Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/170

 course, but also its quality, its temper, its spirit.

In other words, it once flowed from the fountain head of the soul—it was essentially all soul. It flows to-day from the fountain head of the mind—it is essentially all mind. But just as it was tempered in the past with material and intellectual counter-currents, it is tempered to-day with a counter-current of spirituality.

This interaction of forces has curious results. For while the Western world is experiencing at present a spiritual revival, the East is going through the puerperal pains of nationalism and freedom. But there is a tendency in both worlds of adopting measures that the other has renounced, of accepting what has been proven to be false or impractical, of renovating and wearing what has been long discarded. Moreover, in their eagerness to imbibe the spirit of the times or to harness for their benefit both its currents and counter-currents, the Orientals are in danger of losing the most precious heritage of their