In the last two lectures I was engaged in showing that the conquest of India and the government of it by the English have in a certain sense nothing wonderful about them. We may fairly be proud of many particular deeds done by our countrymen in India, and of many men who in India have shown a rare energy and talent for government, but it is a mistake to suppose that the Empire itself is a stand- ing proof of some vast superiority in the English race over the races of India. Without assuming any such vast superiority we are able to assign causes, which are sufficient to account alike for the growth and for the continuance of that Empire. It is not then wonderful, if by wonderful be meant simply miraculous, or difficult to account for by ordinary causation.
Nevertheless there is a sense in which it is not only wonderful, but far more wonderful than is commonly understood. It is wonderful rather in its V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 273 consequences than in its causes. In other words, it is great in the peculiarly historical sense, for the pregnancy of events, as we remarked, is what gives them historical rank. By applying this test we raised the rank of several events in English history, especially the American Eevolution, which for want of dramatic or romantic interest are too little studied. Let us now remark that the Indian Empire, however it may seem less marvellous on close examination than at jfirst sight, will be found to gain in historic interest, as much as it loses in romantic.
A vast Oriental Empire is not necessarily at all an interesting or a particularly important thing. There have been many such Empires in Asia, which historic- ally are less important than a single Greek or Tuscan city-republic. That they have been of wide extent, or even of long duration, does not make them inter- esting. Generally when we examine them we find that they are of a low organisation, and that under their weight the individual is crushed, so that he enjoys no happiness, makes no progress, and pro- duces nothing memorable. And perhaps when first we turn our thoughts towards our Indian Empire, we may receive the impression that it is not intrins- ically more interesting than the average of such overgrown Asiatic despotisms. We trust indeed that, thanks to the control of English public opinion, it may stand at a higher level of intelligence, morality, and philanthropy than the Mogul Empire which it has succeeded. But at best we think of it as a good specimen of a bad political system. We T 274 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
are not disposed to be proud of the succession of the Great Mogul. We doubt whether with all the merits of our administration the subjects of it are happy. We may even doubt whether our rule is preparing them for a happier condition, whether it may not be sinking them lower in misery, and we have our misgivings that perhaps a genuine Asiatic Govern ment, and still more a national Government springing up out of the Hindu population itself, might in the long run be more beneficial because more congenial, though perhaps less civilised, than such a foreign unsympathetic government as our own.
But let us consider that it is not quite every Empire which is thus uninteresting. The Roman Empire for example is not so. I may say this now without fear, because our views of history have grown considerably less exclusive of late years. There was a time no doubt when even the Roman Empire, because it was despotic and in some periods unhappy and half-barbarous, was thought uninterest ing. A generation ago it was the reigning opinion that there is nothing good in politics but liberty, and that accordingly in history all those periods are to be passed over and, as it were, cancelled, in which liberty is not to be found. Along with this opinion there prevailed a habit of reading history, as we read poetry, only for an exalted kind of pleasure, and this habit led us, whenever we came to a period in which there was nothing glorious or admirable, to shut the book. In those days no doubt the Roman Empire too was condemned. The Roman Republic was heldV MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 275 in honour for its freedom ; the earlier Eoman Empire was studied for the traces of freedom still discernible in it. But we used to shut the book at the end of the second century, as if all that followed for some ten centuries were decay and ruin ; and we did not take up the story again with any satisfaction until the traces of liberty began to reappear in England and in the Italian republics. I suppose I may say that this way of regarding history is now obsolete. We do not now read it simply for pleasure, but in order that we may discover the laws of political growth and change, and therefore we hardly stop to inquire whether the period before us is glorious or dismal It is enough if it is instructive and teaches lessons not to be learned from other periods. We have also learnt that there are many other good things in politics besides liberty ; for instance there is nationality, there is civilisation. Now it often happens that a Government which allows no liberty is nevertheless most valuable and most favourable to progress towards these other goals. Hence the Eoman Empire—not only in its beginnings but in its later developments up to the thirteenth century—is now regarded, in spite of all the barbarism, all the superstition, and all the misery, as one of the most interesting of all historical phenomena. For it is perceived that this Empire is by no means without internal progress, without creative ideas, or without memorable results. We discern in it the embryo of that which is greatest and most wonderful, namely, the modern brotherhood or loose federation of 276 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
civilised nations. And therefore, though it was a great Empire, and though it was despotically governed, it is studied with infinite curiosity and attention.
