Various

“ There has been great difference of opinion as to the extent to which Alexander’s conquests influenced Asia, and it is equally hard to say what is the effect now being produced by Europe. Clearly such alterations as the construction of railways in nearly all parts of the continent, and the establishment of peace over formerly disturbed areas like India, are of enormous importance, and must change the life of the people. But the mental constitution of Asiatics is less easily modified than their institutions, and even Japan has assimilated European methods rather than European ideas. ”

“ He that has put off all lust and desire, all hope and fear, all will to exist as a sinful, because a sentient, being, has won to the heaven of extinction or Nirvana. He may still tread the earth, but he is a saint or Brahman, is in heaven, has quitted the transient and enjoys eternity.
Such was the Buddha’s gospel, as his most ancient scriptures enunciate it. Nirvana is constantly defined in them as supreme happiness. It is not even clear how far, if we interpret it strictly, this philosophy leaves any self to be happy. ”

“ The science had its origin in the demonstration by Sir Isaac Newton that Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, and the law of gravitation, in the case of two bodies, could be mutually derived from each other. A body can move round the sun in an elliptic orbit having the sun in its focus, and describing equal areas in equal times, only under the influence of a force directed towards the sun, and varying inversely as the square of the distance from it. ”

“ In the hands of the Greeks and of the later Egyptians both astrology and astronomy were carried far beyond the limits attained by the Babylonians, and it is indeed a matter of surprise to observe the harmonious combination of the two fields—a harmony that seems to grow more complete with each age, and that is not broken until we reach the threshold of modern science in the 16th century. To the Greek astronomer Hipparchus belongs the credit of the discovery (c. 130 B.C.) of the theory of the precession of the equinoxes, for a knowledge of which among the Babylonians we find no definite proof ”

“ Imagine an observer starting from the North Pole to travel towards the equator, carrying his zenith with him. When at the pole his zenith coincides with the celestial pole, and as the earth revolves on its axis, the heavenly bodies perform their apparent diurnal revolutions in horizontal circles round the zenith. As he travels South, his zenith moves along the celestial sphere, and the circles of diurnal rotation become oblique to the horizon. The obliquity continually increases until the observer reaches the equator. ”

“ The west coast, with its alternation of sea and promontory, of rugged mountains and fertile valleys, its bright and varied scenery, and its fine climate, is almost a part of Europe. These conditions are unfavourable to permanence, and the history of Asia Minor is that of the march of hostile armies, and rise and fall of small states, rather than that of a united state under an independent sovereign. At a very early period Asia Minor appears to have been occupied by non-Aryan tribes or races which differed little from each other in religion, language and social system. ”

“ Athens has thus become a centre of learning, a meeting-place for scholars and a basis for research in every part of the Greek world. The attention of many students has naturally been concentrated on the ancient city, the birthplace of European art and literature, and a great development of investigation and discussion in the special domain of Athenian archaeology has given birth to a voluminous literature. ”

“ It follows that, if we go on computing the elements a, b, c, d from the actual values of x, y, x′ and y′, at each moment when the planet is subject to the attraction of another body, they will no longer be invariable, but will slowly vary from day to day and year to year. These ever varying elements represent an ever varying elliptic orbit,—not an orbit which the planet actually describes through its whole course, but an ideal one in which it is moving at each instant, and which continually adjusts itself to the actual motion of the planet at the instant. ”

“ No city ever adorned herself with such an array of temples, public buildings and works of art as the Athens of Pericles and Pheidias. Her achievements in literature are hardly less great. The Attic drama of the period produced many great masterpieces, and the scientific thought of Europe in the departments of logic, ethics, rhetoric and history mainly owes its origin to a new movement of Greek thought which was largely fostered 843 by the patronage of Pericles himself. Besides producing numerous men of genius herself Athens attracted all the great intellects of Greece. ”

“ Her democracy was respected by the Macedonian kings; the rulers of Egypt, Syria, and especially of Pergamum, courted her favour by handsome donations of edifices and works of art, to which the citizens replied by unbecoming flattery, even to the extent of creating new tribes named after their benefactors. If Athens lost her supremacy in the fields of science and scholarship to Alexandria, she became more than ever the home of philosophy, while Menander and the other poets of the New Comedy made Athenian life and manners known throughout the civilized world. ”

