Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s6.t1.18.2

v1.c20.s6.t1.18.2

If you had season’d me with that philosophy which formeth the mind to ratiocination, and insensibly accustoms it to be satisfied with nothing but solid reasons, if you had given me those excellent precepts and doctrines which raise the soul above the assaults of fortune, and reduce her to an unshakeable and always equal temper, and permit her not to be lifted up by prosperity nor debased by adversity ; if you had taken care to give me the knowledge of what we are and what are the first principles of things, and had assisted me in forming in my mind a fit idea of the greatness of the universe, and of the admirable order and motion of the parts thereof ; if, I say, you had instilled into me this kind of philosophy, I should think myself incomparably more obliged to you than Alexander was to his Aristotle, and believe it my duty to recompense you otherwise than he did him. Should not you, instead of your flattery, have taught me somewhat of that point so important to a destruction. “This hypocrisy,” says the eloquent Orme,¹ “enceased with his power, and in order to palliate to his Mahomedan subjects the crimes by which he had become their sovereign, he determined to enforce the conversion of the Hindoos by the severest penalties, and even threatned the sword; as if the blood of his subjects were to wash away the stains, with which he was imbrued by the blood of his family. . . .