out of their own mouths we will convict them. It is the very
burden of Megasthenes' song.

Alexander had certain larger than Greek conceptions, which one
must admire in him. Though he overthrew the Persians, he never
made the mistake of thinking them an inferior race. On the
contrary, he respected them highly; and proposed to make of them
and his Greeks and Mecedoinians one homogeneous people, in which
the Persian qualities of aristocracy should supply a need he
felt in Europeans. The Law made use of his intention, partially,
and to the furtherance of its own designs.--His method of
treating the conquered was (generally) far more Persian or
Asiatic than Greek; that is to say, far more humane and decent
than barbarous. He took a short cut to his broad ends, and
married all his captains to Persian ladies, himself setting the
example; whereas most Greeks would have dealt with the captive
women very differently. So that it was a kind of enlightenment
he set out with, and carried across Persia, through Afghanistan,
and into the Punjab,--which, we may note, was but the outskirts
of the real India, into which he never penetrated; and it may
yet be found that he went by no means so far as is supposed; but
let that be. So now, at any rate, enough of him; he has brought
us where we are to spend this evening.

For a student of history, there is something mysterious and even
--to use a very vile drudge of a word--'unique' about India. Go
else where you will, and so long as you can posit certainly a
high civilization, and know anything of its events, you can make
some shift to arrange the history. None need boggle really at
any Chinese date after about 2350 B.C.; Babylon is fairly