108 ESSAYS IN NATIONAL IDEALISM.

not understand the full significance of what he says; but
•consider the deepening of European culture needed before
the peasant there could say, however blindly, that " The
world is but appearance, and by no means Thing-in-Itself ."
Secondly', the sacrediiess of all things—the antithesis
•of the European division of life into sacred and profane*
'The tendency in European religious development has been
to exclude from the domain of religion every aspect of
•t worldly' activity. Science, art, sex, agriculture, commerce
•are regarded in the West as secular aspects of life, quite
apart from religion. It is not surprising that under such
•conditions, those concerned with life in its reality, have
• come to feel the so-called religion that ignores the activities
-of life, as a thing apart, and of little interest or
worth. In India, this was never so; religion idealises
•and spiritualizes life itself, rather than excludes it.
This intimate entwining of the transcendental and
material, this annihilation of "the possibility of profanity
or vulgarity of thought, explains the strength and perma-
nence of Indian faith, and demonstrates not merely the
stupidity, but the wrongness of attempting to replace a
religious culture by one entirely material.

Thirdly, the true spirit of religious toleration, illus-
trated continually in Indian history, and based upon a
•consciousness of the fact that all religious dogmas are
formulas imposed upon the infinite, by the limitations of
the finite human intellect.

Fourthly', etiquette,—civilisation conceived of as the
production of civil men. There is a Sinhalese proverb that
runs, " Take a ploughman from the plough, and wash off
his dirt, and he is fit to rule a kingdom." " This was
spoken," says Knox, " of the people of Cande Ucla (the
highlands of Ceylon) because of the civility, understanding,