d some of the
principles according to which the religions of the world should be
judged, Mr. Hardwick devotes the whole of the second volume to the
religions of India. We find there, first of all, a short but very
clear account of the religion of the Veda, as far as it is known at
present. We then come to a more matter-of-fact representation of
Brahmanism, or the religion of the Hindus, as represented in the
so-called Laws of Manu, and in the ancient portions of the two epic
poems, the Ramaya_n_a and Mahabharata. The next chapter is devoted to
the various systems of Indian philosophy, which all partake more or
less of a religious character, and form a natural transition to the
first subjective system of faith in India, the religion of Buddha. Mr.
Hardwick afterwards discusses, in two separate chapters, the apparent
and the real correspondences between Hinduism and revealed religion,
and throws out some hints how we may best account for the partial
glimpses of truth which exist in the Vedas, the canonical books of
Buddhism, and the later Pura_n_as. All these questions are handled
with such ability, and discussed with so much elegance and eloquence,
that the reader becomes hardly aware of the great difficulties of the
subject, and carries away, if not quite a complete and correct, at
least a very lucid, picture of the religious life of ancient India.
The third volume, which was published in the beginning of this year,
is again extremely interesting, and full of the most varied
descriptions. The religions of China are given first, beginning with
an account of the national traditions, as collected and fixed by
Confucius. Then follows the religious system of Lao-tse, or the
Tao-ism of China, and lastly Buddhism again, only under that modified
form which it assumed when introduced from India into China. After
this sketch of the religious life of China, the most ancient centre of
Eastern civilisation, Mr. Hardwick suddenly transports us to the New
World, and introduces us to the worship of the wild tribes of America,
and to the ruins of the ancient temples in which the civilised races
of that continent, especially the Mexicans, once bowed themselves down
before their god or gods. Lastly, we have to embark on the South Sea,
and to visit the various islands which form a chain between the west
coast of America and the east coast of Africa, stretching over half of
the globe, and inhabited by the descendants of the once united race