Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Adyar Pamphlets
By Theosophical Publishing House
Issue No.142 - The Dawn of Another Renaissance
by Bhagavan Das (Published in 1931)
The Great New Movements of the Oversoul
GREAT waves of thought, of emotion, of action, most notably of thought, have been surging for the last fifty years, in the Oversoul of Humanity. They are of a somewhat new kind, such as are scarcely to be met with in the past, as recorded in what is recognised as "history by the modern mind. In Samskrt they call that Oversoul by the name of Sutr-ãtmã, literally the "Thread-Soul". The Arabic names are Rûh-ul-Âlam,-Rûh-ul-Qaum. Mass-mind, Mahat-Buddhi, Collective-Intelligence, Samashti-Buddhi, or even plain Public-Opinion, Loka-mata, are other recognised aspects and well-known names, Samskrt and English, of that same Thing. It is that Esprit de corps, that "public Spirit", which "threads", individuals together and makes it possible for them to speak in terms of the unitive and inclusive "We" instead of the separatist and exclusive "I". It is the principle of fellow-feeling, of sympathy; the principle which makes fellow-feeling and sympathy possible; for God is Love, in [Page 2] a very practical psychological sense. It has a curious knack of, and a unique faculty for, contracting into the narrowest familism and expanding into the widest humanitarianism, "smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest", as the Upanishats say. It ranges from just above sheer pure egoism (if such a thing is possible, which it is not) to the most extensive altruism, passing through many kinds and degrees of clan, tribe, group, horde, sect, creed, class, caste, profession, sub-race, nation, race, sex, etc.. In current symbols of ideas, Socialism stands for the We-feeling, Individualism for the I-feeling. There is radical and perpetual antagonism between the two. Yet, also, both are necessary, inevitable, always inseparable. Abolish one wholly; the other will also disappear at once, automatically. Sleep, pralaya, will be the result, wherein alone there is absolute equality, homogeneity, indeed identity, absence of all difference. The two are as the connected and continuous halves of a see-saw. Lower one end, the other is raised. Cut away one, the other falls down too. The universe is made up of such "pairs of opposites" in every department, in all aspects.
Synthesis of Inseparable Opposites
The problem before us is: Shall the individualistic-I-spirit be allowed to continue to prevail, in and by blind, frantic, wasteful competition, or shall [Page 3] a fair preponderance be given to the socialistic-We-spirit and co-operation reign throughout mankind as in a joint family ? Which side of the ethico-spiritual human see-saw shall be kept higher and which lower ?
Conscious Intellect and Individualism
The newness of the psycho-physical waves, above referred to, consists in this that they are attacking this problem more and more consciously, purposefully, deliberately, as perhaps was never before done in history; and that they are tending to raise the socialistic end of the see-saw higher. As is said in "theosophical" literature, in the very long evolution of the Human Race, developing faculty after faculty, stage by stage, it is the special work of the "fifth Sub-Race", i.e., the European, broadly speaking, of the "fifth Race", i.e., the Âryan, to develop self-conscious Intellect, the egoistic individualistic "fifth principle". The "modern" mind is therefore putting into terms of wakeful deliberate intellect, what was formerly experienced by the race with lesser conscious clearness, in the shape of emotion-instinct-intuition, with the intelligence half awake and half asleep, so to say, feeling rather than perceiving. We find the process recapitulated today, more or less definitely, in each individual life, growing through childhood and adolescence into maturity. Thus it comes about that the modern [Page 4] mind is discussing economical, political, social, and even psychological and religious problems (to say nothing of those of physical science) with a. wealth of minute detail of facts and figures, statistics and arguments, and almost overwhelmingly vast collections of information about almost all the countries of the earth, as was never done, or, at any rate, has not been found yet, in any previous historical period. And, be it noted, the strengthening of "individuality", i.e., of the psychical sense of separate personality (as distinguished from the earlier tribal "group"-feeling), and the intensification of "individualism", i.e., of individualistic competition, of ego-istic self-ish struggle, are the natural consequences and concomitants of this phase of human evolution, viz., the development of self-conscious intellect; also that, after sufficient experience of this phase, the tendency is natural, too, to a reaction, and a reversion to the "group" feeling, on a higher level, with richer contents of conscious intelligence, in the shape of Socialism.
