m of education,
based none too firmly on mere intellectualism, and bereft of all moral
or religious sanction; the application of Western theories of
administration and of jurisprudence to a social formation stratified on
lines of singular rigidity; the play of modern economic forces upon
primitive conditions of industry and trade; the constant and unconscious
but inevitable friction between subject races and their alien rulers;
the reverberation of distant wars and distant racial conflicts; the
exaltation of an Oriental people in the Far East; the abasement of
Asiatics in South Africa--all these and many other conflicting
influences culminating in the inchoate revolt of a small but very active
minority which, on the one hand, frequently disguises under an appeal to
the example and sympathy of Western democracy a reversion to the old
tyranny of caste and to the worst superstitions of Hinduism, and, on the
other hand, arms, with the murderous methods of Western Anarchism, the
fervour of Eastern mysticism compounded in varying proportions of
philosophic transcendentalism and degenerate sensuousness.

In so far as this movement is directed to the immediate subversion of
British rule, we need not exaggerate its importance, unless the British
Empire were involved in serious complications elsewhere which might
encourage the seditious elements in India to break out into open
rebellion. We are too often, in fact, inclined to underrate the strength
of the foundations upon which our rule rests. For it alone lends--and
can within any measurable time lend--substantial reality to the mere
geographical expression which India is. A few Indians may dream of a
united India under Indian rule, but the dream is as wild to-day as that
of the few European Socialists who dream of the United States of Europe.
India has never approached to political unity any more than Europe has,
except under the compulsion of a conqueror. For India and Europe are
thus far alike that they are both geographically self-contained
continents, but inhabited by a great variety of nations whose different
racial and religious affinities, whose different customs and traditions,
tend to divide them far more than any interests they may have in common
tend to unite them. We have got too much into the habit of talking about
India and the Indians as if they were one country and one people, and we
too often forget that there are far more absolutely distinct languages
spoken i