Lately I went to visit some battlefields of France which had been
devastated by war. The awful calm of desolation, which still bore
wrinkles of pain--death-struggles stiffened into ugly ridges--brought
before my mind the vision of a huge demon, which had no shape, no
meaning, yet had two arms that could strike and break and tear, a
gaping mouth that could devour, and bulging brains that could conspire
and plan. It was a purpose, which had a living body, but no complete
humanity to temper it. Because it was passion--belonging to life, and
yet not having the wholeness of life--it was the most terrible of
life's enemies.
Something of the same sense of oppression in a different degree, the
same desolation in a different aspect, is produced in my mind when I
realise the effect of the West upon Eastern life--the West which, in
its relation to us, is all plan and purpose incarnate, without any
superfluous humanity.
I feel the contrast very strongly in Japan. In that country the old
world presents itself with some ideal of perfection, in which man has
his varied opportunities of self-revelation in art, in ceremonial, in
religious faith, and in customs expressing the poetry of social
relationship. There one feels that deep delight of hospitality which
life offers to life. And side by side, in the same soil, stands the
modern world, which is stupendously big and powerful, but
inhospitable. It has no simple-hearted welcome for man. It is living;
yet the incompleteness of life's ideal within it cannot but hurt
humanity.
The wriggling tentacles of a cold-blooded utilitarianism, with which
the West has grasped all the easily yielding succulent portions of the
East, are causing pain and indignation throughout the Eastern
countries. The West comes to us, not with the imagination and sympathy
that create and unite, but with a shock of passion--passion for power
and wealth. This passion is a mere force, which has in it the
principle of separation, of conflict.
I have been fortunate in coming into close touch with individual men
and women of the Western countries, and have felt with them their
sorrows and shared their aspirations. I have known that they seek the
same God, who is my God--even those who deny Him. I feel certain that,
if the great light of culture be extinct in Europe, our horizon in the
East will mourn in darkness. It does not hurt my pride to acknowledge
that, in the present age, Western humanity has received its mission to
be the teacher of the world; that her science, through the mastery of
laws of nature, is to liberate human souls from the dark dungeon of
matter. For this very reason I have realised all the more strongly,
on the other hand, that the dominant collective idea in the Western
countries is not creative. It is ready to enslave or kill individuals,
to drug a great people with soul-killing poison, darkening their whole
future with the black mist of stupefaction, and emasculating entire
races of men to the utmost degree of helplessness. It is wholly
wanting in spiritual power to blend and harmonise; it lacks the sense
of the great personality of man.
The most significant fact of modern days is this, that the West has
met the East. Such a momentous meeting of humanity, in order to be
fruitful, must have in its heart some great emotional idea, generous
and creative. There can be no doubt that God's choice has fallen upon
the knights-errant of the West for the service of the present age;
arms and armour have been given to them; but have they yet realised in
their hearts the single-minded loyalty to their cause which can resist
all temptations of bribery from the devil? The world to-day is offered
to the West. She will destroy it, if she does not use it for a great
creation of man. The materials for such a creation are in the hands of
science; but the creative genius is in Man's spiritual ideal.