Page:The Renaissance In India.djvu/59

 India, as in her past, the real originative and dominating strain. By spirituality we do not mean a remote metaphysical mind or the tendency to dream rather than to act. That was not the great India of old in her splendid days of vigour,— whatever certain European cri-tics or interpreters of her culture may say,— and it will not be the India of the future. Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her men-tality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction ; but Indian metaphysics are as far removed from the brilliant or the profound idea-spinning of the French or the German mind as from the broad intellectual generalising on the basis of the facts of physical science which for some time did duty for philosophy in modern Europe. It has always been in its essential parts an intellectual ap-proach to spiritual realisation. Though in later times it led too much away from