before us, the question naturally arises: What was the degree of
civilization attained at a time when the Deity worshipped was an
abstract principle involving the actual creative processes
throughout Nature? and, notwithstanding our prejudices, we are
constrained to acknowledge that these earlier conceptions are
scarcely compatible with the barbarism which we have been taught
to regard as the condition of all the peoples which existed prior
to the first Greek Olympiad. On the contrary, the origin of the
philosophical opinions entertained by the most ancient oriental
philosophers, and which must have arisen out of a profound
knowledge or appreciation of Nature and her operations, point to
a race far superior to any of those peoples which appear in early
historic times. Regarding these opinions, Godfrey Higgins
remarks:
"From their philosophical truth and universal reception I am
strongly inclined to refer them to the authors of the Neros, or
to that enlightened race, supposed by Bailly to have formerly
existed, and to have been saved from a great catastrophe on the
Himalaya Mountains. This is confirmed by an observation which
the reader will make in the sequel, that these doctrines have
been, like all the other doctrines of antiquity, gradually
corrupted--incarnated, if I may be permitted to compose a word
for the occasion."
Of this cycle, Bailly says: "No person could have invented the
Neros who had not arrived at much greater perfection in astronomy
than we know was the state of the most ancient Assyrians,
Egyptians, and Greeks."
Toward the close of the eighteenth century the celebrated
astronomer, Bailly, published a work entitled The History of
Ancient Astronomy, in which he endeavored to prove that a nation
possessed of profound wisdom and great genius, and of an
antiquity far superior to the Hindoos or Egyptians, "inhabited
the country to the north of India, or about fifty degrees north
latitude." This writer has shown that "the most celebrated
astronomical observations and inventions, from their peculiar
character, could have taken place only in these latitudes, and
that arts and improvements gradually travelled thence to the
equator."
A colony of Brahmins settled near the Imans, and in Northern
Thibet, where in ancient times they established celebrated
colleges, particularly at Nagraent and Cashmere. In these
institutions the treasures of Sanskrit literature were supposed
to be deposited. The Rev. Mr. Maurice was informed that an
immemorial tradition prevailed at Benares that all the learning
