In concluding his answer to the Mîzân-ul-Haqq, our Author explains
why he has not quoted his adversary at length, and answered him word for word.
"If these unprofitable disquisitions," he says, "were confined
by the Padres to two or three treatises, and they were themselves such sort of
people that when the groundlessness of their assertions had once been proved,
other Padres would hide their heads, and English gentlemen would keep them
back from advancing such absurdities in future,—then, indeed, there were
some object in replying to their arguments word by word. But such is far from
being the case: nay, thousands of Padres earn their bread by this very trade,
and their livelihood consists in attacking the religions of other people,—quite
apart from the consideration of whether those religions are supported by
reason or not. They are constantly writing and printing new treatises, without
any sort of rational ground; but simply in order to support their families,
they labour night and day at this work. Besides, if you prove never so well
the unreasonableness of a Padre's statements, it seems to have no effect
whatever upon others, for we find no one endeavouring to persuade such a
writer to give up these irrational arguments. Seeing therefore that it does
not constitute our livelihood to spread abroad religion, and that English
gentlemen, though they be lovers of fair argument, yet maintain only their own
Padres in such service, and give nothing to the professors of other religions
for the same purpose;— Say, how can it be expected of us to reply word for
word to the arguments of these Padres? Indeed, we ought to regard ourselves as
fortunate in not being hindered by the Officers of the Sirkar Company, from
replying to our adversaries' objections; and such of these Officers as are of
a philosophical turn of mind, can themselves appreciate a well-framed
refutation. The real objections, too, are confined to
