Benoy Kumar Sarkar

“ Thus considered, national achievements and self-realisations at any one epoch are only some of the symptoms of the total world-culture of the age;—and though ends in them- selves from the standpoint of race-consciousness, are mere means to, or unlooked-for consequences of, the situation of the human race at the time. The growth or decay of a literature and the acquisition or loss of liberty are, no doubt, of momentous consequence to the life and fortunes of a nation ”

“ THE development of all living organisms is effected through certain energies and substances that are conducive to the growth and manifestation of life. It is the environment and physical surroundings that supply these life-sustaining factors to the organisms. And this physical universe is not only the feeder and sustainer of living beings, it is also the field of their activity as well as the abode in which they grow and reproduce themselves. Hence the action and reaction between the living organism and the environment regulate all the conditions of its life-history. ”

“ No republic in mankind's ancient history can surpass the Sākiya republic in the magnitude of its influence on world-culture. It had authority over a region which has for two thousand and five hundred years been the Jerusalem of Buddhism, the Tenjiko of the Japanese, and the Tien-chu (Heaven) of the Chinese. Shākya the Buddha (or Awakened) was, as the name implies, a citizen of the commonwealth of the Sākiyas. His father and brother were archons of this state. The common tradition that Shākya renounced princedom is erroneous. For he was not a prince at all, but only the son of a president. ”

“ Thus the Rights of the Individual, established by the French Revolution in the field of political action, have led to the declaration of the privileges of the proletariat and the lower classes of society, have made literature and art spiritual and romantic, have established religion on the solid ground of social service and philanthropy, and by giving an impetus to bold, independent thinking have succeeded in revolutionising the Sciences. ”

“ If the affairs of man are very strange and have no natural and necessary connection between one another, if the rise and fall of nations, the propagation of religions or the extinction of industries, the loss of liberty or the foundation of a constitution are really the results of accidents and cannot be foreseen, what can possibly be the aims and ideals of human life, what the sources of inspiration that may encourage man in his struggle for existence? ”

“ The progress and degeneration of any of the races of men are thus the indirect effects and subsidiary results of the development of mankind as a whole. What an individual nation regards as the principal factor of its own progress, as the chief and indispensable element of its own glory, is nothing but a mere by-product of the general process of the whole of human affairs. ”

“ No man can ever exist by ignoring any one of the forces and materials that make up the world he lives in; he has to reckon the agencies that are perpetually influencing himself as well as other men. A study of the conditions of other men is thus the means to a proper understanding of his own situation in the struggle for existence. And, similarly, in the case of a community or a people, the first problem in the struggle is to discover the friends and foes—the favourable and unfavourable circumstances that may co-operate with or militate against its growth and development ”

“ The growth in prosperity and freedom of a community or the decay of its life and liberty does not depend solely on its own needs of advancement and progress, and is not effected solely by the working of its own resources. ”

“ No organism can realise its individual perfection absolutely independent of all other organisms. All the world-forces are jointly responsible for every manifestation of the life of an organism, so that the development, liberty, and degeneracy of one are inextricably bound up with the development, liberty, and degeneracy of all other organisms. ”

“ BUT there is a fundamental difference between man and the lower organisms as regards the relations with the environment. Though, no doubt, it is the conditions in the surrounding world that mould and modify the life and form of every living organism, it is man alone of all created beings that can make his own environment and create the opportunities, or, at any rate, rearrange the forces of the world, according to needs of his own development. ”

“ Consequently lovers of economic independence and national unity began to range themselves on the side of religious toleration and freedom of conscience; and so not only theologians and religious leaders, but statesmen and politicians, educationists and literary men as well, regulated the movements of the times. And so the Peace of Westphalia settled not only the religious disputes, but solved also some of the political problems of the age and determined the boundaries of Spain, France, Prussia, Sweden, and Holland. ”

“ The prosperity and adversity, growth and decay, as well as freedom and subjection of each individual community at any one time, in one word, the destiny of each nation acts and is acted upon by the conjuncture of all the forces of the Universe. ”

“ The operation of the manifold forces of nature, the attempts of each organism to utihse the environment according to its own needs, and the modification of its organs through the assimilation of the surrounding substances—all contribute their quota to its special growth and development. The life and individuality of each single organism are controlled and influenced by the sum-total of all those processes and products of Nature that arise out of the needs of every other organism for growth and development. ”

“ Religion, industry, state, education, and literature have been consciously transformed by the heroic efforts of such great men of the world, and these conscious and artificial transformations of the several aspects of social life have been the constituents of a new environment and thus the seeds of Renaissance. ”

“ And the modifications in the living world owing to the mutual alliance and rivalry of the organisms as well as the new forces that are being perpetually created by the eternal struggle for existence in the universe have their part to play in moulding the life-history of every organism. ”

