Proem
for? Man being in his nature spiritual, is there a spiritual basis for political self-dependence? If not, why need we bother about what counts only on the material plane? The reply to it is—if this spiritual yearning at least is ours, how can we preserve it as the only yearning worth satisfying, unless our civilisation is of our own mould—unless in fact we belong to ourselves? It is one thing in regard to ideals and civilization to be influenced as a free people, and another to be influenced as a people that has no option of its own in its primary concerns. It is one thing to say what we should do with our mental, moral and physical energies, when we are free to reject or accept the advice, and another to direct our energies, when we have no option but to obey. In the latter course we are not on the path of evolution—in fact the process of evolution is arrested for the time being. Without liberty there is no evolution. It is in making mistakes, in making fewer mistakes after making mistakes, it is in this endless process of elimination and acquisition, that the secret of Evolution lies. But what is the secret of this secret? Liberty. So, where there is no Evolution, there is no spiritualisation; and where there is no liberty there can be
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