The Reign of Individualism
Now, whatever may have happened in prehistoric, legendary, "ancient" purãnic times, such history as the modern mind believes in, seems — but the present writer's reading therein is very limited, it must be confessed — to present continuously the picture of the thought, feeling, and activity of the Individualistic spirit predominant. [Page 5]In Religion, human beings have, so long, mostly preferred to believe in an extra-cosmical, personal, individual, almighty Creator, sitting in heaven and doing with his creatures what he wills; and in his vicegerent, sitting on the earth, the chief 'priest’, 'wizard', 'magician', 'medicine-man', 'wise man' of the tribe or nation or race, as the case may be, the super-Brãhmana, Jagad-Guru, Lama, Pope, Khalîfa, etc., the theocrat, in brief. In Politics, the great conqueror and wholesale butcher, the emperor, the shãhan-shãh, the sãmrãt, chakravartî, sãrvabhauma, the super-Kshattriya, the autocrat (of whom the aristocrat and bureaucrat may be regarded as sub-varieties), has been given praise and glory and homage by mankind generally and historians specially. In Economics, the billionaire, the railway-king, the cotton-king, the wheat-king, the oil-king, and now the automobile-emperor, the super-Vaishya, the plutocrat, has been the subject of well-nigh universal admiration and envy. Mention must not be omitted here, of the "party-boss", master of "tammany" and "graft" and "boodle". who is reported to create and demolish presidents of republics and prime ministers of constitutional monarchies, by strokes of his pen on the leaves of his cheque-book; who can bring about wars between nations or stop them, at will, by giving or withdrawing financial help, just as may suit the business interests of Capital; who can reduce military valour and scientific knowledge (Kshattriya [Page 6] and Brãhmana), both, to the condition of purchased slaves, to further the purposes of that Capital, and prostitute what should be the holy defenders and promoters of human happiness, for the ruin of millions of homes in all countries, and who thereby firmly binds together "politics" and "economics", and newly justifies the earlier appellation of the "new" science, viz., "political economy". In War, until very recently, in East and West alike, the personal prowess of the commander of the army has been the main deciding factor, and a stray shaft or shot striking him down, has often sufficed to convert a victory into defeat; If an arrow had not found the eye of Harold at Senlac, the Norman would not have trampled down the Saxon in England. Eastern and western history is full of such great if’s.The side of the Good also, in human affairs, is similarly represented by great individual reformers of religion, like Vyãsa and Buddha, Zoroaster and Moses, Christ and Muhammad, or beneficent monarchs like Ashoka the Priya-darshî (the "loving-eyed"), Marcus Aurelius the Stoic-Saint, and Nausherwãn the Just, or great merchant-benefactors of their peoples, the builders of great temples and "pious works" and endowers of long-lasting charities, Tirumala Rãya and Trilochana, Bimal Sãh and Bhãmã Sãh, Johns Hopkins and Leland Stanford, Carnegie and Rockefeller, etc..In short, the individual "I" has been predominant. But only predominant; not all, not everything. [Page 7]The " We," the col-lec-tion, the "together-binding", of individuals, has obviously never been altogether absent; otherwise the "I" would have disappeared too; but it has been greatly sub-dominant, sub-ordinate.
