Nationalism

UC-NRLF
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NATIONALISM
NATIONALISM
SIR
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
NATIONALISM IN THE WEST
NATIONALISM IN JAPAN
NATIONALISM IN INDIA
THE SUNSET OF THE CENTURY
SAN FRANCISCO
THE BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

MDCCCCXVII
J~G 3 II
?
/3
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE ATLANTIC
COPYRIGHT, 1916
AND
1917, BY
MONTHLY COMPANY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and Electrotypcd

Published August,
J. 8.
NorfoooD
Berwick A Smith Oo.
CuBhlng Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO
C. F.
ANDREWS
845596
PREFACE
"
of
Nationalism
in the
West
delivered
lectures
"
is
one of a
the
throughout
United
"National-
States during the winter of 1916-17.
ism in Japan"
series
based upon two lectures de-
is
Japan before the Imperial University

and the Keio Gijuku University in June and July,
livered in
1916.
"Nationalism
United States late
upon the
on the
The poem
"The Sunset
last
day
is
own
completeness
Nationalism.
book,
in 1916,
state of his
world-wide
India," written in the
in
to
the poet's reflection
country, and gives

the
discussion
of
at the conclusion of the
of the Century,"
of the last century.
was written
CONTENTS
PAGE
NATIONALISM
IN
THE WEST
NATIONALISM
IN INDIA
63
,
115
155

MAN'S
is
history
the difficulties
it
being shaped according
encounters.
tc
These have offered
us problems and claimed their solutions from us,
the
penalty
non-fulfilment
of
death
being
or
degradation.
These
difficulties
have been different
peoples of the earth, and in the
overcoming them
lies
The Scythians
had
history
in different
manner
of our
our distinction.
of the earlier period of Asiatic
to struggle with the scarcity of their
The
natural resources.
easiest solution that they
could think of was to organize their whole population,
men, women, and children, into bands of
And
robbers.
who were
work
they
chiefly
were
irresistible
engaged
in
the
to
those
constructive
of social cooperation.
But fortunately
his truest path.
plex as
it is, if it
for
man
If his
the easiest path
is
not
nature were not as com-
were as simple as that of a pack

13
NATIONALISM
14
of
of
hungry wolves, then, by this time, those hordes

marauders would have overrun the whole earth.
But man, when confronted with

acknowledge that he
to
is
difficulties,
man, that he has
has
his
responsibilities to the higher faculties of his nature,
by ignoring -which he may achieve success that

is immediate, perhaps, but that will become a
For what are obstacles to
death trap to him.

the
lower
higher
To
life
creatures
of
are
opportunities
the
man.
India has been given her problem from the
beginning of history
it
is
the race problem.
Races ethnologically different have come

country
still
to
in close contact.
in this
This fact has been and
continues to be the most important one in
our history.
It
is
our mission to face
our humanity in dealing with
we
truth.
Until
fits will
be denied
fulfil
and prove
it
it
in
the fullest
our mission
all
other bene-
us.
There are other peoples
in the
world
who have
obstacles in their physical surroundings to over-
come, or the menace of their powerful neighbours.
They have organized
their
power
till
they are not
only reasonably free from the tyranny of Nature
15
and human neighbours, but have a surplus of it

But
left in their hands to employ against others.
in India,
our
difficulties
being internal, our history
has been the history of continual social adjust-
ment and not that
of organized
power
for defence
and aggression.
Neither the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship
is
the goal of
human
history.
And
India has
been trying to accomplish her task through
social
regulation of differences, on the one hand, and
the spiritual recognition of unity, on the other.
She has made grave errors
in setting
up the boun-
dary walls too rigidly between races,
in perpetuat-
ing the results of inferiority in her classifications
often she has crippled her children's minds and
narrowed their
social
forms
lives in
order to
fit
them
into her
but for centuries new experiments
have been made and adjustments carried out.
Her mission has been
like
that of a hostess to
provide proper accommodation to her numerous

guests whose habits and requirements are different
from one another.
It
is
giving rise to infinite
complexities whose solution depends not merely
NATIONALISM
16
tion of the unity of

tion
sympathy and true

man. Towards this
tactfulness but
upon
realizarealiza-
have worked from the early time of the
Upanishads up to the present moment, a series of

great spiritual teachers, whose one object has been
to set at
naught
all
differences of
man by
the over-
flow of our consciousness of God.
In fact, our
history has not been of the rise and
fall -of
doms, of
fights for political
supremacy.
king-
In our
country records of these days have been despised
For they
and forgotten.
no way represent
in
the true history of our people.
that of our social
life
Our
history
and attainment of
is
spiritual
ideals.
But we
feel
that our task
is
not yet done.
world-flood has swept over our country,
new
The
ele-
ments have been introduced, and wider adjustments are waiting to be made.
We
feel this all
the more, because the teaching
and example of the West have entirely run counter

to what we think was given to India to accomplish.
In the
commerce and
bales of
West
the national machinery of
politics turns
out neatly compressed
humanity which have
their use
and high
17
market value; but they are bound in iron hoops,

labelled and separated off with scientific care and
Obviously
precision.
human
vellous
but
God made man
modern product has such mar-
this
square-cut
savouring of gigantic
finish,
manufacture, that the Creator

to recognize
it
made
own
in his
But
say
is
am
is
who
tried
divine image.
What
anticipating.
it
in
was about to
whatever
spirit
you
like,
to live peacefully and think deeply,
the India devoid of

nations,
all politics,
the India of no
whose one ambition has been to know
world as of soul, to
of her
and a creature
India, of about fifty centuries at least,
here
this
will find it difficult
as a thing of spirit
take
this,
be
to
life in
the
meek
live here
every
moment
spirit of adoration, in the
glad consciousness of an eternal and personal relationship with
This
it.
humanity, childlike
dom
of the old,
is
in its
the remote portion of
manner, with the wis-
upon which burst the Nation
of
the West.
Through
all
the fights and intrigues and decep-
tions of her earlier history India

aloof.
Because
her
homes,
had remained
her
fields,
her
NATIONALISM
18
of
temples
her
worship,
where
her
together in
the
devotion
and
schools,
'
and
teachers
of
atmosphere
learning,
simple
students
and
simplicity
her village
and
laws
lived
self-government with
administration
peaceful
like clouds,
now
now black with
They passed over
her head
tinged with purple gorgeousness,
the threat of thunder.
they brought devastations

they were
all
But her thrones
these truly belonged to her.
were not her concern.
its
in
like catastrophes of
their
Often
wake, but
nature whose traces
are soon forgotten.
But
mere
this
drift
time
it
was
different.
over her surface of
It
life,
was not a
drift
of
cavalry and foot soldiers, richly caparisoned elephants, white tents and canopies, strings of patient
camels bearing the loads of royalty, bands of ket-
tledrums and
flutes,
marble domes of mosques,
palaces and tombs, like the bubbles of the foaming wine of extravagance
stories
of
treachery
and loyal devotion, of changes of fortune, of dramatic surprises of fate. This time it was the
Nation of the West driving
chinery deep
down
into the
its
soil.
tentacles of
ma-

Therefore,
as witnesses
say to you,
to
it is
we who
are called
evidence as to what the
give
We
Nation has been to humanity.
the hordes of Moghals and Pathans
had known
who invaded
human races,
India, but
we had known them
with their
own
dislikes,
we had never known them
We
19
religions
as
and customs,
and
likes
as a nation.
loved and hated them as occasions arose
we
fought for them and against them, talked with
them
in a
language which was theirs as well as
our own, and guided the destiny of the Empire in
which we had our active share.
we had
this
to deal, not with kings, not with
but with a nation,
races,
But
we,
who
time
human
are no nation
ourselves.
Now
I
let
us from our
the question,
nation,
What
in
own
this
is
Nation
a whole population
is
Society as such has no
It
is
an end
It
is
a natural
in
itself.
It
is
man as a social
regulation of human rela-
spontaneous self-expression of
being.
and
that aspect which
assumes when organized for
mechanical purpose.
ulterior purpose.
the sense of the political
economic union of a people,
experience answer
NATIONALISM
20
men can
tionships, so that
with one another.
cooperation
political side,
It
develop ideals of
but
this
is
of power, not of
days
it
had
its
in
also
only for a special purpose.
for self-preservation.
is
has
It
life
human
It
merely the side
is
And
ideals.
in the early
separate place in society, restricted
But when with the help
to the professionals.
of
and the perfecting of organization this

power begins to grow and brings in harvests of
science
wealth, then
rapidity.
societies
it
crosses
For then
its
it
boundaries with amazing
goads
all
its
neighbouring
with greed of material prosperity, and
consequent mutual jealousy, and by the fear of

each other's growth into powerfulness.
comes when
it
The time
can stop no longer, for the com-
petition grows keener, organization grows vaster,
and
selfishness attains
the greed and fear of man,
more space
Trading upon
occupies more and
supremacy.
in society,
it
and at
last
becomes
its
ruling force.
It
is
habit
society
just possible that
consciousness
are
that
breaking up,
you have
the
lost
living
through
bonds
of
and giving place to
merely mechanical organization.
But you
see
21
owing to this that

war has been declared between man and woman,
signs of
it
It
everywhere.
is
because the natural thread
them together
holds
in
snapping which
is
harmony
because
man
is
driven to professionalism, producing wealth for

himself and others, continually turning the wheel
of
for his
power
universal
own
sake or for the sake of the
officialdom,
leaving
woman alone to
own battle un-
wither and to die or to fight her
And
aided.
thus
intruded
has
natural
psychology of
relation
there
where
cooperation
competition.
men and women about
is
The very
their
mutual
changing and becoming the psychology
is
of the primitive fighting elements rather than of
humanity seeking
completeness through the
its
union based upon mutual self-surrender.
For the
elements which have lost their living bond of

reality
have
They,
like
lost the
in continual conflict
with each
they burst the very arrangement which
other
till
holds
them
chists,
their existence.
gaseous particles, forced into a too
narrow space, come
Then
meaning of
in bondage.
look at those
who
who
call
themselves anar-
resent the imposition of power, in
any
NATIONALISM
22
The only
form whatever, upon the individual.

reason for this
abstract
it
is
is
that power has become too
made
a scientific product
in the
laboratory of the Nation, through the
political
dissolution of the personal humanity.
And what
is
the meaning of these strikes in the
economic world, which
like the prickly
shrubs in
a barren soil shoot
up with renewed vigour each
time they are cut
down
What, but that the
wealth-producing mechanism
is
incessantly grow-
ing into vast stature, out of proportion to
other needs of society,
man
and the
more and more crushed under
is
This state of things inevitably gives

feuds
ness
full
among
reality of
its
weight.
rise to eternal
the elements freed from the whole-
and wholesomeness of human
interminable
all
economic war
is
ideals,
and
waged between
For greed of wealth and power

can never have a limit, and compromise of selfcapital
and labour.
interest can never attain the final spirit of reconciliation.
They must go on breeding
suspicion to the end
jealousy and
the end which only comes
through some sudden catastrophe or a spiritual

rebirth.

When
organization of politics and com-
this
merce, whose other

all
23
name
is
the Nation, becomes
powerful at the cost of the harmony of the
higher social
When
manity.
then
life,
it
a father
his obligations to his
an
is
evil
day
for hu-
becomes a gambler and
family take the secondary
place in his mind, then he
is
no longer a man, but
Then
an automaton led by the power of greed.
he can do things which, in his normal state of
mind, he would be ashamed to do.
same thing with
society.
When
It
is
the
allows itself
it
to be turned into a perfect organization of power,
then there are few crimes which
Because success
perpetrate.
justification of a
is
it
is
unable to
the object and
machine, while goodness only
When
the end and purpose of man.
this engine
of organization begins to attain a vast size,
those
who
are mechanics are
made
the machine, then the personal

to a
man
is
and
into parts of
is
eliminated
phantom, everything becomes a revolution
by the human parts of the

machine, requiring no twinge of pity or moral
of policy carried out
responsibility.
through
this
It
is
not
unusual
that
apparatus the moral nature of
even
man
NATIONALISM
24
tries to assert itself,
but the whole
series of ropes
and pulleys creak and cry, the forces of the human

heart become entangled among the forces of the
human automaton, and
only with difficulty can
the moral purpose transmit
itself
into
some
tor-
tured shape of result.
This abstract being, the Nation,
We
have seen
in
is
ruling India.
our country some brand of tinned
food advertised as entirely
made and packed
out being touched by hand.
This description
applies to the governing of India, which

little
touched by the
with-
human hand
as
is
as possible.
The governors need not know our language, need

not come into personal touch with us except as
officials
they can aid or hinder our aspirations
from a disdainful distance, they can lead us on a

certain path of policy and then pull us back again
with the manipulation of
newspapers of England,
don
street
accidents
in
are
office
red tape;
the
whose columns Lonrecorded
with
some
decency of pathos, need but take the scantiest

notice of calamities happening in India over areas
of land sometimes larger than the British Isles.
But we, who
are governed,
are
not a mere

abstraction.
with living
We, on our
side,
individuals
are
What comes
sensibilities.
the shape of a mere bloodless policy

into the very core of our
life,
may
25
to us in
may
pierce
threaten the
whole future of our people with a perpetual help-
and yet may never touch

the chord of humanity on the other side, or touch
Such
it in the most inadequately feeble manner.
lessness of emasculation,
wholesale and universal acts of fearful responsi-
man
bility
can never perform, with such a degree
where he
of systematic unawareness,
vidual
sible
human
where the
being.
man
is
directions of space,
an
indi-
These only become posrepresented by an octopus
of abstractions, sending out

all
is
and
its
wriggling arms in
fixing its
innumerable
suckers even into the far-away future.
In this
reign of the nation, the governed are pursued
by
and these are the suspicions of a tresuspicions

mendous mass of organized brain and muscle.
;
Punishments are meted out, leaving a

miseries across a large bleeding tract of the
heart
trail
of
human
but these punishments are dealt by a mere
abstract force, in which a whole population of a

distant country has lost
its
human
personality.
NATIONALISM
26
have not come here, however, to discuss the
question as
affects
the
my own
affects
it
future of
all
country, but as
It
humanity.
it
not
is
about the British Government, but the government by the Nation

the Nation which is the
organized self-interest of a whole people, where
it is
the least
human and
only intimate experience of the Nation

British Nation,
and
Our
the least spiritual.
as far as the
is
with the
government by
the Nation goes there are reasons to believe that

it is
Then again we have
one of the best.
sider that the
West
is
to con-
We
necessary to the East.
complementary to each other because of our

different outlooks upon life which have given us
are
different
aspects
of
truth.
Therefore
if
it
be
West has come upon

storm it is all the same
true that the spirit of the
our
fields in the guise of a
scattering living seeds that are immortal.
when
our
we
in India
life
shall
what
be
is
we
shall
And
be able to assimilate in
permanent
in
in the position to
Western
civilization
bring about a recon-
two great worlds. Then will

come to an end the one-sided dominance which
ciliation
is
of these
galling.
What
is
more, we have to recognize
27
that the history of India does not belong to one

race
particular
the
contributed
process
races
of
of
is
which various
to
ation
but
of
the
cre-
world
Dravidians and the Aryans,
the ancient Greeks and the Persians, the
Mohame-
dans of the West and those of central Asia.

last
now has come
the turn of the English to be-
true to this history and bring to
come
At
it
the tribute
and we neither have the right nor the

power to exclude this people from the building of
of their
the
life,
destiny of
about
the
history of
India.
Therefore what
Nation has more
Man
to
say
do with
the
than specially with that of India.
This history has come to a stage when the moral
more and more giving

way, almost without knowing it, to make room
for the political and the commercial man, the
man, the complete man,
man
is
of the limited purpose.
wonderful progress
in science,
This, aided
by the
is
assuming gigantic
proportion and power, causing the upset of man's
moral balance, obscuring his human side under
the shadow of soul-less organization.

grip
we have
the sake of
felt at
the root of our
life,
Its
and
iron
for
humanity we must stand up and give
NATIONALISM
28
warning to
all,
that this nationalism
epidemic of
evil
that
is
a cruel
is
human
sweeping over the
world of the present age, eating into
its
moral
vitality.
I
have a deep love and a great respect
British race as
human
It has given rise to a great
doers of great deeds.
know
produced
thinkers of great thoughts,
great-hearted men,
literature.
It has
beings.
for the
that these people love justice
and freedom, and hate
lies.
They
are clean in
their minds, frank in their manners, true in their
friendships; in their behaviour they are honest
and
The
reliable.
personal experience which
have had of their literary men has roused
my
admiration not merely for their power of thought

or expression but for their chivalrous humanity.
We have
felt
the sun
but as for the Nation,
mist of a
the greatness of this people as
stifling
it is
we
feel
for us a thick
nature covering the sun
itself.
government by the Nation is neither

British nor anything else
it is an applied science
This
and therefore more or

wherever
it is
whose pressure
used.
is
less similar in its principles
It
is
like a hydraulic press,
impersonal and on that account

The amount
completely effective.
may vary
of
its
29
power
Some may even
in different engines.
be driven by hand, thus leaving a margin of

comfortable
spirit
and
in
looseness
method
in
their
but
tension,
in
their differences are small.
Our government might have been Dutch, or

