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The truth

The progress of knowledge and the force of observation, demonstrated the necessity of regarding the actual state of the Hindus as little removed from that of half-civilised nations. The saving hypothesis, however, was immediately adopted, that the situation in which the Hindus are now beheld is a state of degradation; that formerly they were in a state of high civilisation; from which they had fallen through the miseries of foreign conquest, and subjugation.

This was a theory invented to preserve as much as an actual observation would allow to be preserved, of a pre-established and favourite creed. It was not an inference from what was already known. It was a gratuitous assumption. It preceded inquiry, and no inquiry was welcome, but that which yielded matter for its support. (page 162)

To this purpose were adapted the pretensions of the Brahmins, who spoke of an antecedent period, when the sovereigns of Hindustan were masters of great power and great magnificence. It was of importance to weigh these pretensions; because the rude writers of rude nations have almost always spoken of antecedent times as deserving all the praise with which their powers of rhetoric or song could exalt them. If the descriptions of antiquity presented by the Brahmins bore the consistent marks of truth and reality, a degree of intrinsic evidence would be attached to them. If these descriptions flew wide of all resemblance to human affairs, and were nothing but wild unnatural fictions, they would be so far from proving an antecedent state of knowledge and civilisation, that they would prove the reverse. And, had the Hindus remained fixed from the earliest ages in the semibarbarous state, it is most certain that the Brahmins would have given to us just such accounts of antiquity as those we have actually received at their hands (page 162)

When we look for the particulars of those pretended reigns of mighty kings, the universal lords of India, under whom science flourished, and civilisation rose to the greatest height, we meet with nothing but fable, more wild, and inconsistent, and hyperbolical, than is anywhere else to be found. From this, no rational conclusion can be drawn, except that it is the production of a rude and irrational age (pages 165-166)

We have already seen, in reviewing the Hindu form of government, that despotism, in one of its simplest and least artificial shapes, was established in Hindustan, and confirmed by laws of Divine authority. We have seen likewise, that by the division of the people into castes, and prejudices which the detestable views of the Brahmins raised to separate them, a degrading and pernicious system of subordination that was established among the Hindus, and that the vices of such a system were there carried to a more destructive height than any other people." (pages 186-187)

All the general maxims of the Hindus import the extreme degradation of the great body of the people. "The assistance, O king, which is rendered to those of low degree, is like endeavouring to please bears. A low person should never be placed in the station of the great. One of low degree having obtained a worthy station seeketh to destroy his master. "The Hindus", says Dr. Buchanan, "in their state of independence, exacted deference from those under them with a cruelty and arrogance rarely practised but among themselves..." (page 190)

As the Hindu manners and character are invariable, according to their admirers; these admirers cannot consistently reject their present, as proof of their ancient, behaviour; and all men will allow that it affords strong ground of inference. "It is a remark", says one of the best-informed observers of Hindustan, "warranted by constant experience, that wherever the government is administered by Gentoos, the people are subject to more and severer oppressions than when ruled by the Moors. I have imputed this to intelligent Gentoos, who have confessed the justice of the accusation, and have not scrupled to give their opinions concerning it." The opinions of the Gentoos are as favourable to themselves as, suiting the occasion, they could possibly make them. "A Gentoo," say they, "is not only born with a spirit of more subtle intervention, but by his temperance and education becomes more capable of attention to affairs, than a Moor; who no sooner obtains power than he is lost in voluptuousness; he becomes vain and lordly, and cannot dispense with satiating the impulse of his sensual appetites; whereas a Gentoo Prince remains in his Durbar the same spirit which would actuate him if keeping a shop." (page 194)

Mr. Orme exhibits an impressive example. "The present King of Travancore (an Hindu prince whose dominions had never been subject to a foreign government) has conquered or carried war into all the countries that lay round his dominions, and lives in the continual exercise of his arms. To atone for the blood which he has spilt, the Brachmans persuaded him that it was necessary he should be born anew: this ceremony consisted in putting the prince into the body of a golden cow of immense value, where, after he had laid the time prescribed, he came out regenerated and freed from all the crimes of his former life. The cow was afterwards cut up and divided among the SEERS who had invented this extraordinary method for the remission of his sins." No testimony can be stronger to the natural tendency of the Hindu religion, and to the effects which their institutions are calculated to produce. (pages 194-196)

Among other expedients for saving the favourite system, it has been maintained that the petty states and princes in Hindustan were but subordinate parts of one great monarchy, whose sceptre they acknowledged, and mandates they obeyed. There is no definable limit to gratuitous suppositions. If we are to be satisfied with opinions not only void of proof, but opposed by every thing of the nature of proof, attainable upon the subject, we may conjure up one opinion after another; and nothing, except physical impossibility or a defect of ingenuity, can set bounds to our affirmations. In the loose mode of thinking, or rather of talking without thinking, which has prevailed concerning Indian affairs, the existence of feudal institutions in modern Europe has constituted a sufficient basis for the belief of feudal institutions in India; though it would have been just as rational to conclude that, because the Saxon language forms the basis of most of the languages of Europe, therefore the Saxon language forms the basis of the language in India (page 197-198)