The Turn of Socialism
The Thread-Soul, the Over-soul, seems latterly to have become somewhat surfeited with this experience. It seem to want a change, it has perhaps had enough taste of the pungent sweets and corrosive acids of excessive individualism, in the persons of the individuals who constitute the cells and tissues of its vast earth-wide and aeonian body. It perhaps now wishes to taste the milder sweets and salts, the more moderate and wholesome astringents and appetising bitters, of Socialism, in and through the masses of its constituent members.On the wide expanse of the plains of Thought, the plains of Philosophy, Science, Art, Religion, the idea of an Anima Mundi, a Vishv-ãtma, a Rûh-î-kul, a principle of Universal Consciousness, of a Common All-pervading life, of Unconscious Infinite and Eternal Ideation or Supra-conscious Will-and-Imagination, of an Oversoul of which all individual souls and bodies whatsoever are as the cells of a single organism, and which Oversoul, is, in its highest form, ultimately, none else than the eternally self-evident Self, Âtmã, in and of all living [Page 8] beings, the Self-proven proof of all proofs; the idea of the Organic Unity and Continuity of Nature as the raiment of the one Supreme Spirit or Self; the idea of the consequent Brotherhood of Man; the idea of Physical Science and Art extending on all sides of their present limits into super-physical regions, explorable by means of subtler senses latent and evolvable in the human being — these ideas are dawning more and more brightly on the horizon of those plains ( — though the advertisements, in the Western papers, especially those of the land of the Almighty Dollar, show that this growing harvest of "spirituality" is also being turned into cash diligently !). And the fresh Revelation, of consciously Scientific Religion, this time, seems likely to be made, not suddenly all at once and by a single individual as hitherto, but slowly and gradually by the large body of religious, scientific, and philosophical thinkers of the world working more or less deliberately in co-operation for the purpose.In Politics, monarchism is being replaced by republicanism, autocracy by democracy (—though democracy, in the far as well as the middle West, continues to be hood-winked and wire-pulled almost worse than ever before by the vested, interests of plutocracy cum aristocracy cum theocracy, and, if released from this control, threatens to become "mobocracy"). National clawings and fangings are being attempted to be abated by an International League of Nations ( — though that League does not include, [Page 9] does indeed deliberately exclude, in the spirit of the hypocrite and the bully combined, representatives of the bulk of mankind composed of the weaker exploitable and "mandate-"able peoples, so that even European observers have written of “the rapacious spirit ... of the mandatories"). It is much that the last vast surge of action, the Great War, has been interpreted as "a War to end War''(even though the snarlings and spittings continue as bad as ever almost). Thanks to the loss of flesh and blood, literal and metaphorical, there is at least wide-spread talk of a general disarmament, of shedding the fangs and claws ( — even though,instead of the remnants of these being shed, the broken ones are being, or, rather, have already been, repaired and renewed, and the lost ones replaced, and, moreover, are being supplemented with stronger and fiercer beak and talon of aeroplane and shark's teeth of submarine). Even generals who took "distinguished" part in the Great Butchery are lecturing to the public on the futility of tooth-and-nail methods. And peace-movements and youth-movements are growing in many countries.Russia has initiated, though in a setting of much violence, a tremendous experiment in a new form of political government expressly subservient to Economic Socialism, Karl Marx's Das Capital being reported to be the Soviet's Bible. But it seems to be already modifying the governing ideas thereof, as regards abolition of private property, [Page 10] considerably, so far as even Russians themselves are concerned, besides granting very long leases to foreign concessionaires and capitalist-profiteers, for developing the natural resources of the country, with entire exemption from the laws, as to limitation of property, which govern the Russians. And it is not at all possible yet to say how far the experiment will succeed. China is also engaged in a vast struggle with another experiment. Other