“ The peculiar international diplomacy of England, Russia, France, and Turkey, by which each was pursuing its own interests according to opportunities, gave rise to such an arrangement of the political forces, and such a distribution of the powers of Europe into foes, friends, and neutrals, as led inevitably to the freedom of Greece and revolutions in France, Germany, and Italy. ”

“ Hence, for a proper understanding of any of the conditions of a single people, it is absolutely necessary to realise the whole situation of the human world at the time, and minutely study the array of world-forces that has been the result of mutual intercourse between the several peoples in social, economic, intellectual, and political matters. ”

“ The causes of revolutions lie mostly in the power of transforming the surrounding conditions, e.g., that by which man can alter the relation of the world-forces with one another and bring about new international arrangements. It is such creations of circumstances and new conditions in the environment that are really responsible for the diversity of national fortunes during the same age, e.g., industrial revolution in one country but political decadence in another, or religious propagandism among one people and literary enthusiasm among another ”

“ Historical studies, also, have been attacked by this principle of isolation and specialisation, and have had their boundaries confined exclusively to the facts and phenomena of the statal life of a people. Workers in the field of history consider their sole responsibility to be the study of only the political affairs of a community, e.g., administration of the state, international diplomacy, wars and treaties, expansion and secession of territories, growth or decay of the sense of nationality or political unity. ”

“ Thus what is extremism in general thought and philosophy is idealism in art and literature; is transcendentalism and mysticism in religion; assumes the form of Socialism, a desire for equality and creation of opportunities for the fullest development of all in socio-economic matters ”

“ And so history must necessarily be incomplete and quite unable to guess the future destiny of mankind or to suggest the lines of advance suitable to any stage, so long as it does not concern itself with the whole of human life and its thousand and one manifestations. ”

“ It is this development of nations through international relations, and the dependence of national destiny on the character of the surroundings, that explain why so many things in the history of the world seem to be accidental, strange, and sudden. ”

“ The pioneers of the future progress and advancement of humanity are those heroes who will be able to make the most of the inevitable changes that constitute the life-history of the world, and create new situations by timely and skilful readjustment of world influences. ”

“ Human life is also in this way influenced and controlled by the forces and substances in the universe. The growth, development, and liberty of Man depend on the resultant of all the mutual relations between the various agencies of the social and physical environments. It is the interaction of all friendly and inimical world-forces that gives to each human being its peculiar external characteristics and endows it with its proper mental and moral outfit. ”

“ Napoleonism becomes a political necessity when revolutions and disorders are imminent; and not sympathy of the people but their terror is the object aimed at by the rulers. So also "Special Tribunals" and "Councils of Disorder," martial laws, and a thousand other engines of repression have always to be resorted to by successful revolutionists in order to crush the old order of sovereigns. The history of the French Revolution is a record of coercions and counter-coercions, by the successively rising governments, of the parties just overthrown. ”

“ IT is also a fact that the fortunes of all those peoples who in modern times have contributed to the glory and wealth of human civilisation by winning their independence and autonomy from the grasp of foreign rulers, or by limiting the rights and powers of the sovereigns, were not made by their own efforts alone, but were mainly directed by the conjuncture of circumstances and the environment of forces and opportunities that were created by the mutual alliance and rivalry of the other nations. ”

“ It is the interaction and resultant of all the forces of Nature, both favourable and unfavourable to life, that determine the development and growth of every individual organism. And so the form and characteristics of every living being depend on the nature and strength of these contending forces. ”

“ The introduction of the principle of Division of Labour in the cultivation of science has no doubt led to rapid growth and development of the several sciences, and by differentiating and rigidly demarcating their scope and function has helped forward the speedy realisation of the end of each. ”

“ Christianity and Islam thus prospered, not solely because of the needs of moral regeneration and spiritual advancement; but the real cause of their rapid progress and development is to be sought in that unifying force of religion as a principle of association which, under the existing conditions of the world, supplied some of the real needs of humanity. ”

“ There have been cases in which the efforts of individuals or societies have been directed towards the spread of a new religion, but the result has been the creation of a new state or the making of a powerful military community. Sometimes the ruling classes or the subjects have endeavoured to raise the status of their country by developing its secular and political interests, but a new religious system with its peculiar dogmas and doctrines has displaced the old mythology and renovated the spiritual life of the people. ”

“ History has, thus, on the one hand, been able to supply out of its general stock special facts and materials for an altogether new branch of learning, viz., Political Science, and has thus contributed to the richness and variety of human knowledge. But these specialised activities have, on the other hand, withdrawn the attention of scholars from the study of the hopes and aspirations of man, the progress and decay of civilisations, and the ultimate gains and losses of humanity. ”