As men are made to preserve, feed, and clothe themselves, and do everything a society requires, religion should not give them too contemplative a life. [1]

The Mohammedans become speculative by habit : they pray five times a day, and each time they must perform an act by which they cast everything that belongs to this world behind them : that prepares them for speculation. Add to this their indifference for all things which the doctrine of unalterable fate confers.

If some other causes concur to inspire their detachment, as were the harshness of the government or the laws bearing on ownership of the land to instill a mood of precarity, all is lost.

The religion of the Gaurs once made the kingdom of Persia flourish ; it corrected the ill effects of despotism ; the Mohammedan religion today is destroying that very empire.