countries, in the near West, Turkey, Afghanistan, Arabia, Egypt, are all heaving with new ideas of Government.More important to Indians than all these, and of greater promise for the well-being of humanity, is the bringing into the field of politics, by Mahãtmã Gãndhî, for the helping of the exploited weaker peoples, and amongst them too of the vast poorer masses especially, as their best weapon, of the method of passive resistance to, civil disobedience of, "non-violent non-co-operation" with, evil generally and all evil Government specially. This new application of the principle and policy of the ancient hartãl and tyãga of India (expressive of public disapproval and dissent generally, on all sorts of occasions, but mostly with reference to unpopular administrative measures of the ruler of the day), and of the modern Western economic "general strike", to the sphere of politics, is a true inspiration given to Mahãtmã Gandhî by the Oversoul of Humanity for reducing the horrors of [Page 11] war, and will, bye and bye, let us fervently hope, justify the anciently recognised fact, Ex Oriente Lux, in Politics as in Religion and Philosophy. It is a noble endeavour to demonstrate practically and on an immense scale in politics, the philosophical and ethical truth that hatred can be conquered more successfully by (intelligently and passively resistant, and not merely submissive and acquiescent) love than by hatred.Such are the signs of the new activity of the Oversoul, in Politics.In the domain of Economics also, the idea of co-operation is growing into greater and greater prominence and importance, co-operation between producers, between them and capitalists, between both and consumers; the idea that co-operation, "mutual alliance". is more necessary for the progress, the life, the very existence of the race than competition and struggle (as excellently expounded in Prince Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, almost the first scientific counter-blast to and corrective of the extreme elements in the Darwinian "mutual struggle" ).That Socialism can run into as great extremes (wherein lies error, invariably) as Individualism, is indicated, in the department of War, by the completeness with which so many nations were organised (in the way of compulsive autocratic despotic state-socialism) for the Great War, as they have never yet been organised for peace; and, in the department [Page 12] of Domesticity, by the practical promiscuity which is reported to be under experiment in Russia, on the avowed ground (as explained, e.g., by Mme. Kollontoi, a Russian official) that “the communist society has no use for the old form of the family" . . . the bourgeois monogamy" . . . which is “destructively individualistic in its influence”, and clashes with "socialist ideals"; that, "in short, the narrowing, selfish, clannish emotions of the family-life" should be expanded to communal dimensions. The great danger of state-socialism is that, with the very best of intentions, it may become the very acme, the reductio ad absurdum et horrendum, of individualism, of Bureaucracy, of the enslavement and mechanisation of the vast majority by a handful of individuals.
Different Aspects of Individualism and Socialism
We thus see that in all departments of human life, new ideas, new feelings, new enterprises, which are the reverse of those that have so far held sway, are slowly, with many backslidings, many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip’, slowly forcing themselves into prominence in human affairs.In terms of Psychology, the mass-mind rather than the single particular mind; of History, the people rather than the king and the hero; of Ethics, altruism rather than egoism; of Science, [Page 13] Unconscious or Supra-conscious Spiritualism rather than materialism; of Religion, Spiritual Rationalism and Universal Brotherhood rather than unquestioning faith, blind credo, sectarianism and shibboleths; in Politics, internationalism or humanism rather than nationalism, and democracy rather than autocracy; in Economics, regulated co-operation rather than free competition, society rather than the individual. All these pairs of opposites are inseparably allied aspects of the same ultimate, or rather, penultimate metaphysical pair, the One Spirit and the Many Matter; and, therefore the sufficient prevailing of any member of any pair over its opposite will be sooner or later followed by the prevailing of all its corresponding members in all the pairs over their respective opposites.
