XIX. ON SANSKRIT TEXTS DISCOVERED IN JAPAN (1880) . 313

to face p. 342

SELECTED ESSAYS

ON

LANGUAGE, MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGION.

XI.

OPENING ADDRESS

Delivered by the President of the Aryan Section at the International Congress of Orientalists, held in London, September 14-21, 1874.

No one likes to be asked what business he has to exist, and yet, whatever we do, whether singly or in concert with others, the first question which the world never fails to address to us is Dic cur hic? Why are you here? or to put it into French, What is your raison d'être? We have had to submit to this examination even before we existed, and many a time have I been asked the question, both by friend. and foe, What is the good of an International Congress of Orientalists?

I shall endeavour, as shortly as possible, to answer that question, and show that our Congress is not a mere fortuitous congeries of barren atoms or molecules, but that we are at least Leibnizian monads, each with his own self, and force, and will, and each determined, within the limits of some pre-established harmony, to help in working out some common purpose, and to achieve some real and lasting good.

It is generally thought that the chief object of a scientific Congress is social, and I am not one of those who are incapable of appreciating the delights and benefits of social intercourse with hard-working and honest-thinking men. Much as I detest what is commonly called society, I willingly give up glaciers and waterfalls, cathedrals and picture-galleries, for one half hour of real society, of free, frank, fresh, and friendly intercourse, face to face, and mind to mind, with a great, and noble, and loving soul, such as was Bunsen; with a man intrepid in his thoughts, his words, and his deeds, such as was John Stuart Mill; or with a scholar who, whether he had been quarrying heavy blocks, or chiselling the most brittle filigree work, poured out all his treasures before you with the pride and pleasure of a child, such as was Eugène Burnouf. A Congress, therefore, and particularly an International Congress, would certainly seem to answer some worthy purpose, were it only by bringing together fellow-workers of all countries and ages, by changing what were to us merely great names into pleasant companions, and by satisfying that very right and rational curiosity which we all feel, after having read a really good book, of seeing what the man looks like who could achieve such triumphs.

All this is perfectly true; yet, however pleasant to ourselves this social intercourse may appear, in the eyes of the world at large it will hardly be considered a sufficient excuse for our existence. In order, therefore, to satisfy that outer world that we are really doing something, we point of course to the papers which are read at our public meetings,

and to the discussions which they elicit. Much as I value that feature also in a scientific congress, I confess I doubt, and I know that many share that doubt, whether the same result might not be obtained with much less trouble. A paper that contains something really new and valuable, the result, it may be, of years of toil and thought, requires to be read with care in a quiet corner of our own study, before the expression of our assent or dissent can be of any weight or value. There is too much hollow praise, and occasionally too much wrangling and ill-natured abuse at our scientific tournaments, and the world at large, which is never without a tinge of malice and a vein of quiet humour, has frequently expressed its concern at the waste of 'oil and vinegar' which is occasioned by the frequent meetings of our British and Foreign Associations.

What then is the real use of a Congress, such as that which has brought us together this week from all parts of the world? What is the real excuse for our existence? Why are we here, and not in our workshops?

It seems to me that the real and permanent use of these scientific gatherings is twofold:

(1) They enable us to take stock, to compare notes, to see where we are, and to find out where we ought to be going.

(2) They give us an opportunity, from time to time, to tell the world where we are, what we have been doing for the world, and what, in return, we expect the world to do for us.

The danger of all scientific work at present, not only among Oriental scholars, but, as far as I can see,

everywhere, is the tendency to extreme specialisation. Our age shows in that respect a decided reaction against the spirit of a former age, which those with grey heads among us can still remember-an age represented in Germany by such names as Humboldt, Ritter, Böckh, Johannes Müller, Bopp, Bunsen, and others; men who look to us like giants, carrying a weight of knowledge far too heavy for the shoulders of such mortals as now be; ay, men who were giants, but whose chief strength consisted in this, that they were never entirely absorbed or bewildered by special researches, but kept their eye steadily on the highest objects of all human knowledge; who could trace the vast outlines of the kosmos of nature or the kosmos of the mind with an unwavering hand, and to whose maps and guide books we must still turn whenever we are in danger of losing our way in the mazes of minute research. At the present moment such works as Humboldt's Kosmos,' or Bopp's Comparative Grammar,' or Bunsen's 'Christianity and Mankind,' would be impossible. No one would dare to write them, for fear of not knowing the exact depth at which the Protogenes Haeckelii has lately been discovered or the lengthening of a vowel in the Samhitapâtha of the Rig-Veda. It is quite right that this should be so, at least, for a time; but all rivers, all brooks, all rills, are meant to flow into the ocean, and all special knowledge, to keep it from stagnation, must have an outlet into the general knowledge of the world. Knowledge for its own sake, as it is sometimes called, is the most dangerous idol that a student can worship. We despise the miser who amasses money for the sake