THE ORIENTAL HERITAGE
company, prefers to go at a reasonable, rational pace to his goal, if only to enjoy the scenery or to better enjoy the leisure moments of life?—or to be able, at least, to hear a fellow traveller who might be calling on the way for help? Who, indeed, when science, like the horned Gentleman in Faust, holds out before us every day a new temptation?
And even the Oriental stands bewildered, bewitched. He would turn back, if he could. He would follow, even to the end, if he did not have to run. But he will learn to read the directions—begin even with the hornbook—and take his time about it. If he fails eventually, however, in mastering the details of science or in grasping the immense scope of its vision or in the practical use of the machinery of progress, his failure should not be looked upon as a sign of hopeless incompetence or degeneration. His failure is the triumph of something innate in him, which, in spite of his yielding to the material seductions of the times, prevents him from becoming a
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