French, or Portuguese, and
its
essential features
would have remained much the same

now.
tion
as they are
Only perhaps, in some cases, the organizamight not have been so densely perfect, and,
therefore,
some shreds
human might
of the
still
have been clinging to the wreck, allowing us to

deal with something which resembles our own
throbbing heart.
we had
Before the Nation came to rule over us
other governments which were foreign, and these,

like
all
governments, had some element of the
machine
in
them.
But the
difference
between
them and the government by the Nation is like

the difference between the hand loom and the
power loom.
In the products of the hand loom
the magic of man's living ringers finds

sion,
and
its
hum
expres-
harmonizes with the music of
But the power loom is

and accurate and monotonous
life.
its
relentlessly lifeless
in its production.
NATIONALISM
30
We
must admit that during the personal government of the former days there have been instances
of
They caused
sufferings
and unrest from which we
not only a boon, but

is
The
it is
protection of law
teaching us the discipline which
nuity of progress.
there
men
is
neces-
and conti-
We are realizing through it that
a universal standard of justice to
is
is
a valuable lesson to us.
sary for the stability of civilization
all
extortion.
injustice
are glad to be rescued.
It
and
tyranny,
irrespective of their caste
which
and colour have
their equal claim.
This reign of law

in India
our present Government
in
has established order in this vast land
inhabited by peoples different in their races and
customs.
ples to
It has
come
cultivate a
But
ship
the
made
in closer
this desire for a
work
possible for these peo-
touch with one another and
communion
among
it
of aspiration.
common bond
of comrade-
the different races of India has been
of the spirit of the West, not that of the
Nation of the West.
Wherever
in
Asia the people
have received the true lesson of the West

spite of the
Western Nation.
it is in
Only because Japan

had been able to
resist the
dominance of
this
31
West-
ern Nation could she acquire the benefit of the
Western Civilization
in fullest
measure.
Though
China has been poisoned at the very spring of her

moral and physical life by this Nation, her struggle
to receive the best lessons of the
successful
if
West may yet be
not hindered by the Nation.
It
was
only the other day that Persia woke up from

her age-long sleep at the
call of
instantly trampled into stillness
The same phenomenon prevails
the
West
to be
by the Nation.
in this
country also,
where the people are hospitable but the nation has
proved
itself to
be otherwise, making an Eastern
guest feel humiliated to stand before you as a
member
the humanity of his
of
own mother-
land.
In India
tween the
West.
we
are suffering from this conflict be-
spirit of the
The
West and the Nation
benefit of the
Western
of the
civilization
is
doled out to us in a miserly measure by the
Nation trying to regulate the degree of nutrition

as
near the zero point of vitality as possible.
The
portion of education allotted to us
raggedly insufficient that
it
is
so
ought to outrage the
NATIONALISM
32
We
sense of decency of a Western humanity.
have seen
in these countries
how
the people are
encouraged and trained and given every facility

to fit themselves for the great movements of
commerce and industry spreading over the world,

while in India the only assistance
to be jeered at
by
we
get
is
merely
the Nation for lagging behind.
While depriving us of our opportunities- and

ducing our education to a
minimum
required for
conducting a foreign government,

pacifies its conscience
by
calling
re-
this
us
Nation
names, by
sedulously giving currency to the arrogant cyni-
cism that the East
is
and never the twain

lieve
east and the
shall meet.
our schoolmaster
in
his
If
West
is
west
we must
be-
taunt that after
nearly two centuries of his tutelage, India not
only remains unfit for self-government but unable

to display originality in her intellectual attain-
ments, must
we
ascribe
it
to something in the
nature of Western culture and our inherent incapacity to receive

liness of the
it
or to the judicious niggard-
Nation that has taken upon
itself
the white man's burden of civilizing the East
That Japanese people have some
qualities
which

we
lack
we may admit, but
33
that our intellect
is
unproductive compared to theirs we
naturally
cannot accept even from them
whom
it is
danger-
ous for us to contradict.
The
quest
truth
is
is
that the spirit of conflict and con-
at the origin
Western nationalism
It has
operation.
of
power but not
and
basis
its
in the centre of the

is
not social co-
evolved a perfect organization

idealism.
spiritual
the pack of predatory creatures that

its
With
victims.
see its hunting
heart
it
themselves
for
like
cannot bear to
grounds converted into cultivated
the
extension
their reserve forests.
Nation acts
is
must have
In fact, these nations are fighting
fields.
and
all its
It
like a
dam
of
their
among
victims
Therefore the Western
to check the free flow of
the Western civilization into the country of the
No-Nation.
Because
this civilization
zation of power, therefore
it
naturally unwilling to open

to those
whom
it
is
its
is
the
civili-
exclusive,
it
is
sources of power
has selected for
its
purposes of
exploitation.
But
all
manity,
the same moral law
and
the
exclusive
is
the law of hu-
civilization
which
NATIONALISM
34
upon others who
thrives
own death
carries its
tations.
The
sciously
drains
The
are barred from
sentence in
slavery that
its
own
every
And
moment upon
freedom dry.
weighs down
it
its
force of gravitation
the power that creates
its
self-sustaining
it.
destruction.
checks from
its
triumphantly
death.
Its
it
by the Nation
life
one day become the most
burdens ready to drag

of
of
the greater part of the world which- is being
denuded of
will
love
its
moral limi-
gives rise to uncon-
it
helplessness with which
world of victims exerts
its
benefit
its
terrible of all its
down
bottom
into the
Whenever Power removes

path to make
rides
into
its
career easy,
its
ultimate
crash
all
it
of
moral brake becomes slacker every
day without its knowing it, and its slippery path

of ease becomes its path of doom.
Of
which
all
things
in
Western
civilization,
those
Western Nation has given us in a

most generous measure are law and order. While
this
the small feeding bottle of our education

dry, and sanitation sucks
its
is
nearly
own thumb
in de-
spair, the military organization,

offices,
the
police,
the
the
Criminal
magisterial
Investigation
35
Department, the secret spy system, attain to an

abnormal girth in their waists, occupying every
inch of our country.
But
Is
not for giving people's
tunities
is
true value
chick and
venience
it
in
lies
its
the security
Its
it
affords to the
in the con-
person at the breakfast
offers to the
administration
is
unproductive,
not creative, not being a living thing.
power, having
soil to
become
toil it
comes to
formidable
its
uses,
in
but
it
When
fertile.
offer us its
murmur under our
its
It
weight
is
and
does not help the

after its
enormous
boon of peace we can
breath that "peace
good but not more so than
own
greater oppor-
nourishment and not
steam-roller,
but
the perfection of an egg-shell whose
Mere
table.
life
freedom of development
the
for
perfection
to maintain order.
is
not this order merely a negative good
is
it
it is
This
life
which
is
is
God's
great boon.''
On
the other hand, our former governments
were wofully lacking

of the
in
many
modern government.
of the advantages
But because those
were not the governments by the Nation, their

texture
was loosely woven,
leaving
big
gaps
NATIONALISM
36
through which our own
life
am
its
imposed
designs.
sent
its
threads and
quite sure in those
days we had things that were extremely distasteto
ful
But we know that when we walk
us.
barefooted upon a ground strewn with gravel,

gradually our feet come to adjust themselves to
the caprices of the inhospitable earth
the
tiniest
ment
particle
of
inside our shoes
forgive
intrusion.
its
a gravel
And
lodg-
forget
and
it is
tight,
it
regu-
our steps with a closed up system, within
which our
make
its
if
these shoes are the
government by the Nation,

lates
finds
we can never
while
feet
have only the
own adjustments.
their
slightest liberty to
Therefore,
when
you produce your statistics to compare the number of gravels which our feet had to encounter
in
former days with the paucity
in the present
regime, they hardly touch the real points.
It
is
not the numerousness of the outside obstacles
but the comparative powerlessness of the individual to cope with them. This narrowness of
freedom
cause of
is
an
its
evil
which
is
more
radical not be-
quantity but because of
And we cannot but acknowledge
its
this
nature.
paradox,

that while the spirit of the
its
37
West marches under
banner of freedom, the Nation of the West

iron chains of organization
its
forges
which are
the most relentless and unbreakable that have
ever been manufactured in the whole history of
man.
When
the humanity of India was not under
the
government of the Organization, the elasticity of change was great enough to encourage
men
their
of
of
power and
destinies
the
spirit to feel
own
in their
unexpected
was
that they had
hands.
never
The hope
absent,
and a
both on the part of

the governor and the governed, had its effect in
freer play of imagination,
the making of history.
We
were not confronted
with a future which was a dead white wall of

granite blocks eternally guarding against the ex-
pression and extension of our
hopelessness
these
of
which
powers, the
the
reason
in
that
powers are becoming atrophied at their
very roots by the
For every
no-nation
tion,
lies
own
scientific process of paralysis.
single individual in the

is
country of the
completely in the grip of a whole na-
whose
tireless vigilance,
being the vigi-
NATIONALISM
38
lance of a machine, has not the
overlook or to discriminate.
ing of
all
its
to
least press-
button the monster organization becomes
whose ugly
eyes,
human power
At the
stare of inquisitiveness cannot
be avoided by a single person amongst the im-
mense multitude of the
by the
ruled.
At the
least turn
fraction of an inch, the grip
of
its
is
tightened to the point of sufTocatioa around
screw,
woman and child of a vast

whom no escape is imaginable
every man,
popula-
tion, for
in their
own
country, or even in any country outside
their
own.
It
is
the continual and stupendous dead press-
unhuman upon
human
under which the modern world is groaning. Not
merely the subject races, but you who live under
ure of
this
the living
the delusion that you are free, are every day

sacrificing
your freedom and humanity to
this
fetich of nationalism, living in the dense poison-
ous atmosphere of world-wide suspicion and greed
and panic.
I have seen
in
Japan the voluntary submission
of the whole people
to the
trimming of their
minds and clipping of their freedom by their
39
government, which through various educational

agencies regulates their thoughts, manufactures
becomes suspiciously watchful when

they show signs of inclining toward the spiritual,
leading them through a narrow path not toward
their feelings,
what
what
is
plete
welding of them into one uniform mass
true but
according to
its
own
this all-pervading
is
necessary for the com-
recipe.
The people accept
mental slavery with cheerfulness
and pride because of their nervous desire to turn

themselves into a machine of power, called the
Nation,
and emulate other machines
their
in
collective worldliness.
When
questioned as to the wisdom of
course
its
the newly converted fanatic of nationalism answers
that "so long as nations are rampant in this
world we have not the option freely to develop

our higher humanity.
faculty that
suming
the
it
we
is
must
utilize
possess to resist the evil
every
by
ourselves in the fullest degree.
only brotherhood
world
We
possible
in
the
bond
of love
For
modern
the brotherhood of hooliganism."
recognition of the fraternal
as-
The
between
Japan and Russia, which has lately been
cele-
NATIONALISM
40
brated with an immense display of rejoicing in
Japan, was not owing to any sudden recrudescence

of the spirit of Christianity or of
Buddhism,
was a bond established according to the
modern faith in a surer relationship of mutual
but
it
menace
of bloodshedding.
Yes, one cannot but
acknowledge that these facts are the facts of the

world of the Nation, and the only moral, of it is
that
all
the peoples of the earth should strain
moral and intellectual resources
their physical,
utmost to defeat one another
to the
ling
match
of powerfulness.
Sparta paid
all
in the wrest-
In the ancient days
her attention to becoming powerful
and she did become so by crippling her humanity, and she died of the amputation.
But
it is
no consolation to us to know that the
weakening of humanity from which the present

age
is
races,
suffering
and that
is
its
not limited to the subject

ravages are even more radical
because insidious and voluntary in peoples
who
are hypnotized into believing that they are free.
This bartering of your higher aspirations of

for
profit
choice,
and
and power has been your own

I
life
free
leave you there, at the wreckage of

your
contemplating your protuberant pros-
soul,
perity.
41
But
you never be
will
called to
answer
for organizing the instincts of self-aggrandizement
of whole peoples into perfection,
good
been
calling
it
ask you what disaster has there ever
and
in the history of
man,
in its
like this terrible disaster of the
darkest period,
Nation
fixing its
fangs deep into the naked flesh of the world,
taking permanent precautions against

relaxation
its
natural
You, the people
of the West,
who have manu-
factured this abnormality, can you imagine the

desolating despair of this haunted world of suffering
man
possessed
the organizing
by the ghastly abstraction
man
the position of the
of
Can you put yourself into

peoples, who seem to have
been doomed to an eternal damnation of their
own humanity, who not only must

tinual curtailment of their
raise
their
voices
in
suffer
manhood, but even
paeans of
praise
benignity of a mechanical apparatus in
minable parody of providence
Have you not
con-
for
the
its inter-
seen, since the
commencement
of the existence of the Nation, that the dread of
NATIONALISM
42
it
has been the one goblin-dread with which the
whole
world
there
is
has
been
trembling? Wherever
dark corner, there is the suspicion of
and people live in a perpetual distrust of its back where it has no eyes.
Every sound of footstep, every rustle of moveits
secret malevolence
ment
all
in the
around.
that
neighbourhood, sends a
And
this terror
is
base in man's nature.
is
thrill of terror
the parejit of
all
makes one
al-
It
most openly unashamed of inhumanity. Clever

lies
become matters of self-congratulation.
Solemn pledges become a
their very solemnity.
laughable for
farce,
The Nation, with
paraphernalia of power and prosperity,
all
its
its
flags
and pious hymns, its blasphemous prayers in the

churches, and the literary mock thunders of its
patriotic bragging, cannot hide the fact that the
Nation
all
its
is
the greatest evil for the Nation, that
precautions are against
birth of
its
fellow in the world
it,
is
always followed
mind by the dread of a new

wish is to trade on the feebleness
in its
the world, like
some
and any new
peril.
Its
one
of the rest of
insects that are bred in the
paralyzed flesh of victims kept just enough alive

to
make them toothsome and
fore
ready to send
it is
poisonous fluid into the
its
nations, are harmless.
For
had and
richest
has
its
There-
nutritious.
vitals of the other living peoples,
still
43
this
who, not being

the Nation has
in
pasture
Asia.
Great China, rich with her ancient wisdom and
and
social ethics, her discipline of industry
self-
a whale
awakening the lust of

the heart of the Nation.
She is already
like
is
control,
spoil in
carrying in her quivering flesh harpoons sent by

the unerring aim of the Nation, the creature of
and
science
shake
ideals,
drill
off
selfishness.
Her
pitiful
her traditions of humanity, her social
and spend her
herself into
at every step
exhausted resources to
last
modern
efficiency,
by the Nation.
financial ropes
round
It
offer
public
is
thwarted
is
tightening
her, trying to
on the shore and cut her into

go and
attempt to
drag her up
pieces,
thanksgiving
its
and then
to
God
for
supporting the one existing evil and shattering

the possibility of a
new
one.
And
for all this
the Nation has been claiming the gratitude of

history,
and
ordering
its
all
band
eternity
for
its
exploitation
of praise to be struck
up from
NATIONALISM
44
end to end of the world, declaring

salt
of the earth, the flower of humanity, the
blessing of
naked
I
to be the
itself
God
hurled with
skulls of the
all his
upon the
force
world of no nations.
know what your
You
advice will be.
say,
form yourselves into a nation, and
this
encroachment of the Nation.
the true advice
that of a
should this be a necessity

you,
you had
if
more true
greed,
and
in
said,
to a
life
resist
is
man ?
this
Why
could well believe
Be more good, more
relation to
your
make your
man
But
will
man,
wholesome in
just,
control your
its
simplicity
your consciousness of the divine in hu-
let
manity be more perfect in its expression. But

must you say that it is not the soul, but the
machine, which
selves,
is
of the
utmost value to our-
and that man's salvation depends upon
his disciplining himself into a perfection of the
dead rhythm of wheels and counterwheels
that
machine must be pitted against machine, and

nation against nation, in an endless bull-fight of
politics
You
say,
agreement,
these
for
machines
their
will
come
into an
mutual protection, based