This difference between the Roman Empire and other Empires founded on conquest, arises from the superiority in civilisation of the conquerors to the conquered. A great conquering race is’ not usually advanced in civilisation. The typical conqueror is some Cyrus or Zinghis Khan—that is, the chieftain of a hardy tribe, which has been steeled by poverty and is tempted by plunder. Before such an assailant the advanced civilisation is apt to go down, so that in history we see civilisation often conquered, sometimes holding its ground, but not very often making great conquests, until in recent times the progress of inven tion strengthened it by giving it new weapons. The great conquering race of history has been one of the least progressive, the Turcomans. It was from this race mainly, from the hive of tribesmen, who in Central Asia furnished mercenary armies to all the ambitious kings of Asia, that Baber and Akber drew the force with which they conquered India. Such is the ordinary rule, but when an exceptional case does occur, when high civilisation is spread by conquest over populations less advanced, the Empire thus formed has a very peculiar interest. Of such a nature for instance was the conquest of the East by Alexander the Great, because the Macedonians through their close relationship with the Greeks brought all Hellenism in their train. Accordingly, though the kingdoms of the Diadochi were in them- V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 277 selves but military despotisms of a low type, yet the strangest and most memorable effects were produced by the fusion of Greek with Oriental thought. Still more remarkable, because it lasted much longer and because it is much better known, was the effect pro- duced upon the nations of Europe by the Eoman Empire. In fact this great phenomenon stands out in the very centre of human history, and may be called the foundation of the present civilisation of mankind.
Now it will make all the difference if the English conquest of India is to be classed along with the Greek conquest of the East and the Roman conquest of Gaul and Spain, and not along with those of the Great Turk and the Great Mogul. If it belongs to the latter class, we shall not be misled by any mere splendour or magnitude, but shall pronounce it to be a phenomenon of secondary interest, belonging to the history of barbarism rather than to that of civilisa- tion. But if it belongs to the former, we shall be prepared to place it among the transcendent events of the world, those events which rise as high above the average of civilised history as an ordinary Oriental conquest falls below it.
There need be no question about the general fact that the ruling race in British India has a higher and more vigorous civilisation than the native races. We may say this without taking too much to ourselves. The English, as such, are perhaps not a race of Hellenic intelligence or genius, but the civilisation they iahciit is not simply their own. It is European 278 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
civilisation, the product of the united labour of the European races held together and animated by the spirit of the ancient world. What do we see on the other side? What estimate shall we form of the native civilisation of India ? As I have said so often, India is not one country, and therefore it has not one civilisation. It has not even so much unity as it seems to have, for Brahmin ism by its peculiar trick of absorption and assimila- tion has brought together under one name forms of civilisation which are really diverse. If we look below the surface, we find two distinct layers of population, a fair-skinned and a dark-skinned race. The two layers are visible almost everywhere ; the dark layer preponderates in the South; it is out- numbered but clearly visible in Bengal ; it is evanes- cent perhaps higher up the Ganges ; but that the two races did really blend almost all over India appears from the fact that no language is now spoken which is a mere corruption or dialect of Sanscrit, as French and Italian are dialects of Latin. Every Hindi language, even when its vocabulary is most ex- clusively Sanscrit, has inflections and forms which are non-Aryan.^ Now in estimating the civilisation of India we must begin by taking account of this funda- mental distinction of race. The dark-skinned race is in many parts not civilised, and ought to be classed as barbarous. Mr. B. H. Hodgson says, “In every extensive jungly or hilly tract throughout the vast continent of India there exist hundreds of thousands
- Stated on the authority of Professor Cowell.
,v MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 279 of human beings in a state not materially different from that of the Germans as described by Tacitus.” We are to distinguish again between the Hindu races proper and the great Mussulman immigration. There are not less than fifty millions of Mussulmans in India, and of these a large proportion consists of Afghans or Pathans, Arabs, Persians, and Turco- mans or Tartars who have at difTerent times entered India either with, or in order to join, the armies of the Mussulman conquerors. Here we may expect to find, as everywhere in the Mussulman world, a sort of semi-civilisation, certain strong virtues but of a primitive kind ; in short an equipment of ideas and views not sufficient for the modern forms of society.
