notwithstanding the vices of the Roman Church and the defects
of the schoolmen), were superior in philosophy. Further, the
Europeans ‘were greatly superior, notwithstanding the defects of
the feudal system, in the institutions of Government and in
laws.’ Even their poetry was ‘beyond all comparison preferable to
the poetry of the Hindoos.’ Mill felt that it was hardly necessary
to assert that in the art of war ‘the Hindoos have always been
greatly inferior to the warlike nations of Europe.’ The agriculture
of the Europeans ‘surpassed exceedingly that of the Hindoos’,
and in India the roads were little better than paths, and the
rivers without bridges; there was not one original treatise on
medicine, considered as a science, and surgery was unknown
among the Hindoos. Further still, ‘compared with the slavish and
dastardly spirit of the Hindoos’, the Europeans were to be placed
in an elevated rank with regard to manners and character, and
their manliness and courage.
Where the Hindoos surpassed the Europeans was in
delicate manufactures, ‘particularly in spinning, weaving, and
dyeing’; in the fabrication of trinkets; and probably in the art of
polishing and setting the precious stones; and more so in
effeminate gentleness, and the winning arts of address. However,
in the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture the Hindoos
in no way excelled Europeans. Further, ‘the Hindoo loom, with
all its appurtenances, is coarse and ill-fashioned, to a degree
hardly less surprising than the fineness of the commodity which
it is the instrument of producing.’ The very dexterity in the use
of their tools and implements became a point against the
Indians. For as James Mill proclaimed: ‘A dexterity in the use of
its own imperfect tools is a common attribute of rude society.’
These reflections and judgments led to the obvious
conclusion, and Mill wrote:
Our ancestors, however, though rough, were sincere; but
under the glossing exterior of the Hindoo lies a general
disposition to deceit and perfidy. In fine, it cannot be
doubted that, upon the whole, the gothic nations, as soon
as they became a settled people, exhibit the marks of a
superior character and civilisation to those of the
Hindoos.^92
As to James Mill, so also to Wilberforce, Macaulay, and
Karl Marx and the thought and approaches they represented (for
it is more as spokesmen of such thinking and approaches that