But
a conspiracy of fear.
upon
45
will this federa-
you with a soul, a

which has her conscience and her God ?
tion of steam-boilers supply

soul
What
is
you
Whatever safety they now enjoy, those
happen to that larger part of the

world, where fear will have no hand in restraining
?
to
countries of no nation, from the unbridled license
and hammer and turn-screw,

the mutual jealousy of the powers.
of forge
results
from
But when,
numerous
being
separate machines,
become
riveted
into
one
they
organized greinstead
of
gariousness of gluttony, commercial and political,
what remotest chance

those others,
remain for
of hope will
who have
lived
and
have
suffered,
loved and worshipped, have thought deeply and
worked with meekness, but whose only crime has

been that they have not organized ?
But, you say,
must go
"That does not matter, the
to the wall
they shall
and
die,
unfit
this
is
science."
No,
they
for the sake of
shall live,
bold of
world
is
me
and
your own salvation,
this
is
truth.
to say so, but
It
is
extremely
assert that
a moral world, not because
I say,
we
man's
blindly
NATIONALISM
46
agree to believe
it,
but because
it
so in truth
is
which would be dangerous for us to ignore. And

this moral nature of man cannot be divided into
convenient
compartments
You cannot
secure
for
it
for
its
preservation.
your home consump-
tion with protective tariff walls, while in foreign
parts
its
making
it
enormously accommodating
in
free trade of license.
Has not
come home
this truth already
now, when
war has driven
cruel
this
its
to
you
claws
Europe ? when her hoard of

bursting into smoke and her humanity
shattered into bits on her battlefields ? You
into the vitals of
wealth
is
is
ask in amazement what has she done to deserve

this
The answer
systematically
that the
is,
petrifying
her
West has been
moral
nature
in
order to lay a solid foundation for her gigantic

abstractions of efficiency.
starving the
life
She has
of the personal
all
man
along been
into that of
the professional.
In your mediaeval age in Europe, the simple and

the natural man, with
desires,
was engaged
onciliation in the
all his
in
violent passions
and
trying to find out a rec-
conflict
between the
flesh
and

the
47
All through the turbulent career of
spirit.
her vigorous youth the temporal and the spiritual

forces
both acted strongly upon her nature, and
were moulding
in
owes
Europe
personality.
that
to
humanity
the discipline of the
moral
completeness of
into
it
period
man
her
all
in
of
his
greatness
discipline,
human
integ-
rity.
Then came
We
all
life is
know
the
age of intellect, of science.
that intellect
one with
is
impersonal.
our heart, but our mind
us, also
can be detached from the personal

only can
Our
it
move
freely
intellect
is
in its
man and
then
world of thoughts.
an ascetic who wears no clothes,
takes no food, knows no sleep, has no

feels
Our
wishes,
no love or hatred or pity for human limita-
tions,
who only
vicissitudes of
things, because
the thing
reasons,
It
life.
it
itself.
unmoved through
the
burrows to the roots of
has no personal concern with
The grammarian walks
straight
through
poetry and goes to the root of words
without obstruction. Because he is not seeking
all
reality,
but law.
When
able to teach people
how
he finds the law, he

to master words.
is
This
NATIONALISM
48
is
the power which
a power,
some particular need
usefulness,
the
is
Reality
component parts
of
man.
harmony which
gives
of a
You break
the whole.
some
fulfils
special
to
the
thing the equilibrium of

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
and
elements
them
force
some narrow channels
through
into
some violent
particular needs of
man.
This satisfaction of man's needs

thing.
It
world.
It confers
gives
some
service for
him freedom
in
is
the
great
material
on him the benefit of a greater
He
range of time and space.
shorter time and occupies
can do things
in a
larger space
with
more thoroughness of advantage.

can easily outstrip those
who
slower time and of space
less fully
Therefore he
live in a
world of a
occupied.
This progress of power attains more and more

rapidity of pace.
And,
detached part of man,

plete
humanity.
because
it
for the reason that

it
it is
soon outruns the com-
The moral man remains
behind,
has to deal with the whole reality, not

merely with the law of things, which
is
49
impersonal
and therefore abstract.

Thus,
far
man
with his mental and material power

his
outgrowing
moral strength,
is
like
an ex-
aggerated giraffe whose head has suddenly shot

up miles away from the rest of him, making normal
communication
head, with
its
difficult to establish.
This greedy
huge dental organization, has been
munching all the topmost foliage of the world,

but the nourishment is too late in reaching his
digestive organs,
and
want
Of
of blood.
his heart
this
is
suffering
present disharmony in
man's nature the West seems to have been

fully unconscious.
success
has
The enormity
diverted
self-congratulation on
its
logic goes
all
its
from
its
of
its
material
attention
bulk.
bliss-
toward
The optimism
on basing the calculations
of
of
its
good fortune upon the indefinite prolongation of

its
railway lines toward eternity.
enough to think that
all
It
is
superficial
to-morrows are merely
to-days with the repeated additions of twentyfour hours.

is
opening
It
has no fear of the chasm, which
wider
every
day,
between
man's
ever-growing storehouses and the emptiness of
NATIONALISM
50
hungry humanity. Logic does not know

that, under the lowest bed of endless strata of
his
and
wealth
hatched
to
comforts,
earthquakes
balance
the
restore
of
are
being
the
moral
world, and one day the gaping gulf of spiritual
vacuity will draw into
bottom the
its
store of
things that have their eternal love for the dust.
Man
in his fulness
to
Therefore,
is
not powerful, but perfect.
turn him into mere power, you
have to curtail
his
When we
are fully
another's
throats;
soul
as
much
as
human, we cannot
possible.
fly at
our instincts of social
one
life,
our traditions of moral ideals stand in the way.
you want me to take to butchering human

beings, you must break up that wholeness of
my humanity through some discipline which
If
makes
thoughts numb,
my
movements automatic, and then from the
dis-
my
will
dead,
my
solution of the complex personal
man
will
come
out that abstraction, that destructive force, which

has no relation to
human
truth,
and therefore
Take away
can be easily brutal or mechanical.
man from
ness
of
his natural surroundings,
his
communal
life,
with
from the
all
its
ful-
living

and love and
associations of beauty
ligations,
so
many
and you
will
51
social
ob-
be able to turn him into
fragments of a machine for the produc-
tion of wealth
into a log
and
on
it
Turn
a gigantic scale.
will
burn
but
for you,
never bear living flowers and
a tree
it
will
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
it
its
quality of abstraction
has, with the greatest ease,
the complete moral man.

science of a ghost
automaton,
it
is
gone far ahead of
And having
the con-
and the callous perfection of an

causing disasters of which the
volcanic dissipations of the youthful
moon would
be ashamed to be brought into comparison.

a result, the suspicion of
man
for
man
As
stings all
the limbs of this civilization like the hairs of the

nettle.
Each country
is
casting
its
net of es-
pionage into the slimy bottom of the others,

fishing for their secrets, the treacherous secrets
NATIONALISM
52
brewing
what
is
oozy depths of diplomacy. And

their secret service but the nation's
in the
underground trade in kidnapping, murder and

treachery and all the ugly crimes bred in the
depth of rottenness
own
its
faith,
Because each nation has
history of thieving and
therefore
there
and broken
lies
can only flourish
inter-
national suspicion and jealousy, and international
moral shame becomes anaemic
The
ludicrousness.
to
degree of
nation's bagpipe of righteous
indignation has so often changed
its
tune accord-
ing to the variation of time and to the altered
groupings of the alliances of diplomacy, that
it
can be enjoyed with amusement as the variety
performance of the
I
I
am just
political
coming from
music
hall.
my visit to Japan,
exhorted this young nation to take
its
where
stand
upon the higher ideals of humanity and never

to follow the West in its acceptance of the organized selfishness of Nationalism as
its religion,
never to gloat upon the feebleness of
neighbours,
never to be unscrupulous in
weak, where
it
its
its
behaviour to the
can be gloriously mean with im-
punity, while turning
its
right cheek of brighter

humanity
for the kiss of
have the power to deal
53
who
admiration to those
it
a blow.
Some
of the
my utterances for their poetical
newspapers praised
was the
qualities while adding with a leer that
it
poetry of a defeated people.
they were
felt
Japan had been taught in a modern school

the lesson how to become powerful. The schoolright.
ing
is
done and she must enjoy the
The West
lessons.
fruits of
in the voice of her
her
thundering
cannon had said at the door of Japan, Let there

be a nation
and there was a Nation. And now
that
it
come
has
into existence,
why do you
not
your heart of hearts a pure feeling of

gladness and say that it is good ? Why is it
feel
in
that
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,

ages without blushing
selfishness
must keep
has
?
been carrying on for
Because the idealism of

itself
tinual dose of self-laudation.
drunk with a con-
But the same
which seem so natural and innocuous

life
make
it
pleasantness
in its
vices
own
surprised and angry at their un-
when
seen in other nations.
There-
NATIONALISM
54
when you see the Japanese nation, created

your own image, launched in its career of
fore
in
national boastfulness you shake your head and

it is
say
Has
not good.
causes that raise the
it
cry
not been one of the
on
these shores for
preparedness to meet one more power of
with a greater power of injury
evil
Japan protests
that she has her bushido, that she can -never be
treacherous to America to
its
for
faith in
You
she owes her
But you find it difficult to believe

the wisdom of the Nation is not in
gratitude.
her,
whom
humanity but
say to yourself that
in its
complete distrust.
it is
not with Japan of
the bushido, the Japan of the moral ideals, that
you have
to deal
it is
the popular selfishness,
with the abstraction of

it
is
with the Nation
and Nation can only trust Nation where

interests
coalesce,
or
In fact your instinct
at
least
tells
do not
their
conflict.
you that the advent
of another people into the arena of nationality
makes another addition

dicts all that
its
is
highest in
Man
success that unscrupulousness
prosperity,
which contra-
to the evil
and goodness
is
and proves by
is
good
the
way
for the
to
weak

and God
55
the only remaining consolation of the
is
defeated.
Yes, this
is
the logic of the Nation.
And
it
never heed the voice of truth and goodness.
will
It will
tion,
go on
linking steel unto steel,
machine
trampling under
moral corrup-
in its ring-dance of
its
and machine unto

tread
and the
flowers of simple faith
all
the sweet
living ideals of
man.
But we delude ourselves

in
humanity
the
modern days
The
front than ever before.
delusion
is
into
because
man
is
is
more
to the
self-
served with the neces-
are being alleviated with
the chief part of this
is
reason of this
saries of life in greater profusion

ills
thinking that
and
more
his physical
But
efficacy.
done, not by moral sacrifice,
but by intellectual power.
In quantity
it is
great,
springs from the surface and spreads over

the surface.
Knowledge and efficiency are power-
but
it
ful
in
their
outward
effect,
servants of man, not the

service
is
but they are the
man
himself.
like the service in a hotel,
elaborate, but the host
is
venient than hospitable.
absent;
Their
where
it is
it is
more con-
NATIONALISM
56
Therefore
we must not
forget that the scientific
organizations vastly spreading in

are
all
directions
strengthening our power, but not our hu-
With the growth
power the cult of

the self-worship of the Nation grows in ascenand the individual willingly allows the
dency
manity.
of
nation to take donkey rides upon his back
and
there happens the
anomaly which must have
disastrous
that the individual worships
with
effects,
sacrifices a
all
inferior to himself.
god which is morally much

This could never have been
the god had been as real as the in-
if
possible
its
dividual.
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 fortnight.
This often leads to cruelty, unmeaning
and inhuman.
And
yet
cruel to such a degree.
men
are not
But
this piety
by nature
being a
mere unreal abstraction completely deadens the

moral sense of the individual, just as the
who would
not hurt
man
an animal unnecessarily,
would cause horrible suffering to
a large
number

when he drugs
of innocent creatures
with
of
idea
abstract
the
57
his feelings
Because
"sport."
these ideas are the creations of our intellect, be-
cause they are logical classifications, therefore they
can so easily hide
And
in their mist the personal
the idea of the Nation

anaesthetics
powerful
Under the
influence of
its
one of the most
is
man
that
has
invented.
fumes the whole people
can carry out
its
most virulent
self-seeking without being
least
aware of
systematic programme of the
moral perversion,
its
feeling dangerously resentful
But can
this
man.
if
in
fact
pointed out.
it is
go on indefinitely
the
in
continually
producing barrenness of moral insensibility upon

a large tract of our living nature
its
nemesis
forever
Has
this
Can
giant
it
escape
power
of
mechanical organization no limit in this world

against which
it
may
completely because of
velocity
Do you
shatter itself
its
terrible
all
the more
strength and
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 makeshift cage of mutual
agreement
NATIONALISM
58
This European war of Nations
Man,
retribution.
his
very
life
is
the war of
the person, must protest for
against the heaping up of things
where there should be the heart, and systems

and policies where there should flow living human
The time
relationship.
has come when, for the
sake of the whole outraged world, Europe should

fully
know
in
her
own
person the terrible ab-
surdity of the thing called the Nation.
The Nation has

Men,
humanity.
came out
numbers
thriven long upon mutilated

the fairest creations of God,
of the National
as
manufactory in huge
war-making and money-making pup-
pets, ludicrously vain of their pitiful perfection
of
mechanism.
more
Human
into a marionette
society grew
more and
show of politicians,
soldiers,
manufacturers and bureaucrats, pulled by wire
arrangements of wonderful
But the apotheosis

its
efficiency.
of selfishness can never
make
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.
tion
may grow on
And
this
Na-
to an unimaginable corpulence,
59
not of a living body, but of steel and steam and

office buildings,
longer
its
till
deformity can contain no
its
ugly voluminousness,
till
it
begins
and gape, breathe gas and fire in gasps,

death-rattles sound in cannon roars.
In
to crack
and
its
this
war, the death-throes of the Nation have
commenced.
mad,
ing
It
is
it
its
all
Suddenly,
its
mechanism going
has begun the dance of the furies, shatter-
own
limbs, scattering
them
into the dust.
the fifth act of the tragedy of the unreal.
Those who have any
faith in
Man
cannot but
fervently hope that the tyranny of the Nation

will
not be restored to
claws, to
its
all
its
former teeth and
far-reaching iron arms and
its
im-
mense inner cavity, all stomach and no heart;

that man will have his new birth, in the freedom
of his individuality, from the enveloping vagueness of abstraction.
The
veil
has been raised, and in this frightful
war the West has stood

creation, to
face to face with her
which she had offered her
must know what

She had never
it
truly
let
soul.
own
She
is.
herself suspect
what slow
decay and decomposition were secretly going on
NATIONALISM
60
her moral nature, which often broke out in
in
doctrines of scepticism, but
still
oftener and in
more dangerously subtle manner showed
still
and
her unconsciousness of the mutilation
in
itself
had been
insult that she
part of the
world.
Now
upon
inflicting
a vast
must know the
she
truth nearer home.
And
those
then there will come from her
who
break themselves
will
own
free
children
from the
slavery of this illusion, this perversion of brother-
hood founded upon
own themselves
as
its
iron
life
claws,
into compartments, which, with
scratches
out the heart of the

it
is
has done.
of no nations of the world, whose heads
have been bowed to the dust,

dust
will
know
that this
more sacred than the bricks which build
the pride of power.
For
this
dust
and of beauty and worship.

God that we were made to wait in
life,
will
which turns souls into com-
world and knows not what
And we
who
those
God's children and as no bond-
slaves of machinery,
modities and
self-seeking,
is
We
fertile of
shall
silence
thank
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
6l
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,
when power becomes ashamed to occupy

throne and is ready to make way for love,
that,
its
when the morning comes
for cleansing the blood-
stained steps of the Nation along the highroad

of humanity,
our
own
worship
purity,
we
shall
be called upon to bring
vessel of sacred water

to
the water of
sweeten the history of
and with
its
sprinkling
make
man
into
the trampled
dust of the centuries blessed with fruitfulness.
I
THE
worst form of bondage
dejection which keeps

loss of faith
in
men
the bondage of
is
hopelessly chained in
We
themselves.
have been
re-
peatedly told, with some justification, that Asia

lives in the past,
which displays
it
all
its
immortalize the dead.

it
could never
face
was
move
is
like a rich
mausoleum
magnificence in trying to
It
was
in the
said of Asia that
path of progress,
so inevitably turned backwards.
its
We
accepted this accusation, and came to believe

In India,
know,
a large section of
community, grown
is
sources of self-deception to turn

boasting.
shame,
it
When
our educated
tired of feeling the humilia-
tion of this charge against us,
of
it.
But boasting
is
it
still
like
into a matter
only
does not truly believe in

things stood
all its re-
trying
masked
itself.
this,
and we
Asia hypnotized ourselves into the belief that
in
it
could never by any possibility be otherwise, Japan

65
NATIONALISM
66
rose from her dreams,
and
in giant strides left
centuries of inaction behind, overtaking the present
time
in
foremost
its
broken the
spell
it
ages, taking
This
achievement.
has
under which we lay in torpor for

to be the normal condition of
certain races living in certain geographical limits.
We
forgot that
Asia
in
founded, philosophy, science,

flourished,
had
and
the great religions of the world
all
Therefore
their cradles.
that there
is
kingdoms were
arts and literatures
great
it
cannot be
anything inherent in the
said,
soil
and
climate of Asia that produces mental inactivity
and atrophies the faculties which impel men to go

forward.
For centuries we did hold torches of
civilization in the
in darkness,
sluggish
Then
and that could never be the
mind
fell
East when the West slumbered
or narrowness of vision.
the darkness of night upon
The
lands of the East.
feeding upon
upon
its
itself.
all
the
current of time seemed
to stop at once, and Asia ceased to take

food, feeding
sign of
own
The
past,
which
stillness
any new
is
really
seemed
like
death, and the great voice was silenced which

sent forth messages of eternal truth that have
saved man's
ocean of
like the
ever cleansing
But
has
life
when
it
living
upon
less, its
from pollution
life
its
impurities.
its
loses its
sleep, its periods of inactivity,
movements, takes no new food,
Then
past storage.
muscles relaxed, and
to be jeered at for
life,
for generations,
that keeps the earth sweet,
air
its
67
its
it
it
grows help-
easily lends itself
In the rhythm of
stupor.
pauses there must be for the renewal of
Life in
its
definitely,
stage,
ever spending
is
itself, burning
This extravagance cannot go on inbut is always followed by a passive
activity
all its fuel.
life.
when
all
is
expenditure
stopped and
all
adventures abandoned in favour of rest and slow

recuperation.
The tendency
to form habits
of
mind
and move
the trouble of thinking

