Page:The Renaissance In India.djvu/53

 it threw definitely the ferment of modern ideas into the old cultures and fixed them before our view in such a way that we are obliged to reckon and deal with them in far other sort than would have been possible if we had simply proceeded from our old fixed traditions without some such momentary violent break in our customary view of things. Finally, it made us turn our look upon all that our past contains with new eyes which have not only enabled us to recover some- thing of their ancient sense and spirit, long embedded and lost in the unintelli- gent practice of received forms, but to bring out of them a new light which gives to the old truths fresh aspects and therefore novel potentialities of creation and evolution. That in this first period we misunderstood our ancient culture, does not matter ; the enforcement of a reconsideration, which even orthodox thought has been obliged to accept, is the fact of capital importance.