CHAVALI V. KRISHNAIYA, B.A., B.L.

It is commonly thought that the sum of human progress consists in the advance made in the arts and sciences which minister to man's earthly needs, and that no other element is an integral part of the same. Some may be willing to concede that progress made in the domain of Philosophy is a substantial contribution to Positive history. The Kingdom of God has, it is fondly believed, well-nigh been consolidated on Earth. The highest in man has been realised and his supremacy in the physical world indisputably established, add the protagonists of the present day civilisation. But amidst such blatant self-glorification rises now and then a solemn and clear voice of protest and warning from rather unexpected quarters, that all is not well with the world, and that the last word has not been said about man's destiny on earth.

Thus for instance Huxley, one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century: "Even the best of modern civilisations appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express the opinion that if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon the dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of want with its concomitant physical and moral degradation amongst the masses of the people; I should hail the advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair away as a desirable consummation." Huxley is no reactionary, and no juster and stronger indictment against modern civilisation has ever been delivered. This, it may be complained, is the language of impotent and kismetic rage and does not hold out the hope of any corrective or remedial plan. But it is highly instructive in that the cry for ‘halt’ to the march of merely material progress is voiced by an eminent man of science.

The industrial race-course, the most important phase of modern civilisation, has unduly emphasised the gladiatorial character of human existence, and the remorseless exploitation of the less developed by the stronger peoples is resulting in the gradual extinction of the former. ‘Whatever we have, to get more; wherever we are, to go somewhere else,’ that is Ruskin's epigram describing the life of restless aggressiveness of the Westerner. As Tagore puts it, the political civilisation of Europe is carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies. It feeds upon the resources of other peoples and tries to f swallow their whole future. Industrialism, which has vastly increased productive energy and thereby added to man's material comforts, has given the go-bye to man's moral instinct and created in its stead a sordid, selfish, greedy spirit. This spirit has led to the formation of close and powerful combinations, with exploitation of the poor as their main object. The result is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, while the poor who are responsible for this wealth are reduced to little better than abject slavery. ‘Every fresh triumph of Industrialism’ says Frederic Harrison, ‘has had its battle-fields strewn with crushed and dying humanity, as the destroying path of a conquering army.’ The white man must at all costs, and at all hazards, play the deputy Providence for the coloured man everywhere. The latter must yield or perish. The strong points of the white man's civilisation, no less than the weak ones, are equally destructive to the non-white. How the native populations are demoralised by European civilisation, and how they are on the verge of extinction, are graphically described in the sociological works of a host of writers, for instance, Wallace, Butler, and Melville. As amongst the powerful nations themselves, rivalry is kept up by the most important axiom of modern statecraft, that a nation's prosperity, nay, its very existence depends upon its military power.

Hence untold wealth is wasted upon armaments. And the latest discoveries of science are applied to the perfecting of the most powerful instruments of human destruction. The theory of evolution is often requisitioned for imposing upon credulous minds that in the inevitable struggle for existence, the most warlike races survive and inherit the earth. They are thus deluded into the conviction that it is through ‘blood and iron’ that nations become great and preserve their greatness.

The pathetic and passionate appeals of subject nations, once great and glorious, like Egypt and India, for self-development are met with contemptuous derision and are rewarded with repressive laws, deportations and all the weapons in the inexhaustible armoury of strong military nations. The domestic affairs of Imperial powers are excepted from the purview of Hague conferences and Washington conferences, as if the strangulation of a great nation's life by another, physically more powerful, is no matter of concern for international institutions established for securing world-peace. How futile and wasteful these conferences, and how hollow and untrue the pacts concluded therein-are they not painfully clear from the abortive attempts made recently to settle the affairs of Europe? It is forgotten that there is God's truth in the business of God-created men.’ Power and wealth are coming to be concentrated in ever-narrowing circles. The spirit of empire and monopoly pervades every human activity. A monopoly for creating even public opinion! A Napoleon or a Cromwell of the Press like the late Lord Northcliffe – what gigantic efforts he makes for obtaining journalistic control all over the world! Would the newspapers, run under such a monopolistic system, ever hope genuinely to represent public opinion? There is a strong tinge of artificiality in every phase of individual and collective life. The utter dehumanisation of vast masses of humanity, on whose lifeblood the indolent upper classes are leading a parasitic existence, the complete disappearance from the conduct of human affairs of moral and ethical considerations, the Godlessness and the spiritual paralysis which the long habit of parasitic life has generated - these are the direct results of the positive achievements of science in the present age. The civilisation of which we have been writing, though Western and European in origin, is being diffused over the whole earth and is successfully supplanting the older and higher civilisations of the East, so that in Eastern countries like India, China and Japan, one finds Western ideals, western manners and western customs faithfully copied to the letter. (1) All the evils of predatory Western civilisation noticed above, have crept into the life of the Eastern nations. Only the cannibalism, which is the proper word for European colonisation and conquest, is absent to complete the picture, no more ‘backward’ peoples having been left for the Eastern nations to prey upon.

