ant, not benign.

[Sidenote: Indian life estimated by the economic standard of life's
value.]

The value of life and the little worth of life in India may be gauged in
another way. In the language of the political economist, the value of
human life in any country may be estimated by the average wage, which
determines the standard of comfort and how far a man is restricted to
the bare necessities of bodily life. Again, judged by that standard,
life is probably in no civilised country at a lower estimate than in
India, where the labourer spends over 90 per. cent of his income upon
the bare necessities for the sustenance of the bodies of his household.

[Sidenote: Indian pessimism only a mood.]

[Sidenote: Humanlife is rising in value]

[Sidenote: Pessimism is declining]

All that is true, and yet the conclusion is only partly true. In spite
of all such reasoning, and acknowledging that the physical
characteristics of India have largely made her what she is, politically,
socially, and even religiously, I venture to think that the pessimism of
India is exaggerated. Not a pessimistic temperament, but a mood, a mood
of helpless submissiveness, a bowing to the powers that be in nature and
in the world, seems to me the truer description of the prevailing
"pessimism." At least, if it be the case, as I have tried to show, that
during the past century in India, human life has been rising in value,
the pessimistic mood must be declining. Let us observe some facts again.
In a Government or Mission Hospital, _there_ is a European doctor taking
part in the offensive work of the dressing of a coolie's sores,--we
assume that the doctor's touch is the touch of a true Christian
gentleman. To the despised sufferer, life is gaining a new sweetness,
and to the high-caste student looking on and ready to imitate his
teacher, life is attaining a new dignity. That human life has been
rising in value is patent. The wage of the labourer has been steadily
rising--in one or two places the workers are become masters of the
situation; the rights of woman are being recognised, if only slowly; the
middle classes are eager for education and advancement; the individual
has been gaining in independence as the tyranny of caste and custom has
declined; the sense of personal security and of citizenship and of
nationality has come into being. Whatever the merits of the great
agitation in 1905 against the partition of the Province of Bengal, and
inconcei