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has been a feverish rush even in the realm of science, for exploiting applications of knowledge, not so often for saving as for causing destruction. In the absence of some power of restraint, civilization is now trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some complementary ideal there must be to save man from that mad rush which must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He forgot that far more potent than competition, was mutual help and co-operation in the schema of life. And in this country through millenniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realization of the highest ideal of life—not through passive renunciation, but through active struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired nothing, has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won can enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience. In India such examples of constant realization of ideals through work have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through infinite transformations. Thus while the soul of Babylon and the Nile Valley have trans-migrated, ours still remains vital and with capacity of absorbing what time has brought, and making it one with itself.
The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at others’ loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except in the absence of all sources of distraction, and when
