knowledge, of languages, and of arts; which, instead of travelling westward only, as it has been fancifully supposed, or eastward, as might with equal reason have been asserted, were expanded in all directions to all the regions of the world, in which the Hindu race had settled under various denominations.” The second chapter of the Dabistán describes, in twelve sections, the religious systems and customs of the Hindus. It is a detailed account, given by a Persian who, as traveller and resident in India during about thirty years, had the best opportunities to collect right information; he shows himself acquainted with the canonical books of this nation; he quotes their Puránas, and other works less known.[133] The Hindus are, among all nations, most particularly distinguished by a decided turn for metaphysics, which even tinctured the radicals of their language; they have labored more than others to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvible, inexhaustible, incomprehensible. To give a general notion of their metaphysical theology, I do not say to render it intelligible, would require an extensive treatise. We will now give a few characteristic and leading features of their systems as indicated in the Dabistán. Some of their theological philosophers made incredible efforts to steer clear of anthropomorphism in their conceptions of the Divinity: their Brahm, in the neuter gender, has no symbol, nor image, nor temple; they generally profess the great principle of _emanation of all existences from a common but unknown source_. God is the producer of the beginning and end, exhibiting himself in the mirror of pure space. Creation is held to have proceeded from pure space and time. Other Hindu philosophers establish: 1. a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy. This they call _Mula Prakritti_, “rudimental nature,” no production but the root of all, involving, 2. _seven principles_, which are productions and productive (that is, intellect, egotism, and five subtile elements); from these seven proceed: 3. _sixteen productions_ (to wit, eleven organs and five gross elements); to these just mentioned twenty-four (namely, Nature, seven principles and sixteen productions); add, 4. _the soul_, which is neither a production, nor productive, and you have the _twenty-five physical and metaphysical categories_ of the Sankhya philosophy.[134] This strikes us as a very specious methodical arrangement of an abstruse matter, which is not thereby in any degree rendered more intelligible.