Then finally we come to the characteristically Indian population, the Aryan race which descended from the Punjab with the Sanscrit language on its lips, which spread itself mainly along the valley of the Ganges, but succeeded in spreading its peculiar theocratic system over the whole of India. Perhaps no race has shown a greater aptitude for civilisation. Even its barbarism, as reflected in the Vedic liter- ature, is humane and intelligent. And after its settlement in India it advanced normally along the path of civilisation. Its customs grew into laws, and were consolidated in codes. It imagined the division of labour. It created poetry and philosophy and the beginnings of science. Out of its bosom sprang a mighty religious reform called Buddhism, which remains to this day one of the leading religious
280 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
systems of the world. So far then it resembled those gifted races which created our own civilisation. But the Aryan race did not make so much pro- gress in India as in Europe. As it showed in India an extreme incapacity for writing history, so that no record of it remains except where it came in contact with Greek or Mussulman invaders, we can only con- jecture the causes that may have retarded its pro gress. But the great religious reform after some centuries of success for some reason or other failed Buddhism was expelled. The tyranny of the priestly caste was firmly established. No great and solid political system grew up ; there was little city-civil- isation. And then came the scourge of foreign conquest.
Subjection for a long time to a foreign yoke is one of the most potent causes of national deterioration. And the few facts we know about the ancient Hindus confirm what we should conjecture about the moral effects produced upon them by their misfortunes.-’ We have in the Greek writer Arrian a description of the Indian character, which we read with surprise. He says, “They are remarkably brave, superior in war to all Asiatics ; they are remarkable for simplicity and integrity ; so reasonable as never to have recourse to a lawsuit and so honest as neither to require locks to their doors nor writings to bind their agreements. No Indian was ever known to tell an untruth.” ^ See this subject treated at much greater length by Professor Max-Miillcr in his recently published volume, U7m< can India teach icst V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 281 This description has no doubt an air of exaggeration about it, but, as Elphinstone remarks, it shows that an extraordinary change has passed over the Hindu character since it was written. Exaggeration consists in exhibiting the real features larger than they ought to be. But this description exhibits on an unnatural scale precisely the features that are wanting in the modern Hindu character. Modern travellers there fore are found to exaggerate the very opposite features. They accuse the Hindu of want of veracity, want of valour, and extreme litigiousness. But the change is precisely such as might naturally be pro- duced by a long period of submission to the foreigner.
On the whole then we find in India three stages of civilisation—first, that of the hill-tribes, which is barbarism, then that which is perhaps sufficiently described as the Mussulman stage, and thirdly, the arrested and half-crushed civilisation of a gifted race, but a race which has from the beginning been in a remarkable manner isolated from the ruling and progressive civilisation of the world. Whatever this race achieved it achieved a long time ago. Its great epic poems, which some would compare to the greatest poems of the West, are ancient, though perhaps much less ancient than has been thought, so too its systems of philosophy, its scientific grammar. The country has achieved nothing in modern times. It may be compared to Europe, as Europe would have been if after the irruption of barbarians and the f.ill of ancient civilisation it had witnessed no revival, and had not been able to protect itself against the Tait;ir invasions
282 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
of the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Let us suppose Europe to have vegetated up to the present time in the condition in which the tenth century saw it, exposed to periodical invasions from Asia, wanting in strongly marked nations and vigorous states, its languages mere vernaculars not used for the purposes of literature, all its wisdom enshrined in a dead language and doled out to the people by an imperious priesthood, all its wisdom too many centuries old, sacred texts of Aristotle, the Vulgate, and the Fathers, to which nothing could be added but in the way of commentary. Such seems to be the condition of the Aryans of India, a condition which has no resemblance whatever to barbarism, but resembles strikingly the medieval phase of the civilisation of the West.
The dominion of Eome over the western races was the empire of civilisation over barbarism. Among Gauls and Iberians Rome stood as a beacon-light they acknowledged its brightness, and felt grateful for the illumination they received from it. The dominion of England in India is rather the empire of the modern world over the medieval. The light we bring is not less real, but it is probably less attractive and received with less gratitude. It is not a glorious light shining in darkness, but a somewhat cold day light introduced into the midst of a warm gorgeous twilight.
