upon a^onspiracy of fear. But will this federa- tion of steam-boilers supply you with a soul, a soul which has her conscience and her God? What is to happen to that larger part of the world where fear will have no hand in restraining you? Whatever safety they now enjoy, those countries of No-Nation, from the unbridled license of forge and hammer and turn-screw, results from the mutual jealousy of the powers. But when, instead of being numerous separate machines, they become riveted into one organized gre- gariousness of gluttony, commercial and political, what remotest chance of hope will remain for those others, who have lived and suffered, have loved and worshipped, have thought deeply and worked with meekness, but whose only crime has been that they have not organized?
But, you say, That does not matter, the unfit must go to the wall — they shall die^ and this is science.”
No, for the sake of your own salvation, I say, they shall livCy and this is truth. It is extremely bold of me to say so, but I assert that man’s world is a moral world, not because we blindly agree to believe it, but because it is so in truth which would be dangerous for us to ignore. And this moral nature of man cannot be divided into NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 33 convenient compartments for its preservation. You cannot secure it for your home consump- tion with protective tariff* walls, while in foreign parts making it enormously accommodating in its free trade of license.
Has not this truth already come home to you now, when this cruel war has driven its claws into the vitals of Europe? when her hoard of wealth is bursting into smoke and her humanity is shattered into bits on her battlefields? You ask in amazement what has she done to deserve tills? The answer is, that the West has been systematically petrifying her moral nature in order to lay a solid foundation for her gigantic abstractions of efficiency. She has all along been starving the life of the personal man into that of the professional.
In your medieeval age in Europe, the simple and the natural man, with all his violent passions and desires, was engaged in trying to find out a reconciliation in the conflict between the flesh and the spirit. All through the turbulent career of her vigorous youth the temporal^ and the spiritual forces both acted strongly upon her nature, and were moulding it into completeness of moral personality. Europe owes all her great- ness in humanity to that period of discipline, D 34 NATIONALISM — the discipline of the man in Iiis human integrity.
Then came the age of intellect, of science. We all know that intellect is impersonal. Our life, and our heart, are one with us, but our mind can be detached from the personal man and then only can it freely move in its world of thoughts. Our intellect is an ascetic who wears no clothes, takes no food, knows no sleep, has no wishes, feels no love or hatred or pity for human limita- tions, who only reasons, unmoved, through the vicissitudes of life. It burrows to the roots of things, because it has no personal concern with the thing itself. The grammarian walks straight through all poetry and goes to the root of words without obstruction, because he is not seeking reality, but law. When he finds the law, he is able to teach people how to master words. This is a power, — the power which fulfils some special usefulness, some particular need of man.
Reality is the harmony which gives to the component parts of a thing the equilibrium of the whole. You break it, and have in your hands the nomadic atoms fighting against one another, therefore unmeaning. Those who covet power try to get mastery of these aboriginal fighting elements, and through some narrow NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 35 channels force them into some violent service for some particular needs of man.
This satisfaction of man s needs is a great thing. It gives him freedom in the material world. It confers on him the benefit of a greater range of time and space. He can do things in a shorter time and occupies a larger space with more thoroughness of advantage. Therefore he can easily outstrip those who live in a world of a slower time and of space less fully occupied.
This progress of power attains more and more rapidity of pace. And, for the reason that it is a detached part of man, it soon out- runs the complete humanity. The moral man remains behind, because it has to deal with the whole reality, not merely with the law of things, which is impersonal and therefore abstract.
Thus, man with his mental and material power far outgrowing his moral strength, is like an exaggerated giraffe whose head has suddenly shot up miles away from the rest of him, making normal communication difficult to establish. This greedy head, with its huge dental organization, has been munching all the topmost foliage of the world, but the nourish- ment is too late in reaching his digestive organs.
