Page:The Renaissance In India.djvu/77

 Indian society is in a still more chaotic stage ; for the old forms are crumbling away under the pressure of the environ-ment, their spirit and reality are more and more passing out of them, but the facade persists by the force of inertia of thought and will and the remaining attachment of a long association, while the new is still powerless to be born. There is much of slow and often hardly perceptible destruc-tion, a dull preservation effective only by immobility, no possibility yet of sound reconstruction. We have had a loud pro-claimiug,—only where supported by reli-gion, as in the reforming Somajes, any strong effectuation,—of a movement of social change, appealing sometimes cru- dely to Western exemplars and ideals, sometimes to the genius or the pattern of ancient times ; but it has quite failed to carry the people, because it could not get at their spirit and itself lacked, with the exceptions noted, in robust sincerity. We have had too a revival of orthodox conser-