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to be burned; if he actually insulted them, his tongue was to be slit; if he molested a Brahmin, he was to be put to death;2 if he sat on the same carpet with a Brahmin, he was to be maimed for life; if, moved by the desire of instruction, he even listened to the reading of the sacred books, burning oil was to be poured into his ears;84 if, however, he committed them to memory, he was to be killed;85 if he were guilty of a crime, the punishment for it was greater than that inflicted on his superiors; but if he himself were murdered, the penalty was the same as for killing a dog, a cat, or a crow.87 Should he marry his daughter to a Brahmin, no retribution that could be exacted in this world was sufficient; it was therefore announced that the Brahmin must go to hell, for having suffered contamination from a woman immeasurably his inferior. Indeed, it was ordered that the mere name of a labourer should be expressive of contempt, so that his proper standing might be immediately known. And lest this should not be enough to maintain the subordination of society, a law was actually made forbidding any labourer to accumulate wealth; while another clause declared, that even

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of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 315. See also Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 67.

80

Menu, chap. viii. sec. 271, in Jones's Works, vol. iii. p. 314. 81 Menu, chap. viii. sec. 270.

"If a Sooder gives much and frequent molestation to a Brahmin, the magistrate shall put him to death." Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 262..

Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 207. As to the case of striking a Brahmin, see Rammohun Roy on the Veds, p. 227, 2d edit. 1832.

"And if a Sooder listens to the Beids of the Shaster, then the oil, heated as before, shall be poured into his ears; and arzeez and wax shall be melted together, and the orifice of his ears shall be stopped up therewith." Halhed, p. 262. Compare the prohibition in Menu, chap. iv. sec. 99, chap. x. sec. 109-111, in Jones's Works, vol. iii. pp. 174, 398.

Halhed, p. 262: "the magistrate shall put him to death." In Mrichchakati, the judge says to a Sudra, "If you expound the Vedas, will not your tongue be cut out?" Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 170.

Ward's View of the Hindus, vol. iv. p. 308. To this the only exception was in the case of theft. Mill's History of India, vol. i. pp. 193, 260. ▲ Brahmin could

on no account be capitally punished." Asiatic Researches, vol. xv. p. 44.

Menu, chap. xi. sec. 132, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 422.

"A Brahmin, if he take a Sudra to his bed as his first wife, sinks to the regions of torment." Institutes of Menu, chap. iii. sec. 17, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 121. Compare the denial of funeral rites, in Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. iii. p. 328. And on the different hells invented by the Hindu clergy, see Vishnu Purana, p. 207, Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. ii. pp. 182, 183; Coleman's Mythology of the Hin dus, p. 113. The curious details in Rhode, die Religiöse Bildung der Hindus, vol. i. pp. 392, 393, rather refer to Buddhism, and should be compared with Journal Asiatique, I. série, vol. viii. pp. 80, 81, Paris, 1826.

Menu, chap. ii. sec. 31, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 87; also noticed in Rhode Relig. Bildung, vol. ii. p. 561: "sein Name soll schon Verachtung ausdrücken." So, too, Mr. Elphinstone (History of India, p. 17): "the proper name of a Sudra is directed to be expressive of contempt." Compare Origines du Droit, in Euvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 387, Bruxelles, 1840.

Menu, chap. x. sec. 129, in Jones, vol. iii. p. 401. This law is pointed out by

though his master should give him freedom, he would in reality still be a slave; "for," says the lawgiver,-" for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested ? "'91

By whom, indeed, could he be divested? I ween not where that power was by which so vast a miracle could be worked For in India, slavery, abject, eternal slavery, was the natural state of the great body of the people; it was the state to which they were doomed by physical laws utterly impossible to resist. The energy of those laws is, in truth, so invincible, that wherever they have come into play, they have kept the productive classes in perpetual subjection. There is no instance on record of any tropical country, in which wealth having been extensively accumulated, the people have escaped their fate; no instance in which the heat of the climate has not caused an abundance of food, and the abundance of food caused an unequal distribution, first of wealth, and then of political and social power. Among nations subjected to these conditions, the people have counted for nothing; they have had no voice in the management of the state, no control over the wealth their own industry created. Their only business has been to labour; their only duty to obey. Thus there have been generated among them, those habits of tame and servile submission, by which, as we know from history, they have always been characterized. For it is an undoubted fact, that their annals furnish no instance of their having turned upon their rulers, no war of classes, no popular insurrections, not even one great popular conspiracy. In those rich and fertile countries there have been many changes, but all of them have been from above, not from below. The democratic element has been altogether wanting. There have been in abundance, wars of kings, and wars of dynasties. There have been revolutions in the government, revolutions in the palace, revolutions on the throne; but no revolutions among the people, no mitigation of that hard lot which nature, rather than man, assigned to them. Nor was it until civilization arose in Europe, that other physical laws came into operation, and therefore other results were produced.