The Most Important Aspect
For our present purposes, the pair of Socialism and Individualism is the most important. The Dawn of "Another Renaissance", hoped for by large numbers of human beings in all countries today, depends upon the achievement of successful domination, by a just and rational (and not extremist) Socialism (we will not say "spiritual" socialism lest some worthy readers be repelled), over the now unrestrained Individualism.That all fundamental human problems have to be threshed out today primarily in the economic [Page 14] terms of Individualism and Socialism, is evidenced by the fact of the ever-growing literature upon the subject of the antagonism between these two; by the many varieties into which Socialism has become sub-divided, each advocated by an important and influential school of thinkers; by the frequency with which the terms meet the eye in ephemeral but influential journalism as well as in somewhat more lasting but less wide-reaching books, even when other subjects are being directly dealt with; by the fact that all the newer textbooks, professedly and expressly, of "political science", make sure to give large and prominent place to a discussion of this pair; by such a violently striking fact as that above referred to, of the political revolution of Russia being based on the economic ideas of Socialism; and, more than all else, by the simple, unmistakable, unquestionable fact that political institutions have no other just and rational aim than to subserve the economic needs of the people, in the larger sense of the word, from the Greek oikos, and the Samskrt okas, meaning the house, the home. States originate, and are developed, governments exist, and are maintained by the people, in order that "homes" may be happy, through the securing and the assuring (yoga and kshema) to the people, by the State and the Government, of all the requirements of the happy home; they have no other raison d’être. [Page 15]
The Close-Knit Web of Human Life
Now "homes" cannot be happy without an "equitable distribution", to all families, of the physical, as well as the psychical means of happiness, artha in Samskrt (i.e., in the broader view, the four purush-ãrthas, aims or ends of human life); for "men do not live by bread alone"; they want panem et circenses; and the circenses take different forms for different temperaments.Such equitable distribution is not possible without a fairly complete, comprehensively thought out, balanced "social organisation", in Samskrt, samãjavyasthã. Opportunist, haphazard, temporising patch-work might possibly palliate for a while, but will, like most quack remedies, ultimately aggravate the disease. When it is so serious as to have affected all the organs, nothing less than a complete overhauling, and constitutional treatment by alternatives, will do.Social organisation means "division of labour", karma-vibhãga.Successful and efficient division of labour is possible only when there is a scientifically correct "classification of psycho-physical temperaments" (idiosyncrasies, inclinations, dispositions, special abilities, vocational aptitudes, etc.), and all individuals are grouped into a few main "classes" corresponding with the main temperaments (the man of knowledge, the man of action, the man of [Page 16] acquisitive desire, all differentiating and specialising, by "spontaneous variation", out of the unskilled or little-skilled workman as the general plasm); i.e., when there is varna-vyavasthã or chãtur-varnya, not hereditary but temperamental.Such classification is possible only when the "educational system" is properly organised, and the aptitude ascertained, by appropriate methods, during the "school-and-college" days, of each individual pupil; the guru-kula system.The grouping of the people into vocational classes, and the division of the social labour between these classes, fulfil their purpose only when appropriate functions or vocations with appurtenant appropriate rights and duties, are assigned to persons of corresponding psycho-physical temperaments; dharma-karma-vibhãga.In order that the persons to whom the functions are assigned may discharge them adequately, means of subsistence must be assured to them. For this there must be a corresponding division of "means of livelihood", leading, as a consequence, to an equitable division of "the necessaries of life", and the securing of a minimum-comfort living to all; vrtti-vibhãga or jivikã-vibhãga. Such division of the means of livelihood between the several classes, the insistence that each order or class shall gain its living by pursuit of only such bread-winning or money, making avocations as are fixed for it, will regulate [Page 17] and restrain the play of the individualistic instinct, and will prevent the blind and frantic competition wherein each and every individual is permitted by the laissez faire policy, to grab at all kinds of "livelihood", i.e., money-making methods, at one and the same time. "Necessaries of life", it may be noted here, ordinarily mean the objects of the "physical" appetites, food .and clothing, spouse, dwelling-place, and subsidiaries.