our reach. In the smallest elements of experience we may find the greatest and most profound values of life; in the humblest natures we may find the noblest traits. And we can do this by cultivating love, in the light of which our natures will expand and become more and more tolerant of the whole world. If we accept this doctrine we shall seek not so much the differences in others, and, finding them obstacles in the way of our expansion, trample them under our feet by brute force; we shall seek rather in our fellowmen the human traits which are common with our own and by understanding them develop side by side without losing our individual distinctness. A beautiful literary expression of this philosophical thought is found in a prose poem of Turgenev, entitled The Dog. As the dog and he sit peering into each other's face, Turgenev, one of the most unprejudiced and tolerant of men, remarks:

He [the dog] wants, it seems, to tell me something. He is dumb, he is without words. He does not understand himself-but I understand him.

I understand that at this instant there is living in him and in me the same feeling, that there is no difference between us. We are the same; in each of us there burns and shines the same trembling spark.

Throughout A Song for Occupations and other poems, Whitman expresses the same feeling; he reiterates over and over again that we are all made of the same stuff, that no matter how different we may be externally, at bottom we have a common element which makes us all members of the same family. This spirit in our lives will eradicate from human society all the nefarious aspects-differences of castes and classes, religious pride, race hatred and race prejudices and make possible the higher social relationships. Here is the real message of Tagore to the West. If we, nations as well as individuals, he says, seek our common elements, we shall understand and respect one another. So far, we have emphasized our differences, and the result has been hostility and bloodshed. Let us turn to love and we shall have peace and good will among men.

In diagnosing the Western civilization, Tagore finds this spirit of love to be in abeyance, advocated only by a small minority, pushed out of the way by the great organizations known as nations. He finds that the idea of nationalism, and its offshoot, imperialism, constitute the great barrier, the concrete wall, which bars the entrance to the commonwealth of humanity. "When this organization of politics and commerce," he says in Nationalism in the West:

When this organization of politics and commerce, whose other name is the nation, becomes all powerful at the cost of the harmony of the higher social life, then it is an evil day for humanity. . . . When society allows itself to be turned into a perfect organization of power, then there are few crimes which it is unable to perpetrate; because success is the object and justification of a machine, while goodness is the end and purpose of man. When this engine of organization begins to attain a vast size, and those who are mechanics are made into parts of the machine, then the personal man is eliminated to a phantom, everything becomes a revolution of policy carried out by the human parts of the machine, requiring no twinge of pity or moral responsibility.

This motif Tagore repeats again and again in his other lectures on this subject. In Nationalism in Japan he says:

Before this political civilization came to its power and opened its hungry jaws wide enough to gulp down great continents of the earth, we had wars, pillages, changes of monarchy, and consequent miseries, but never such a sight of fearful and hopeless voracity, such wholesale feeding of nation upon nation, such huge machines for turning great portions of the earth into mincemeat, never such terrible jealousies with all their ugly teeth and claws ready for tearing open each other's vitals. This political civilization is scientific, not human. It is powerful because it concentrates all its forces upon one purpose, like a millionaire acquiring money at the cost of his soul. It betrays its trust, it weaves its meshes of lies without shame, it enshrines gigantic idols of greed in its temples, taking great pride in the costly ceremonials of its worship, calling this patriotism. . . . .

....

This is truly a harsh chastisement and a relentless probing into the innermost recesses of our hearts. But do not the facts justify Tagore's statement? Are they not applicable to any civilization in history which became callous of heart, looked upon its subjects as mere instruments of its power, and reduced them to a state of servitude? If Wells's Outline of History has taught us nothing new, it surely has brought this fact vividly before our eyes. And in the light of history we were destined to see more vividly than ever the significance of Tagore's analysis of the defects of Western nationalism in the awful spectacle of the great war. And what will be the outcome of this state of affairs? Unless a change of spirit takes place in Western civilization, is it not doomed to meet the same fate that has befallen every other civilization in history essentially the same in character as our own? Is not Tagore right when he says that "civilization can never sustain itself upon cannibalism in any form?" Is he not safe in prophesying that this state of affairs

cannot go on, for there is a moral law in this world which has its application both to individuals and to organized bodies of men. You cannot go on violating these laws in the name of your nation, yet enjoy their advantage as individuals. This public sapping of the ethical ideals slowly reacts upon each member of society, gradually breeding weakness, where it is not seen, and causing that cynical distrust of all things sacred in human nature, which is the true symptom of senility.

