all events, the fortune of his system has been very much that of Whiggism in British politics. Just as, on the one hand, political Whiggism has passed forth by the logical development of some of its germs by new and bolder minds into a Radicalism at which it stands aghast, half dubious of the paternity; and as, on the other hand, it finds itself attacked from behind by a new Conservatisın so reinforced by fresh draughts from the fountain-head as hardly to resemble the old one, though retaining some of its traditions;-in like manner has Brown's philosophy been disintegrated on one side by more rigorous speculation in the same direction, and battered unexpectedly on the other by stronger forms of that which it fancied it had superseded. On the one side is thorough-going English Sensationalism, tracing its true descent from Locke, and beckoning British thought away from Brown as an intermediate man who has served his day; on the other, and more congenial to many minds, is Transcendentalism in one or other of its forms, and most conspicuously in the form of that new Scottish, or, as some would say, Scoto-German metaphysics, which has arisen from the ploughing up of old Reid's ground by living Scottish intellects, attached to the soil because it is native, and because they believe it to be still rich and productive, but covering it first with the necessary sprinkling of the best Continental thought, and ploughing it with all their Caledonian strength in the deep Kantian manner. In Edinburgh, where it is chiefly the last kind of philosophy that prevails, Brown is now obsolete. Made light of, and torn to pieces on the spot many years ago by that pride of Scotland and Hercules among living metaphysicians, Sir William Hamil ton, Brown's doctrines have come to be regarded, in their very birthplace, only as fine tissues of quasiphilosophical thinking, and not as real philosophy. Reid and Stewart have been reinstated as containing at least the elements of a sounder system; and what is wanted over 213 and above to bring the philosophy up to the standard of modern requirements, is supplied by original disquisitions by no means in the wake of Brown, and having very little reference to him. Whatever objections may be taken to the present work of Mr. Bain, it will certainly escape those to which, on account of the manner of their preparation, Brown's dissertations were justly liable. If Mr. Bain's doctrines do not stand their ground, it will not be because they have been hastily thrown together. The work is not a system of extemporized opinions ingeniously spun out at the rate of one every evening, and left to adjust themselves by the mere chance of consistency on due intertexture. On the contrary, there is evidence of something of that patience and slow plenitude of prior thought which characterized Reid himself, and gave such solidity and durability to his doctrines. With a decided bent from the first towards this class of inquiries, the author seems to have proceeded gradually and laboriously, investigating now one point and now another, letting go a train of thought in order to resume it again in a better connexion and with the impulse of accumulated instances and proofs, and so, by the natural coagulation of his materials, to have at last arrived at a system, of the main generalities of which, and of many of its more minute details, he could feel sure. Every reader of the book, we should imagine, will recognise the author as a man who holds his leading principles with a singularly firm grasp, and who has thought them out laboriously for himself through all those rich complexities of human life and action, of which he offers them to others as a competent science. The work indeed, though it shows the possession by the author of a faculty of very acute analysis, and also implies an acquaintance on his part with the speculations of previous thinkers in the same walk, is less remarkable for the actual specimens of analysis which it submits to the reader, and for the controversial references to other men's opinions with which it entertains him, than for the distinctness with which it propounds |