A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles. - Richard Francis Burton

The Translator has ventured to entitle a "Lay of the Higher Law" the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the "Higher Culture." The principles which justify the name are as follows: — The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and distributed in the world. He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and sufficient object of human life. He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the "divine gift of Pity" are man's highest enjoyments. He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of "Facts, the idlest of superstitions." Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially reconstructive. For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader is referred to the end of the volume.

Christianity and Islamism have been on their trial for the last eighteen and twelve centuries. They have been ardent in proselytizing, yet they embrace only one-tenth and one-twentieth of the human race. Hâjî Abdû would account for the tardy and unsatisfactory progress of what their votaries call "pure truths," by the innate imperfections of the same. Both propose a reward for mere belief, and a penalty for simple unbelief; rewards and punishments being, by the way, very disproportionate. Thus they reduce everything to the scale of a somewhat unrefined egotism; and their demoralizing effects become clearer to every progressive age.

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