পাতা:অনাথবন্ধু.pdf/৫৭০

At the crossing. TT. WE are at the parting of ways: the angle of vision has changed. The whole civilized world has come to form quite a different opinion of India. Our rulers themselves are prepared to consider any constructive programme for the future administration of India. Since their occupation of the country they have been doing their very best, according to their own light, for the advancement of India. The Indians thenselves have caught up the idea and have been lut, the has come when the question of the future has proceeding along those lines tine forced itself upon the minds of all. It is not the Indians alone but all the nations of the world who are busy preparing plans for the future... “The whole state of Society' to quote Lloyd George," is, more or less, molt en and you can stamp upon that molten mass almost anything so long as you do so with re It is therefore firmness and determination. very important that the imprint which is left The present generation is the is a clear one. trustee of the future generations and the present generation owes it to God, to itself and to the future generations to see not only that the imprint which is left is a clear one but they have also to decido un pon the nature of the imprint to be left. The matter for our consideration now is, therefore, whether we should proceed along the lines on which we have been moving for the last hundred years or morewhether we should import en bloc western civilization and western culture with all their attendant institutions, political, social, commercial and industrial or whether we should strike a different line. consider if modern' civilization and modern We should carefully eulture are suited to the genius of the people of this country or if some modification in tla civilization and in that culture is required. In order to arrive at a proper conclusion the first cxamination of modern civilization and modern culture. thing necessary is a careful A tree is to be judged by its ruit, and the fruit of western civilizationu las not been found to be what was claimed for it. It has been asserted that western civilization is the most perfect civilization that the world has yet seen. Before examining this proposition from the general point of view, it would not be useless t() some of the highest products of that very sec what some of the western thinkers civilization-have got to say on the subject. lluxley says :-“ Even the best of modern civili zation appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. l do not hesitate to express the opinion that, if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the increase of know. ledge, the winning of a greater dominion over nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of want with its conconitant physical and moral degradation amongst the masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet which would sweep the whole affair away as a desirable consummation.' (“Government : Collected lossays, vol I.) Again, Marie Corelli, belonging to quite Anarchy or Itegimentation. a different school of thoughts, says: “Civiliziltion is a great word. It reads well-it is usel everywhere--it bears itself proudly in the lan guage. It is a big mouthful of arrogance and