Here we have Tagore's diagnosis of, and remedy for, our present Western civilization. He is not for a moment unmindful of the great accomplishments of that civilization. He enumerates them over and over again. He simply avers that those accomplishments are naught if they are not infused with the spirit of universal service, and to preach this spirit is, he believes, the mission of the Orient to the Occident.

Our aspiration, [he says] is for a reality that has no end to its realization-a reality that goes beyond death, giving it a meaning that rises above all evils of life, bringing its own

peace and purity, its cheerful renunciation of self. The product of this inner life is a living product. It will be needed when the youth returns home weary and dust-laden, when the soldier is wounded, when wealth is squandered away, and pride is humbled, when man's heart cries for truth in the immensity of facts, and harmony in the contradiction of tendencies. Its value is not in its multiplication of materials, but in its spiritual fulfillment.

Cheerful renunciation of self; this seems to be, for the Western mind, the stumblingblock in Tagore's philosophy. His critics, such as Professor Herbertz, of Berne University, fail to reconcile our inheritance of the Hellenic idea-belief in our own character and destiny, in our personality as the product of the mother earth-with the "Indian idea of stretching ever wider our circle of thought and feeling until we lose our identity in cosmic ecstasy." But are these really incompatible values? Are they not in reality the two halves of the same unit-the perfect man? Is it impossible to believe in our own destiny, to develop our individuality, our own calling to the uttermost, and at the same time be scrupulous in our dealings with others, refrain from trampling under our feet countless other individuals who have as much right as we to develop their own personalities? Rather, has not this latter-the right of each and every individual to full personal development-really been the aim of struggling humanity through the many vicissitudes of its historical career? Has not this been the fundamental purpose of the recent democracies of the world within which a certain amount of success has been achieved among its individuals? If we believe this to be the ideal relationship between individuals, and even between autonomous groups of individuals within a democracy, why do we refuse to extend the principle to the relationship of nations with one another? Why is it impossible for one nation to develop its own powers by what economists call natural competition without interfering with another nation which has just as much right to develop its own powers? Nay, more: do we not only partially accomplish, not to say defeat, our

purpose if we, individually or collectively, use our talent and power for our own selfish ends? What is the object of developing our individualities if not for the purpose of serving humanity, helping the weak, educating the ignorant, upholding justice, freeing the slave, championing the cause of the oppressed? In doing so, says Tagore, we shall ever keep on developing the possibilities of our own personalities as instruments of good, and thus fulfil our supreme mission-attain the infinite within the finite.

This is the core of Tagore's philosophy of life, the fundamental of his ethical teaching: Develop your personality, maintain your individuality, but infuse it with the love of mankind, with the spirit of universal service. This moral canon, as we have seen, is equally applicable to the behavior of individuals, institutions, industrial organizations, as well as of nations. Furthermore, no individual or nation, says Tagore, can ignore this moral maxim with impunity, for it is as inexorable as any physical law.

IV

This is not a new teaching. It has been preached by noble personalities in ancient as well as in modern times. It is practically what was preached and practiced by Guatamala Buddha, by Lao Tse, by Jesus of Nazareth. It is essentially the same teaching as that of Dr. Foerster, whose words were quoted earlier. It coincides with the pronouncement of Woodrow Wilson, whose arduous experience of life and long brooding over the fate of our nation led him to the conviction that "our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit." It is identical with the great moral truth enunciated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, so crisply and definitely stated at the end of his brilliant essay on Napoleon, whose signal failure he attributes to Napoleon's insolent refusal to use his great talents for the good of all.