Ideals
It
once
formed
becomes afraid to
endeavors.
It tries
is
in
economical,
it
loves
grooves which save
anew
make
at each of
the
it
its steps.
mind
lazy.
risk its acquisitions in fresh
completely to enjoy security
by shutting up its belongings behind fortifications

of habits.
But this is really shutting oneself up
from the
fullest
enjoyment of one's own posses-
NATIONALISM
68
It
sions.
is
The
miserliness.
living ideals
must
not lose their touch with the growing and chang-
Their
life.
ing
freedom
real
is
not within the
boundaries of security, but in the highroad 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
was done
it
building
like a
up
of
It
an incredibly short time, that
in such
seemed
came out triumphant.
change of dress and not

a
new
structure.
like
the
She showed
the confident strength of maturity and the freshness
and
infinite potentiality of
same moment.
was
The
fear
new
life
at the
was entertained that
mere freak of history,
a child's
game
it
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 con-
clusively that this sudden revealment of her

is
power
not a short-lived wonder, a chance product
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.
69
She has her legacy of ancient culture
from the East,
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 count-
ing the cost or hoping for gain, defiance of death,
acceptance of countless social obligations that
owe
men
to
as social beings.
In a word modern
Japan has come out of the immemorial East

a
lotus blossoming in easy grace,
firm hold
its
keeping
from which
And
it
we
all
like
the while
upon the profound depth
has sprung.
Japan, the child of the Ancient East, has
also fearlessly claimed all the gifts of the
modern
She has shown her bold
spirit in
age for herself.
breaking through the confinements of habits, useless
accumulations of the lazy mind, seeking safety
and
in its thrift
come
in
its
locks and keys.
Thus
she has
contact with the living time and has
accepted with eagerness and aptitude the respon-
modern
sibilities of
This
Asia.
civilization.
which has given heart to the rest of

have seen that the life and the strength
it is
We
are there in us, only the dead crust has to be
NATIONALISM
70
We
removed.
dead
of
is
life
have seen that taking shelter in the

death itself, and only taking all the risk
to the fullest extent
become what she

cannot imitate
for long, nay,
a source of
nature,
by imitating the West.
is
life,
we cannot simulate
what
more, a
is
For
weakness.
it is
living.
cannot believe that Japan has
for myself,
I,
is
always
it
our way.
in
We
strength
mere imitation
is
hampers- our true

It
is
like dress-
ing our skeleton with another man's skin, giving

rise
to eternal feuds between the skin
and the
bones at every movement.
The
real
it
nature,
truth
is
is
that science
mere knowledge and
is
not man's
training.
By
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.
But
at the imitative stage of our schooling
we
cannot distinguish between the essential and the

non-essential,
between what
what
It
is
not.
primitive
mind
accidents
of
is
something
in the
is
transferable and
like the faith of the
magical properties of the
outward forms which accompany
some
real
We
truth.
71
are afraid of leaving out
something valuable and efficacious by not swallow-
husk with the
ing the
But while our
kernel.
greed delights in wholesale appropriation,
it
is
the function of our vital nature to assimilate,
which
the only true appropriation for a living
is
organism.
itself
ing
by
to
its
its
Where
there
choice of acceptance and refusal accordconstitutional
organism does not allow

it
food,
sure to assert
is life it is
changes
its
only thus can
it
accumulation,
or
The
necessity.
itself
food into
its
to
living
grow into
own body.
its
And
grow strong and not by mere
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
nalia
herself in the scientific parapher-
she has acquired from the
West and be
turned into a mere borrowed machine.

her
own
soul
requirements.
which must assert
That
she
is
She has
over
all
her
capable of doing
so,
itself
and that the process of assimilation is going on,

have been amply proved by the signs of vigorous
health that she exhibits.
And
earnestly hope
NATIONALISM
72
that Japan
may
soul in the
mere pride
For that pride
never lose her faith
of the fop
who
dress than
on
his
ties
and
is
more
head
The whole world

Eastern nation
humiliation, ultimately
and weakness.
sets
store
It
on
is
the pride
new head-
his
itself.
waits to see what this great
going to do with the opportunishe has accepted from
responsibilities
the hands of the
own
of her foreign acquisition.
itself is a
leading to poverty
in her
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
the
before
presented
not completely answered.
The
world
conflict
but
between
the individual and the state, labour and capital,

the
man and
the
woman
the conflict between the
greed of material gain and the spiritual
man, the organized
selfishness of nations
higher ideals of humanity;

all
life
of
and the
the conflict between
the ugly complexities inseparable from giant
organizations
of
commerce and
natural instincts of
man
beauty and fulness of
and
the
crying for simplicity
and
leisure,
state
all
these have to
73
be brought to a harmony in a manner not yet
dreamt
We
of.
have seen
choking
this great
stream of civilization
from debris carried by
itself
able channels.
We
its
innumer-
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
We
have seen that,
freedom,
it
in the early ages of history.

in spite of its
boasted love of
has produced worse forms of slavery
than ever were current
in
earlier
societies,
slavery whose chains are unbreakable,
either be-
cause they are unseen, or because they assume

the names and appearance of freedom.
seen,
under the
losing faith in
We
have
spell of its gigantic sordidness,

all
the heroic ideals of
life
man
which
have made him great.

Therefore you cannot with a light heart accept
the
modern
civilization
with
all
its
tendencies,
structures, and dream that they are

You must apply your Eastern mind,
methods and
inevitable.
your
spiritual strength,
your recognition of
your love of simplicity,
social obligation, in order to
NATIONALISM
74
cut out a
new path
for this great
progress, shrieking out
You must minimize
and freedom that
life
loud discords as
its
immense
the
it
unwieldy car of
it
sacrifice of
claims in
runs.
man's
every move-
its
For generations you have felt and thought

and worked, have enjoyed and worshipped in your
ment.
own
manner; and
special
like old clothes.
row
of
It
your bones,
is
in
this
cannot be cast
your blood,
in the texture of
the tissue of your hrains
and
it
mar-
in the
your
off
flesh, in
must modify
everything you lay your hands upon, without
Once
your knowing, even against your wishes.
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

arise a
new
creation and not a mere repetition, a
creation which the soul of your people will

for itself
will
it
and proudly
offer to the
tribute to the welfare of
man.
Of
own
world as
all
its
countries
Japan you have the freedom

to use the materials you have gathered from the
in
Asia,
here
in
West according
to your genius
Therefore your responsibility
and your need.
is all
the greater, for
in
your voice Asia
shall
75
answer the questions that
Europe has submitted to the conference
of
Man.
In your land the experiments will be carried on
by which the East will change the aspects of the

modern civilization, infusing life in it where it is
a machine, substituting
pediency,
not
caring
human heart for cold exso 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
Japan was united with India
to
in the closest tie of
friendship, the only natural tie
There was a
between nations.
Burma
which can
living
exist
communi-
cation of hearts, a nervous system evolved through
which messages ran between us about the deepest
We
needs of humanity.
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
and spoliation of each

ideas and ideals were exchanged,
self-interest, of exploration
other's pockets
gifts of the highest love were offered
and taken
no difference of languages and customs hindered

us
in
approaching each other heart to heart;
NATIONALISM
76
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
sunlight of
this
and races belonging to different

lands and languages and histories acknowledged
united hearts
the highest unity of
May we
love.
man and
the deepest bond of
not also remember that. in those
days of peace and goodwill, of

those supreme ends of
for itself the
balm
life,
of immortality
take on a
its
old
uniting for
your nature
your people to be born again

able to survive
men
in
laid
by
which has helped

a new age, to be
outworn structures and
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 at bay the aliens or to exterminate them.

It
is
carnivorous and cannibalistic in
cies, it
and
feeds
tries
upon the resources
its
tenden-
of other peoples
to swallow their whole future.
It
is
77
always afraid of other races achieving eminence,
naming it as a peril, and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own boundaries,
down
forcing
be
men who
races of
fixed
eternally
came
this political civilization
weaker, to
weakness.
their
in
are
to
Before
power and
its
hungry jaws wide enough to gulp

down great continents of the earth, we had wars,
pillages, changes of monarchy and consequent
its
opened
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 mincemeat,
never such terrible jealousies with
and claws ready
teeth
not human.
centrates
all
its
It
is
forces
millionaire acquiring
soul.
its
it
con-
like a
the cost of his
weaves
its
meshes
enshrines gigantic idols
temples, taking great pride in the
ceremonials
patriotism.
it
at
scien-
is
upon one purpose,
money
of lies without shame,
costly
open each
powerful because
It betrays its trust, it
of greed in
tearing
their ugly
This political civilization
other's vitals.
tific,
for
all
And
it
of
its
worship,
calling
this
can be safely prophesied that
NATIONALISM
78
this
cannot go on, for there
world which has
its
is
moral law
in this
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 the ethical ideals slowly

reacts upon each member of society, gradually
where
breeding weakness,
it
causing that cynical distrust of

in
human
senility.
political
nature, which
triotism, has not
this
symptom
mind
in
and
things sacred
all
the true
is
You must keep

civilization,
not seen,
is
that
of
this
creed of national pa-
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
But the
civilization,
whose
the spiritual ideal of man,

in
China and
feeble
in
India.
basis
is
vast empire.
its
is
still
society
a living thing
Though
may
it
look
and small, judged by the standard of the
mechanical power of modern days, yet

seeds
and
it
still
contains
grow, and spread
its
life
and
will
like small
sprout and
beneficent branches,
ducing flowers and fruits when
its
pro-
time comes, and
showers of grace descend upon
But
ruins of sky-scrapers of
it
from heaven.
power and broken
machinery of greed, even God's rain

to raise
up again
went against
life
for
79
is
powerless
they were not of
as a whole,
the rebellion that shattered
they are
itself
life,
but
relics of
to pieces against
the eternal.
But the charge is brought against us that

the ideals we cherish in the East are static, that
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
mainstays of the time-worn civilizations of the
outward proofs, remaining stolidly

their subjective certainty.
This proves
East despise
satisfied in
that
all
when our knowledge
is
vague,
we
are apt
to accuse of vagueness our object of knowledge
To
appears as
all
itself.
Western observer our

metaphysics, as to a deaf
playing appears to be
and no music.
He
civilization
man
mere movements of
piano
fingers
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 reali-
NATIONALISM
8o
zation.
The
of
reality
scene
the
before
you
depends only upon the fact that you can see,
and
it is difficult
for us to
that our civilization
is
prove to an unbeliever
not a nebulous system of
abstract speculations, that
thing which
is
has achieved some-
it
a truth that can
a positive truth,
give man's heart
its
and sustenance.
shelter
has evolved an inner sense,
a sense of vision,
the vision of the infinite reality in
But he
says,
ress,
there
him,
"How
"You do
do you
know
judge progress according to

train
makes
tion,
it
is
its
ress
its
is
in
prog-
ask
you."
You have
it?
its
things.
aim.
to
railway
progress towards the terminus sta-
movement.
has no definite
all finite
make any
not
no movement
is
It
movement
But
a full-grown tree
of that kind, its prog-
the inward progress of
life.
It lives,
aspiration towards light tingling in
and creeping in its silent sap."

We also have lived for centuries, we
and we have our aspiration
no end to its realization,
its
with
leaves
still live,
for a reality that has
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
this
inner
life
is
The product
self.
It
product.
living
81
will
of
be
needed when the youth returns home weary and

dust-laden,
wealth
when
the soldier
wounded, when the
squandered away and pride
is
when man's heart

of facts
is
cries for truth in the
and harmony
dencies.
Its
value
materials, but in
is
its
humbled,
immensity
in the contradiction of ten-
not in
is
multiplication of
its
spiritual fulfilment.
There are things that cannot wait. You have

to rush and run and march, if you must fight or
take the best place in the market.
strain
when you chase

always on their wings. But
your nerves and are on the

opportunities that are
You
alert,
there are ideals which do not play hide and seek
with
our
life;
they
slowly
to flower, from flower to fruit;

finite
grow
from
seed
they require
in-
space and heaven's light to mature and
the fruits that they produce can survive years

of insult
in
and
neglect.
The East with
her ideals,
whose bosom are stored the ages of sunlight
and
silence of stars,
can patiently wait
till
the
West, hurrying after the expedient, loses breath

and stops. Europe, while busily speeding to her
NATIONALISM
82
engagements, disdainfully casts her glance from

her carriage
window
harvest in the
field,
to the reaper reaping his
and
in
her intoxication of
speed cannot but think him as slow and ever
But the speed comes
receding backwards.
end, the engagement loses
its
to
meaning and
its
the hungry heart clamours for food,
till
at last
she comes to the lowly reaper reaping his har-
For
vest in the sun.
or the buying and
if
the office cannot wait,
selling,
or the
craving for
excitement, love waits and beauty and the

of suffering
and the
fruits of patient
reverent meekness of simple faith.
wait the East
till
must not
wisdom
devotion and
And
thus shall
her time comes.
acknowledge where
Europe is great, for great she is without doubt.
We cannot help loving her with all our heart,
I
hesitate
to
and paying her the best homage of our admirathe Europe who, in her literature and art,
tion,
is
pouring an inexhaustible cascade of beauty and
truth fertilizing
all
countries and
Europe who, with a mind which

untiring power,
is
all
is
time
the
titanic in its
sweeping the height and the
depth of the universe, winning her homage of
knowledge
infinitely
from
small,
the
all
and
great
infinitely
applying
83
the
the
resources
of
her great intellect and heart in healing the sick
and alleviating those miseries of man which up

till now we were contented to accept in a spirit
of hopeless resignation
more
ing the earth yield
of nature into
man's
must have
strength.
all
fruit
who
mak-
is
than seemed pos-
coaxing and compelling the great forces
sible,
ness
the Europe
throw
have
Such true great-
motive power
its
For only the
limitations,
its
service.
spirit of
faith in its
search-light
in
spiritual
man
can defy
ultimate success,
beyond the immediate and
the apparent, gladly suffer
which cannot be achieved
martyrdom
for ends
in its lifetime
and ac-
cept failure without acknowledging defeat.
In the
heart of Europe runs the purest stream of
human
love, of love of justice, of spirit of self-sacrifice
for higher ideals.

ries
Christian culture of centu-
has sunk deep in her
we have
up
The
life's
seen noble minds
for the rights of
man
core.
who have
their
own
ever stood
irrespective of colour
who have braved calumny and
creed
In Europe
insult
and
from
people in fighting for humanity's cause
NATIONALISM
84
and
raising their voices against the
mad
orgies of
militarism, against the rage for brutal retaliation
or rapacity that sometimes takes possession of a
whole people
who
are always ready to
aration for wrongs done in the past
by
make
rep-
their
own
nations and vainly attempt to stem the tide of
cowardly injustice that flows unchecked because

the resistance
weak and innocuous on the part
is
There are these knight-errants

modern Europe who have not lost their faith
of the injured.
of
in
the disinterested love of freedom, in the ideals
which own no geographical boundaries or national

These are there to prove that the
self-seeking.
fountainhead of the water of everlasting
life
has
not run dry in Europe, and from thence she
will
have her rebirth time after time.
where Europe
is
Only
there,
too consciously busy in building
up her power, defying her deeper nature and
mocking
it,
she
is
heaping up her iniquities to the
sky crying for God's vengeance and spreading

the infection of ugliness, physical and moral, over
the face of the earth with her heartless
commerce
heedlessly outraging man's sense of the beautiful
and the good.
Europe
is
supremely good
in her
beneficence where her face
is
turned to
85
all
human-
and Europe is supremely evil in her malefic

aspect where her face is turned only upon her
ity;
own
interest, using all her
power of greatness for

ends which are against the infinite and the eternal
in
Man.
Eastern Asia has been pursuing
own
its
evolving
but
political
civilization,
social,
cally efficient,
own
its
but spiritual and based upon
the
of
thought out
not
not predatory and mechani-
the varied and deeper relations of humanity.

solutions
path,
which was
life
all
The
problems of peoples were
and carried out behind
in seclusion
the security of aloofness, where
all
the dynastic
them.
and foreign invasions hardly touched