36 NATIONALISM 36 NATIONALISM and his heart is suffering from want of blood. Of this present disharmony in man’s nature the West seems to have been blissfully unconscious. The enormity of its material success has diverted all its attention toward self-congratulation on its bulk. The optimism of its logic goes on basing tlie calculations of its good fortune upon the indefinite prolongation of its railway lines toward eternity. It is superficial enough to think that all to-morrows are merely to-days, with the repeated additions of twenty -four liours. It has no fear of the chasm, which is opening wider every day, between man’s ever- growing storehouses and the emptiness of his hungry humanity. Logic does not know that, under the lowest bed of endless strata of wealth and comforts, earthquakes are being hatched to restore the balance of the moral world, and one day the gaping gulf of spiritual vacuity will draw into its bottom the store of things that have their eternal love for the dust.
Man in his fulness is not powerful, but perfect. ^ Therefore, to turn him into mere power, you have to curtail his soul as much as possible. When we are fully human, we cannot fly at one another’s throats; our instincts of social life, our traditions of moral ideals stand NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 37 in the way. If you want me to take to butcher- ing human beings, you must break up tluit wholeness of my humanity through some discipline which makes my will dead, my thoughts numb, my movements automatic, and then from the dissolution of the complex personal man will come out that abstraction, that destructive force, which has no relation to human truth, and therefore can be easily brutal or mechanical. Take away man from his natural surroundings, from the fulness of his communal life, with all its living associations of beauty and love and social obligations, and you will be able to turn him into so many fragments of a machine for the production of wealth on a gigantic scale. Turn a tree into a log and it will burn for you, but it will never bear living flowers and fruit.
This process of dehumanizing has been going on in commerce and politics. And out of the long birth-throes of mechanical energy has been born this fully developed apparatus of magnificent power and surprising appetite which has been christened in the West as the Nation. As I have hinted before, because of its quality of abstraction it has, with the greatest ease, gone far ahead of the complete moral man. And having the conscience of a ghost and the callous 38 NATIONALISM 38 NATIONALISM perfection of an automaton, it is causing disasters of which the volcanic dissipations of the youth- ful moon would be ashamed to be brought into comparison. As a result, the suspicion of man for man stings all the limbs of this civilization like the hairs of the nettle. Eacli country is casting its net of espionage into the slimy bottom of the others, fishing for their secrets, the treacherous secrets which brew in the oozy depths of diplomacy. And what is their secret service but the nation’s underground trade in kidnapping, murder and treachery and all the ugly crimes bred in the depth of rottenness? Because each nation has its own history of thieving and lies and broken faith, therefore there can only flourish international suspicion and jealousy, and international moral shame becomes aiKcmic to a degree of ludicrousness. The nation’s bagpipe of righteous indignation has so often changed its tune according to the variation of time and to the altered groupings of the alliances of diph^macy, that it can be enjoyed \vith amusement as the variety per- formance of the political music hall, I am just coming from my visit to Japan, where 1 exhorted this young nation to take its stand upon the higher ideals of humanity and NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 39 never to follow the West in its acceptance of the organized selfishness of Nationalism as its religion, never to gloat upon the feebleness of its neighbours, never to be unscrupulous in its behaviour to the weak, where it can be gloriously mean with impunity, while turning its right cheek of brighter humanity for the kiss of admira- tion to those who have the power to deal it a blow. Some of the newspapers praised my utter- ances for their poetical qualities, while adding with a leer that it was the poetry of a defeated people. I felt they were right. Japan had been taught in a modern school the lesson how to become powerful. The schooling is done and she must enjoy the fruits of her lessons. The West in the voice of her thundering cannon had said at the door of Japan, Let there be a nation — and there was a Nation. And now that it has come into existence, why do you not feel in your heart of hearts a pure feeling of gladness and say that it is good? Why is it that I saw in an English paper an expression of bitterness at Japan s boasting of her superiority of civilization — ^the thing that the British, along with other nations, has been carrying on for ages without blushing? Because the idealism of selfishness must keep itself drunk with a continual dose of 40 NATIONALISM 40 NATIONALISM self-laudation. Ilut the same vices which seem so natural and innocuous in its own life make it surprised and angry at their unpleasantness when seen in other nations. Therefore, when you see the Japanese nation, created in your own image, launched in its career of national boastfulness you shake your head and say, it is not good. Has it not been one of the causes that raise the cry on these shores for preparedness to meet one more power of evil with a greater power of injury? Japan protests that she has her bushido, that she can never be treacherous to America, to whom she owes her gratitude. But you find it difficult to believe her, — for the wisdom of the Nation is not in its faith in humanity but in its complete distrust. You say to yourself that it is not with Japan of the bushidoy the Japan of the moral ideals, that you have to deal — it is with the abstraction of the popular selfishness, it is with the Nation; and Nation can only trust Nation where their interests coalesce, or at least do not conflict. In fact your instinct tells you that tlie advent of another people into the arena of nationality makes another addition to the evil which contradicts all that is highest in Man and proves by its success that unscrupulousness is the way to prosperity, — and goodness is good NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 41 for the weak and God is the only remaining consolation of the defeated.
