avarice, and self-seeking,--Akbar appears before us as a noble man,
susceptible to all grand and beautiful impressions, conscientious,
unprejudiced, and energetic, who knew how to bring peace and order out
of the confusion of the times, who throughout his reign desired the
furtherance of his subjects' and not of his own interest, who while
increasing the privileges of the Mohammedans, not only also declared
equality of rights for the Hindus but even actualized that equality,
who in every conceivable way sought to conciliate his subjects so
widely at variance with each other in race, customs, and religion, and
who finally when the narrow dogmas of his religion no longer satisfied
him, attained to a purified faith in God, which was independent of all
formulated religions.

A closer observation, however, shows that the contrast is not quite so
harsh between what according to our hypotheses Akbar should have been
as a result of the forces which build up man, and what he actually
became. His predilection for science and art Akbar had inherited from
his grandfather Baber and his father Humâyun. His youth, which was
passed among dangers and privations, in flight and in prison, was
certainly not without a beneficial influence upon Akbar's development
into a man of unusual power and energy. And of significance for his
spiritual development was the circumstance that after his accession to
the throne his guardian put him in the charge of a most excellent
tutor, the enlightened and liberal minded Persian Mir Abdullatîf, who
laid the foundation for Akbar's later religious and ethical views.
Still, however high we may value the influence of this teacher, the
main point lay in Akbar's own endowments, his susceptibility for such
teaching as never before had struck root with any Mohammedan prince.
Akbar had not his equal in the history of Islam. "He is the only
prince grown up in the Mohammedan creed whose endeavor it was to