It is coming universally to be recognised that the destructive hand of modern civilisation should be stayed. The prospect of Huxley's ‘kindly comet’ might not be desirable nor that of a tabula rasa of all achievements of the past. What is needed is a new and a more spiritual adjustment of life, based on the recognition that man is a spiritual being made in God's own image, and that his onward development until he is only ‘a little lower than the angels’ is more vital in this essentially human universe, than all the glorious conquests of nature put together.

The struggle between the old and the new, between progress and reaction, is prolonged and is intensified by the attitude of the ease-loving men of the world, whose watch words ‘ordered progress’ and ‘steady and sure reform’ are apt to be captivating to ignorant minds. Their policy of ‘least resistance’ is equally comfortable and adds an air of practicality to their views and plans. Thus the attempts to prolong the existence of an old and effete system naturally retard the progress of the new. In their fervour and passion for the old, its adherents unwittingly sometimes, and sometimes of set purpose, cause the supporters of the new to be persecuted for what they conceive to be their mischievous and dangerous activities. The pioneer of every new movement in social life and his followers have on this account suffered incalculable injury to their person and property. History repeats itself; and the story of almost every great upheaval confirms this fact.

A characteristic specimen of this class of reactionary people is Regent Murray who, in answer to Knox's expostulation, that the properties in the possession of the barons of the time were church property and therefore to be turned to charitable uses, answered, ‘It is a devout imagination.’ Even such a moderate and reasonable demand fell flat upon the Regent, and his answer has been immortalised in the various turns of expression, all synonymous and mere paraphrases of this historic ejaculation, which the mediocrities fling at each phase of new thought and new morality.

But great souls, undeterred by gibes and sneers, and regardless of personal safety, happiness and advancement, have always set the wheel of progress moving on to the point of suffering self-extinction from the crushing pressure of the wheel itself. In spite of these Regent Murrays and their stout oppositions, the world has domesticated the ferocious lions and tigers of revolutionary thought into the harmless and often helpful home associates of man. The Regent Murrays who plumed and strutted and lived their glorious little lives, have vanished into the limbo of oblivion, their sins of omission and commission forgotten and forgiven by an un vindictive and sympathetic posterity.

Then it is contended by these men of the world that the movements inaugurated by idealists have been dismal failures, as they involved untold sufferings, (for which none more than these very men were responsible) and as there was no visible and immediate material outcome. Both of these are fallacious tests. If suffering there was, it was self-imposed, voluntary, and heartily conscious, so far as the sufferers were concerned, and the inflictors of pain were mere instruments-Providence-designed. And as Mazzini says, "Two-thirds at least of popular revolutions only benefit the succeeding generations. The generation that made them is nearly always condemned to mark with its own dead the road of progress for its successor. Itself can never enjoy the result of its travail." This is the philosophy of suffering. As for visible results, it is purely a commercial test and is out or place in measuring the inner growth of man's soul. Take for instance the career of Jesus. What did the Pharisees and the Roman officials think of him? As a great failure, assuredly. His crucifixion was thought to end him and his movement. But it ended the Pharisees and their religion, and the Romans and their Empire, and the roots of the new religion were firmly planted. It was the Nazarene's blood that put inextinguishable life in the seed of the great Tree, under the shadow of whose branches the souls of millions of men all the world over are resting. Then again, take the case of Mahomed. His doctrines are said to have attracted only about thirteen followers in three years. That is a poor, hopelessly poor, visible result. His own uncle Abu Thalib did not believe in his nephew's great prophetic work, and like the mediocrity that he was, he pitied the young man for running the risk of his own life for a petty doctrine. His persecution, his fleeing for his life, and the persecution of his own followers, the tremendous influence his doctrine is now wielding, and the, millions of votaries which It is now having, are commonplace facts of History. So of Buddha and his religion of Love.

The truth and strength of a movement, and the potentialities of its ultimate success are more important reckoning than the ups and downs, the struggles and the failings of its author. ‘Is not a man's walking, in truth,’ says Carlyle, ‘a succession of falls?’ Viewed in this light, every great movement is a success and a positive contribution to human history.

(1) It will be remembered how poet Tagore was called by the Japanese Press as the prophet of a degraded nation, when he insisted on a humanising philosophy and did not pamper the military instinct.