Yes, this is the logic of the Nation. And it will never heed the voice of truth and goodness. It will go on in its ring-dance of moral corrup- tion, linking steel unto steel, and machine unto machine; trampling under its tread all the sweet flowers of simple faith and the living ideals of man.
But we delude ourselves into thinking that humanity in the modern days is more to the front than ever before. The reason of this self- delusion is because man is served with the neces- saries of life in greater profusion, and his physical ills are being alleviated with more efficacy. But the chief part of this is done, not by moral sacri- fice, but by intellectual power. In quantity it is great, but it sj)rings from the surface and spreads over the surface. Knowledge and efficiency are powerful in their outward effect, but they are the servants of man, not the man himself. Their service is like the service in a hotel, wliere it is elaborate, but the host is absent; it is more convenient than hospitable.
Therefore we must not forget that the scientific organizations vastly spreading in all* directions are strengthening our power, but not 42 NATIONALISM our humanity. With the growth of power the cult of the self-worship of the Nation grows in ascendancy; and the individual willingly allows the Nation to take donkey-rides upon his back; and there happens the anomaly which must have such disastrous effects, that the individual worships with all sacrifices a god which is morally much inferior to himself. This could never have been possible if the god had been as real as the individual.
Let me give an illustration of this in point. In some parts of India it has been enjoined as an act of great piety for a widow to go without food and water on a particular day every fort- night. This often leads to cruelty, unmeaning and inhuman. And yet men are not by nature cruel to such a degree. But this jnety being a mere unreal abstraction completely deadens the moral sense of the individual, just as the man, who would not hurt an animal unnecessarily, would cause horrible suffering to a large number of innocent creatures when he drugs his feelings with the abs^tract idea of ‘‘ sport.” Because these ideas are the creations of our intellect, because they are logical classifications, therefore they can ‘SO easily hide in their mist the personal man.
And the idea of the Nation is one of the most NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 48 powerful anaesthetics that man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion, — in fact feeling dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.
But can this go on indefinitely? continually producing barrenness of moral insensibility upon a large tract of our living nature? Can it escape its nemesis for ever? Has this giant power of mechanical organization no limit in this world against which it may shatter itself all the more completely because of its terrible strength and velocity? Do you believe that evil can be per- manently kept in check by competition with evil, and that conference of prudence can keep the devil chained in its makesliift cage of mutual agreement?
This European _WM of Nations is th e w ar of retribution, Man, the person, must protest for his very life against the heaping up of things where there should be the heart, and systems and policies where there should, flow living human relationship. The time has come when, for the sake of the whole outraged world, Europe should fully know in her own person the terrible absurdity of the thing called the Nation, 44 NATIONAT.ISM 44 NATIONAT.ISM The Nation has thriven long upon mutilated humanity. Men, the fairest creations of God, came out of the National manufactory in huge numbers as war - making and money - making puppets, ludicrously vain of their pitiful perfec- tion of mechanism. Human society grew more and more into a marionette show of politicians, soldiers, manufacturers and bureaucrats, pulled by wire arrangements of wonderful efficiency.
But the apotheosis of selfishness can never make its interminable breed of hatred and greed, fear and hypocrisy, suspicion and tyranny, an end in themselves. These monsters grow into huge shapes but never into harmony. And this Nation may grow on to an unimaginable corpulence, not of a living body, but of steel and steam and office buildings, till its deformity can contain no longer its ugly voluminousness, — till it begins to crack and gape, breathe gas and fire in gasps, and its death-rattles sound in cannon roars. In this war the death-throes of the Nation have commenced. Suddenly, all its mechanism going mad, it has begun the dance of the Furies, shattering its own limbs, scattering them into the dust. It is the fif th ac t of the tra^ecly^ oj^the unreal. ^ Those whoTiave^any faith in Man cannot but NATIONALISM IN THE WEST 45 fervently hope that the tyranny of the Nation will not be restored to all its former teeth and claws, to its far - reaching iron arms and its immense inner cavity, all stomach and no heart; that man will have his new birth, in the freedom of his individuality, from the enveloping vague- ness of abstraction.
