SOURCE: A review of A History of Indian Philosophy, in International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 34, No. 4, July, 1924, pp. 403-05.

In the following essay, Thomas presents A History of Indian Philosophy as the first book of its kind.

The study of the history of Indian culture in Europe has been a continuous struggle for more light. Again and again conclusions have been reached that have had to be abandoned. But Indian philosophy was fortunate in having as its first expounder H. T. Colebrooke, one of the earliest but at the same time one of the ablest of the Indianists. His work, however, was confined to the six orthodox systems, and to these only in their classical form. It is only gradually that the means have been made accessible to the West for studying the continuous history of the thought of some 3,000 years, from the Vedic culture as crystallized in...