92

Mill (History of India, vol. i. p. 195) as an evidence of the miserable state of the people, which Mr. Wilson (note in p. 194) vainly attempts to evade.

91A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude; for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested ?"Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 414, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 333.

92 An intelligent observer says, "It is also remarkable how little the people of Asiatic countries have to do in the revolutions of their governments. They are never guided by any great and common impulse of feeling, and take no part in events the most interesting and important to their country and their own prosperity." M'Murdo on the Country of Sindh, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 250. Compare similar remarks in Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 114; and even in Alison's History of Europe, vol. x. pp. 419, 420.

In Europe, for the first time, there was some approach to equality, some tendency to correct that enormous disproportion of wealth and power, which formed the essential weakness of the greatest of the more ancient countries. As a natural consequence, it is in Europe that every thing worthy of the name of civilization has originated; because there alone have attempts been made to preserve the balance of its relative parts. There alone has society been organized according to a scheme, not indeed sufficiently large, but still wide enough to include all the different classes of which it is composed, and thus, by leaving room for the progress of each, to secure the permanence and advancement of the whole.

The way in which certain other physical peculiarities confined to Europe, have also accelerated the progress of Man by diminishing his superstition, will be indicated towards the end of this chapter; but as that will involve an examination of some laws which I have not yet noticed, it seems advisable, in the first place, to complete the inquiry now before us; and I therefore purpose proving that the line of argument which has been just applied to India, is likewise applicable to Egypt, to Mexico, and to Peru. For by thus including in a single survey, the most conspicuous civilizations of Asia, Africa, and America, we shall be able to see how the preceding principles hold good of different and distant countries; and we shall be possessed of evidence sufficiently comprehensive to test the accuracy of those great laws which, without such precaution, I might be supposed to have generalized from scanty and imperfect materials.

The reasons why, of all the African nations, the Egyptians alone were civilized, have been already stated, and have been shown to depend on those physical peculiarities which distinguished them from the surrounding countries, and which, by facilitating the acquisition of wealth, not only supplied them with material resources that otherwise they could never have obtained, but also secured to their intellectual classes the leisure and the opportunity of extending the boundaries of knowledge. It is, indeed, true that, notwithstanding these advantages, they effected nothing of much moment; but this was owing to circumstances which will be hereafter explained; and it must, at all events, be admitted that they raised themselves far above every other people by whom Africa was inhabited.

The civilization of Egypt being, like that of India, caused by the fertility of the soil, and the climate being also very hot,"

Volney (Voyage en Eyypte, vol. i. pp. 58-63) has a good chapter on the climate of Egypt.

there were in both countries brought into play the same laws; and there naturally followed the same results. In both countries we find the national food cheap and abundant: hence the labour market over-supplied; hence a very unequal division of wealth and power; and hence all the consequences which such inequality will inevitably produce. How this system worked in India, I have just attempted to examine; and although the materials for studying the former condition of Egypt are much less ample, they are still sufficiently numerous to prove the striking analogy between the two civilizations, and the identity of those great principles which regulated the order of their social and political development.

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If we inquire into the most important circumstances which concerned the people of ancient Egypt, we shall see that they are exactly the counterpart of those that have been noticed in India. For, in the first place, as regards their ordinary food, what rice is to the most fertile parts of Asia, that are dates to Africa. The palm-tree is found in every country from the Tigris to the Atlantic; and it supplies millions of human beings with their daily food in Arabia, and in nearly the whole of Africa north of the equator. In many parts of the great African desert it is indeed unable to bear fruit; but naturally it is a very hardy plant, and produces dates in such profusion, that towards the north of the Sahara they are eaten not only by man, but also by domestic animals. And in Egypt, where the palm is said

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95

94 It is, however, unknown in South Africa. See the account of the Palmaceæ in Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, 1847, p. 136, and Meyen's Geog. of Plants, p. 337,

"Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite." Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 56. See also, for proof of their abundance in the west of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 103, 157, 238, vol. ii. pp. 91, 100, 105, 118, 209, 210, 214, 258, 300, 331. And on the dates of Oman and the east of Arabia, see Wellsted's Travels in Arabia, vol. i. pp. 188, 189, 236, 276, 290, 349. Compare Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, pp. 142, 296. Indeed, they are so important, that the Arabs have dif ferent names for them according to the stages of their growth. Djewhari says, "La dénomination balah précède le nom bosr; car la datte se nomme d'abord tala, en suite khalal, puis balah, puis bosr, puis rotab, et enfin tamr." De Sacy's Note to Abd-Allatif, Relation de l'Egypte, p. 74, and see p. 118. Other notices of the dates of Arabia will be found in Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century, p. 66; Journal of Asiatic Soc., vol. viii. p. 286; Journal of Geograph. Soc., vol. iv. p. 201, vol. vi. pp. 53, 55, 58, 66, 68, 74, vol. vii. p. 32, vol. ix. pp. 147, 151.

6 Heeren (Trade of the African Nations, vol. i. p. 182) supposes that in Africa, dates are comparatively little known south of 26° north lat. But this learned writer is certainly mistaken; and a reference to the following passages will show that they are common as far down as the parallel of Lake Tchad, which is nearly the southern limit of our knowledge of Central Africa: Denham's Central Africa, p. 295; Clap perton's Journal, in Appendix to Denham, pp. 34, 59; Clapperton's Second Expedition, p. 159. Further east they are somewhat scarcer, but are found more to the south than is supposed by Heeren: see Pallme's Kordofan, p. 220.

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"Dates are not only the principal growth of the Fezzan oases, but the main subsistence of their inhabitants. All live on dates; men, women, and children, horses, asses, and camels, and sheep, fowls, and dogs." Richardson' Travels in the

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to be of spontaneous growth, dates, besides being the chief sustenance of the people, are so plentiful, that from a very early period they have been commonly given to camels, the only beasts of burden generally used in that country."

99

From these facts, it is evident that, taking Egypt as the highest type of African civilization, and India as the highest type of Asiatic civilization, it may be said that dates are to the first civilization what rice is to the second. Now it is observable, that all the most important physical peculiarities found in rice, are also found in dates. In regard to their chemistry, it is well known that the chief principle of the nutriment they contain is the same in both; the starch of the Indian vegetable being merely turned into the sugar of the Egyptian. In regard to the laws of climate, their affinity is equally obvious; since dates, like rice, belong to hot countries, and flourish most in or near the tropics.100 In regard to their increase, and the laws of their connexion with the soil, the analogy is also exact; for dates, just the same as rice, require little labour, and yield abundant returns, while they occupy so small a space of land in comparison with the nutriment they afford, that upwards of two hundred palmtrees are sometimes planted on a single acre.101

Thus striking are the similarities to which, in different countries, the same physical conditions naturally give rise. At the same time in Egypt, as in India, the attainment of civilization was preceded by the possession of a highly fertile soil; so that, while the exuberance of the land regulated the speed with which wealth was created, the abundance of the food regulated the pro

Sahara, vol. ii. p. 323, and see vol. i. p. 343; as to those parts of the desert where the palm will not bear, see vol. i. pp. 387, 405, vol. ii. pp. 291, 363. Respecting the dates of Western Africa, see Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. xii. p. 204.

"It flourished spontaneously in the valley of the Nile." Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 372. As further illustration of the importance to Africa of this beautiful plant, it may be mentioned, that from the high-palm there is prepared a peculiar beverage, which in some parts is in great request. On this, which is called palm-wine, see M William's Medical Expedition to the Niger, pp. 71, 116; Meredith's Gold Coast of Africa, 1812, pp. 55, 56; Laird and Oldfield's Expedition into the Interior of Africa, 1837, vol. ii. pp. 170, 213; Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, pp. 69, 100, 152, 293, 386, 392. But I doubt if this is the same as the palm-wine mentioned in Balfour's Botany, 1849, p. 532. Compare Tuckey's Expedition to the Zaire, pp. 155, 216, 224, 356.

"Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. pp. 175-178. See also on the abun dance of dates, the extracts from an Arabian geographer in Quatremère, Recherches sur l'Egypte, pp. 220, 221.

100 On their relation to the laws of climate, see the remarks respecting the geographical limits of their power of ripening, in Jussieu's Botany, edit. Wilson, 1849, p. 734.

101 In the valley of the Nile, a feddan (14 acre) is sometimes planted with 400 trees." Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 178. At Moorzuk an entire date-palm is only worth about a shilling. Richardson's Central Africa, vol i. p. 111.