into Europe in the days of Galileo and Copernicus, and attempted to
impart it to the mass of the people, or to the higher classes only,
the same alarm would have been raised, or nearly the same. We must be
content with small, or slow progress; but there are certain branches
of knowledge, highly useful to the people, that are finding their way
among them from our metropolitan establishments, and working good.

I might better have said, that had we come into Greece when Homer was
the Bible of the people, with all our astronomy, chemistry, and
physical science generally, and our literature, blended as it is with
our religion, we should have found our Greek fellow-subjects as
untractable as the Hindoos or Parsees. The fact is, that every
Hindoo, educated through our language in our literature and science,
must be more or less wretched in domestic life, for he cannot feel or
think with his family, or bring them to feel or think with him. The
knowledge which he has acquired satisfies him that the faith to which
they adhere, and which guides them in all their duties, ceremonies,
acts, and habits, is monstrous and absurd; but he can never hope to
impart to them this knowledge, or to alienate them from that faith;
nor does he himself feel any confidence in any other creed: he feels
that he is an isolated being, who can exchange thoughts and feelings
unreservedly with no one. I have seen many estimable Hindoos in this
state, with minds highly gifted and cultivated, and with abilities
for anything. For such men we cannot create communities, nor can they
create them for themselves: they can enjoy their books and
conversation with men who understand and enjoy them like themselves;
but how few are the men of this class with whom they can ever hope to
associate on easy terms! It is not so with Mahommedans. All the
literature and science in the world has no more effect on their faith
than on ours; and their families apprehend no alienation in any