not explain the Mysteries of Nature in the daily occurrences of life, and yet we constantly act upon our belief, of them. We know the facts, but cannot ascertain the cause. We are taught by experience that Food sustains our Body; and that an Acorn becomes an Oak: but the most learned philosopher cannot explain the means by which these effects are produced: no wonder therefore that such limited understandings should not fully comprehend the awful truths relating to the nature of the Godhead; to the Eternity of Existence; and to the Divine proceedings in the Redemption and Salvation of fallen sinful

man.

"In regard to these Mysteries of the Gospel, having ascertained by the proper use of our Reason that the Church and the Scriptures contain a Divine Revelation, it is our duty to receive such information with humility and gratitude: and it is reasonable to expect that they must, when telling us of heavenly things,' declare many doctrines beyond the present comprehension of that understanding which is incapable of knowing and explaining the Causes of earthly things.' (P. 21-23.).

The above is a pleasing and simple summary of the great argument from analogy, which is so effiacious in putting the young mind into a teachable frame and disposition; which developes an unity of plan through the whole tenour of the natural, moral, and spiritual appointments of the Great Maker of all things;-which shows us that the same character of wisdom and goodness is stamped upon each portion of his government; that a similar order and progression is observed in all things that proceed from his hand; that truth unfolds itself only to humble and patient research, both as it regards temporal and eternal objects; and that all our investigations, whether abstract or experimental, are only approximations to that pavilion of darkness where all things terminate in wonder and terror.

We think that this mode of reasoning might have been a little more expanded with good effect, by the author of this useful book. The argument from analogy is peculiarly proper by way of fundamental and elementary instruction; and admirably adapted to check that presumptuousness of intellect which forms a too common impediment to the first steps of youthful inquiries. If we require an external agreement and harmony in the objects of our faith, this argument affords an evidence satisfactory and consoling, while it imposes silence on such as are content with nothing less than a clear and rational view of the whole internal constitution and plan of Divine Revelation, by forcing a conviction upon them, that their lives are passed in the same blindness and ignorance with respect to the things of this world, which they yet must acknowledge to exist, and to owe their origin and their order to the wisdom of the Great Creator. By this argument, the objections grounded on the

incomprehensibilities of Revelation, are first tried against the objects of our daily experience;-here they are overthrown by the evidence of our senses, and the obstinacy of facts; here we are constrained to bow down the pride of our understanding; to acknowledge effects without comprehending their causes; to admit truths practically which are met by a thousand speculative objections; and to rest our reasonings on the postulates of ignorance,-on names instead of things; in short, on mere notional existences, and inexplicable phenomena.

In this way of deduction, the preliminary and presumptive objections to Revelation are removed, and the testimony on which its history is founded is placed on the same ground with the testimony of ordinary history; and when this is done, no colour of consistency is left to those who are staggered by the difficulties of Divine doctrines, unless they carry their incredulity to every system of facts which reposes on the records of man; and, supposing it to be shown by the light and analogy of nature, that there is nothing intrinsically incredible in what our religion, whether natural or revealed, commands us to believe, nothing is more admitted than that, as to external testimony, it has a great advantage over all other historical events: and thus the objects of faith are placed by this argument in a position to receive the full benefit of all the proofs and attestations which belong to its support. We have laid this stress upon the importance of the argument from analogy, because we think it very proper for explication in the form of a catechism. We remember how well the Socratic method of disputation appears to have been suited to it in one of the dialogues in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. And we think that the series of questions and answers might be so framed as to draw out a string of concessions, comprizing and unfolding the whole of this beautiful argument. It would have been a great pleasure to us to have followed up in detail and succession all the points comprehended in the questions and answers of this catechism; but the field would have been too wide for us: neither perhaps might it have been thought pertinent to the business of a lay Reviewer to have adopted such a course; we shall consider it, however, as a very consistent proceeding for any writer in the British Review to do what he can to administer to the truly pious and philanthropic plans of the very estimable author of the little volume before us.

ART, XIV. History of the Indian Archipelago; containing an Account of the Manners, Arts, Languages, Religions, Institu tions, and Commerce of its Inhabitants. By John Crawfurd, F. R. S. 3 Volumes. 8vo. Constable and Co. Edinburgh, 1820.

We have no reason to be dissatisfied with the amount of the information now within our reach concerning Jaya, and the other islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Mr. Crawfurd has been by far the most industrious contributor to the mass. His arrangement indeed, for want of a skilful compression, is by no means perspicuous, and we cannot help murmuring at the endless divisions and sub-divisions with which he has perplexed his readers and himself. He has heads and titles of chapters, sometimes without any correspondent materials, and has reminded us more than once of the analytical traveller mentioned by Johnson, who, having pompously headed one of his chapters thus-"Of serpents," goes on gravely to tell us there are none in the island." Nevertheless we owe much to the researches of Mr. Crawfurd. They have been directed to an interesting sub-division of the globe, and we rejoice that it is in our power to enumerate so many respectable authorities that have lent their aid to its elucidation. In addition to Stavorinus and Valentyn, we have the va luable work of Marsden on Sumatra, the accurate narratives of Sir George Staunton, the recent works of M. Tombe, and that of M. Leschenault, the French naturalist, not to mention Drake in Purchase's, and Dampier and other voyagers in Harris's collection, who visited the principal islands of the eastern Ocean. To this fund of materials, of which we were already in possession, we consider those imparted to us by Sir Stamford Raffles and Mr. Crawfurd as important accessions.