“ It is, indeed, as if the high land of central Asia had been pushed southward against and over the unyielding mass formed by the old rocks of the Indian peninsula, and in the process the edges of the over-riding strata had been crumpled and folded. Overlooking all smaller details, we may consider Asia to consist of a northern mass and a southern mass, too rigid to crumple, but not too strong to fracture, and an intermediate belt of softer rock which was capable of folding. ”

“ Sickness is suffering, so is death, so is union with the unloved, and separation from the loved; not to obtain what one desires is suffering; the entire fivefold clinging to the earthly is suffering. Its origin is the thirst for being which leads from birth to birth, together with lust and desire, which find gratification here and there; the thirst for pleasures, for being, for power. ”

“ In both art and literature modern Asia is inferior to the past more conspicuously than Europe.
As for science, astronomy was cultivated by the Babylonians at an early period, and it is probably from them that a knowledge of the heavenly bodies and their movements spread over Asia. Grammar and prosody were studied in India with a marvellous accuracy and minuteness several centuries before Christ. Mathematics were cultivated by the Chinese, Indians and Arabs, but nearly all the sciences based on the observation of nature, including medicine, have remained in a very backward condition. ”

“ This sudden development of the Japanese is perhaps the most important event of the second half of the 19th century, since it marks the rise of an Asiatic power capable of competing with Europe on equal terms. Their history is so different from that of the rest of Asia that it is not surprising if the result is different. The nation hardly came into existence till China and India had passed their prime, and remained secluded and free from the continual struggle against barbarian invaders, which drained the energies of its neighbours. ”

“ Moreover, he was doubtless well acquainted with a very ancient tradition, that heroes generally came from the northern frontiers of their native land, where they are hardened and tempered by the threefold struggle they wage with soil, climate and barbarian neighbours.
Kepler explained the double movement of the earth by the rotation of the sun. At one time the sun presented its friendly side, which attracted one planet, sometimes its adverse side, which repelled it. He also peopled the planets with souls and genii. ”

“ The great elevations above the sea-level of the central part of Asia, and of the table-lands of Afghanistan and Persia, tend to exaggerate the winter cold; while the sterility of the surface, due to the small rainfall over the same region, operates powerfully in the opposite direction in increasing the summer heat. In the summer a great accumulation of solar heat takes place on the dry surface soil, from which it cannot be released upwards by evaporation, as might be the case were the soil moist or covered with vegetation, nor can it be readily conveyed away downwards as happens on the ocean. ”

“ As the incandescent bodies of the universe are visible by their own light, the problem of ascertaining their existence and position is mainly one of seeing, and our facilities for attacking it have constantly increased with the improvement of our optical appliances. But such is not the case with the dark bodies. Such a body can be made known to us only when in the neighbourhood of an incandescent body; and even then, unless its mass or its dimensions are considerable, it will evade all the scrutiny of our science. ”

“ We may therefore expect in primitive asceticism to find many abstentions and much self-torture apparently valueless for the training of character and discipline of the feelings, which are the essence of any healthy asceticism. Nevertheless these non-moral taboos or restraints may have played a part in building up in us that faculty of preferring the larger good to the impulse of the moment which is the note of real civilization. Aristotle in his Ethics defines, as the barbarian’s ideal of life, “the living as one likes.” ”

“ Since Asiatic records go back much farther than those of Europe, it is natural that Asia should be thought the birthplace of civilization. But this originality cannot be absolute, for, whatever may have been the relations of Babylonia and the Aryans, the latter brought civilization to India from the west, and it is not always clear whether similarity of government and institutions is the result of borrowing or of parallel development. ”

“ It would be going too far in the other direction to claim that all the elements which compose the heavenly bodies are found on the earth. There are many lines in the spectra of the stars, as well as of the nebulae, which are not certainly identified with those belonging to any elements known to our chemistry. The recent discoveries growing out of the investigation of newly discovered forms of radiation lead to the conclusion that the question of the forms of matter in the stars has far wider range than the simple question whether any given element is or is not found outside our earth. ”

“ The fundamental hypothesis of the science assumes a system of bodies in motion, of which the sun and planets may be taken as examples, and of which each separate body is attracted toward all the others according to the law of Newton. The motion of each body is then expressed in the first place by Newton’s three laws of motion (see Motion, Laws of, and Mechanics) . ”