“Efficient and whole-hearted performance of appropriate function" by each individual is possible, further, only when a corresponding division is made of the "luxuries of life", the rewards and prizes of life. For, as said before, men do not live by bread alone, and they need other things for their psychical satisfaction, which things, incidentally, act as "individualistic" incentives to them to put forth the best that is in them, in their respective vocations. The "luxuries of life" toshanã-s rãdhasa-s, ãrãdhana-s are the objects of the "psychical" appetites or ambitions, eshanã’s. These are, mainly, honor, power, wealth, and amusement, corresponding to the four main temperament's. This partition of the main ambitions and satisfactions would, in Samskrt, be called, éshanã-toshanã-vibhãga.In order that all this may be done, all these divisions and partitions made and worked, it is necessary that there should be, firstly, [Page 18] wise "legislation", providing for them, and, secondly, firm "execution", giving actual effect to the provisions of the law. Finally, in order that there may be such legislation and execution, the people, whose "homes" are to be made happy, must "select and elect" from among themselves, their best and wisest, their most philanthropic and most capable, in short, the higher self of the community, to be the legislators and directors of the executive.So is the "virtuous circle" completed. So are all departments of human life, educational, political, economic, domestic, all "organs" of the social organism, closely and inseparably connected together, educative-legislative head, executive-regulative arm, sustentative - distributive trunk, all-supporting - industrial legs — all vitalised by the heart, viz., the "home". [ For fuller exposition of these and the following ideas, see the author’s The Science of Social Organization, or The Laws of Manu in the Light of Theosophy]
Psychical Causes and Effects
The genuinely "communistic" organisations of the communities of early Christian monks, dwelling in very large numbers in the monasteries of the Egyptian Thebaid, with every circumstance favourable for success, yet split on this rock, viz., the lack of the impetus to work, the incentives, [Page 19] the spurs to activity, of the toshanã-s, the objects of the various ambitions, above mentioned. As Gibbon says, in describing their attempts and their failure (in ch. xxvii of his great work on The Roman Empire): "The industry must be faint and languid which is not excited by the sense of personal interest." The practical experiments of Robert Owen and of other communists of the U.S.A. [Vide Leacock, Elements of Political Science, chapter “Socialism”] who have tried, in America, to establish socialist colonies, have split on the same rock. Many plans, regarding the abolition of all private property, of the Russian Bolshevik Soviet Government, are reported to have been upset by the same difficulty. Example of another kind of trouble, also psychical, is the case of experiments also tried in the West, especially the U.S.A., on the lines of a suggestion of J. S. Mill's, viz., workmen's unions buying up and managing factories. The managing officers, who have had to be appointed unavoidably, have, before long, developed the bureaucratic and autocratic spirit. But why need we go to these distant examples ? Why not go to the very familiar and close at hand archetype itself of all socialism and communism, the joint family of India? There, if anywhere, should the socialist maxim work, and does work to whatever extent it does so at all, the maxim, viz., "From each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs". The maxim governs the [Page 20] joint family only so long as a common ancestor remains alive. He or she is the human embodiment of the maxim, and also of a benevolent and righteous "state-force" which un-selfishly, lovingly, impartially, and therefore unresistedly, compels all the members of the family to observe it in their conduct. As soon as that strong thread breaks, the beads scatter apart. For selfishness, laziness, jealousies, in short, evil motives, gain the upper hand, which formerly had been kept under by the good motives felt and spread and imposed by the common ancestor. The socialist maxim suffers, in the hands of most workers, whether with brain or with muscle, "a great change, into something very strange" and very familiar, viz., "The least that I must do and the most that I can take". In the hands of the "mighty", it undergoes the Roman variation: " From all the provinces according to their utmost capacity, and to Rome according to the needs of its wildest and most luxurious caprice and avarice". This is the guiding maxim of the governments seated in the huge capital-towns of the advanced nations of the West, today, especially those "owning" "dependencies" (whose inhabitants cannot become emperors, as Roman provincials could) — the capital towns "which waste in each night's bout the wealth of kings". The new somewhat conventional "central authority". the "managing director" as distinguished from the deceased natural head, of the family, not [Page 21] inspired by the same love of all the youngers, and not inspiring the same confidence and respect, consciously or unconsciously begins to absorb the bulk of the property, the earnings, the advantages. Or the junior members shirk work but want to share profits and share alike. Or each mother tries to secure extra comforts for her children. Bickerings begin. The joint family breaks up into a number of separate families. The process is repeated generation after generation.Socialist-politicians have this patent psychological fact before their eyes, obtrusively. Yet the many schemes and books put forth by the various schools of socialism do not touch it, much less grapple with it, in its psychical aspect. There