The veil has been raised, and in this frightful war the West has stood face to face with her own creation, to which she had offered her soul. She must know what it truly is.
She had never let herself suspect what slow decay and decomposition were secretly going on in her moral nature, which often broke out in doctrines of scepticism, but still oftener and in still more dangerously subtle manner showed itself in her unconsciousness of the mutilation and insult that she had been inflicting upon a vast part of the world. Now she must know the truth nearer home.
And then there will come from her own children those who will break themselves free from the slavery of this illusion, this perversion of brotherhood founded upon self-seeking, those who will own themselves as God’s children and as no bond-slaves of machinery, which turns souls into commodities and life into compart- 46 NATIONALISM ments, which, with its iron claws, scratches out the heart of the world and knows not what it has done.
And we of no nations of the world, whose heads have been bowed to the dust, will know that this dust is more sacred than the bricks which build the pride of power. For this dust is fertile of life, and of beauty and worship. We shall thank God that we were made to wait in silence through the night of despair, had to bear the insult of the proud and the strong man’s burden, yet all through it, though our hearts quaked with doubt and fear, never could we blindly believe in the salvation which machinery offered to man, but we held fast to our trust in God and the truth of the human soul. And we can still cherish the hope that, when power becomes ashamed to occupy its throne and is ready to make way for love, when the morning comes for cleansing the blood - stained steps of the Nation along the highroad of humanity, we shall be called upon J:o bring our own vessel of sacred water — the water of wbrship — to sweeten the history of man into purity, and with its sprinkling make the trampled dust of the centuries blessed with fruitfulness.
NATIONALISM IN JAPAN *7 NATIONALISM IN JAPAN I The worst form of bondage is the bondage of dejection, which keeps men hopelessly chained in loss of faith in themselves. We have been repeatedly told, with some justification, that Asia lives in the past, — it is like a rich mausoleum which displays all its magnificence in trying to imihortalize the dead. It was said of Asia that it could never move in the path of j)rogress, its face was so inevitably turned backwards. We accepted this accusation, and came to believe it. In India, I know, a large section of our educated community, grown tired of feeling the humilia- tion of this charge against us, is trying all its resources of self-deception to turn ^it into a matter of boasting. But boasting is only a masked shame, it does not truly believe in itself.
When things stood still like this, and we in Asia hypnotized ourselves into the belief that 50 NATIONALISM it could never by any possibility be otherwise, Japan rose from her dreams, and in giant strides left centuries of inaction behind, overtaking the present time in its foremost achievement. This has broken tlie spell under which we lay in torpor for ages, taking it to be the normal condition of certain races living in certain geographical limits. We forgot that in Asia great kingdoms were founded, philosophy, science, arts and literatures flourished, and all the great religions of the world had their cradles. There- fore it cannot be said that there is anything inherent in the soil and climate of Asia to produce mental inactivity and to atrophy the faculties which impel men to go forward. For centuries we did hold torches of civilization in the East when the West slumbered in darkness, and that could never be the sign of sluggish mind or narrowness of vision.
Then fell the darkness of night upon all the lands of the East. The current of time seemed to stop at once, and Asia ceased to take any new food, feeding upon its own past, which is really feeding upon itself. The stillness seemed like death, and the great voice was silenced which sent forth messages of eternal truth that have saved man’s life from pollution for generations.
NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 51 like the ocean of air that keeps the earth sweet, ever cleansing its impurities.
But life has its sleep, its periods of inactivity, when it loses its movements, takes no new food, living upon its past storage. Then it grows lielp- less, its muscles relaxed, and it easily lends itself to be jeered at for its stupor. In tlie rhythm of life, pauses there must be for the renewal of life. Life in its activity is ever spending itself, burning all its fuel. This extravagance cannot go on indefinitely, but is always followed by a passive stage, when all expenditure is stopped and all adventures abandoned in favour of rest and slow recuperation.