“ Whewell’s theorem: if a point R be taken at a distance from the sun equal to the major axis of the orbit of a planet and, therefore, at double the mean distance of the planet, the speed of the latter at any point is equal to the speed which a body would acquire by falling from the point R to the actual position of the planet. The speed of the latter may, therefore, be expressed as a function of its radius vector at the moment and of the major axis of its orbit without introducing any other elements into the expression. ”

“ The islands of Japan, not including Sakhalin, of which half is Japanese, lie between the 30th and 45th parallels. The whole group is traversed by a line of volcanic mountains, some of which are in activity, the highest point being about 13,000 ft. above the sea. The country is generally well watered, fertile and well cultivated. The Japanese people have added to their ancient civilization and their remarkable artistic faculty, an adaptation of Western methods, and a capacity for progress in war and commerce, which single them out among Eastern races as a great modern world-force. ”

“ The field of practical astronomy includes an extension which may be regarded as making astronomical science in a certain sense universal. The science is concerned with the heavenly bodies. The earth on which we live is, to all intents and purposes, one of these bodies, and, so far as its relations to the heavens are concerned, must be included in astronomy. The processes of measuring great portions of the earth, and of determining geographical positions, require both astronomical observations proper, and determinations made with instruments similar to those of astronomy. ”

“ Ethnology.—None of the conquering races that invaded Asia Minor, whether from the east or from the west, wholly expelled or exterminated the race in possession. The vanquished retired to the hills or absorbed the victors. In the course of ages race distinction has been almost obliterated by fusion of blood; by the complete Hellenization of the country, which followed the introduction of Christianity; by the later acceptance of Islam; and by migrations due to the occupation of cultivated lands by the nomads. ”

“ The Indian yogi fasts till he sees face to face all the gods of his Pantheon; the Indian magician fasts twelve days before producing rain or working any cure. The Bogomils fasted till they saw the Trinity face to face. ”

“ The ultimate victory of England seems due less to any particular aptitude for dealing with oriental problems than to a better command of the seas and to considerations of European politics. At the end of the Napoleonic wars Portugal had Macao and Goa, Holland Java, Sumatra and other islands, France some odds and ends in India, while England emerged with Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon and a free hand in India. Guided by such administrators as Warren Hastings, the East India Company had assumed more and more definitely the functions of government for a great part of India. ”

“ The cessation of the rains on the southern border of Baluchistan, west of Karachi, obviously arises from the projection of the south-east coast of Arabia, which limits the breadth of the south-west monsoon air current and the length of the coast-line directly exposed to it. The very small and irregular rainfall in Sind and along the Indus is to be accounted for by the want of any obstacle in the path of the vapour-bearing winds, which, therefore, carry the uncondensed rain up to the Punjab, where it falls on the outer ranges of the western Himalaya and of Afghanistan. ”

“ On the other hand it is noticeable that the Japanese have little which is original in the way of religion, literature or philosophy. Unlike the Chinese and Indians, they have hitherto not had the smallest influence on the intellectual development of Asia, and though they have in the past sometimes shown themselves intensely nationalist and conservative, they have, compared with India and China, so little which is really their own that their assimilation of foreign ideas is explicable. ”

“ Thus, whenever the population of a Moslem country is of mixed belief, a ruling caste of Moslems is formed, as in Turkey at the present day and India under the Moguls. Islam is paramount in Turkey, Persia, Arabia and Afghanistan. India is the dividing line: Islam is strong in northern and central India, weaker in the south. But only one-fifth of the whole population is Moslem. Beyond India it has spread to Malacca and the Malay Archipelago, where it overwhelmed Hindu civilization, and reached the southern Philippines. But it made no progress in Indo-China or Japan ”

“ Having no clocks, they regard instead the face of the sky; the stars serve them for almanacs; they hunt and fish, they sow and reap in correspondence with the recurrent order of celestial appearances. But these, to the untutored imagination, present a mystical, as well as a mechanical aspect; and barbaric familiarity with the heavens developed at an early age, through the promptings of superstition, into a fixed system of observation. In China, Egypt and Babylonia, strength and continuity were lent to this native tendency by the influence of a centralized authority ”