They, who affirm the high state of civilisation among the Hindus previous to their subjugation to foreigners, proceed so directly in opposition to evidence, that wherever the Hindus have been always exempt from the dominion of foreigners, there they are uniformly found in a state of civilisation inferior to those who have long been the subjects of a Mahomedan Throne (page 201)

Among the pretensions received without examination, that of enormous riches found in India by the first Mahomedan conquerors, requires particular attention. If those accounts had not far exceeded all reasonable bounds, it would have been a matter of difficulty, to prove the falsehood of them, except to those who were capable of estimating one circumstance, in any state of society, by its analogy with the rest. As the amount, however, stated by those authors, whose testimony has been adopted; by Ferishta, for example, followed by Dow; far exceeds the bounds, not of probability only, but of credibility; and affords decisive evidence of that Eastern exaggeration which in matters of history disdains to be guided by fact, the question is left free of any considerable difficulty. These accounts refute themselves. We have, therefore, no testimony on the subject; for all that is presented to us in the shape of testimony betrays itself to be merely fiction. We are left to our knowledge of circumstances, and to the inferences which they support. Now if the preceding induction, embracing the circumstances of the Hindu society, is to be relied on, it will not be disputed, that a state of poverty and wretchedness, as far as the great body of people are concerned, must have prevailed in India, not more in the times which it has been witnessed by Europeans, than the times which preceded. A gilded throne, or the display of gold, silver, and precious stones, about the seat of a court, does not invalidate this inference. Only there, where gold and silver are scarce, can the profuse display of them about the monarch's person either gratify the monarch's vanity, or dazzle by its rarity the eyes of the multitude. Perhaps there are few indications more decisive of a poor country, and a barbarous age, than the violent desire of exhibiting the precious metals and precious stones, as the characteristic marks and decorations of the chief magistrate (page 204-205)

The science of political economy places this conclusion on the ground of demonstration. For the people to have been rich in gold and silver, these commodities must have circulated among them in the shape of money. But of gold and silver in the shape of money, no nation has more, than what is in proportion to its exchangeable commodities. Now that ever the people of Hindustan were profusely supplied with commodities, every thing in their manners, habits, government, and history, concur to disprove. There is, besides, a well-established fact, which ascertains the impossibility of their having abounded in gold and silver. Their commodities were not exchanged by the medium of precious metals. The traffic of India, as in the rudest parts of the earth, was chiefly a traffic of barter; and its taxes, as already seen, were paid in kind. It was not till the time of Akber that gold or silver was coined for circulation, in the greatest part of India; antecedently to that period small pieces of copper were the only coin (page 205-206)

Even medicine to surgery, to the cultivation of which so obvious and powerful an interest invites, had scarcely, beyond the degree of the most uncultivated tribes, attracted the rude understanding of the Hindus, Though the leisure of the Brahmans has multiplied works, on astrology, on the exploits of the gods, and other worthless subjects, to such a multitude, "that human life", says Sir W. Jones, "would not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with any considerable part of Hindu literature," he yet confesses, there is "no evidence that in any language of Asia, there exists one original treatise on medicine considered as a science." Surgery, says an author who believes in high civilisation of the Hindus, is unknown to belong to that people. In the case of gunshot, or sabre wounds, all they did was to wash the wound, and tie it up with fresh leaves; the patient, during the period of convalescence, eating nothing but the water gruel of rice. (pages 207-209)

... but, under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy... (page 212)

In the sciences and arts of the Hindus and Chinese there is manifested a near approximation to the same point of advancement. In respect to government and laws, the Chinese have to a considerable degree the advantage. As they are a busy people, however; and have no idle class, whose influence depends upon the wonder they can excite by pretended learning, they have multiplied, far less than the Hindus, those false refinements, which a barbarous mind mistakes for science. (page 219)

Even in manners, and in the leading parts of the moral character, the lines of resemblance are strong. 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 every thing 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. (page 220)

Of the kingdom of Assam we possess not many accounts; but what we have yield evidence to the same effect... (page 226)

The bigoted and intolerant Mussulman, however, who finds no excellence where he finds not his faith; discovers no qualities but evil in the minds of the Assamese. (page 226/227)

"It was in Greece, and in the Grecian colonies, that the first philosophers of whose doctrine we have any distinct account, appeared. Law and order seem indeed to have been established in the great monarchies of Asia and Egypt, long before they had any footing in Greece: Yet after all that has been said concerning the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, whether there ever was in those nations any thing which deserved the name of science, or whether that despotism which is more destructive of leisure and security than anarchy itself, and which prevailed all over the east, prevented the growth of philosophy, is a question which, for want of monuments, cannot be determined with any degree of precision" To leave the subject even in this state of doubt was but a compromise with popular opinion, and with his own imperfect views. The circumstances handed down to us, compared with the circumstances of other nations, afforded materials for a very satisfactory determination. (pages 231-232)

- James Mill