Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 4 / Essays Chiefly on the Science of Language

by F. Max Müller

Besides this purely literary movement, there is a religious movement going on in India, the Brahmo-Samâj, which, both in its origin and its later development, is mainly the result of European influences. It began with an attempt to bring the modern corrupt forms of worship back to the purity and simplicity of the Vedas; and by ascribing to the Veda the authority of a Divine Revelation, it was hoped to secure that infallible authority without which no religion was supposed to be possible. How was that movement stopped, and turned into a new channel? Simply by the publication of the Veda, and by the works of European scholars, such as Stevenson, Mill, Rosen, Wilson, and others, who showed to the natives what the Veda really was, and made them see the folly of their way.[5,][B] Thus the religion, the literature, the whole character of the people of India are becoming more and more Indo-European. They work for us, as we work for them. Many a letter have I received from native scholars in which they express their admiration for the wonderful achievements of European ingenuity, for railways, and telegraphs, and all the rest; and yet what, according to their own confession, has startled them and delighted them most, is the interest we have taken in their literature, and the new life which we have imparted to their ancient history. I know these matters seem small, when we are near to them, when we are in the very midst of them. Like the tangled threads hanging on a loom, they look worthless, purposeless. But history weaves her woof out of all of them, and after a time, when we see the full and finished design, we perceive that no color, however quiet, could have been dropped, no shade, however slight, could have been missed, without spoiling the whole.

And now, after having given this account of our stewardship, let me say in conclusion a few words on the claims which Oriental studies have on public sympathy and support.

Let me begin with the Universities—I mean, of course the English Universities—and more particularly that University which has been to me for many years an Alma Mater, Oxford. While we have there, or are founding there, professorships for every branch of Theology, Jurisprudence, and Physical Science, we have hardly any provision for the study of Oriental languages. We have a chair of Hebrew, rendered illustrious by the greatest living theologian of England, and we have a chair of Sanskrit, which has left its mark in the history of Sanskrit literature; but for the modern languages of India, whether Aryan or Dravidian, for the language and literature of Persia, both ancient and modern, for the language and antiquities of Egypt and Babylon, for Chinese, for Turkish, nay even for Arabic, there is nothing deserving the name of a chair. When in a Report on University Reform, I ventured to point out these gaps, and to remark that in the smallest of German Universities most of these subjects were represented by professors, I was asked whether I was in earnest in maintaining that Oxford, the first University in what has rightly been called the greatest Oriental Empire, ought really to support the study of Oriental languages.

The second claim we prefer is on the Missionary Societies. I have lately incurred very severe obloquy for my supposed hostility to missionary enterprise. All I can say is, I wish that there were ten missionaries for every one we have now. I have always counted missionaries among my best friends; I have again and again acknowledged how much Oriental studies and linguistic studies in general, owe to them, and I am proud to say that, even now, while missionaries at home have abused me in unmeasured language, missionaries abroad, devoted, hard-working missionaries, have thanked me for what I said of them and their work in my lay-sermon in Westminster Abbey last December.

Now it seems to me that, first of all, our Universities, and I think again chiefly of Oxford, might do much more for missions than they do at present. If we had a sufficient staff of professors for Eastern languages, we could prepare young missionaries for their work, and should be able to send out from time to time such men as Patteson, the Bishop of Melanesia, who was every inch an Oxford man. And in these missionaries we might have not only apostles of religion and civilization, but at the same time, the most valuable pioneers of scientific research. I know there are some authorities at home who declare that such a combination is impossible, or at least undesirable; that a man cannot serve two masters, and that a missionary must do his own work and nothing else. Nothing, I believe, can be more mistaken. First of all, some of our most efficient missionaries have been those who have done also the most excellent work as scholars, and whenever I have conversed on this subject with missionaries who have seen active service, they all agree that they cannot be converting all day long, and that nothing is more refreshing and invigorating to them than some literary or scientific work. Now what I should like to see is this: I should like to see ten or twenty of our non-resident fellowships, which at present are doing more harm than good, assigned to missionary work, to be given to young men who have taken their degree, and who, whether laymen or clergymen, are willing to work as assistant missionaries on distant stations, with the distinct understanding that they should devote some of their time to scientific work, whether the study of languages, or flowers, or stars, and that they should send home every year some account of their labors. These men would be like scientific consuls, to whom students at home might apply for information and help. They would have opportunities of distinguishing themselves by really useful work, far more than in London, and after ten years, they might either return to Europe with a well-established reputation, or if they find that they have a real call for missionary work, devote all their life to it. Though to my own mind there is no nobler work than that of a missionary, yet I believe that some such connection with the Universities and men of science would raise their position, and would call out more general interest, and secure to the missionary cause the good-will of those whose will is apt to become law.