But now we are overtaken by the outside
world,
our seclusion
changes
we must not
gret
when
Now
is
lost
Yet
forever.
this
regret, as a plant should never re-
the obscurity of
the time has
its
seed-time
is
broken.
come when we must make
the world problem our
own problem
we must
bring the spirit of our civilization into
with the history of
must
not,
in
all
foolish
nations of
pride,
still
harmony
the earth; we
keep ourselves
NATIONALISM
86
fast within the shell of the seed
of the earth which protected

ideals;
for these, the shell
meant
to be broken, so that
all its
and the crust
and nourished our
and the
life
may
vigour and beauty, bringing
were
crust,
spring up in
offerings to
its
the world in open light.
In this task of breaking the barrier and facing the world
Japan has come out the -first
East.
She has infused hope
Asia.
This hope provides the hidden
is
needed for
feels
all
in the
works of creation.
that she must prove her
must not
living work, she
lie
life
in the
heart of
fire
all
which
now
Asia
by producing
passively dormant,
or feebly imitate the West, in the infatuation of
For
fear or flattery.
this land of the rising
to
this
we
offer
our thanks to
sun and solemnly ask her
remember that she has the mission of the
East to
fuller
fulfil.
She must infuse the sap of a

into
humanity
civilization.
She
the heart of the
must
never
allow
modern
it
to
get
choked with the noxious undergrowth, but lead
up towards light and freedom, towards the

pure air and broad space, where it can receive,
it
in the
dawn
of
its
day and the darkness
of
its
Let the greatness of
night, heaven's inspiration.
her ideals
become
to
visible
snow-crowned Fuji
rising
all
from
maiden
in
its
its
men
like
her
from the heart of the
country into the region of the

distinct
87
infinite,
supremely
surroundings, beautiful like a
magnificent sweep of curve, yet
firm and strong and serenely majestic.
II
have travelled
met with men
of
in
all
countries and have
many
but never
classes,
travels did I feel the presence of the
man's power loomed
signs of
large,
saw vast organizations which showed

in
all
their
features.
my
human
so
In other great coun-
distinctly as in this land.

tries,
in
There,
display
and
efficiency
and ex-
travagance, in dress, in furniture, in costly enter-
tainments, are startling.
back into a corner,

feast;
they are apt to
like
They seem
a
to
push you
poor intruder at a
make you
envious, or take
your breath away with amazement. There, you

do not feel man as supreme
you are hurled
;
against a stupendousness of things that alienates.
But
in
Japan,
it is
not the display of power, or
NATIONALISM
88
wealth, that
see
is
You
the predominating element.
everywhere emblems
of love
and admiration,
and not mostly of ambition and greed. You see

a people, whose heart has come out and scattered
itself
in profusion
everyday
in
life,
in
its
commonest
social
its
utensils of
in
institutions,
manners, which are carefully perfect, and
its
in its
dealings with things which are not only deft, but

graceful in every
What
is
movement.
has impressed
me most
in this
country
the conviction that you have realized nature's
secrets,
not by methods of analytical knowledge,
You have known
but by sympathy.
of lines,
and music of
colours, the
her language
symmetry
in
her irregularities, and the cadence in her freedom

of
movements
immense crowds
how
in
you have seen how she leads her

of things yet avoids all frictions
the very conflicts in her creations break out
dance and music
how
her exuberance has the
aspect of the fulness of self-abandonment, and not

a
mere dissipation of display.
You have
covered that nature reserves her power

of beauty;
and
mother, nourishes
it
all
is
this
in
beauty which,
dis-
forms
like a
the giant forces at her breast,
keeping them in active vigour,
You have known
89
yet in
repose.
that energies of nature save
themselves from wearing out by the rhythm of
and that she with the tenderness
a perfect grace,
of her curved lines takes
world's muscles.
have
away
felt
fatigue from the
that you have been
able to assimilate these secrets into your
the truth which
in the
lies
beauty of
has passed into your souls.
life,
all
and
things
mere knowledge
of things can be had in a short enough time,
but their
of training
and
from outside
her your
can only be acquired by centuries
spirit
is
own
Dominating nature
self-control.
much
simpler thing than making
in love's delight,
Your
of true genius.
race has
which
is
shown that
work
genius,
not by acquirements, but by creations;
not by
display of things, but
its
and
of
This creative power there
inner being.
nations,
by manifestation
it
is
is
own
in all
ever active in getting hold of
men's natures and giving them a form according

to
its
But
ideals.
have achieved
the minds of
and nerves.
its
here,
success,
in
Japan,
it
seems to
and deeply sunk into
men, and permeated their muscles

Your instincts have become true,
all
NATIONALISM
9o
your senses keen, and your hands have acquired

natural
The
skill.
genius of Europe has given
her people the power of organization, which has
made
specially
merce and
The
manifest in politics and com-
coordinating scientific knowledge.
genius of Japan has given you the vision of
beauty
your
in
itself
in
nature and the power of realizing
in
life.
All particular civilization
of particular
to
it
have
human
is
the interpretation
Europe seems
experience.
emphatically the conflict of things in
felt
the universe, which can only be brought under
by conquest. Therefore she is ever ready

fight, and the best portion of her attention is
control
for
But Japan has

her world, the touch of some presence,
occupied in organizing forces.

felt,
in
which has evoked

adoration.
in her soul a feeling of reverent
She does not boast of her mastery of
nature, but to her she brings, with infinite care
and joy, her
offerings of love.
with the world
is
Her
relationship
the deeper relationship of heart.
This spiritual bond of love she has established

with the
hills
of her country, with the sea and
the streams, with the forests in
all
their flowery
moods and varied physiognomy
has taken into her heart
all
91
of branches
she
the rustling whispers
and sighing of the woodjands and sobbing of the

waves the sun and the moon she has studied in
;
all
the modulations of their lights and shades,
and she
is
glad to close her shops to greet the
seasons in her orchards and gardens and cornfields.
This opening of the heart to the soul of
the world
is
not confined to a section of your
privileged classes,
exotic culture,
and women of
your
soul, in
but
all
It
is
belongs to
it
all
meeting a personality
embodied
a civilization of
Your duty towards your

assumed the character of
your men
This experience of
conditions.
of the world, has been

tion.
not the forced product of
it is
in
your
human
state
filial
in the heart
civiliza-
relationship.
has
naturally
duty, your nation
becoming one family with your Emperor as its

Your national unity has not been evolved
head.
from
the
comradeship
of
arms
for
defensive
and offensive purpose, or from partnership

raiding adventures, dividing
among each member
the danger and spoils of robbery.
outcome
in
It
is
not an
of the necessity of organization for
some
NATIONALISM
92
ulterior purpose,
but
it
an extension of the
is
family and the obligations of the heart in a wide

field of space and time.
The ideal of "maitri"
bottom of your culture,

men and "maitri" with Nature.
is
at the
expression of
this
love
And
the true
the language of
in
is
"maitri" with
beauty, which is so abundantly universal in

land.
This is the reason why a stranger,
instead
myself,
of
this
like
envy or humiliation
feeling
before these manifestations of beauty, these creations of love, feels a readiness to participate in
and glory of such revealment of the
the joy
human
And
heart.
this
has
made me
the more
all
appre-
hensive of the change, which threatens Japanese

civilization, as
own
something
like a
menace
to one's
For the huge heterogeneity of the

modern age, whose only common bond is usefulness, is nowhere so pitifully exposed against the
person.
dignity and hidden power of reticent beauty, as

in
Japan.
But the danger
lies
ugliness storms the

its
mass, by
its
in
this,
mind and
aggressive
that organized
carries the
persistence,
day by
by
its
mockery directed against the deeper
of
power
sentiments
makes
it
senses,
93
of
heart.
harsh
Its
obtrusiveness
forcibly visible to us,
overcoming our
and we bring to
altar
its
sacrifices,
does a savage to the fetich which appears
as
powerful because of
rivalry to things that are
its
Therefore
hideousness.
its
modest and pro-
found and have the subtle delicacy of
life is
to be
dreaded.
I
am
country
who
They
your
sympathy with your

whose object is to gain, and not
are loud in their boast that they
While
have modernized Japan.
them
in
not in
are
inherited ideals
to grow.
men
quite sure that there are
agree
with
so far as to say, that the spirit of the race
should harmonize with the spirit of the time,
must warn them that modernizing

affectation of
poesy
is
is
those
too
poetizing.
literal.
who have
is
It
mere
is
nothing but mimicry,
louder than the original, and
One must bear

the true
modernize, just as those
not braggarts.
modernism, just as affectation of
only affectation
it
is
modern
who
Modernism
is
in
mind, that
spirit
need not
are truly brave are
not in the dress of
NATIONALISM
94
Europeans; or in the hideous structures,

where their children are interned when they take
the
their lessons
or in the square houses with flat
straight wall-surfaces, pierced with parallel lines
windows, where these people are caged
of
their lifetime
certainly
modernism
These
modern,
True modernism
European.
not
not
are
of
slavery
not in their
on them loads of incon-
ladies' bonnets, carrying
gruities.
is
in
It
taste.
is
is
but
merely
freedom of mind,
independence
of
thought and action, not tutelage under European

It is science, but not its wrong apschoolmasters.
plication in
teachers
who
reduce
invoking
its
aid for
Life based
mere imitation of our science
life,
of
sport;
impossible purposes.
it
it
science
has
all
is
the
characteris-
feigns seriousness, but
is
not
go a-hunting, the less pity

have the better; for your one object is
to chase the
game and
kill
it,
to feel that
are the greater animal, that your

struction
of
attractive to
When you
profound.
you
all
upon mere
some men, because

tics
into a superstition absurdly
it
is
science
thorough and
is
that
method
scientific.
superficial
life.
And
It
you
of de-
the
life
pursues
95
and thoroughness, and takes no

account of the higher nature of man. But those
success with
skill
whose minds are crude enough
to
their
plan
upon the supposition, that man

hunter and his paradise the paradise
lives
is
of sports-
be rudely awakened in the midst of
will
men,
their trophies of skeletons

I
merely
do not
and
moment
for a
skulls.
suggest, that
Japan
should be unmindful of acquiring modern weapons of self-protection.
But
this
should never be
allowed to go beyond her instinct of self-preserva-
She must know that the
tion.
real
power
is
not
weapons themselves, but in the man who

and when he, in his eagerwields those weapons
in the
ness
for
power, multiplies his weapons at the
cost of his
own
soul,
then
it is
he
who
is
in
even
greater danger than his enemies.
Things that are living are so easily hurt

fore they require protection.
In nature,
tects itself within its coverings,
with
life's
own
harmony with
comes they
The
living
material.
life's
there-
life
pro-
which are built
Therefore they are in
growth, or else when the time
easily give
man
way and
are forgotten.
has his true protection in his
96
NATIONALISM
spiritual ideals,
which have their
vital connection
and grow with his growth.

fortunately, all his armour is not living,
with his
it is
But, un-
life
made
fore, while making use of
to protect
himself from
weak enough
to
some
and mechanical.
of steel, inert
it,
man
its
There-
has to be careful
tyranny.
grow smaller to
of
fit
If
he
is
himself to his
becomes a process of gradual

suicide by shrinkage of the soul.
And Japan must
covering, then
it
have a firm faith
in the
moral law of existence to
be able to assert to herself that the Western

nations are following that path of suicide, where
they are smothering their humanity under the
immense weight
of organizations in order to keep
themselves in power and hold others in subjection.
What
is
dangerous for Japan
not the imita-
is,
tion of the outer features of the West, but the
acceptance of the motive force of the Western

nationalism as her own.
Her
social ideals are al-
ready showing signs of defeat at the hands of politics.
can see her motto, taken from science,
"Survival of the Fittest," writ large at the entrance of her present-day history
whose meaning
is,
"Help
yourself,
the motto
and never heed
what
costs to others";
it
man who
men
others
that
But those who can
see.
see,
know
when you
strike
the blow comes back to yourself.
The
are so closely knit, that
moral law, which
man,
the motto of the blind
only believes in what he can touch, be-
cause he cannot
that
97
is
is
the greatest discovery of
the discovery of this wonderful truth,
man becomes
all
himself in others.
the truer, the more he realizes
This truth has not only a
subjective value, but
partment of our
life.
is
manifested in every de-
And
nations,
lously cultivate moral blindness
as
who
sedu-
the cult of
patriotism, will end their existence in a sudden
and violent death.
In past ages
we had
foreign
invasions, but they never touched the soul of the
They were merely the outcome of

ambitions. The people themselves,
people deeply.
individual
being free from the responsibilities of the baser
and more heinous

all
side of those adventures,
the advantage of the heroic and the
disciplines
derived from them.
had
human
This developed
their unflinching loyalty, their single-minded devo-
tion to the obligations of honour, their
power of
complete self-surrender and fearless acceptance of
NATIONALISM
98
death and danger.

seats
were
Therefore the
in the hearts of the people,
would not
undergo any serious change owing to the

the
whose
ideals,
policies
But now,
or
generals.
kings
adopted by
where the spirit of the Western nationalism prevails, the whole people is being taught from boy-
hood to
foster hatreds
and ambitions by
by the manufacture
of means,
all
kinds
of half-truths
and
untruths in history, by persistent misrepresentation of other races
and the culture of unfavourable
sentiments towards them, by setting up memorials

of events, very often false,
which
for the sake of
humanity should be speedily forgotten, thus continually brewing evil menace towards neighbours
and nations other than their own.
This
is
poison-
ing the very fountainhead of humanity.
It
is
discrediting the ideals, which were born of the
who were our
lives
of men,
It
holding up gigantic
is
universal
We
religion
for
all
can take anything
science,
but not
greatest and best.
selfishness as the
nations of the
else
this elixir of
world.
from the hands of

moral death.
think for a moment, that the hurts you
upon other
one
Never
inflict
races will not infect you, and the en-
sow around your homes
mities you
of protection to
you
will
99
be a wall
for all time to come.
To
imbue the minds of a whole people with an abnormal vanity of its own superiority, to teach it to
take pride in
its
moral callousness and ill-begotten
wealth, to perpetuate humiliation of defeated nations
by exhibiting trophies won from war, and
us-
ing these in schools in order to breed in children's
minds contempt for others, is imitating the West

where she has a festering sore, whose swelling is a
swelling of disease eating into
Our food
its vitality.
which are necessary
crops,
for
our
sustenance, are products of centuries of selection
and
care.
But the vegetation, which we have
not to transform into our
lives,
does not require
the patient thoughts of generations.
but
It
is
easy to get rid of weeds
cess of neglect, to ruin
your food crops and
them
it is
easy,
not
by prolet
revert to their primitive state of wildness.
Likewise the culture, which has so kindly adapted

itself to your soil,
so intimate with life, so
in past
and weeding
needs anxious work and
not only needed
human,
ages,
watching.
but
What
still
is
tilling
merely modern
as science
NATIONALISM
100
and methods of organization

can be transplanted but what is vitally human has fibres so
;
delicate,
that
am
and roots so numerous and
when moved from
dies
it
Therefore
its soil.
afraid of the rude pressure of the political ideals
West upon your own.
of the
tion, the state
men
of
far reaching,
ments,
an abstraction and relationship
is
Because
utilitarian.
it is
In political civiliza-
it
has no root in senti-
so dangerously easy to handle.
Half
a century has been enough for you to master this
machine
and there are men among you, whose
fondness for
exceeds their love for the living
it
which were born with the birth of your
ideals,
nation and nursed in your centuries.

child
who,
It
is
like a
excitement of his play, imagines
in the
he likes his playthings better than his mother.
Where man
Your
is
at his greatest, he
is
unconscious.
whose mainspring is the bond

of human relationship, has been nourished in the
civilization,
depth of a healthy
But
self-analysis.
all
conscious
it
aggressiveness.
notice.
And
is
beyond reach of prying

mere political relationship is
life
an eruptive inflammation of
It has forcibly burst
the time has come,
upon your
when you have
IOI
to be roused into full consciousness of the truth
by which you live, so that you may not be taken

unawares. The past has been God's gift to you
about the present, you must make your own

choice.
So the questions you have to put to yourselves
"Have we
are these,
read the world -wrong,
and based our relation to
human
nature
Is
it
upon an ignorance of
the instinct of the Wefct" right,
where she builds her national welfare behind the

barricade of a universal distrust of
You must have

fear,
it
is
thrives,
her
detected a strong accent of
whenever the West has discussed the
bility of the rise of
of
humanity?"
own
this,
an
is
evil
world trembles.
of
power
can be
The
so long as
reason
Europe
it is
held on
ambition of the present

to have the exclusive
is
All her
diplomacy are directed upon
spirit lead
The
safe, while the rest of the
vital
possession of the devil.
But these
race.
that the power, by whose help she
side she
civilization
an Eastern
possi-
armaments and
this
one object.
costly rituals for invocation of the evil
through a path of prosperity to the
brink of cataclysm.
The
furies of terror,
which
NATIONALISM
102
West has
upon God's world, come

back to threaten herself and goad her into preparations of more and more frightfulness
this
the
let loose
gives her no rest and makes her forget
all else
but
the perils that she causes to others and incurs

herself.
she
the worship of this devil of politics
sacrifices
feeds
it,
To
upon
so 1'ong
other
countries
dead
as
victims.
She
and grows fat upon

as the carcasses remain fresh,
but
their
they are sure to rot at

their revenge,
flesh
last,
and the dead
by spreading pollution
far
will
take
and wide
and poisoning the vitality of the feeder. Japan

had all her wealth of humanity, her harmony of
heroism and beauty, her depth of self-control and
richness
of
self-expression
yet
the
Western
no respect for her, till she proved that

the bloodhounds of Satan are not only bred in
nations
felt
the kennels of Europe, but can also be domes-
Japan and fed with man's miseries.