It was more than a century before the Dutch name was known in India, that the Portuguese, by a series of rapid conquests, had established themselves in the East. For a while it was an uninterrupted march to wealth and dominion, we believe not equalled in the history of any other European settlers. Lisbon became the great western emporium for the commodities of India. Their ships were freighted with the products and the manufactures of China, Japan, Siam, Malacca, the coast of Malabar and Coromandel, Persia and Arabia, and of the most populous islands of the Indian Archipelago. But these were transient and short-lived acquisitions. Indolence, the child of luxury, in the course of two generations, had enervated the successors of Vasco de Gama, in

those tropical climates. They became a corrupt and effeminate race, an example of physical and intellectual degeneracy,. ➡a memorable lesson to mankind, that the great blessings earned by industry and valour, are to be retained only by the virtues which acquired them. It may be easily imagined that such treasures in such hands would not be long concealed from the rest of Europe. The united provinces, under a combination of favourable circumstances, had risen to a considerable rank among the western states. Having acquired a respectable navy to defend their commerce, they began, about the end of the sixteenth century, to extend their mercantile enterprizes to the Indian seas. Hence the origin of the celebrated Dutch East India Company, to whom the States General delegated the most important privileges of sovereignty, while at the same time they sent out considerable fleets in aid of their enterprizes. In return for the protection from England, and which had in fact nursed them into their actual greatness, they set on foot expedients the most ruinous to her mercantile establishments, expelling her merchants from their factories, carrying on intrigues with the natives against those whose progress a generous rivalship, or a sound system of policy, would have taught them to assist, rather than cripple.

The avarice of the Portuguese outlived their power. The puny posterity of a race of hardy and enterprizing adventurers yielded, with little or no resistance, their settlements one after another to the Dutch, who captured or destroyed their vessels, and applied the proceeds of their cargoes to the raising of troops amongst the natives, to secure and maintain their acqui sitions. They arrived at Java in the year 1595, about one hundred and eighty years after the establishment of Mohammedanism, and eighty-four years after that of the Portuguese in the island. Important political movements were then going on in the country.. During the interval of twenty-four years which elapsed between their arrival and the foundation of Batavia, the internal posi tion of Java underwent a considerable revolution. Cheribon, Bantam, and Jacatra, lost their independence, and were swallowed up by the ambition of a prince of the family of Mataram, whose arms over-ran the best portion of the island. But of these events, the gross and ignorant traders of the sixteenth century were idle and stupid spectators. All their views were bounded by the commercial profit of the day; and com merce in their hands was hardly distinguishable from plunder and rapacity. They considered it as a game in which the cunning and intelligence of one party were opposed to the simplicity and weakness of the other; and finding the advan tage not on a level with the calculations of avarice, and that fraud

and dexterity were not always successful purveyors, they summoned force and cruelty to their assistance. With these inauspicious omens began the intercourse of the Dutch with the.. inhabitants of Java. The superstructure corresponded to the foundations. It lasted two centuries-a monstrous unvaried conflict between a remorseless avarice on one side, and a fearful distrust on the other. By degrees, a radical hatred of every thing European grew up in the minds of the tributary party; and that interesting country, which so long an intercourse with mild and humane conquerors might have disciplined to the religion and arts of Europe, rejected with sullen aversion every invention of life, and every institution of society, by which their moral and social condition might have been ameliorated. The result was, that at its capture by the British arms in 1810, Java was, in respect of civilization or improvement, just as it was when its connexion with the Dutch began, two hundred years before. We have already * expressed our opinion on the mixed question of policy and justice involved in the restoration of Java at the peace of 1814. We will not revive the discussion. Yet how can we forbear imagining to ourselves the improvement of a mild and docile nation during even the short space that has intervened, under the paternal protection and humane policy of a British government, which, instead of holding its ascendant over its distant dependencies by the right of conquest, or the authority of force, has for the most part built it on the basis of mutual advantage, and lenient and pacific intercourse? We call with sorrow to our remembrance the anticipations with which we hailed the conquest, anticipations which urged us to exclaim in the language of the poet,

Et jam non telum, sed visu nobilis arbor

Non expectatas dabit anhelantibus umbras.

From 1595 to 1612, the Dutch traded chiefly with the kingdom of Bantam, then the great eastern mart for pepper, which in those times was the staple of European commerce. In 1612 they removed to Jacatra, having obtained permission from the prince of that place to settle there. They soon contrived to quarrel with their protector; and seven years afterwards exhibited the usual specimen of Dutch gratitude by subduing his country, and building Batavia on the ruins of his capital. Incensed at these usurpations, the Sultan of Mataram sent a numerous force, the whole incorporated strength of Java, against them. The result will enable us to frame a tolerably correct estimate of the military character of the country. They were

* British Review, vol. xi. p. 81.