Thirdly, I think that Oriental studies have a claim on the colonies and the colonial governments. The English colonies are scattered all over the globe, and many of them in localities where an immense deal of useful scientific work might be done, and would be done with the slightest encouragement from the local authorities, and something like a systematic supervision on the part of the Colonial Office at home. Some years ago I ventured to address the Colonial Secretary of State on this subject, and a letter was sent out in consequence to all the English colonies, inviting information on the languages, monuments, customs, and traditions of the native races. Some most valuable reports have been sent home during the last five or six years, but when it was suggested that these reports should be published in a permanent form, the expense that would have been required for printing every year a volume of Colonial Reports, and which would not have amounted to more than a few hundred pounds for all the colonies of the British Empire, part of it to be recovered by the sale of the book, was considered too large.

Now we should bear in mind that at the present moment some of the tribes living in or near the English colonies in Australia, Polynesia, Africa, and America, are actually dying out, their languages are disappearing, their customs, traditions, and religions will soon be completely swept away. To the student of language, the dialect of a savage tribe is as valuable as Sanskrit or Hebrew, nay, for the solution of certain problems, more so; every one of these languages is the growth of thousands and thousands of years, the workmanship of millions and millions of human beings. If they were now preserved, they might hereafter fill the most critical gaps in the history of the human race. At Rome at the time of the Scipios, hundreds of people might have written down a grammar and dictionary of the Etruscan language, of Oscan, or Umbrian; but there were men then, as there are now, who shrugged their shoulders and said, What can be the use of preserving these barbarous, uncouth idioms?—What would we not give now for some such records?

And this is not all. The study of savage tribes has assumed a new interest of late, when the question of the exact relation of man to the rest of the animal kingdom has again roused the passions not only of scientific inquirers, but also of the public at large. Now what is wanted for the solution of this question, are more facts and fewer theories, and these facts can only be gained by a patient study of the lowest races of mankind. When religion was held to be the specific character of man, it was asserted by many travellers that they had seen races without any religious ideas; when language was seen to be the real frontier line between man and beast, it was maintained that there were human beings without language. Now all we want to know are facts, let the conclusions be whatever they may. It is by no means easy to decide whether savage tribes have a religion or not; at all events it requires the same discernment, and the same honesty of purpose as to find out whether men of the highest intellect among us have a religion or not. I call the Introduction to Spencer’s “First Principles” deeply religious, but I can well understand that a missionary, reporting on a tribe of Spencerian savages, might declare that they had no idea whatsoever of religion. Looking at a report sent home lately by the indefatigable Governor of New South Wales, Sir Hercules Robinson, I find the following description of the religious ideas of the Kamilarois, one of the most degraded tribes in the Northwestern district of the colony:—

“Bhaiami is regarded by them as the maker of all things. The name signifies ‘maker,’ or ‘cutter-out,’ from the verb bhai, baialli, baia. He is regarded as the rewarder and punisher of men according to their conduct. He sees all, and knows all, if not directly, through the subordinate deity Turramûlan, who presides at the Bora. Bhaiami is said to have been once on the earth. Turramûlan is mediator in all the operations of Bhaiami upon man, and in all man’s transactions with Bhaiami. Turramûlan means ‘leg on one side only,’ ‘one-legged.’”

This description is given by the Rev. C. Greenway, and if there is any theological bias in it, let us make allowance for it. But there remains the fact that Bhaiami, their name for deity, comes from a root bhai, to “make,” to “cut out,” and if we remember that hardly any of the names for deity, either among the Aryan or Semitic nations, comes from a root with so abstract a meaning, we shall admit, I think, that such reports as these should not be allowed to lie forgotten in the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office, or in the pages of a monthly journal.