They admit Japan's equality with themselves,
ticated in
only when they
know
that Japan also possesses
the key to open the floodgate of hell-fire upon the
whenever she chooses, and can dance,

own measure, the devil dance of pillage,
fair earth,
in their
murder
and
ravishment
innocent
of
women,
know that,
We
while the world goes to ruin.

in
103
the early stage of man's moral immaturity,
he only
feels
reverence for the god whose malev-
But
olence he dreads.
is
this the
of
ideal
which we can look up to with pride
man
After
centuries of civilization nations fearing each other
prowling wild beasts of the night-time
like the
shutting their doors of hospitality;
combining
only for purpose of aggression or defence

in
their holes
their trade secrets,
secrets of their
armaments
hiding
state secrets,
making peace
offer-
ings to the barking dogs of each other with the
meat which does not belong
to
them
holding
down
fallen races struggling to stand
feet
with their right hands dispensing religion
to weaker peoples, while robbing

is
left,
envious
there
in
anything
upon
them with
this
to
their
make
Are we to bend our knees to the
their
us
spirit
of this
nationalism, which
over
the world seeds of fear, greed, suspicion,
all
unashamed
lies
of
its
lies
of
its
is
sowing broadcast
diplomacy, and unctuous
profession of peace and good-will and
universal brotherhood of
Man
Can we have
NATIONALISM
104
no doubt
our minds, when we rush to the
in
Western market to buy
this foreign
exchange for our own inheritance
how
difficult it
man who
is
drunkenness
know
to
is
am
denies
furiously
West
herself
aware
and the
one's self;
intoxicated
yet the
product in
is
his
anxiously
thinking of her problems and trying experiments.
But she
to give
is
up
like a glutton,
his
clings to the
intemperance
has not. the heart
by medicine.
up her
political
baser passions of
man
and fondly
in eating,
hope that he can cure
of indigestion
to give
who
his
Europe
nightmares
is
not ready
inhumanity, with
attendant upon
believes only in modification of systems,

in
all
it;
the
she
and not
change of heart.
We
are
willing
to
buy
their
machine-made
systems, not with our hearts, but with our brains.
We
shall try
them and build sheds
not enshrine them
in
for
them, but
our homes, or temples.
There are races who worship the animals they

we can buy meat from them, when we are
kill
;
hungry, but not the worship which goes with the

killing.
We
must not
vitiate our children's
with the superstition, that business
is
minds
business,
war
is
war, politics
is
We
politics.
105
must know
that man's business has to be
more than mere
business, and so have to be

You had your own industry
war and
in
pulously honest and true
was, you can see by
its
by
products,
it
his
their grace
Japan
politics.
how
and strength,
scru-
their
conscientiousness in details, where they can hardly
But the
be observed.
tidal
wave
of falsehood has
swept over your land from that part of the world,
where business
in
it
felt
is
business,
and honesty
merely as the best policy.
shame, when you
see
is
followed
Have you never
the trade advertise-
ments, not only plastering the whole town with
and exaggerations, but invading the green

fields, where the peasants do their honest labour,
lies
and the
of the
hill-tops,
morning
which greet the

It
is
first
pure light
so easy to dull our sense
of honour and delicacy of mind with constant
abrasion, while falsehoods stalk abroad with proud

steps in the
name
of trade, politics and patriotism,
that any protest against their perpetual intrusion

into our lives
is
considered to be sentimentalism,
unworthy of true manliness.

And it has come to pass that the children
NATIONALISM
io6
who would keep their word at

death, who would disdain to cheat
of those heroes
the point of
men
who even
for vulgar profit,
in
their fight
would much rather court defeat than be
dis-
honourable, have become energetic in dealing with

falsehoods and do not feel humiliated by gaining
And
advantage from them.
by the charm
of the
this
has been effected
word 'modern.'
diluted utility be modern, beauty

if
mean
are no
if
un-
of all ages
human ideals
And we must know for
be modern, the
selfishness
new
is
But
inventions.
however modern may be the prowhich cripples man for the sake of
certain, that
ficiency
methods and machines,
it
will
never live to be
old.
But while trying
to free our
minds from the
arrogant claims of Europe and to help ourselves
out of the quicksands of our infatuation, we

go to the other extreme
The
a wholesale suspicion of the West.
reaction
just as unreal as the first
of disillusionment
is
shock of
We
illusion.
may
and blind ourselves with
must
try to
come
to that
normal state of mind, by which we can clearly

discern our
own danger and avoid
it,
without
107
being unjust towards the source of that danger.
There
always the natural temptation
is
in us of
own
wishing to pay back Europe in her
coin,
contempt and evil for

evil.
But that again would be to imitate Europe
in one of her worst features which comes out in
and return contempt
for
whom
her behaviour to people
she describes as
And
yellow or red, brown or black.

point on which
we
edge our guilt and

if
great,
by
in the
own
not greater,
It
caste.
is
to
when we
really because
insulted
humanity
for it
glories
of
colour or
are afraid of our
we
try to substitute
another weakness which makes
the
know
we
men
allows itself to be overcome
sight of power, that
by the
that our sin has been as
particular creed,
own weakness, which
is
East have to acknowl-
treating with utter disdain and cruelty
who belonged
to
this
the
West.
the Europe which
is
itself
When we
blind
truly
great and good,
we
can effectively save ourselves from the Europe
which
is
mean and
grasping.
It
judgment when one

human miseries,
and pessimism
unfair in one's
of building theories while the
is
easy to be
is
faced with
is
the result
mind
is
suffering.
NATIONALISM
108
To
despair of
humanity is only
truth which brings
lose faith
in
when
defeat
its
is
greatest,
to
and
we
if
possible,
it
strength,
calls
out new
from the depth of its destruction.

We must
admit that there is a living soul in the West which
life
is
struggling unobserved against the hugeness of
the organizations under which men,

children are being crushed, and
women and
whose mechani-
cal necessities are ignoring laws that are spiritual
and human,
the soul whose sensibilities refuse
to be dulled completely
by dangerous habits
heedlessness in dealings with races for

lacks natural sympathy.
have
her
risen to the
strength
brute,
heart
it
could never
eminence she has reached,
suffering
machine.
from the
her hands upon the world,
The
divine
if
her
in
injuries inflicted
and from
of her higher nature flows the secret

will
whom
were merely the strength of the
or of the
is
The West
of
bring healing to those injuries.
by
this pain
balm which
Time
after
time she has fought against herself and has un-
done the chains, which with her own hands she

had fastened round helpless limbs; and though
she forced poison
down
the throat of a great na-
109
tion at the point of sword for gain of
money, she
herself woke up to withdraw from it, to wash
This shows hidden springs
her hands clean again.
of
humanity
in spots
which look dead and barren.
that the deeper truth in her nature,
It proves
which can survive such a career of cruel cowardliness,
not greed, but reverence for unselfish
is
It
ideals.
would be altogether unjust, both to us
and to Europe, to say that she has fascinated the

modern Eastern mind by the mere exhibition of
Through the smoke
her power.
of cannons
and
dust of markets the light of her moral nature has
shone bright, and she has brought to us the ideal

of ethical freedom,
whose foundation
lies
deeper
than social conventions and whose province of

activity
is
world-wide.
The East
has instinctively
felt,
even through
her aversion, that she has a great deal to learn
from Europe, not merely about the materials of

power, but about its inner source, which is of
mind and
of the moral nature of
man.
Europe
has been teaching us the higher obligations of

public good above those of the family and the
clan,
and the sacredness of law, which makes
no
NATIONALISM
society independent of individual caprice, secures

for
it
of
continuity
justice to
all
men
and
progress,
of all positions in
guarantees
Above
life.
Europe has held high before our

minds the banner of liberty, through centuries of
all
things
martyrdom and achievement,
liberty of
con-
thought and action, liberty
science, liberty of
And
the ideals of art and literature.
in
because
Europe has won our deep respect, she has become so dangerous for us where she is turbulently
weak and
when
it
is
There
is
one safety
we may
Europe
along with
served
for us
count, and that

herself, as
her temptations
ments
dangerous
false,
our
call
we can claim
that
ally, in
our resistance to
and to her violent encroach-
own standard
by which we can measure her
her before her
to shame,
food.
upon which we hope
is,
and gauge her degrees of

can
poison
our best
for she has ever carried her
of perfection,
like
own
failure,
falls
by which we
tribunal and put her
the shame which
is
the sign of the
true pride of nobleness.
But our
fear
is,
that the poison
powerful than the food, and what
is
may
be more
strength in her
to-day
trary
not be the sign of health, but the con-
may
for
may
it
be temporarily caused by the
upsetting of the balance of
Our
life.
it
is
sure to lose
its
it
is
that
assumes
and though at
dimensions which are colossal,

last
fear
when
has a fateful fascination,
evil
in
centre of gravity
by
abnormal disproportion, the mischief which
its
creates before
it
its
fall
may
be beyond repara-
tion.
Therefore
faith
and
ask you to have the strength of
clarity of
mind
to
the lumbering structure of

eted
by the
know
for certain, that
modern
progress, riv-
iron bolts of efficiency,
which runs
upon the wheels of ambition, cannot hold together

for long.
Collisions are certain to occur
has to travel upon organized

to choose
off
the
located.
a
its
its
rails,
own
day
lines, it is
course freely
and once
come, when
it
it
too heavy
endless train of vehicles

will
for
it
is
is
dis-
will fall in
heap of ruin and cause serious obstruction to
the traffic of the world.

this
even now
Do we
not see signs of
Does not the voice come to
us,
through the din of war, the shrieks of hatred, the

waitings of despair, through the churning
up
of
NATIONALISM
112
the unspeakable
which has been accumulat-
filth
ing for ages in the
bottom of
this nationalism,
the voice which cries to our soul, that the tower
which goes by the name

of patriotism, which has raised its banner of treason against heaven, must totter and fall with a
of national selfishness,
crash,
kissing
weighed down by
the
brothers,
sends up
dust,
when
its
its
the
own
its
bulk,
extinguished
light
of
flag
My
conflagration
crackle of laughter to the stars, keep

stars
For when
of destruction.
itself
light
red
your faith upon those
sumes
its
and
dies
and not upon the
fire
this conflagration con-
down, leaving
its
memorial
in ashes, the eternal light will again shine in the
the East which has been the birth-place
East,
of the
morning sun of man's
knows
if
history.
And who
that day has not already dawned, and
the sun not risen, in the Easternmost horizon of
Asia
And
offer,
as did
my
ancestor
rishis,
salutation to that sunrise of the East, which
my
is
destined
once again to illumine the whole
world.
I
know my
voice
above the uproar of
is
too feeble to raise
this bustling time,
and
itself
it is
113
easy for any street urchin to fling against

of
epithet
stick
will
It
'unpractical.'
me
the
to
my
never to be washed away, effectively
coat-tail,
me from
excluding
the consideration of
I
spectable persons.
know what
a risk
re-
all
one runs
from the vigorously athletic crowds to be styled

an idealist in these days, when thrones have
and prophets have become an

anachronism, when the sound that drowns all
lost their dignity
voices
the
is
when, one
noise
day,
Yokohama town,
modern
of
the
standing
bristling
I
miscellanies,
sea,
among your
pine-clad
on
the
with
outskirts
its
of
display of
its
watched the sunset
and saw
your southern
Yet
market-place.
in
peace and majesty
hills,
with
the
great
Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance,
- the music of
eternity welled up through the
evening silence, and
felt
earth and the lyrics of the
that the sky and the
dawn and
are with the poets and idealists,
and not with the
marketmen robustly contemptuous

ments,
divinity,
the dayfall
of
all
senti-
that, after the forgetfulness of his
man
will
own
remember again that heaven
is
NATIONALISM
always
in
touch with his world, which can never
be abandoned for good to the hounding wolves

of the
modern
howling to the
era,
skies.
scenting
human
blood and
OUR
is
in
problem in India is not political. It

This is a condition not only prevailing
social.
I do not beIndia, but among all nations.
in the
to
an exclusive
in
lieve
we
real
interest.
political
West have dominated Western

India are trying to imitate you.
in
remember that
in
Politics
ideals,
We
and
have
Europe, where peoples had
from the beginning, and where

natural resources were insufficient for the in-
their racial unity
habitants, the civilization has naturally taken the
character of political and commercial aggressive-
For on the one hand they had no internal

complications, and on the other they had to deal
ness.
with neighbours
To have
and
who were
strong and rapacious.
perfect combination
watchful
others
was taken
lems.
In
former
attitude
of
among themselves
animosity against
as the solution of their prob-
days
117
they
organized
and
NATIONALISM
Ii8
the present age
in
plundered,
same
the
spirit
and they organize and exploit the
continues
whole world.
But from the
earliest
India has had her
her
own problem
the race problem.
it is
be conscious of
realize
beginnings of history,
its
Each nation must
mission and we, in India, must
we cut
that
constantly before
a poor figure when"
we
are
we have not
trying to be political, simply because
yet been finally able to accomplish what was

set before us
by our providence.
This problem of race unity which we have

been trying to solve for so many years has likewise to be faced by you here in America.
country ask
people in this
me what
is
as to the caste distinctions in India.

this question
a superior
is
asked me,
And
it is
Many
happening
But when
usually done with
tempted to put the

same question to our American critics with a
air.
slight modification,
the
Red Indian and
feel
"What have you done
with
For you have

not got over your attitude of caste toward them.
You have used violent methods to keep aloof
from other
races,
the
Negro?"
but until you have solved the
119
question here in America, you have no right to
question India.
In spite of our great difficulty, however, India

has done something.
She has tried to make an
adjustment of
to
races,
acknowledge the
between them where these
differences
yet seek for some basis of unity.
exist,
real
and
This basis has
come through our saints, like Nanak, Kabir,

Chaitnaya and others, preaching one God to all
races of India.
we
shall
have helped to solve the world problem as
well.
What
now.
In finding the solution of our problem
India has been, the whole world
The whole world

scientific
facility.
when you
not
is
also
political.
becoming one country through
And
must
If
will
the
moment
is
find a basis of unity
arriving
which
is
India can offer to the world her
be a contribution to humanity.
solution,
it
There
only one history
is
is
the history of man.
All national histories are merely chapters in the

larger one.
And we
are content in India to suffer
for such a great cause.
Each individual has

his brute instinct leads
his
him
self-love.
Therefore
to fight with others
NATIONALISM
120
But man
in the sole pursuit of his self-interest.
has also his higher instincts of sympathy and
mutual help. The people who are lacking in

this higher moral power and who therefore cannot
combine
in
with one another must
fellowship
perish or live in a state of degradation.
Only
those peoples have survived and achieved civilization
who have
spirit of
this
cooperation strong
So we find that from the beginning of

history men had to choose between fighting with
in
them.
one
another
their
own
and
interest or the
In our early history

limits
of each country
communication
were
comparatively small
men
between
combining,
common
when
and
the
geographical
problem was
this
dimension.
to develop
all.
also the facilities of
small,
in
serving
interest of
It
was
suffi-
their
sense of unity
within their area of segregation.
In those days
cient for
combined among themselves and fought

But it was this moral spirit of
against others.
they
combination which was the true basis of their

greatness, and this fostered their art, science and
fact
At that
most important
that man had to take count of was the fact
religion.
early time the
of the
members
coming
in close
who
made
all
this fact
their
mark
through
their higher
in history.
fact of the present age
the different races of
together.
Those
contact with one another.
The most important

that
men
of one particular race of
truly grasped
nature
121
men have come
is
close
And
alternatives.
again we are confronted with two

The problem is whether the differ-
ent groups of peoples shall go on fighting with one
another or find out some true basis of reconcilia-
and mutual help whether it will be

minable competition or cooperation.
tion
have no hesitation
in
inter-
saying that those
who
are gifted with the moral
power of love and vision

of spiritual unity, who have the least feeling of
enmity against aliens, and the sympathetic insight to place themselves in the position of others
will
be the
fittest to
in the age that
is
take their permanent place
lying before us, and those
who
are constantly developing their instinct of fight
and intolerance of
this
is
aliens will
be eliminated.
the problem before us, and
our humanity by solving

our higher nature.
The
it
we have
For
to prove
through the help of
gigantic
organizations
NATIONALISM
122
and warding
for hurting others

for
making money by
On
not help us.
off their
blows,
dragging others back, will
the contrary,
by
their crushing
weight, their enormous cost and their deadening

effect
upon the
living
impede our freedom
humanity they
will seriously
in the larger life of a higher
civilization.
During the evolution of the Nation -the moral

culture of brotherhood was limited by geographical boundaries, because at that time those boun-
Now
they have become imagi-
lines of tradition
divested of the qualities
daries were true.
nary
So the time has come when
of real obstacles.
man's moral nature must deal with

fact
with
all
seriousness
or
perish.
this
great
The
first
impulse of this change of circumstance has been

the churning up of man's baser passions of greed
and cruel hatred.
If this persists indefinitely
armaments go on exaggerating themselves

imaginable absurdities, and machines and
houses envelop this
smoke and
all his
power
to unstore-
earth with their dirt and
ugliness, then
gration of suicide.
exert
fair
and
it
will
Therefore
of love
and
end
man
in a conflawill
have to
clarity of vision to
make another
123
great moral adjustment which will
comprehend the whole world
men and
of
The
merely the fractional groups of nationality.

call
not
has come to every individual in the present
age to prepare himself and his surroundings for

this
dawn
of a
new
era
when man
human
his soul in the spiritual unity of all

If it
given at
is
all
to the
West
shall discover
beings.
to struggle out
of these tangles of the lower slopes to the spiritual
summit
that
this
of humanity,
it is
then
cannot but think
the special mission of America to
hope of God and man.
of expectation, desiring
You
fulfil
are the country
something
else
than what
Europe has her subtle habits of mind and her

conventions.
But America, as yet, has come to
is.
no conclusions.
realize
how much America
is
untrammelled by the traditions of the past, and

I
can appreciate that experimentalism
America's youth.
is
The foundation
in the future, rather
one
will
than
is
a sign of
of her glory
in the past
and
if
power of clairvoyance, one

be able to love the America that is to be.
is
gifted with the
America
is
destined to justify Western
zation to the East.
Europe has
lost
civili-
faith
in
NATIONALISM
124
humanity, and has become distrustful and

America, on the other hand,
You know,
blase.
as a people, that there
a thing as a better
and
merely passive but
They
of stinging nettles.
such
and that knowl-
aggressively
mere walls but are
are not like
is
There are habits that are
edge drives you on.

not
a best
sickly.
not pessimistic or
is
arrogant.
like
hedges
Europe has been cultivating
these hedges of habits for long years
till
they
have grown round her dense and strong and high.
The
pride of her traditions has sent
into her heart.

is
unreasonable.
do not wish to contend that
But
blindness at the end.

lants
roots deep
its
its first effect is
it
pride in every form breeds
Like
all
stimu-
artificial
a heightening of conscious-
ness and then with the increasing dose
it
muddles
and brings an exultation that is misleading.