Many travellers have said that the learned Hindu, even when he acknowledges our power and makes use of our railways, is so far from regarding us with reverence that he very sincerely despises us. This
V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 283 is only natural We are not cleverer than the Hindu our minds are not richer or larger than his. We cannot astonish him, as we astonish the barbarian, by putting before him ideas that he never dreamed of. He can match from his poetry our sublimest thoughts ; even our science perhaps has few concep tions that are altogether novel to him. Our boast is not that we have more ideas or more brilliant ideas, but that our ideas are better tested and sounder. The greatness of modern, as compared with medieval or ancient, civilisation is that it possesses a larger stock of demonstrated truth, and therefore infinitely more of practical power. But the poetical or mystic philoso pher is by no means disposed to regard demonstrated truth with reverence ; he is rather apt to call it shallow, and to sneer at its practical triumphs, while he revels for his part in reverie and the luxury of unbounded speculation.
We in Europe however are pretty well agreed that the treasure of truth which forms the nucleus of the civilisation of the West is incomparably more sterling not only than the Brahminic mysticism with which it has to contend, but even than that Roman enlighten ment which the old Empire transmitted to the nations of Europe. And therefore we shall hold that the spectacle now presented by India of a superior civilisation introduced by a conquering race is equal in interest and importance to that which the Koman Empire presented. Moreover the experiment is tried on a scale equally large. This Empire is usually judged by its immediate effect on the welfare of the 284 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot, inhabitants. It has removed evils of long standing, says one ; it has introduced new evils, says another. This whole controversy puts on one side the most characteristic work of our Empire, which is the introduction in the midst of Brahminism of European views of the Universe. No experiment equally interesting is now being tried on the surface of the globe. And when we consider how seldom it is put in the power of a nation to accomplish a task so memorable, we shall learn to take an eager interest in the progress of the experiment, and to check the despondency which might lead us to ask what profit accrues to ourselves from all this labour that we have undertaken under the sun.
And now let us take note of a great advantage which we enjoy in working at this task. It comes to light when we compare our Empire v/ith the Roman. Rome was placed in the midst of its Empire, was subject to an overwhelming reaction from it, and was exposed to all the dangers which threatened it. England on the other hand is singularly disengaged from this enormous Empire which it governs, and feels but a slight reaction from it.
Every historical student knows that it was the incubus of the Empire which destroyed liberty at Rome. Those old civic institutions, which had nursed Roman greatness and to which Rome owed all the civilisation which she was to transmit to the countries of the West, had to be given up as a condition of transmitting it. She had to adopt an organisation of, coujiJiiratively, a low type. Her civilisation,V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 285 when she transmitted it, was already in decay. In a great part of the Empire her very language was worsted in the competition by the Greek, so that the Emperor M. Aurelius himself writes his Meditations in Greek. The Eoman religion instead of making converts fell into neglect, and in the end gave way to a religion which had sprung up in a distant province of the Empire. There came a time when almost all that was Roman in thought and feeling seemed to be dead in the Empire of Rome, when its Emperors were like Oriental kings and wore the diadem. We know now that this was not so, and that Roman influence, the Roman tradition, continued to sway the European mind for many centuries. But this sway was exerted secretly, through law and through Catholicism, at a later time through the Renaissance in literature and art. Think how different would have been the course of modern European history if tlio mother-city of its civilisation, instead of being in the midst of the nations it educated, instead of suffering in their discords and convulsions, instead of receiving as much barbarism from them as it gave civilisation to them, had stood outside, enjoying an independent prosperity, developing its own civilisation further with an unabated vigour of youth all the while that it guided the subject nations.
