Page:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/499

 property amongst them, will either lead to terrible disaster, or be inoperative, until the amount of property, that is, of desirable things in the world, is vastly, colossally, increased. To attempt to do that without strictly following the laws of political economy, the laws which deal with the wealth of nations, is like surveying, in defiance, or contempt, of the laws of geometry. It may well be that India, through all the ages, may possess a large number of philosophers, who do not concern themselves with material things at all, and that that spirit is widely extended amongst its people. Even in the bustling eager West we have had thousands of such in all the ages. We have thousands now, whose inmost aspirations could not be better expressed than in the words of St Augustine, I think, "O amare, O ire, O sibi perire, O ad Deum pervenire !"

In our countries such people are the very salt of the earth, and I am not at all concerned to deny that they may be the same in Asia; but few of you belong, I should think, to that category. You have for good or evil drunk the fevering wine of modern European thought, and understand what we, in the West, mean by progress. My appeal to you is in favour of your devoting yourselves to what is undoubtedly real progress, so far as it goes, not to its hollow counterfeit. But some of you have no turn for taking part in religious or social discussions, or for engaging in any form of active and stirring labour.

To such, the first question I would put, is this: "Are you satisfied with what you are doing for your own literature? How many of you, whether speaking Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Canarese, Tulu, or any other tongue, are doing anything, or seriously proposing to do anything, to add to the literature of those languages, or any of them?" I do not refer to books of information that you may have published in those languages, books merely imparting a little of the knowledge of the West— they are good in their own way—but to books containing something that is at once new and striking, books adding, if it be only by one verse or one paragraph, to the things already existing in the world, which are acknowledged to be beautiful, or to be at once new, and true. Some of you, however, will object: "But who is sufficient for these things? How many are there, who can add even one sentence, worthy to live, to the literature of the world, or one new fact to the sum of human knowledge?" More, I suspect, than is generally believed. Who made your excellent Tamil proverbs? Who found out the virtues of many of your common weeds? But pass that by. Men may, however, lead most worthy, and honorable lives,