Europe has gradually grown hardened in her
it
pride of
all
her outer and inner habits.
only cannot forget that she
is
She not
Western, but she
takes every opportunity to hurl this fact against

others to humiliate them.
This
is
why
she
is
growing incapable of imparting to the East what

is best in herself, and of accepting in a right spirit
the
wisdom that the East has
125
stored
cen-
for
turies.
In America national habits and traditions have
not had
time
to
You have
round your hearts.

complained of
their
spread
roots
clutching
constantly
felt
and
disadvantages when you com-
its
pared your nomadic restlessness with the settled

traditions
of
Europe
show her picture
when
pet
new
Europe which can
of greatness to the best advan-
tage because she can
But
of the Past.
the
fix it
against the background
in this present
era of civilization
call to all
is
age of transition,
sending
its
trum-
peoples of the world across an un-
limited future, this very freedom of detachment

will
enable you to accept
its
invitation
and to
achieve the goal for which Europe began her
journey but lost herself midway.
For she was
tempted out of her path by her pride of power and

greed of possession.
Not merely your freedom from

in the individuals
history from
in
all
habits of
mind
but also the freedom of your
unclean entanglements
fits
you
your career of holding the banner of civiliza-
tion
of
the
future.
All
the
great
nations
of
NATIONALISM
126
Europe have
their victims in other parts of the
This not only deadens their moral sympathy but also their intellectual sympathy, which
world.
is
the
so necessary for
understanding of
which are different from one's own.
men can
races
English-
never truly understand India because
their
minds are not disinterested with regard to
that
country.
Germany
you compare England with
If
or France you will find she has produced
the smallest
number
of scholars
who have
studied
Indian literature and philosophy with any amount

of
sympathetic
insight
or
thoroughness.
attitude of apathy and contempt
the relationship
is
national selfishness
natural where
abnormal and founded upon

and pride. But your history
has been disinterested and that
been able to help Japan

civilization
is
This
and that
is
why you have
is
in her lessons in
why China
you with her best confidence
Western
can look upon
in this her darkest
In fact you are carrying
period of danger.
all
the responsibility of a great future because you

are untrammelled
past.
by the grasping
Therefore of
America has to be
all
miserliness of a
countries
of
the
earth
fully conscious of this future,
127
her vision must not be obscured and her faith in
humanity must be strong with the strength
of
youth.
parallelism
one body various
and
my
races.
country, we have been seeking
out something
prove their
mere
between America
the parallelism of welding together into
India
In
exists
common
real unity.
political or
to
all
No
races,
to find
which
will
nation looking for a
commercial basis of unity
Men
find such a solution sufficient.
and power will discover the

realize it, and preach it.
will
of thought
spiritual unity, will
India has never had a real sense of nationalism.^
Even though from childhood
that the idolatry of Nation
almost better than
reverence for
is
God and humanity,
outgrown that teaching, and

that
my
had been taught
countrymen
it is
believe
my
have
conviction
will gain truly their India
by fighting against that education which teaches

them that a country is greater than the ideals of
humanity.
The educated Indian
at present
is
trying to
absorb some lessons from history contrary to the
NATIONALISM
128
lessons of our ancestors.
The
attempting to take unto
itself a
not the outcome of
its
own
example, thinks she
is
East, in fact,
history which
living.
is
is
Japan, for
getting powerful through
adopting Western methods, but, after she has
exhausted
weapons
will
her
inheritance,
only
the
borrowed
She
of civilization will remain to her.
not have developed herself from within.
Europe has her
past.
Europe's strength there-
We, in India, must make

up our minds that we cannot borrow other
people's history, and that if we stifle our own,
fore lies in her history.
we
are committing suicide.
When you borrow
things that do not belong to your

serve to crush your
And
therefore
life,
they only
life.
believe that
it
does India no
good to compete with Western civilization in its

own field. But we shall be more than compensated
if,
in spite of the insults
follow our
own
heaped upon
us,
we
destiny.
There are lessons which impart information or

train our minds for intellectual pursuits. These
and can be acquired and used with

advantage. But there are others which affect
are simple
129
our deeper nature and change our direction of
we accept them and pay their value

by selling our own inheritance, we must pause and
think deeply. In man's history there come ages
Before
life.
of fireworks which dazzle us
movement.
by
their
They laugh not only
force
at our
modest
household lamps but also at the eternal
But
in
and
stars.
us not for that provocation be precipitate
let
our
desire
to
dismiss
Let us
our lamps.
patiently bear our present insult and realize that
these fireworks have splendour but not perma-
because
nence,
which
their
of
the
extreme
explosiveness
the cause of their power, and also of
is
exhaustion.
They
are
spending
fatal
quantity of energy and substance compared to
and production.
Anyhow our ideals have been evolved through
our own history and even if we wished we could
their gain
only
make poor
fireworks of them, because their
materials are different from yours, as
moral purpose.
ing our
will
If
we
is
also their
cherish the desire of pay-
buying a political nationality it

be as absurd as if Switzerland had staked her
all
for
existence in her ambition to build
up
navy
NATIONALISM
130
powerful enough to compete with that of Eng-
The mistake
land.
that
we make
that man's channel of greatness
is
is
in thinking
only one
one which has made
itself
the time being by
depth of insolence.
We
must know
its
painfully evident for
for certain that there
before us and that future
is
the
is
a future
waiting for those
who
are rich in moral ideals and not in mere things.
And
the privilege of
it is
man
to
work
for fruits
that are beyond his immediate reach,

adjust his
life
and to
not in slavish conformity to the
examples of some present success or even to
own prudent
past, limited in its aspiration,
to an infinite future bearing in
its
his
but
heart the ideals
of our highest expectations.
We
must, however,
that the
West has come
must show the East

the
West that
make
know
it
to India.
is
Yet, some one
to the West, and convince
the East has her contribution to
in the history of civilization.
beggar of the West.
West may think

Western
providential
she
civilization
our independence.
India
is
no
And yet even though the

is, I am not for thrusting off
and becoming segregated in

Let us have a deep associa-
tion.
If
131
Providence wants England to be the
channel of that communication, of that deeper
and
I
think the
willing to accept
have great faith
humility.
am
association,
West
in
with
it
human
all
nature,
will find its true mission.
speak bitterly of Western civilization when
am
conscious that
its
thwarting
own
it
is
betraying
purpose.
herself a curse to the world
power
for her
selfish needs,
by using her
but by teaching
the ignorant and helping the weak,

herself
and
The West must not
make
own
trust
its
by saving
from the worst danger that the strong
liable to incur
by making the
is
feeble to acquire
power enough to resist her intrusion. And also

she must not make her materialism to be the
final thing,
service
in
but must
freeing the
realize that she
spiritual
tyranny of matter.
"I am not against one nation
against the general idea of
the Nation
It
is
ganized
all
is
doing a
being from the
in particular,
nations.
but
What
is
the aspect of a whole people as an or-
power.
This
organization
incessantly
keeps up the insistence of the population on be-
NATIONALISM
132
coming strong and
But
efficient.
and
effort after strength
this strenuous
energy from his higher nature where he

sacrificing
and
man's
efficiency drains
For
creative.
is
self-
man's
thereby
power of sacrifice is diverted from his ultimate

object, which is moral, to the maintenance of
Yet
this
organization, which
this
he
tion
and therefore becomes supremely dangerous
feels all
his conscience
bility to this
intellect
sonality.
freedom
the urging of
feels relieved of
when he can
transfer his responsi-
machine which
and not of
By
in
the satisfaction of moral exalta-
He
to humanity.
mechanical.
is
his
is
the creation of his
complete
this device the people
slavery
perpetuates
in
moral
per-
which loves
large
por-
tion of the world with the comfortable feeling of
pride of
having done
its
duty
men who
are
naturally just can be cruelly unjust both in their

act and their thought, accompanied
by
a feeling
that they are helping the world in receiving

deserts
men who
on robbing others of
aggrandizement,
all
are
honest
their
can
human
the while
its
blindly go
rights for self-
abusing the de-
prived for not deserving better treatment.
We
have seen
in
our everyday
life
133
even small organiza-
tions of business
and profession produce callous-
ness of feeling in
men who
are not naturally bad,
and we can well imagine what a moral havoc

in a world where whole peoples
it is causing
are
furiously organizing
themselves for gaining
wealth and power.
Nationalism
[ular thing
a great menace.
is
which
for years has
of India's troubles.
It
is
the partic-
been at the bottom
And inasmuch
we have
as
been ruled and dominated by a nation that

strictly political in its attitude,
we have
is
tried to
develop within ourselves, despite our inheritance
from the past, a
belief in
our eventual political
jestiny.
There are
ent
ideals.
different parties in India, with differ-
Some
independence.
are
struggling
for
political
Others think that the time has
not arrived for that, and yet believe that India

should have the rights that the English colonies
have.
They wish
to gain
autonomy
as
far as
possible.
In the beginning of our history of political

agitation
in
India there was not that conflict
NATIONALISM
134
between parties which there is to-day. In that

time there was a party known as the Indian Congress;
it
had no
real
They had
programme.
few grievances for redress by the authorities.
They wanted
larger representation in the Council
House, and more freedom
They wanted
ernment.
they had no constructive
in the
Municipal govof
scraps
things,
lacking in enthusiasm for their methods.
my
was
It
was
Therefore
ideal.
but
what India most needed was
conviction that
work coming from within herself.

work we must take all risks and go on
constructive
In this
doing our duties which by right are ours, though in

the teeth of persecution; winning moral victory
at every step,
by our
must show those who
failure,
and
suffering.
are over us that
We
we have the
strength of moral power in ourselves, the power
Where we have nothing
to suffer for truth.
show, we only have to beg.

chievous
if
the gifts
us right now, and
we wish
It
for
have told
to
would be miswere granted to
my
countrymen,
time and time again, to combine for the work of

creating opportunities to give vent to our spirit of
self-sacrifice,
and not
for the
purpose of begging.
The
lost
however,
party,
people soon came to realize
135
power because the

how futile was the
The party split,

Extremists, who advocated
by them.
half policy adopted
and there arrived the
independence of action, and discarded the begging
method
method,
the easiest
mind from
his responsibility
Their
were
ideals
based
of relieving one's
towards
on Western
They had no sympathy with the

of
India.
They
special
not recognize
did
his country.
history.
problems
the
patent
fact that there were causes in our social organiza-
which made the Indian incapable of coping

with the alien. What would we do if, for any
tion
reason,
England was driven away
We
The same
simply be victims for other nations.

social
in
The
weaknesses would prevail.
India, have to think of
is
this
should
thing we,
to
remove
those social customs and ideals which have gen-
erated
want
dependence
of
on
self-respect
those
above
and a complete
us,
state
of
which has been brought about entirely by

the domination in India of the caste system, and
affairs
the blind
and lazy habit of relying upon the
authority
of
anachronisms
traditions
in the
that
are
present age.
incongruous
NATIONALISM
136
draw your attention to the diffiIndia has had to encounter and her struggle
Once again
culties
overcome them.. Her problem was the prob-
to
lem of the world

in
India
in miniature.
area and too diverse in
its
too vast
is
races.
its
It
is
countries packed in one geographical re-
many
It
ceptacle.
what Europe
just the opposite of
is
namely one country made into many.

Thus Europe in its culture and growth has had
truly
is,
the advantage of the strength of the
tiously one, has
ness
of
unity.
rolls
is
naturally
being
its
all
true unity
its
and the feebleness of

is
like
round globe,
burden easily
its
it
but diversity
many-cornered thing which has to be dragged
and pushed with

credit of
own
many, yet adventi-
along suffered from the loose-
diversity
on, carrying
as
India, on the
well as the strength of the one.
contrary,
many,
all
force.
Be
it
said
to the
India that this diversity was not her
creation
she has had to accept
from the beginning of her history.
it
as a fact
In America
and Australia, Europe has simplified her problem
by almost exterminating the

Even in the present age this
original population.
spirit of
extermina-
tion
making
is
itself
by inhospitably
manifest,
shutting out aliens, through those
were aliens
in the lands
they
137
who
themselves
now occupy.
India tolerated difference of races from the
and that
spirit of toleration
has acted
all
But
first,
through
her history.
Her
caste system
is
the outcome of this spirit
of toleration.. For India has
all
along been try-
ing experiments in evolving a social unity within
which
the different peoples could be held to-
all
gether, yet fully enjoying the freedom of main-
taining their
own
differences.
The
tie
has been
as loose as possible, yet as close as the circum-
stances
This
permitted.
has
produced some-
thing like a United States of a social federation,
whose common name

India had
felt
is
Hinduism.
that diversity of races there must
be and should be, whatever
and you
may
be
its
drawback,
can never coerce nature into your
limits of convenience
dearly for
it.
without paying one day very
In this India was right
failed to realize
narrow
was that
in
human
but what she

beings differ-
ences are not like the physical barriers of

tains, fixed forever
they are fluid with
mounlife's
NATIONALISM
138
changing their courses and their
flow, they are
shapes and volume.
Therefore
her caste regulations India recog-
in
nized differences, but not the mutability which
the law of
set
to
is
In trying to avoid collisions she
life.
up boundaries of immovable walls, thus giving

her numerous races the negative benefit of
peace and order but not the positive opportunity

of
nature where
it
where
it
movement.
and
expansion
it
uses that diversity for
life in all
insulted
where
it
Life departed
place she
is
accepted
produces diversity, but ignored
of infinite permutations
treated
She
world-game
and combinations. She
truth where
it
is
from her
its
it is
manifold, but
ever moving.
social
worshipping with
Therefore
system and
all
in its
ceremony the
magnificent cage of countless compartments that

she has manufactured.
The same
ward
off
thing happened where she tried to
the collisions of trade interests.
She
associated different trades and professions with

different
for
castes.
It
had the
effect
of
allaying
good the interminable jealousy and hatred of
competition
the competition which breeds cru-
elty
139
and makes the atmosphere thick with
lies
and deception.
In this also India laid
all
her
emphasis upon the law of heredity, ignoring the

law of mutation,
and thus gradually reduced
and genius into skill.

However, what Western observers
arts into crafts
cern
is
fail
to dis-
all
serious-
that in her caste system India in
ness accepted her responsibility to solve the race
problem in such a manner as to avoid all friction,

and yet to afford each race freedom within its
boundaries.
Let
not achieved a
you must
us
full
admit
this
in
measure of success.
also concede, that the
India
But
has
this
West, being more
favorably situated as to homogeneity of races,
has never given her attention to this problem,
and whenever confronted with
it
she has tried to
And
make
it
this
the source of her anti-Asiatic agitations for
is
easy by ignoring
it
altogether.
depriving the aliens of their right to earn their
honest living on these shores.

colonies
In most of your
you only admit them on condition of
their accepting the menial position of hewers of
wood and drawers

your doors
of water.
against the
aliens
Either you shut

or
reduce them
NATIONALISM
140
And
into slavery.
this
Whatever may be
of race-conflict.
problem
your solution of the
is
merits you will have to admit that
it
its
does not
spring from the higher impulses of civilization,

but from the lower passions of greed and hatred.
You
human nature
and India
knew human nature when
say this
is
she
thought
also
she
strongly barricaded her race distinctions by the

fixed
barriers
of
social
we
But
gradations.
have found out to our cost that human nature

not what
is
in
our
its
it
infinite
blindness
appearance
that
what
seems, but
we have
possibilities.
insult
sheds
it
Not only
in
which
And when we
for
its
in
ragged
The degradation
God.
in
our pride or
own humanity
the punishment which
we do not detect
disguise to disclose to us
insulted our
interest degrades our
in truth
humanity
its
which we cast upon others
is
it is
is
is
it till it is
most
and
self-
this
because
terrible
too late.
your relation with
but also
aliens
with the different sections of your
own
society
you have not brought harmony of reconciliation.