The Roman Empire is in this respect a somewhat extreme case, because the conquering Power was so remarkably small compared to the empire it attached to itself. The light radiated not from a country but from a city, which was not so much a shining disk as 286 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
a point of intense light. The Roman Republic had institutions which were essentially civic, and which began to break down as soon as they were extended even to the whole of Italy. But even where the conquering Power has a much broader basis, it is commonly altogether transformed by the effort of conquest. The wars by which the conquest is made, and then the establishments necessary to maintain the conquest, call for a new system of government and finance. Of all the unparalleled features which the English Empire in India presents, not one is so unique as the slightness of the machinery by which it is united to England and the slightness of its reaction upon England. How this peculiarity has been caused I have already explained. I have shown that our acquisition of India was made by a process so peculiar that it cost us nothing. Had England as a state undertaken to subvert the Empire of the Great Mogul, she would have destroyed her own constitution in the process, no less than Rome did by the conquest of Europe. For she would evidently have been compelled to convert herself into a military state of the most absolute type. But as England has merely inherited the throne which was founded in India by certain Englishmen who rose to the head of affairs in time of anarchy, she has been but very slightly disturbed in her domestic affairs by this acquisition. It has modified no doubt, as I have said, her foreign policy in a great degree, but it has produced no change in the internal character of the English state. In this respect India has produced a.s
V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 287 little effect upon England as those Continental States which have been in modern times connected with England in what is called a personal union, Hannover under the Georges, or Holland under William HI. The consequence is that in this instance the operation of the higher civilisation on the lower is likely to be far more energetic and continuous than in those ancient examples of the Roman Empire or the Greek Empire in the East. In those cases the lower civilisa- tion killed the higher in the same moment that the higher raised the lower towards its own level. Hellenism covered the East, but the greatness of Greece came to an end. All nations crowded into the Roman citizenship ; but what became of the original Romans themselves 1 England on the other hand is not weakened at all by the virtue that goes out from her. She tries to raise India out of the medieval into the modern phase, and in the task she meets with difficulties and even incurs dangers, but she incurs no risk whatever of being drawn down by India towards the lower level, or even of being checked for a moment in her natural development.
This has been the result ; but for a long time it was uncertain that the result would be such. In the history of British India there are two most interest- ing chapters—I should say that in the whole history of the world there are no chapters more instructive in which we learn, first, how a mischievous reaction from India upon England was prevented ; secondly, how European civilisation was, after much delay and hesitation, resolutely brought to bear upon India 288 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND leot.
The first chapter embraces chronologically the first half of George IIL’s reign, that stormy period of transition in English history when at the same time America was lost and India won. It covers the two great careers of Olive and Hastings, and the end of the struggle is marked by the reign of Lord Corn wallis, which began in 1785. The second chapter •embraces about the first forty years of the present century, and the crowning point of this development is the Governor-Generalship of Lord William Bentinck. For in the Indian Empire Lord Cornwallis and Lord W. Bentinck have been the two great legislators after Hastings, as Lord “Wellesley, Lord Hastings and Lord Dalhousie have been, after Clive, the great conquerors, and when we consider, as we are doing now, the progress of civilisation in the Empire, the great legislators naturally demand our attention most.
First then let us consider the reaction which at the beginning India threatened to have upon England, and how this danger was averted. The literature of the seventies and the eighties of the eighteenth century is full of that alarm which found its strongest expression in the speeches of Burke against Warren Hastings. England had taken a sudden plunge into the unknown abyss of Hindu politics. Englishmen were becoming finance ministers or commanders of mercenary troops to Mussulman Nawabs, and were bringing back to England the plunder of the Mogul Empire, acquired no one knew how. There were two dangers here—first, lest the English character should
V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 289 be corrupted, for those who take the most favourable view of the Hindu character would admit that Hindu politics in the last century were unspeakably corrupt secondly, lest the wealthy adventurers, returning to England and entering into English political life with ideas formed in Asia, should upset the balance of the constitution. This was particularly to be feared under the old electoral system, which allowed so many seats in Parliament to be put up to sale. Moreover in an age when Government derived its chief power from patronage, there was a danger lest one of the contending parties should make a snatch at the vast patronage of India, a prize which, whether it fell to the King or to the Whig party, would probably make its possessor supreme in the State.
To give you a specimen of the fears which were entertained by leading men, I will read a passage from William Pitt’s motion for parliamentary reform made in 1782. He said, “Our laws have with a jealous care provided that no foreigner shall give a single vote for a representative in Parliament ; and yet we now see foreign princes not giving votes but purchasing seats in this House, and sending their agents to sit with us as representatives of the nation. No man can doubt what I allude to. We have sitting among us the members of the Rajah of Tan jore and the Nawab of Arcot, the representatives of petty Eastern despots ; and this is notorious, publicly talked of and heard with indifference; our shame stalks abroad in the open face of day, it is become too common even to excite surprise. We treat it as U 290 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
a matter of small importance that some of the electors of Great Britain have added treason to their corrup tion and have traitorously sold their votes to foreign Powers; that some of the members of our Senate are at the command of a distant tyrant ; that our Senators are no longer the representatives of British virtue but of the vices and pollutions of the East.” The great incidents of this struggle are, the fall of the Coalition Ministry on the India Bill of Fox and the passing of the India Bill of Pitt, the trial of Warren Hastings, the succession of Lord Cornwallis to the Governor-Generalship, and the administrative reform carried out by him in India. I merely touch these great occurrences to mark their significance and to show what results flowed from them. If I went into detail, I might show that much was un reasonable in the clamour raised against the India Bill of Fox, and that there was much unreasonable violence in the attacks made upon Hastings. I might also criticise the double system introduced by the India Bill of Pitt. But, taking a broad view, it must be said that the particular dangers feared were very successfully averted, that Lord Cornwallis established a title to gratitude and Edmund Burke to immortal glory. For the stain of immorality did pass away as by magic from the administration of the Company under the rule of Lord Cornwallis, a lesson never to be forgotten was taught to Governors -General, and at the same time the political danger from the con- nection with India passed away.
