I do not mean to say that everybody who wishes to know how the human race came to be what it is, how language came to be what it is, how religion came to be what it is, how manners, customs, laws, and forms of government came to be what they are, how we ourselves came to be what we are, must learn Sanskrit, and must study Vedic Sanskrit. But I _do_ believe that not to know what a study of Sanskrit, and particularly a study of the Veda, has already done for illuminating the darkest passages in the history of the human mind, of that mind on which we ourselves are feeding and living, is a misfortune, or, at all events, a loss, just as I should count it a loss to have passed through life without knowing something, however little, of the geological formation of the earth, or of the sun, and the moon, and the stars--and of the thought, or the will, or the law, that govern their movements. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 260: On the early use of letters for public inscriptions, see Hayman, _Journal of Philology_, 1879, pp. 141, 142, 150; Hicks, "Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions," pp. 1 seqq.] [Footnote 261: Herod, (v. 59) says: "I saw Phenician letters on certain tripods in a temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes in Boeotia, the most of them like the Ionian letters."] [Footnote 262: Munch, "Die Nordisch Germanischen Völker," p. 240.] [Footnote 263: Herod. (v. 58) says: "The Ionians from of old call βὑβλος διφθἑραι, because once, in default of the former, they used to employ the latter. And even down to my own time, many of the barbarians write on such diphtheræ."] [Footnote 264: Hekatæos and Kadmos of Miletos (520 B.C.), Charon of Lampsakos (504 B.C.), Xanthos the Lydian (463 B.C.), Pherekydes of Leros (480 B.C.), Hellanikos of Mitylene (450 B.C.), etc.] [Footnote 265: Lewis, "Astronomy," p. 92.] [Footnote 266: See Hayman, _Journal of Philology_, 1879, p. 139.] [Footnote 267: See M. M., "History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," pp. 497 seqq., "On the Introduction of Writing in India."] [Footnote 268: M. M., "History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," p. 515.] [Footnote 269: M. M., "Hibbert Lectures," p. 153.] [Footnote 270: Learning was anciently preserved by memory. The Jewish, or rather Chaldaic _Kabala_, or Tradition was not written for many centuries. The Druids of ancient Britain preserved their litanies in the same way, and to a Bard a good memory was indispensable, or he would have been refused initiation.--A. W.] [Footnote 271: See my article on the date of the Kâ_s_ikâ in the _Indian Antiquary_, 1880, p. 305.] [Footnote 272: The translation of the most important passages in I-tsing's work was made for me by one of my Japanese pupils, K. Kasawara.] [Footnote 273: See Bunyiu Nanjio's "Catalogue of the Chinese Tripi_t_aka," p. 372, where Ârya_s_ûra, who must have lived before 434 A.D., is mentioned as the author of the "_G_âtakamâlâ."] [Footnote 274: Wellington, 1880.]