The tendency of mind is economical, it loves to form habits and move in grooves which save it the trouble of thinking anew at each of its steps. Ideals once formed make the mind lazy. It becomes afraid to risk its acquisitions in fresh endeavours. It tries to enjoy complete security by shutting up its belongings behind fortifications of habits. But this is really shutting oneself up from the fullest enjoyment of ones o^n posses- sions. It is miserliness. The living ideals must not lose their touch with the growing and changing life. Their real freedom is not within the boundaries of security, but in the high- 52 NATIONALISM road of adventures, full of the risk of new experiences.
One morning the whole world looked up in surprise when Japan broke through her walls of old habits in a night and came out triumphant. It was done in such an incredibly short time that it seemed like a change of dress and not like the building up of a new structure. She showed the confident strength of maturity, and the fresh- ness and infinite potentiality of new life at the same moment. The fear was entertained that it was a mere freak of history, a child’s game of Time, the blowing up of a soap-bubble, perfect in its rondure and colouring, hollow in its heart and without substance. But Japan has proved conclusively that this sudden revealment of her power is not a short-lived wonder, a chance pro- duct of time and tide, thrown up from the depth of obscurity to be swept away the next moment into the sea of oblivion.
The truth is that Japan is old and new at the same time. She has her legacy of ancient culture from the JEast, — the culture that enjoins man to look for his true wealth and power in his inner soul, the culture that gives self-possession in the face of loss and danger, self-sacrifice without counting the cost or hoping for gain, defiance of NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 53 death, acceptance of countless social obligations that we owe to men as social beings. In a word, modern Japan has come out of the immemorial East like a lotus blossoming in easy grace, all the while keeping its firm hold upon the profound depth from which it has sprung.
And Japan, the child of the Ancient East, has also fearlessly claimed all the gifts of the modern age for herself. She has shown her bold spirit in breaking through the confinements of habits, useless accumulations of the lazy mind, which seeks safety in its thrift and its locks and keys. Thus she has come in contact with the living time and has accepted with eagerness and aptitude the responsibilities of modern civilization.
This it is which has given heart to the rest of Asia. We have seen that the life and the strength are there in us, only the dead crust has to be removed. We have seen that taking shelter in the dead is death itself, and only taking all the risk of life to the fullest extent is living.
I, for myself, caruiot believe that Japan has become what she is by imitating the VVest. We cannot imitate life, we cannot simulate strength for long, nay, what is more, a mere imitation is a source of weakness. For it hampers our true nature, it is always in our way. It is like dressing 54 NATIONALISM our skeleton with another man’s skin, giving rise to eternal feuds between the skin and the bones at every movement.
The real truth is that science is not man’s nature, it is mere knowledge and training, liy knowing the laws of the material universe you do not change your deeper humanity. You can borrow knowledge from others, but you cannot borrow temperament.
Hut at the imitative stage of our schooling we cannot distinguish between the essential and the non-essential, between what is transferable and what is not. It is something like the faith of the primitive mind in the magical properties of the accidents of outwardforms which accompany some real truth. We are afraid of leaving out some- thing valuable and efficacious by not swallowing the husk with the kernel. But while our greed delights in wholesale appropriation, it is the function of our vital nature to assimilate, which is the only true appropriation for a living organism. Where there is life it is sure to assert itself by its choice of acceptance and refusal according to its constitutional necessity. The living organism does not allow itself to grow into its food, it changes its food into its own body. And only thus can it grow strong NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 55 and not by mere accumulation, or by giving up its personal identity.
Japan has imported her food from the West, but not her vital nature. Japan cannot altogether lose and merge herself in the scientific parapher- nalia she has acquired from the West and be turned into a mere borrowed machine. She has her own soul, which must assert itself over all her requirements. That she is capable of doing so, and that the process of assimilation is going on, have been amply proved by the signs of vigorous health that she exhibits. And I earnestly hope that Japan may never lose her faith in her own soul, in the mere pride of her foreign acquisition. For that pride itself is a humiliation, ultimately leading to poverty and weakness. It is the pride of the fop who sets more store on his new head- dress than on his head itself.
