Editors From Scotland

"The distinction, between what is done by labour, and what is done by nature, is not always observed."

"A certain immense aggregate of operations, is subservient to the production of the commodities useful and agreeable to man. It is of the highest importance that this aggregate should be divided into portions, consisting, each, of as small a number of operations as possible, in order that every operation may be the more quickly and perfectly, performed. If each man could, by the more frequent repetition thus occasioned, perform two of these operations, instead of one, and also perform each of them better, the powers of the community, in producing articles useful and agreeable to them, would, upon this supposition, be more than doubled. Not only would they be doubled in quantity, but a great advantage would be gained in point of quality."

"In the employment of labour and machinery, it is often found that the effects can be increased by skilful distribution, by separating all those operations which have any tendency to impede one another, and by bringing together all those operations which can be made in any way to aid one another. As men in general cannot perform many different operations with the same quickness and dexterity with which they can by practice learn to perform a few, it is always an advantage to limit as much as possible the number of operations imposed upon each. For dividing labour, and distributing the powers of men and machinery, to the greatest advantage, it is in most cases necessary to operate upon a large scale; in other words, to produce the commodities in greater masses. It is this advantage which gives existence to the great manufactories; a few of which, placed in the most convenient situations, frequently supply not one country, but many countries, with as much as they desire of the commodity produced."

"Mill’s contempt for ancient India extends to the other Asian civilizations as well and . . . much of Mill’s framework has survived in the colonial and post-colonial Indology. For instance, his idea that the history of ancient India, like the history of other barbarous nations, has been the history of mutually warring small states, only occasionally relieved by some larger political entities established by the will of some particularly ambitious and competent individuals has remained with us in various forms till today."

"His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in the political history of his country; and it is far from honourable to the generation which has benefited by his worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and, compared with men far his inferiors, so little remembered."

"Considered merely in a literary capacity, the description of the Hindus in the History of British India, is open to censure for its obvious unfairness and injustice; but in the effects which it is likely to exercise upon the connexion between the people of England and the people of India, it is chargeable with more than literary demerit: its tendency is evil; it is calculated to destroy all sympathy between the rulers and the ruled; to preoccupy the minds of those who issue annually from Great Britain, to monopolize the posts of honour and power in Hindustan, with an unfounded aversion toward those over whom they exercise that power. . . . There is reason to fear that these consequences are not imaginary, and that a harsh and illiberal spirit has of late years prevailed in the conduct and councils of the rising service in India, which owes its origin to impressions imbibed in early life from the History of Mr. Mill."

"British Indomania did not die of natural causes; it was killed off. The Indophobia that became the norm in early-nineteenth-century Britain was constructed by Evangelicalism and Utilitarianism, and its chief architects were Charles Grant and James Mill."

"James Mill's highly influential History of British India (1817), most particularly the long essay "Of the Hindus," comprising ten chapters, is the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism."

"‘Thenceforth, Mill’s History became an essential reading and reference book for those entrusted with administering the British Indian Empire. From the time of its publication till recently, the History in fact provided the framework for the writing of most histories of India. For this reason, the impact of his judgments on India and its people should never be underestimated.’"

"The question with respect to Government is a question about the adaptation of means to an end. Notwithstanding the portion of discourse which has been bestowed upon this subject, it is surprising to find, upon a close inspection, how few of its principles are settled. The reason is, that the ends and means have not been analyzed; and it is only a general and undistinguishing conception of them which exists in the minds of the greater number of men. So long as things remain in this situation, they give rise to interminable disputes ; more especially when the deliberation is subject, as in this case, to the strongest action of personal interest."

"Of the laws of nature on which the condition of man depends, that which is attended with the greatest number of consequences is the necessity of labor for obtaining the means of subsistence, as well as the means of the greatest part of our pleasures. This is no doubt the primary cause of government; for if nature had produced spontaneously all the objects which we desire, and in sufficient abundance for the desires of all, there would have been no source of dispute or of injury among men, nor would any man have possessed the means of ever acquiring authority over another. The results are exceedingly different when nature produces the objects of desire not in sufficient abundance for all. The source of dispute is then exhaustless, and every man has the means of acquiring authority over others in proportion to the quantity of those objects which he is able to possess. In this case the end to be obtained through government as the means, is to make that distribution of the scanty materials of happiness which would insure the greatest sum of it in the members of the community taken altogether, preventing every individual or combination of individuals from interfering with that distribution or making any man to have less than his share."

"This habit of forming opinions, and acting upon them without evidence, is one of the most immoral habits of the mind. ... As our opinions are the fathers of our actions, to be indifferent about the evidence of our opinions is to be indifferent about the consequences of our actions. But the consequences of our actions are the good and evil of our fellow-creatures. The habit of the neglect of evidence, therefore, is the habit of disregarding the good and evil of our fellow-creatures."