is perhaps a rare exception here and there. Thus the "conscientious objector" of the war-days, mathematician, sociologist, and philosopher, Mr. Bertrand Russell recognises (in his book, Roads to Freedom) that the causes of human troubles are psychological. He seems also to have caught the old Indian idea of duly utilising, and regulating, honor, power, and wealth as incentives, but has touched the subject very cursorily. Some writers of systematic text-books on Political Science also recognise that "Socialists are inclined to be too optimistic in underrating the psychological obstacles to their plan". The brilliant Mr. G. B. Shaw, in his Guide to Socialism (pub. 1928), while exceedingly lucid in most of his chapters, is equally [Page 22] unsatisfactory and completely unconvincing in his treatment of the " Incentive" to work and of "the will to equality" which he recognises to be the main desideratum, but for the creation of which, in any given nation or society, not to speak of mankind at large, he can. suggest no means.The difficulty is indeed a psychical one. Therefore psychical remedies, working by internal stimulation, automatically and perpetually from within each individual concerned — and all individuals are concerned — are needed. Devices, more or less mechanical, operating from outside, by external compulsion alone, are bound to fail. Compulsion from outside must be helped, if it cannot be wholly supplanted, by impulsion from within. If reports be true, in Bolshevik Russia peasants began to avoid producing more than was "necessary of life" for themselves more than they were allowed by the Soviet State to keep. Why should they produce more, for the State to take away, for alleged purposes which did not come home to them at all, in their daily life ? They saw no fun in doing so. They had not the necessary ''patriotism". Even "patriotism" requires aliment. That nourishment is psychical — honor, power, wealth, amusement. Let it be noted here that, while the joys of honor and power are obviously psychical, wealth too does not mean mere collections of securities, notes, coins or other [Page 23] physical objects as such, but the joy of artistic possessions and of helping (or in the case of the evil-minded, hindering) others. Manu, the oldest law-giver cf the oldest living civilisation of the earth (except perhaps the Chinese) and his compatriot philosophers, have left behind the needed guidance on this point, as to how the natural psychical appetites, the eshanã-s, the ambitions, of the different types of temperament, and their respective objects, toshanã-s, honor, etc., should be utilised as incentives to effort, as competitive, individualistic, motives to excel in socialistic public spirit and public service, for the organisation of the Society of the Human Race, and the due performance of the social labour. It is only when the sovereign-body, the central authority, the selected and elected (honorary, un-salaried) Legislature (and Director and Supervisor of the Executive) in a State, approximates, ethically as well as intellectually, in largeness of heart as well as ripeness of experienced wisdom, to the living patriarch of the joint family, that the longed-for reconciliation between Individualism and Socialism will be approximated to in that state. And this is not impossible if high ethical and intellectual qualifications are prescribed for "electees", and if electors are systematically educated to wisely choose persons possessing those qualifications and so approximating to the Higher Self of the "nation", or better, the "people", of the State. As a recent American [Page 24] writer says: [ Ford, Representative Government, pub. 1925] "How to reconcile representative institutions", i.e., self-government, "with good government has become the great problem of the day". This problem will be solved only when it is widely recognised that self-government means government by the higher, and not the lower, Self of the people, legislation by representatives who are ethically as well as intellectually worthy, who are disinterested and philanthropic as well as possessed of mature experience, special knowledge, sound judgment. This recognition of the Higher Self is the very quintessential secret of the solution of all the problems of Padagogics, Domestics, Economics, Civics, Politics, Ethics, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, all at once. In every department of human life in which human embodiments and exponents of this higher Self are allowed to guide the conduct of affairs — in every such department success and happiness will result. And such wide recognition is not impossible to achieve, if systematic teaching and preaching is carried on through press and platform, by even a few convinced and resolute persons to begin with, to expound the fairly obvious fact that legislators must be good and wise if laws are to be good and wise, and to explain what are "the outward symbols of the inward grace", the marks whereby the worthiness of the persons to be elected may be recognised, and the means by which they [Page 25] may be persuaded to shoulder the burden of the legislator's duty (instead of hustling and struggling, bribing and flattering and begging shamelessly, and intimidating and bullying, to secure votes). Then (as Mr. G. B. Shaw also recognises, at last, near the end of his large book) will self-government be justified of its name, and Individualism and Socialism be reconciled, and the Renaissance come.