The whole world waits to see what this great Eastern nation is going to do with the oppor- tunities and responsibilities she has accepted from the hands of the modern time. If it be a mere reproduction of the West, then the great- expectation she has raised will remain* unfulfilled. For there are grave questions that the Western civilization has presented before the world but ^ not completely answered. The conflict between 56 NATIONALISM 56 NATIONALISM the individual and the state, labour and capital, the man and the woman; the conflict between the greed of material gain and the spiritual life of man, the organized selfishness of nations and the higher ideals of humanity; the conflict between all the ugly complexities inseparable from giant organizations of commerce and state and the natural instincts of man crying for simplicity and beauty and fulness of leisure, — all these have to be brought to a harmony in a manner not yet dreamt of.
We have seen this great stream of civilization choking itself from debris carried by its innumer- able channels. We have seen that with all its vaunted love of humanity it has proved itself the greatest menace to Man, far worse than the sudden outbursts of nomadic barbarism from which men suffered in the early ages of history. We have seen that, in spite of its boasted love of freedom, it has produced worse forms of slavery than ever were current in earlier societies, — slavery whose chains are unbreakable, either because they are unseen, or because they assume the names' and appearance of freedom. We have seen, under the spell of its gigantic sordid- ness, man losing faith in all the heroic ideals of life which have made him great.
NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 57 Therefore you cannot with a light heart accept the modern civilization with all its tendencies, methods and structures, and dream that they are inevitable. You must apply your Eastern mind, your spiritual strength, your love of simplicity, your recognition of social obliga- tion, in order to cut out a new path for this great unwieldy car of progress, shrieking out its loud discords as it runs. You must minimize the immense sacrifice of man’s life and freedom that it claims in its every movement. For generations you have felt and thought and worked, have enjoyed and worshipped in your own special manner; and this cannot be cast off like old clothes. It is in your blood, in the marrow of your bones, in the texture of your flesh, in the tissue of your brains; and it must modify everything you lay your hands upon, without your knowing, even against your wishes. Once you did solve the problems of man to your own satisfaction, you had your philosophy of life and evolved your own art of living. All this you must apply to the present situation, • and out of it will arise a new creation and not a mere repetition, a creation which the soul of your people will own for itself and proudly offer to the world as its tribute to the welfare of man.
58 NATIONALISM 58 NATIONALISM Of all countries in Asia, here in Japan you have the freedom to use the materials you have gathered from the West according to your genius and your need. Therefore your respon- sibility is all the greater, for in your voice Asia shall answer the questions that Europe has sub- mitted to the conference of Man. In your land the experiments will be carried on by which the East will change the aspects of modern civilization, infusing life in it where it is a machine, substituting the human heart for cold exj)cdiency, not caring so much for power and success as for harmonious and living growth, for truth and beauty.
I cannot but bring to your mind those days when the whole of Eastern Asia from Burma to Japan was united with India in the closest tie of friendship, the only natural tie which can exist between nations. There was a living com- munication of hearts, a nervous system evolved through which messages ran between us about the deepest needs of humanity. We did not stand in fear of each other, we had not to arm ourselves to keep each other in check; our relation was not that of self-interest, of explora- tion and spoliation of each other’s pockets; ideas and ideals were exchanged, gifts of the highest NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 59 love were offered and taken; no difference of languages and customs hindered us in approach- ing each other heart to heart; no pride of race or insolent consciousness of superiority, physical or mental, marred our relation; our arts and literatures put forth new leaves and flowers under the influence of this sunliglit of united hearts; and races belonging to different lands and languages and histories acknowledged the highest unity of man and the deepest bond of love. May we not also remember that in those days of peace and goodwill, of men uniting for those supreme ends of life, your nature laid by for itself the balm of immortality which has helped your people to be born again in a new age, to be able to survive its old outworn structures and take on a new young body, to come out unscathed from the shock of the most wonderful revolution that the world has. ever seen?