"‘Mons. Bailly, the celebrated author of the History of Astronomy, may be regarded as beginning the concert of praises, upon this branch of the science of the Hindus. The grounds of his conclusions were certain astronomical tables; from which he inferred, not only advanced progress in the science, but a date so ancient as to be entirely inconsistent with the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures. [...] Another cause of great distrust attaches to Mons. Bailly, Voltaire, and other excellent writers in France, abhorring the evils which they saw attached to catholicism, laboured to subvert the authority of the books on which it was founded. Under this impulse, they embraced [...] the tales respecting the great antiquity of the Chinese and Hindus as disproving, entirely, the Mosaic accounts of the duration of the present race of men. [...] The argument [...] by Mons. Bailly, was [...] for a time regarded as a demonstration in form of the falsehood of Christianity.’ ‘... the extravagant disposition of the Hindus to falsify with regard to dates, and make almost everything, with respect to their own transactions and attainments, more ancient than it is...’ ‘When an opinion is obviously contradicted by a grand train of circumstances, and is not entirely supported by the special proof on which it pretends to rest, it is unproved; and whatever is unproved, and out of the known order of nature, is altogether unworthy of belief; deserves simple rejection.’ ‘It is unfortunately from Diophantus alone, that we derive any knowledge of the attainments of the Greeks in this branch of mathematics. It is no less unfortunate, that out of thirteen books which he wrote upon this subject, only six, or possibly seven, have been preserved. How does Mr. Colebrooke know, that these other books of Diophantus did not ascend to more difficult points of the science [implying that Hindus borrowed this algebra from these lost works]? [...] Supposing that nothing more of Algebra was known to the Greeks, at the time of Diophantus, than is found in seven out of thirteen books of one author, which is a pretty handsome allowance; is it certain or is it probable, that when the Greeks had made so considerable a progress, they remained stationary? and, though the most ingenious and inventive people in the world, peculiarly at that time turned to mathematical and abstruse investigations, they made no addition through several generations, to what was taught them by Diophantus? This argument appears to be conclusive. ‘We may, if we please, assume that all of them [Sanskrit texts that Colebrooke translated] in a body are less than a century old.’ Brahmins, who were ‘accustomed and prone to forgery [and] there is security for nothing which they had any interest, real or imaginary, to change’, ‘Whoever, in the present improved state of our knowledge, shall take the trouble to contemplate the proof which we possess of the state of knowledge and civilization among the Hindus, canform no other conclusion, but that everything [...] bears clear, concurring, and undeniable testimony to the ignorance of the Hindus, and the low state of civilization in which they remain.’"

"Both nations are to nearly an equal degree tainted with the vices of insincerity; dissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society. Both are disposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves. Both are cowardly and unfeeling. Both are in the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others. Both are, in the physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses."

"...under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy. [And] the same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indifference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venality are conspicuous in both [Hindus and Muslims].”"

"The government and the people are under a moral necessity of acting together; a free press compels them to bend to one another."

"No good government can ever want more than two things for its support: 1st, Its own excellence; and, 2dly, a people sufficiently instructed, to be aware of that excellence. Every other pretended support, must ultimately tend to its subversion, by lessening its dependence upon these."

"Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The falling of a tear, The upward glancing of an eye When none but God is near."

"When the good man yields his breath (For the good man never dies)."

"The nursery of brooding Pelicans, The dormitory of their dead, had vanish'd, And all the minor spots of rock and verdure, The abodes of happy millions, were no more."

"Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey, Alive and wriggling in the elastic net, Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks; Till, swoln with captures, the unwieldy burden Clogg'd their slow flight, as heavily to land, These mighty hunters of the deep return'd. There on the cragged cliffs they perch'd at ease, Gorging their hapless victims one by one; Then full and weary, side by side, they slept, Till evening roused them to the chase again."

"Nature's prime favourites were the Pelicans; High-fed, long-lived, and sociable and free."

"Gashed with honourable scars, Low in Glory's lap they lie; Though they fell, they fell like stars, Streaming splendour through the sky."

"Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea."

"Once, in the flight of ages past, There lived a man."

"Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more."

"Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive."

"Joys too exquisite to last, And yet more exquisite when past."

"Bliss in possession will not last; Remembered joys are never past; At once the fountain, stream, and sea, They were, they are, they yet shall be."

"Friend after friend departs; Who hath not lost a friend? There is no union here of hearts That finds not here an end."

"Nor sink those stars in empty night: They hide themselves in heaven's own light."

"'T is not the whole of life to live, Nor all of death to die."

"Beyond this vale of tears There is a life above, Unmeasured by the flight of years; And all that life is love."

"Night is the time to weep, To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory where sleep The joys of other years."

"Who that hath ever been Could bear to be no more? Yet who would tread again the scene He trod through life before?"

"Here in the body pent, Absent from Him I roam, Yet nightly pitch my moving tent A day's march nearer home."

"If God hath made this world so fair, Where sin and death abound, How beautiful beyond compare Will paradise be found!"

"Return unto thy rest, my soul, From all the wanderings of thy thought, From sickness unto death made whole, Safe through a thousand perils brought."

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed,— The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast."

"Hymns should have unity,graduation and mutual dependence in the thoughts,a conscious progress,a sense of completeness..and be easily understood."

"When to the cross I turn my eyes, And rest on Calvary, O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee."

"Baptize the nations! far and nigh, The triumphs of the cross record The name of Jesus glorify, Till every people call Him Lord."

"As a poet Montgomery stands well to the front. His poetic genius was of a high order."

"The problem here is not so much a historical one, more a terminological and philosophical one."

"This book is therefore consecrated to the deeper and fuller study of that linguistic world in which the Hebrew Bible is set."

"We shall work not on the macrocosmic scale of the literary forms, but on the microcosmic scale of the lexical forms."

"#Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark."

"#the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story"

"#creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience"

"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:"