once he had taken the final step of departure, constantly brooding over
the intellectual attractions rather than the material comforts of
European life, Lyall speedily came to the conclusion that, if he was to
bear a hand in governing India, the first thing he had to do was to
understand Indians. He therefore brought his acutely analytical
intellect to the task of comprehending the Indian habit of thought. In
the course of his researches he displayed that thoroughness and
passionate love of truth which was the distinguishing feature of his
character throughout life. That he succeeded in a manner which has been
surpassed by none, and only faintly rivalled by a very few, is now
generally recognised both by his own countrymen and also--which is far
more remarkable--by the inhabitants of the country which formed the
subject of his study. So far as it is possible for any Western to
achieve that very difficult task, he may be said to have got to the back
of the Oriental mind. He embodied the results of his long experience at
times in sweeping and profound generalisations, which covered the whole
field of Oriental thought and action, and at others in pithy
epigrammatic sayings in which the racy humour, sometimes tinged with a
shade of cynical irony, never obscured the deep feeling of sympathy he
entertained for everything that was worthy of respect and admiration.

Lyall had read history to some purpose. He knew, in the words which
Gregorovius applied to the rule of Theodosius in Italy, that "not even
the wisest and most humane of princes, if he be an alien in race, in
customs and religion, can ever win the hearts of the people." He had
read De Tocqueville, and from the pages of an author whose habit of
thought must have been most congenial to him, he drew the conclusion
that "it was the increased prosperity and enlightenment of the French
people which produced the grand crash." He therefore thought that "the
wildest, as well as the shallowest notion of all is that universally