THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA
been bronght back into understanding, if not always yet to a perfect under-standing. to practice, to some efficacy on thought and on life ; there has been an evolution of enlarging truth and novel forms out of ancient ideas and renewed experience. Whatever the last upshot may be, this spiritual and religious ferment and activity stand out as the most pro-minent feature of the new India : and it may be observed that while in other fields the tendency has been, until quite recently, more critical than constructive, here every impulse has been throughout powerfully creative. Especially, we see everywhere the tendency towards the return of the spirit upon life ; the reasser-tion of a spiritual living as a foundation for a new life of the nation has been a recognisable impulse. Even asceticism and monasticism are rapidly becoming, no longer merely contemplative, selfcentred or aloof, but missionary, educative, hu-manitarian. And recently in the utterances
54