The spirit of conflict and competition is allowed
the
full
freedom of
its
reckless career.
And
be-
cause
its
genesis
is
141
the greed of wealth and power
can never come to any other end but a vio-
it
death.
lent
In
the
India
production of com-
modities was brought under the law of social
adjustments.
for
was cooperation having
Its basis
object the perfect satisfaction of social
its
But
needs.
in the
West
it is
guided by the im-
pulse of competition whose end
wealth
like
for
individuals.
But the individual
the geometrical line;
breadth.
It has
ening process of
it
is
length without
is
not got the depth to be able to
hold anything permanently.

or gain can never
the gain of
is
come
Therefore
to finality.
growth
it
In
its
its
length-
can cross other
and cause entanglements, but
will
missing the ideal of completeness in
greed
lines
ever go on
thinness
its
of isolation.
In
limit.
all
our physical appetites we recognize a
We know
that to exceed that limit
exceed the limit of health.
But has
this
is
to
lust
and power no bounds beyond which

death's dominion ? In these national carni-
for wealth
is
vals of materialism are not the
Western peoples
spending most of their vital energy
in
merely
NATIONALISM
142
producing things and neglecting the creation of

ideals
And
can a civilization ignore the law of
moral health and go on

inflation
in its endless process of
by gorging upon material things
Man
in his social ideals naturally tries to regulate his
appetites, subordinating
them
But
pose of his nature.
to the higher pur-
economic world
in the
our appetites follow no other restrictions but

those of supply and
fostered,
tificially
tunities
for
grossness.
restrictions
demand which can be

individuals
affording
indulgence
in
ar-
oppor-
an endless feast of
In India our social instincts imposed
our
upon
went to the extreme
of repression,
West, the
the
spirit
of
maybe
appetites,
but
in
it
the
economic organization
having no moral purpose goads the people into

the perpetual pursuit of wealth
no wholesome limit
The
but has
this
ideals that strive to take
form
in
social
have two objects. One is to regulate

our passions and appetites for harmonious deinstitutions
velopment of man, and the other

in
cultivating disinterested
creatures.
Therefore society
is
love for
is
to help
his
him
fellow-
the expression of
143
man which
moral and spiritual aspirations of

belong to his higher nature.
Our food
is
creative,
builds our
it
Our
not so wine, which stimulates.

create the
human
diverted from
to greed of
that state of intoxication
abnormality where our
we
but
social ideals
when our mind
world, but
them
body
power then
live in a
strength
is
in
world of
not health
is
and our liberty is not freedom. Therefore political freedom does not give us freedom when our
mind
not
is
An
free.
automobile does not create
freedom of movement, because
When
chine.
myself
am
free
automobile for the purpose of
We
must never
those people
it is
my
mere ma-
can use the
freedom.
forget in the present
who have
day that
got their political freedom
are not necessarily free, they are merely powerful.
The
passions which are unbridled in
them
are creating huge organizations of slavery in the

disguise of freedom.
gain of
money
Those who have made the
their highest
selling their life
end are unconsciously
and soul to
rich persons or to
the combinations that represent money.
who
are
enamoured
of their political
Those
power and
NATIONALISM
144
gloat over their extension of dominion over foreign

races gradually surrender their
the
to
humanity
other
holding
own freedom and
in
peoples
for
necessary
organizations
In
slavery.
the
so-
called free countries the majority of the people
are not free, they are driven

a goal
which
is
by the minority
known
not even
to
This
to them.
becomes possible only because people- do not

acknowledge moral and spiritual freedom as
their object.
passions
They
and they
create huge eddies with their

feel
dizzily
with
inebriated
the mere velocity of their whirling
movement,
But the doom which
taking that to be freedom.
waiting to overtake them
is
for
man's truth
cipation
The
is
is
is
as certain as death
moral truth and
in the spiritual
eman-
life.
general opinion of the majority of the
present day nationalists in India
come
his
is
that
we have
to a final completeness in our social
spiritual ideals, the task of the constructive
of
society
litical
work
having been done several thousand
years before
are free to
and
we were born, and that now we
employ
direction.
all
We
our activities
in
the po-
never dream of blaming
145
our social inadequacy as the origin of our present

helplessness, for
we have accepted
as the creed
of our nationalism that this social
been perfected for
who had
cestors
eternity,
infinite
for
all
and
all
has
system
time to come by our an-
the superhuman vision of
future
for
provision
for
power
supernatural
all
making
Therefore
ages.
our miseries and shortcomings we hold
responsible
the
upon us from
historical
This
outside.
we think that our one
surprises
task
is
burst
that
the reason
why
to build a political
is
miracle of freedom upon the quicksand of social

slavery.
In fact
course of our
we want
own
to
historical
dam up
the true
stream and only
borrow power from the sources of other peoples'

history.
Those
of us in India
who have come under
delusion that mere political
freedom
make
will
us free have accepted their lessons from the

as the gospel truth
manity.
we
We
and
lost their faith
the
West
in
hu-
must remember whatever weakness
cherish in our society will
of danger in politics.
become the source
The same
inertia
which
leads us to our idolatry of dead forms in social
NATIONALISM
146
institutions
create
will
our
in
houses with immovable walls.
sympathy which makes
of
it
politics
priso
The narrowness
possible for us to
impose upon a considerable portion of humanity

the galling yoke of inferiority will assert
in
itself
our politics in creating tyranny of injustice.
When
our nationalists talk about
forget that the basis of nationalism
The very people who

are
ideals,
is
they
wanting\
are upholding these ideals
themselves the most conservative in their
social
practice.
Nationalists
say,
for
example,
look at Switzerland, where, in spite of race differences, the peoples
have
solidified into a nation.
Yet, remember that in Switzerland the races can

mingle, they can intermarry, because they are
of the
same blood.
birthrights
tionality
we
In India there
And when we
talk of
who
no common
Western Na-
forget that the nations there do not
have that physical repulsion, one

that we have between different
we an
is
for the other,

castes.
Have
instance in the whole world where a people
are not allowed to mingle their blood shed
their blood for
one another except by coercion
or for mercenary purposes
And can we
ever
147
hope that these moral barriers against our race

not stand in the
will
amalgamation
political unity
much
tyrannical, so
man
If a
me
tells
The
social
make
the
make men cowards.
them because he would

excuse him for having
of untruth, in order to live at
life
all.
mind which impels us
habit of
differ
from us even
thing as their choice of food

political organization
is
and
to
a burden to
of our fellow-beings
them where they

our
still
he has heterodox ideas, but
be socially ostracized,
life
are
restrictions
so as to
that he cannot follow
to live a
give full recognition to
that our social
fact
of our
Then again we must

this
way
such a
in
sure to persist in
result in creating
engines of coercion to crush every rational difference which

will
in
is
life.
only add to the inevitable
our political
dom
the sign of
life.
Is the
so valuable that
sacrifice for its sake
The intemperance
mediately show
its
vigour of our youth.
lies
And tyranny
and hypocrisy
mere name of
we should be
free-
willing to
our moral freedom
of our habits does not imeffects
But
when we
it
are
in
the
gradually consumes
NATIONALISM
148
that vigour, and
when
the period of decline sets
then we have to settle accounts and pay
in
our debts, which leads us to insolvency.
West you
are
still
its
In the
able to carry your head high
though your humanity
from
is
suffering every
moment
dipsomania of organizing power.
also in the
heyday
off
of her
India
youth could carry
in
her vital organs the dead weight of her social

organizations stiffened to rigid perfection, but
it
has been fatal to her, and has produced a gradual
And
paralysis of her living nature.
reason
the educated
why
this
community
the
taking
very
immobility
of
They
our social
and
structures as the sign of their perfection,
because the healthy feeling of pain
is
the
of India
has become insensible of her social needs.

are
is
dead
in
the
limbs of our social organism they delude themselves into thinking that
it
Therefore they think that
needs no ministration.
all
their energies need
their only scope in the political field.
man whose
legs
useless, trying to
have
still
grown
their ultimate
about him
is
It
is
like
have become shrivelled and
delude himself that these limbs
because
salvation,
they
and
all
have
that
the shortness of his sticks.
attained
is
wrong
So much for the
social
and the
Now we
eration of India.
149
political regen-
come
to her indus-
am
very often asked whether there
in India
any
industrial regeneration since the
advent of
the
tries,
is
and
Government.
British
be remembered
that
British rule in India
at
the
It
must
beginning of the
our industries were suppressed
and since then we have not met with any real

help or encouragement to enable us to make a
stand against the monster commercial organiza-
The
tions of the world.
that
nations have decreed
we must remain purely an
agricultural
people, even forgetting the use of arms for
time to come.
so
many
Thus India
is
all
being turned into
predigested morsels of food ready to be
swallowed at any
moment by any
nation which
has even the most rudimentary set of teeth in

its
head.
India, therefore has very
industrial
originality.
lieve in the
day.
that
creation.
outlet for her
personally do not be-
unwieldy organizations of the present
The very
they
little
are
The
fact that they are ugly

in
discordance
vast
with
the
shows
whole
powers of nature do not
NATIONALISM
150
reveal their truth in hideousness, but in beauty.
Beauty
upon
the signature which the Creator stamps
is
his
works when he
with them.
satisfied
is
All our products that insolently ignore the laws

of perfection
of
and are unashamed

bear
ungainliness
God's
the
So
displeasure.
and
twin
her
and
brother
it
is
one object
to produce
is
human
beings.
It
is
Beauty
require
leisure,
But the greed
its
capaciousness.
and consume.
has neither pity for beautiful

living
of
"
untrue.
Truth
no time or limit to
weight
your commerce
as
self-control for their growth.
of gain has
Its
perpetual
far
lacks the dignity of grace
in their display
It
nor for
nature,
ruthlessly
ready
without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty
and
It
out of them, moulding them into money.
life
this
is
ugly
brought upon
earlier
scientific
has
vision
in those times
instinct
won
of
commerce which
the censure of contempt in our
days when
unclouded
Men
it
vulgarity
men had
of
leisure to
perfection
in
have an
humanity.
were rightly ashamed of the
mere money-making. But in this

age money, by its very abnormal bulk,
of
its
throne.
And when from
its
eminence
of piled-up things
151
insults the higher instincts
it
man, banishing beauty and noble sentiments

from its surroundings, we submit. For we in
of
our meanness have accepted bribes from
its
and our imagination has grovelled
the dust
before
its
But
immensity of
flesh.
unwieldiness
its
in
hands
itself
and
endless
its
The
true signs of failure.
complexities are
its
swimmer who
an expert does not exhibit
is
his
muscular force by violent movements, but exhibits
some power which
is
and which
invisible
and reposefulness.
The true distinction of man from animals is in
shows
itself
in
perfect grace
power and worth which are inner and invisible.

But the present-day commercial civilization of
his
man
but
is
not only taking too
killing
violent,
its
carrying
its
time and space.

noise
is
It
is
loud.
it
in
his
is
are
It
is
tram-
humanity upon which
strenuously turning out
minimum,
amplest room for
space
movements
own damnation because
the cost of happiness.

to his
Its
discordantly
pling into distortion the

stands.
much time and
Man
is
money
it
at
reducing himself
order to be able to
organizations.
He
make
is
de-
NATIONALISM
152
riding his
human
sentiments into shame because
they are apt to stand in the

In
our
of his machines.
mythology we have the legend that
man who
the
way
performs penances for attaining
immortality has to meet with temptations sent
by Indra, the Lord of the immortals. If he is

lured by them he is lost.
The West has been
striving for centuries after
its
goal of immortality.
Indra has sent her the temptation to try her.

It
is
the gorgeous temptation of wealth.
has accepted
has lost
its
and her
it
path
civilization of
in the wilderness of
This commercialism with

decorations
Because
is
it is
a terrible
setting
that of perfection.
seeking exult in
its
menace
up the
She
humanity
machinery.
barbarity of ugly
to
all
ideal of
humanity.
power over
making the cult of selfnaked shamelessness. Our
It
its
is
nerves are more delicate than our muscles. Things

that are the most precious in us are helpless as
babes when we take away from them the careful

protection which they claim from us for their
very preciousness.
Therefore when the callous
rudeness of power runs

of
humanity
it
scares
amuck
away by
in the
its
broad-way
grossness the
ideals
dom
which we have cherished with the martyr-
of centuries.
The temptation which

more
is still
come
it
in
is
fatal for the strong
And
so for the weak.
our Indian
life
simple in
its
basis of social cooperation
of economic exploitation and
do
it
it
Let our
its
thinkers of
nations
human
It
soul.
its
firm stand
inner
upon
How
conflict.
is
oriental
be
life
and not upon that
by the economic dragons

all
be sent
to
drainage of our life-blood
in the teeth of the
in the
do not wel-
outer aspect and rich in
Let our civilization take
gain.
even though
lord of the Immortals.
by the
its
153
is
the task set before the
who have
faith
a sign of laziness
and
impotency to accept conditions imposed upon us

by others who have other ideals than ours. We
should actively try to adapt the world powers to
its
own
the above you
will
guide our history to
From
an economist.
there
is
there
is
am
a law of
infatuation of
for him.
And
man
yet
perfect end.
know
that
am
not
willing to acknowledge that
demand and supply and an

for
more things than
I will persist in
are good
believing that
such a thing as the harmony of complete-
NATIONALISM
154
ness in humanity, where poverty does not take
where defeat
may
victory, death to immortality,
and
away
his riches,
pensation of Eternal Justice those

last
may
lead
him
in the
who
to
com-
are the
yet have their insult transmuted into
a golden triumph.

(Written in the Bengali on the last day of last
century)
THE
last
sun of the century sets amidst the blood-
red clouds of the
West and the whirlwind
of
hatred.
The naked
passion of self-love of Nations, in
its
drunken delirium of greed, is dancing to the

clash of steel and the howling verses of
vengeance.
The hungry
violence
of the Nation shall burst in a
self
of
fury
from
its
own
shameless
feeding.
For
And
it
has
made
licking
it,
the world
crunching
its
it,
big morsels,
It swells
and swells
food,
and swallowing
it
in
NATIONALISM
158
Till in the
midst of
its
unholy feast descends the
sudden shaft of heaven piercing
its
heart of
grossness.
The crimson glow of light on the horizon is not the

light of thy dawn of peace, my Motherland.
It
is
the glimmer of the funeral pyre burning to

ashes the vast flesh,
the self-love of the
dead under
Nation,
its
own
excess.
waits behind the patient dark of the
Thy morning
East,
Meek and
Keep watch,
silent.
India.
Bring your offerings of worship for that sacred

sunrise.
Let the
first
hymn
voice, and
of
its
welcome sound
in
your
own
great
sing,
"Come, Peace, thou daughter
of God's
suffering.
Come
with thy treasure of contentment, the sword
of fortitude,
And meekness crowning thy
forehead."

Be not ashamed,
my
159
brothers, to stand before the
proud and the powerful
With your white robe
of simpleness.
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the
freedom of the
soul.
Build God's throne daily upon the ample bareness of your poverty
And know
is
that
what
is
huge
not everlasting.
is
not great and pride
FOR THE BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA
MACMILLAN AND COMPANY HAVE

PRINTED A SPECIAL EDITION OF THIS
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UC-NRLF

THE BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and Electrotypcd

States during the winter of 1916-17.

based upon two lectures de-

Japan before the Imperial University

United States late

India," written in the

the poet's reflection

country, and gives

at the conclusion of the

of the last century.

THE SUNSET OF THE CENTURY

NATIONALISM IN THE WEST

NATIONALISM IN THE WEST

being shaped according

These have offered

us problems and claimed their solutions from us,

have been different

peoples of the earth, and in the

of the earlier period of Asiatic

to struggle with the scarcity of their

easiest solution that they

could think of was to organize their whole population,

men, women, and children, into bands of

the easiest path

nature were not as com-

were as simple as that of a pack

hungry wolves, then, by this time, those hordes

But man, when confronted with

man, that he has

responsibilities to the higher faculties of his nature,

by ignoring -which he may achieve success that

death trap to him.

India has been given her problem from the

the race problem.

Races ethnologically different have come

This fact has been and

continues to be the most important one in

our mission to face

our humanity in dealing with

There are other peoples

obstacles in their physical surroundings to over-

come, or the menace of their powerful neighbours.

They have organized

they are not

only reasonably free from the tyranny of Nature

NATIONALISM IN THE WEST

and human neighbours, but have a surplus of it

being internal, our history

has been the history of continual social adjust-

ment and not that

been trying to accomplish her task through

regulation of differences, on the one hand, and

the spiritual recognition of unity, on the other.

She has made grave errors

dary walls too rigidly between races,

ing the results of inferiority in her classifications

often she has crippled her children's minds and

but for centuries new experiments

have been made and adjustments carried out.

Her mission has been

provide proper accommodation to her numerous