The political civilization which has sprung up from the soil of Europe and is overrunning the whole world, like some prolific weed, is based" upon exclusiveness. It is always watchful to keep the aliens at bay or to exterminate them. It is carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tenden- cies, it feeds upon the resources of other peoples 60 NATIONALISM 60 NATIONALISM and tries to swallow their whole future. It is always afraid of other races achieving eminence, naming it as a peril, and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own bound- aries, forcing down races of men who are weaker, to be eternally fixed in their weakness. Before this political civilization came to its power and opened its hungry jaws wide enough to gulp down great continents of the earth, we had wars, pillages, changes of monarchy and consequent miseries, but never such a sight of fearful and hopeless voracity, such wholesale feeding of nation upon nation, such huge machines for turning great portions of the earth into mince-meat, never such terrible jealousies with all their ugly teeth and claws ready for tearing open each other’s vitals. This political civilization is scientific, not human. It is powerful because it concentrates all its forces upon one purpose, like a millionaire acquiring money at the cost of his soul. It betrays its trust, it weaves its meshes of lies without shame, it enshrines gigantic idols of greed in its temples, taking great pride in the costly cere- monials of its worship, calling this patriotism. And it can be safely prophesied that this cannot go on, for there is a moral law in this world NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 61 which has its application both to individuals and to organized • bodies of men. You cannot go on violating these laws in the name of your nation, yet enjoy their advantage as individuals. This public sapping of ethical ideals slowly reacts upon each member of society, gradually breeding weakness, where it is not seen, and causing that cynical distrust of all things sacred in human nature, which is the true symptom of senility. You must keep in mind that this political civilization, this creed of national patriotism, has not been given a long trial. The lamp of ancient Greece is extinct in the land where it was first lighted, the power of Rome lies dead and buried under the ruins of its vast empire. But the civilization, whose basis is society and the spiritual ideal of man, is still a living thing in China and in India. Though it may look feeble and small, judged by the standard of the mechanical power of modern days, yet like small seeds it still contains life and will sprout and grow, and spread its beneficent branches, producing flowers and fruits* when its time comes and showers of grace descend upon it fi*om heaven. But ruins of sky-scrapers of power and broken machinery of greed, even God’s rain is powerless to raise 62 NATIONALISM up again; for they were not of life, but went against life as a whole, — they are relics of the rebellion that shattered itself to pieces against the eternal.
But the charge is brought against us that the ideals we cherish in the East are static, tliat they have not the impetus in them to move, to open out new vistas of knowledge and power, that the systems of philosophy which are the main- stays of the time-worn civilizations of the East despise all outward proofs, remaining stolidly satisfied in their subjective certainty. This proves that when our knowledge is vague we are apt to accuse of vagueness our object of knowledge itself. To a Western observer our civilization appears as all metaphysics, as to a deaf man piano-playing appears to be mere move- ments of fingers and no music. He cannot think that we have found some deep basis of reality upon which we have built our institutions.
Unfortunately all proofs of reality are in realization. The reality of the scene before you ^depends only upon the fact that you can see, and it is difficult for us to prove to an unbeliever that our civilization is not a nebulous system of abstract speculations, that it has achieved some- thing which is a positive truth, — a truth that can NATIONALISM IN JAPAN 63 give man’s heart its shelter and sustenance. It has evolved an inner sense, — a sense of vision, the vision of the infinite reality in all finite things.
But he says, “You do not make any progress, there is no movement in you.” I ask liim, “ How do you know it? You have to judge progress according to its aim. A railway train makes its progress towards the terminus station, — it is movement. But a full-grown tree has no definite movement of that kind, its progress is the in- ward progress of life. It lives, with its aspira- tion towards light tingling in its leaves and creeping in its silent sap.”
We also have lived for centuries, we still live, and we have our aspiration for a reality that has no end to its realization, — a reality that goes beyond death, giving it a meaning, that rises above all evils of life, bringing its peace and purity, its cheerful renunciation of self. The pro- duct of this inner life is a living product. It will be needed when the youth returns home weary and dust-laden, when the soldier is wounded, when the wealth is squandered away and pride is humbled, when man’s heart cries for truth in the immensity of facts and harmony in the con- tradiction of tendencies. Its value is not in its i 64 NATIONALISM multiplication of materials, but in its spiritual fulfilment.