England had broken the toils that threatened to
V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 291 imprison her. But liow far was she, who had so stoutly refused to be influenced by India, entitled to influence India in her turn 1 We could not fail to see the enormous difference between our civilisation and that of India ; we could not fail on the whole greatly to prefer our own. But had we any right to impose our views upon the natives? We had our own Christianity, our own views of philosophy, of history and science ; but were we not bound by a sort of tacit contract with the natives to hold all these things officially in abeyance 1 This was the view which was taken at first. It was not admitted that England was to play the part of Eome to her empire ; no she was to put her civilisation on one side and govern according to Indian ideas. This view was the more winning as the new and mysterious world of Sanscrit learning was revealing itself to those first generations of Anglo-Indians. They were under the charm of a remote philosophy and a fantastic history. They were, as it was said, Brahminised, and would not hear of admitting into their enchanted Oriental en- closure either the Christianity or any of the learning of the West.
I have not space left in this lecture to do more than indicate how we were gradually led to give up this view and to stand out boldly as teachers and civilisers. The change began in 1813, when, on the renewal of the Company’s charter, a sum was directed to be appropriated to the revival of learning and the introduction of useful arts and sciences. Over this enactment an Education Committee wrangled for 292 EXPANSION OF ENGLAND lect.
twenty years. Were we to use our own judgments, or were we to understand learning and science in the Oriental sense 1 Were we to teach Sanscrit and Arabic, or English 1 Never on this earth was a more momentous ques tion discussed. Under Lord William Bentinck in 1835 the discussion came to a head, and by a re- markable coincidence a famous man was on the spot to give lustre to and take lustre from a memorable controversy. It was Macaulay’s Minute that decided the question in favour of English. In that Minute or in Sir C. Trevelyan’s volume on Education in India you can study it. Only remark a strange oversight that was made. The question was dis- cussed as if the choice lay between teaching Sanscrit and Arabic on the one hand, or English on the other. All these languages alike are to the mass of the population utterly strange. Arabic and English are foreign, and Sanscrit is to the Hindus what Latin is to the natives of Europe. It is the original language out of which the principal spoken languages have been formed, but it is dead. It has been dead a far longer time than Latin, for it had ceased to be a spoken language in the third century before Christ. By far the greater part of the famous Sanscrit poems and writings, philosophical or theological, were written artificially and by a learned efi’ort, like the Latin poems of Vida and Sannazaro. Now over Sanscrit Macaulay had an easy victory, for he had only to show that English had poetry at least aa good, and philosophy, history, and science a great deal V MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND AND INDIA 293 better. But why should there be no choice but between dead languages? Could Macaulay really fancy it possible to teach two hundred and fifty millions of Asiatics Enghsh 1 Probably not, probably he thought only of creating a small learned class. I imagine too that his own classical training had implanted in his mind a fixed assumption that a dead language is necessary to education. But if India is really to be enlightened, evidently it must be through the medium neither of Sanscrit nor of English, but of the vernaculars—that is, Hindustani, Hindi, Bengali, etc. These, under some vague impression that they were too rude to be made the vehicles of science or philosophy, Macaulay almost refuses to consider, but against these his arguments in favour of English would have been powerless.
But though this great oversight was made—it has since been remarked and, since the education despatch of Sir Charles Wood in 1854, in some measure repaired—the decision to which Macaulay’s Minute led remains the great landmark in the history of our Empire, considered as an institute of civilisation. It marks the moment when we deliberately recognised that a function had devolved on us in Asia similar to that which Eome fulfilled in Europe, the greatest function which any Government can ever be called upon to discharge.
LECTURE VI