does not allow herself the time for doing what ought to be done. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE KORAN. An quicquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipiatur.—LEMMA. With respect to the Koran, the Orientals are at this day in the position into which, as respects our Holy Scriptures, an attempt was made to bring our forefathers in the days of mediæval scholasticism. They believe that in their sacred volume is contained all knowledge, either explicitly or implicitly. We have long abandoned definitively this idea. We have come to understand that the New Testament announces itself only as a moral revelation; and of that gives only the spirit, and not the letter; that is to say, that it does not profess to give, and, as a matter of fact, does not contain, a definite system of law, but the principles only which should regulate such a system. It leaves us, therefore, to go not only for our astronomy to astronomers, and for our geology to geologists, but also for our municipal law to jurists and legislators, so long as what they propound and enact is not at discord with Christian principles. The Mahomedan, however, has not this liberty, for the Koran professes to contain an all-embracing and sufficient code. It regulates everything. This is very unfortunate; or, whatever it was at first, it has, in process of time, come to be very unfortunate; for it makes the ideas—what we must regard as the ignorance rather than the knowledge—of a more than half-savage Arab of the seventh century the rule by which everything in law, life, and thought is to be measured for all time. While I was in the East I was full of commiseration for the people I saw bound hand and foot in this way. They are handsome, clean-limbed fellows, and quick-witted enough. There is in them the making of great nations. Power, however, is an attribute of mind, and mind cannot work unless it be free. While I commiserated them, I saw no hope for them. The evil they are afflicted by appears not to admit of a remedy; because while, for men who have advanced so far as they have, it is intellectual suicide to be faithful to such a religion, to be unfaithful to it has hitherto proved to be moral suicide.