No More Learning

And under such European governors as these, the distresses of the East
have often been alleviated by a generosity of conduct, and a train of
resources formerly unknown in Asia. Absurd and impracticable were that
scheme which would introduce the British laws into India without the
deepest regard to the manners and circumstances peculiar to the people.
But that spirit of liberty upon which they are founded, and that
security of property which is their leading principle, must in time have
a wide and stupendous effect. The abject spirit of Asiatic submission
will be taught to see, and to claim, those rights of nature, of which
the dispirited and passive Hindus could, till lately, hardly form an
idea. From this, as naturally as the noon succeeds the dawn, must the
other blessings of civilization arise. For, though the four great castes
of India are almost inaccessible to the introduction of other manners,
and of other literature than their own, happily there is in human nature
a propensity to change. Nor may the political philosopher be deemed an
enthusiast who would boldly prophesy, that unless the British be driven
from India the general superiority which they bear will, ere many
generations shall have passed, induce the most intelligent of India to
break the shackles of their absurd superstitions,[28] and lead them to
partake of those advantages which arise from the free scope and due
cultivation of the rational powers. In almost every instance the Indian
institutions are contrary to the feelings and wishes of nature. And
ignorance and bigotry, their two chief pillars, can never secure
unalterable duration. We have certain proof that the horrid custom of
burning the wives along with the body of the deceased husband has
continued for upwards of fifteen hundred years; we are also certain that
within these twenty years it has begun to fall into disuse. Together
with the alteration of this most striking feature of Indian manners,
other assimilations to European sentiments have already taken place. Nor
can the obstinacy even of the conceited Chinese always resist the desire
of imitating the Europeans, a people who in arts and arms are so greatly
superior to themselves. The use of the twenty-four letters, by which we
can express every language, appeared at first as miraculous to the
Chinese. Prejudice cannot always deprive that people, who are not
deficient in selfish cunning, of the ease and expedition of an alphabet;
and it is easy to foresee that, in the course of a few centuries, some
alphabet will certainly take the place of the 60,000 arbitrary marks
which now render the cultivation of the Chinese literature not only a
labour of the utmost difficulty, but even the attainment impossible
beyond a very limited degree. And from the introduction of an alphabet,
what improvements may not be expected from the laborious industry of the
Chinese!
Though most obstinately attached to their old customs, yet
there is a tide in the manners of nations which is sudden and rapid, and
which acts with a kind of instinctive fury against ancient prejudice and
absurdity. It was that nation of merchants, the Phoenicians, which
diffused the use of letters through the ancient, and commerce will
undoubtedly diffuse the same blessings through the modern, world.

To this view of the political happiness which is sure to be introduced
in proportion to civilization, let the divine add what may be reasonably
expected from such opportunity of the increase of religion. A factory of
merchants, indeed, has seldom been found to be a school of piety; yet,
when the general manners of a people become assimilated to those of a
more rational worship, something more than ever was produced by an
infant mission, or the neighbourhood of an infant colony, may then be
reasonably expected, and even foretold.

In estimating the political happiness of a people, nothing is of greater
importance than their capacity of, and tendency to, improvement. As a
dead lake, to continue our former illustration, will remain in the same
state for ages and ages, so would the bigotry and superstitions of the
East continue the same. But if the lake is begun to be opened into a
thousand rivulets, who knows over what unnumbered fields, barren before,
they may diffuse the blessings of fertility, and turn a dreary
wilderness into a land of society and joy.

In contrast to this, let the Gold Coast and other immense regions of
Africa be contemplated--

"Afric behold; alas, what altered view!
Her lands uncultured, and her sons untrue;
Ungraced with all that sweetens human life,
Savage and fierce they roam in brutal strife;
Eager they grasp the gifts which culture yields,
Yet naked roam their own neglected fields. . . .
Unnumber'd tribes as bestial grazers stray,
By laws unform'd, unform'd by Reason's sway.
Far inward stretch the mournful sterile dales,
Where on the parch'd hill-side pale famine wails. "

LUSIAD X.

Let us consider how many millions of these unhappy savages are dragged
from their native fields, and cut off for ever from all the hopes and
all the rights to which human birth entitled them.