The Calcutta Review, Vol 124 January 1907 Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The Calcutta Review, Vol. 124: January 1907

Oriental 'isms,' are fatal to that vigorous push which has wrought Western civilisation. Desire is the social force and where there is no desire, no will, there 15 no force, no social energy. Now, despite the writer's wide erudition, this statement repeats the error of lumping under one head all Oriental isms as associated with one particular mental attitude. That the attitude in question exists is true but it is but one amongst others diametrically opposed thereto, even in the case of that above mentioned Shintoism - the national creed of Japan now scattering to the four winds by her performance all the compla cent prepossessions such as the preceding, wherein Westerns gratify their sense of superiority. We may also note in passing the underrating here of the debt of Western Industrial expansion too, the legacy of achieve ment in the arts of life bequeathed by the primary civilisation of the nearer East of Egypt, Chaldoea, and Phcenice - to the polity of Europe; machinofacture being the quite recent outcome of said expansion.' Before considering in their salient features the leading ideas of Eastern speculative philosophy, and their rela tion to the denial of the will within the limits of our space, a few words are necessary respecting the notions pervading what may be distinguished therefrom as the mass mind of the East; of those ignorant, and there fore superstitious classes, that constitute unfortunately, the majority of mankind.

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