ver the minds of the people in many ways
comparable to that of a new religion.' This is the more significant
because the instructed natives who study the laws, both Mohammedan and
Hindoo, have been accustomed to identify law and religion. 'Our law is,
in fact, the sum and substance of what we have to teach them. It is, so
to speak, the gospel of the English, and it is a compulsory gospel which
admits of no dissent and of no disobedience.' Finally, if Government
does not make laws, each officer or group of officers will have to make
their own. Practically they will buy a few English law-books and apply
them in a servile way to the cases which turn up.

India, then, must be ruled by law. By what law? Shall we endeavour to
govern on native principles and by native agency? To this theory, which
has attracted many friends, he replies, No; first, because Indian ideas
about government are wrong; they are proved to be wrong by experience,
which shows that they led to anarchy and demoralisation; and, secondly,
because they have produced men and institutions unfit for government.
If, therefore, we tried to rule by Oriental methods and agents, we
should either make ourselves responsible for their oppressions, or we
should have to keep them in order, and that is to rule by law. We
should, again, have to watch perpetually over the mass of personal
intrigue which is the 'curse of every despotic state.' We should require
a large native army and live under a perpetual threat of mutiny. In
fact, the mutiny of 1857 really represented the explosion and the
collapse of this policy. Finally, we should have to choose between
Mohammedans and Hindoos, and upon either alternative a ruler not himself
belonging to the religion comes into inevitable conflict with their
fundamental principles.

We have, then, no choice but to rule by law and to frame laws upon
European principles. Here, it is necessary to guard against
misunderstandings which have given rise to the charge of
over-legislation. 'European principles' mean those principles which have
been shown by our experience to be essential to peace, order, wealth,
and progress in arts and sciences. 'No one,' says Fitzjames, 'can feel
more strongly than I do the madness of the smallest unnecessary
interference with the social habits and religious opinions of the
country. I would not touch one of them except in cases of extreme
necessity.' But the simple introduction of peace, law, order, free
com