THE RENAISSANCE IN INDIA
she had cast off yesterday. We should not allow our cultural independence to be paralysed by the accident that at the moment Europe came in upon us, we were in a state of ebb and weakness, such as comes some day upon all civilisations. That no more proves that our spirituality, our culture, our leading ideas were entirely mistaken and the best we can do is vigo-rously to europeanise, rationalise, materia-lise ourselves in the practical parts of life,—keeping perhaps some spirituality, religion, Indianism as a graceful decora-tion in the background,—than the great catastrophe of the war proves that Eu-rope’s science, her democracy, her progress were all wrong and she should return to the Middle Age or imitate the culture of China or Turkey or Tibet. Such generali- sations are the facile falsehoods of a hasty and unreflecting ignorance.
We have both made mistakes, faltered in the true application of our ideals, been misled into unhealthy exaggerations.
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