2J8 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES
out this sacred law ; we are not concerned with results." Mr. Gandhi protested against the mad rush of to- dav, and, instead of blessing the means by which modern science has made this mad rush possible, that is, railways, motors, telegraph, telephone, and even the coming flying machines, he declared that they were diverting man's thoughts from the main purpose of life ; bodily comfort stood before soul growth ; man had no tune to-day even to know himself; he preferred a news- paper or sport or other things rather than 10 be left alone with himself for thought. He claimed Ruskin as on his side in this expression of protest against the drive and hurry of modern civilisation, lie did not describe this development of material science as ex- clusively British, but he considered that its effect in India had been baneful in many ways. He instanced the desecration of India's holy places, which he said were no longer holy, because the fatal facility of locomotion had brought to those places people whose only aim was to defraud the unsophisticated : such people, in the olden days when pilgrimages meant long and wearisome walking through jungles, crossing rivers, and encountering many dangers, had not the stamina to reach the goal. Pilgrimages in those days could only be undertaken by the cream of society, but they came to know each other ; the aim of the holy places was to make India holy. Plague and famine, which existed in pre-Bntish days, were local then ; to-day, rapid locomo- tion had caused them to spread. To avoid the calamity which intense materialism must bring, Mr. Gandhi urged that mdia should go back to her former holiness which is not yet lost. The contact with the West has awakened her from the lethargy into which she had
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