Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/163

 As subjects of the State, for instance, they have behind them centuries of submission checkered by anarchy and assassination. Blindly they adhere to authority, blindly they rebel against it. Their obedience and their insurgency are both born of religion,—prompted by the fanaticism of one faith or another. To be sure, they have often risen against tyrants, but against tyranny itself, seldom or never. They can see a throne, but not the things of which a throne is made.

On the other hand, they seldom lose, entirely and forever, their heritage of spiritual wisdom. And when they find it, after a religious upheaval or a period of political devastation, it soon becomes again a vital and vitalizing power. This is true of the past. But are they now in danger of losing it forever? I said that the Oriental mind, in its present state, can not encompass the vision of science. And the Orientals to-day can only see in science, in spite of all its seductions and promised blessings, a searchlight revealing distant material goals.