that the discoveries made by comparative philologists could no longer be ignored with impunity; and I submitted that after the progress achieved in a scientific study of the principal branches of the vast realm of human speech, our new science, the Science of Language, might claim by right its seat at the Round-table of the intellectual chivalry of our

age.

Such was the goodness of the cause I had then to defend, that, however imperfect my own pleading, the verdict of the public has been immediate and almost unanimous. During the years that have elapsed since the delivery of my first course of lectures, the Science of Language has had its full share of public recognition. Whether we look at the number of books that have been published for the advancement and elucidation of our science, or at the excellent articles in the daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and quarterly reviews, or at the frequent notices of its results scattered about in works on philosophy, theology, and ancient history, we may well rest satisfied. The example set by France and Germany in founding chairs of Sanskrit and Comparative

Philology, has been followed of late in nearly all the universities of England, Ireland, and Scotland. We need not fear for the future of the Science of Language. A career so auspiciously begun, in spite of strong prejudices that had to be encountered, will lead on from year to year to greater triumphs. Our best public schools, if they have not done so already, will soon have to follow the example set by the universities. It is but fair that schoolboys who are made to devote so many hours every day to the laborious acquisition of languages, should now and then be taken by a safe guide to enjoy from a higher point of view that living panorama of human speech which has been surveyed and carefully mapped out by patient explorers and bold discoverers: nor is there any longer an excuse why, even in the most elementary lessons, nay I should say, why more particularly in these elementary lessons, the dark and dreary passages of Greek and Latin, of French and German grammar, should not be brightened by the electric light of Comparative Philology.

When last year I travelled in Germany I found that lectures on Comparative Philology

were attended in the universities by nearly all who study Greek and Latin. At Leipzig there were hundreds of students who crowded the lecture room of the Professor of Comparative Philology, and the classes of the Professor of Sanskrit consisted of more than fifty undergraduates, most of them wishing to acquire that amount of knowledge of Sanskrit which is absolutely necessary before entering upon a study of Comparative Grammar.

The introduction of Greek into the universities of Europe in the fifteenth century could hardly have caused a greater revolution than the discovery of Sanskrit and the study of Comparative Philology in the nineteenth. Very few indeed now take their degree of Master of Arts in Germany or would be allowed to teach at a public school, without having been examined in the principles of Comparative Philology, nay in the elements of Sanskrit. grammar. Why should it be different in England? The intellectual fibre, I know, is not different in the youth of England and in the youth of Germany, and if there is but a fair field and no favour, Comparative Philology, I feel convinced, will soon hold in England

too, that place which it ought to hold at every public school, in every university, and in every classical examination'.

In beginning to-day a course of lectures on the Science of Religion, or I should rather say on some preliminary points that have to be settled before we can enter upon a truly scientific study of the religions of the world,I feel as I felt when first pleading in this very place for the Science of Language.

I know that I shall have to meet determined antagonists who will deny the possibility of a scientific treatment of religions as they denied the possibility of a scientific treatment of languages. I foresee even a far more serious conflict with familiar prejudices and deep-rooted convictions; but I feel at the same time that I am prepared to meet my antagonists, and I have such faith in their honesty and love of

1 Since this was written, Comparative Philology has been admitted to its rightful place in the University of Oxford. In the first Public Examination candidates for Honours in Greek or Latin Literature will be examined in the Elements of Comparative Philology as illustrating the Greek and Latin languages. In the final Public Examination, Comparative Philology will form a special subject, by the side of the history of Ancient Literature.

truth, that I doubt not of a patient and impartial hearing on their part, and of a verdict influenced by nothing but by the evidence that I shall have to place before them.

In these our days it is almost impossible to speak of religion without giving offence either on the right or on the left. With some, religion seems too sacred a subject for scientific treatment; with others it stands on a level with alchemy and astrology, as a mere tissue of errors or halucinations, far beneath the notice of the man of science.

In a certain sense, I accept both these views. Religion is a sacred subject, and whether in its most perfect or in its most imperfect form, it has a right to our highest reverence. In this respect we might learn something from those whom we are so ready to teach. I quote from the Declaration of Principles by which the church founded by Keshub Chunder Sen professes to be guided. After stating that no created object shall ever be worshipped, nor any man or inferior being or material object be treated as identical with God, or like unto God, or as an incarnation of God, and that no prayer or hymn shall be said