THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE, DELIVERED 24 FEBRUARY, 1785, BY THE PRESIDENT. GENTLEMEN, IF the Deity of the Hindus, by whom all their just requests are believed to be granted with fingular indulgence, had propofed last year to gratify my warmest wishes, I could have defired nothing more ardently than the success of your inftitution; because I can defire nothing in preference to the general good, which your plan feems calculated to promote, by bringing to light many useful and interesting tracts, which, being too fhort for feparate publication, might lie many years concealed, or, perhaps, irrecoverably perish: my wishes are accomplished, without an invocation to CA'MADHE'NU; and your Society, having already paffed its infant ftate, is advancing to maturity with every mark of a healthy and robuft conftitution. When I reflect, indeed, on the variety of fubjects, which have been difcuffed before you, concerning the hif tory, laws, manners, arts, and antiquities of Afta, I am unable to decide whether my pleasure or my surprise be the greater; for I will not diffemble, that your progrefs has far exceeded my expectations; and, though we must seriously deplore the lofs of thofe excellent men, who have lately departed from this Capital, yet there is a profpect ftill of large contributions to your ftock of Afiatick learning, which, I am perfuaded, will continually increafe. My late journey to Benares has enabled me to affure you, that many of your members, who refide at a distance, employ a part of their leisure in preparing additions to your archives; and, unlefs I am too fanguine, you will foon receive light from them on feveral topicks entirely new in the republick of letters. It was principally with a defign to open fources of fuch information, that I long had meditated an expedition up the Ganges during the fufpenfion of my bufinefs; but, although I had the fatisfaction of visiting two ancient feats of Hindu fuperftition and literature, yet, illness having detained me a confiderable time in the way, it was not in my power to continue in them long enough to purfue my inquiries; and I left them, as ENEAS is feigned to have left thè fhades, when his guide made him recollect the fwift flight of irrevocable time, with a curiofity + raised to the height, and a regret not easy to be defcribed. Whoever travels in Afia, especially if he be converfant with the literature of the countries through which he paffes, must naturally remark the fuperiority of European talents: the obfervation, indeed, is at least as old as ALEXANDER; and, though we cannot agree with the fage preceptor of that ambitious Prince, that "the Afiaticks are born to be flaves," yet the Athenian * poet seems perfectly in the right, when he reprefents Europe as a fovereign Princess, and Afia as ber Handmaid: but, if the mistress be tranfcendently majestick, it cannot be denied that the attendant has many beauties, and foine advantages peculiar to herself. The ancients were accustomed to pronounce panegyricks on their own countrymen at the expense of all other nations, with a political view, perhaps, of stimulating them by praise, and exciting them to ftill greater exertions; but fuch arts are here unnecessary; nor would they, indeed, become a fociety, who feek nothing but truth unadorned by rhetorick; and, although we must be confcious of our fuperior advancement in all kinds of useful knowledge, yet we ought not therefore to contemn the people of Afia, from whose researches into nature, works of art, and inventions of fancy, many valuable hints may be de rived for our own improvement and advantage. If that, indeed, were not the principal object of your inftitution, little elfe could arife from it but the mere gratification of curiofity; and I fhould not receive fo much delight from the humble share, which you have allowed me to take, in promoting it. To form an exact parallel between the works and actions of the Western and Eastern worlds, would require a tract of no inconfiderable length; but we may decide on the whole, that reason and taste are the grand prerogatives of European minds, while the Afiaticks have foared to loftier heights in the sphere of imagination. The civil history of their vaft empires, and of India in particular, must be highly interesting to our common country; but we have a ftill nearer interest in knowing all former modes of ruling thefe inestimable provinces, on the prosperity of which fo much of our national welfare, and individual benefit, feems to depend. A minute geographical knowledge, not only of Bengal and Babar, but, for evident reafons, of all the kingdoms bordering on them, is clofely connected with an account of their many revolutions: but the natural productions of these territories, efpecially in the vegetable and mineral fyftems, are momentous objects of research to an imperial, • but, which is a character of equal dignity, a commercial, people. If Botany may be defcribed by metaphors drawn from thẻ fcience itself, we may juftly pronounce a minute acquaintance with plants, their claffes, orders, kinds, and species, to be its flowers, which can only produce fruit by an application of that knowledge to the purposes of life, particularly to diet, by which diseases may be avoided, and to medicine, by which they may be remedied: for the improvement of the last mentioned art, than which none furely can be more beneficial to mankind, the virtues of minerals alfo fhould be accurately known. So highly has medical skill been prized by the ancient Indians, that one of the fourteen Retna's, or precious things, which their Gods are believed to have produced by churning the ocean with the mountain Mandara, was à learned phyfician. What their old books contain on this fubject, we ought certainly to difcover, and that without lofs of time; left the venerable but abftrufe language, in which they are compofed, thould ceafe to be perfectly intelligible, even to the best educated natives, through a want of powerful invitation to ftudy it. BERNIER, who was himfelf of the Faculty, mentions approved medical books in Sanfcrit, and cites a few aphorifms, |