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<b><FONT size="4">The
Other Aspect of European Culture</FONT></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;"><BR>
</span></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Two cultures, one of Europe and the other of Asia, are
now contending with each other to have sway over humanity; and it has
been for some time past a moot problem with the best representatives
of either, whether a synthesis, at least a reconciliation of the two
is possible or not. Europe's distinctive trait, it has also been
pointed out, is her hold upon life and the actualities of material
existence; whereas the thing that characterises Asia as a separate
organism is her grasp of the Spirit, the realities of a subtle world.
Thus considered, the two need not, it is urged, be necessarily
contradictory, they may as well be complementary to each other; and
if mankind has the will to it, a union, even a fusion of them to form
a richer and more complete whole, should not be altogether
impracticable.</span></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">But there is a point of doubt. Two different and
distinct entities, in order to be complementary, must first of all be
commensurable; that is to say, both must belong to the same order of
reality, there must lie between them something fundamentally common
which would give them a similar mode of being, a parallel rhythm of
movement. Otherwise, two entities that are not only different but
disparate can never be brought together to complement each other.</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">So it is contended by some
dissident voices that Europe and Asia are, as a matter of fact,
different and disparate and incommensurable bodies – they belong to
categories that are as poles asunder; and therefore the twain can and
shall never merge nor meet. For Europe, on the one hand, with her
materialistic and mechanistic culture, forms one indivisible unity,
her entire life in its manifold expression is moulded according to a
definite pattern, forming a closed circle; on the other hand, Asia
basing herself upon the spiritual and the</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="text-indent:0.41cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 148</span></P><hr>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">other world has in quite a
different way fashioned an altogether different culture-complex. One
cannot take some spiritual element out of Asiatic culture and mix it
with some profane element extracted from European culture, serving
the product to humanity as its universal Ideal. The details – the
multitudinous forms and forces – that make up an integral whole are
irrevocably determined by 'a basic intuition which is the soul of
that integrality; the entire edifice is a compact unity-each piece of
brick, every bit of space is. in its own place and has its own
function by virtue of a dominant, a compelling Idea. Like an object
of art, even like a living organism, a &quot;body cultural&quot; is
inviolable in its self-sufficient and jealous com&shy;pleteness.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">In other words, the difference
between Europe and Asia is the difference between two species; and
there can be no fruitful union between them. So, the meeting and
fusion of Europe and Asia is nothing but a barren ideal, a chimera.
It is a hope and a desire cherished, no doubt, by sentimental
visionaries, but it is bound to come to grief in the end, when
brought to face the realities of life and the stern forces that shape
the forms of the concrete world.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">But is it after all an
incontrovertible fact that Europe is Europe and Asia Asia? It is now
too late in the day to maintain that Asia was always dreamy and
metaphysical and that she always lacked the hold upon concrete
reality. On the contrary, every new additional information regarding
her past is continually bringing to light the fact that Asia was no
less efficient than Europe in matters worldly and material; she had
as great, if not greater control over the brute reality than the
latter can claim even today. Only her conquest of the spiritual
realms was also as efficient and sovereign.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Nor is it a fact that Europe is
and has been merely profane and materialistic in her outlook and
attainment. The godless and mechanistic civilisatioI1. which is
rampant today in Europe is a distemper of comparatively recent
growth. Its farthest limit .does not go beyond the sixteenth or the
fifteenth century when the first seeds were sown by the Humanists of
the Renaissance. It sprouted with the rationalists of the eighteenth
century and the French Revolution cleared the ground for its free and
untrammelled growth. But only in the nineteenth</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.34cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 149</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">and the twentieth centuries has
</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">it </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">reached such vast and disconcerting proportions as to
swallow all Europe's other motives and velleities and to appear as
the only form of her life-expression. But in the earlier centuries,
those that preceded the New Enlightenment, Europe had a different
conception of culture and civilisation, she possessed almost another
soul. The long period that </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">is </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">known as the mediaeval age was
not after all so dark and unregenerate as </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">it </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">has been the
familiar custom to represent </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">it. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Christian Europe – the
Europe of cathedrals and monasteries, of saints and sages, of St.
Francis and St. Teresa, of Boehme and Bernard, of Thomas Aquinas and
Augustine, had an enlightenment all her own, which was real and
living and dynamic, possessing a far-extending and deeply penetrating
influence; in as much as </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">it </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">was </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">this </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">that called into
being and fashioned the more abiding forces, which underlie Europe's
cultural life and social institutions, although latterly &quot;fallen
on evil days and on evil tongues&quot;.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Even the still more ancient
Gr</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&aelig;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">co-Latin Europe which was
not, to a general and apparent view, quite spiritual or
other-worldly, was yet not so exclusively materialistic and profane
as modern Europe. Classical culture was rationalistic, without doubt;
but that rationalism was the function of a sublimated intelligence
and a refined sensibility and served as a vehicle for a Higher
Perception – a ratiocinative and ultra-logical mind, like that of
Socrates, could yet be so passive and upgazing as to receive and obey
the commandments of a Dremon; whereas the rationalism, which </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">is </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">in
vogue today and to which orthodox </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Scientism </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">has affixed its
royal sign manual, </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">is </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">the product of mere brain-power,
vigorous but crude, of an intellect shut up in its self-complacent
cunningness, obfuscated by </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">its </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">infinite but shallow
inquisitiveness.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.44cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">And the secret soul of this
Classical culture was not inherited by those who professed to be </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">its
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">champions and adorers – the torch-bearers of the New
Enlightenment; no, its direct descendants were to be found among the
builders of the Christian civilization. Plato and Pythagoras and
Heraclitus and the initiates to the Orphic and the Eleusinian
mysteries continued to live in and through Plotinus and Anselm and
Paracelsus and the long line 'Of Christian savants and sages. The
Middle Age had </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">its </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">own spiritual discoveries and achievements
founded</span></FONT></P>
			<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=center STYLE="line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 150</span></P>
</P><hr>
			<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
</span><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">on the Cult of the Christ; to
these it added what it could draw and assimilate from the mystic and
spiritual traditions of the Gr</span><FONT FACE="Luxi Serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">&aelig;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">co-Latin
world. The esoteric discipline of the Jewish Kabala also was not
without influence in shaping the more secret undercurrents of
Europe's creative and formative genius. The composite culture which
they grew and developed had undisputed empire over Europe for some
ten or twelve centuries; and it was nothing, if not at heart a
spiritual and religious and other-worldly culture.</span></FONT></p>
			</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Herein lay Europe's soul; and to
it turned often and anon the gaze of those who, among a profane
humanity, are still the guardians of the Spirit – poets and artists
– who, even in the very midst of the maelstrom of Modernism, sought
to hark back, back to the rock of the ages. The mediaevalism and
archaicism of which a Rossetti or a Morris, for example, is often
accused embodies only a defensive reaction on the part of Europe's
soul; it is an attempt to return to her more fundamental
life-intuition.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">In this connection the history
of Ireland's destiny affords an instructive study, since it is
symbolic also of Europe's life-course. It was the natural idealism,
the inborn spiritual out&shy;look which Ireland possessed of yore –
the Druidic Mysteries were more ancient than the Greek culture and
formed perhaps the basis of the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries-which
impelled her foremost to embrace the new revelation brought on by
Christianity. As she was among the pioneers to champion the cause of
the Christ, she became also the fortress where the new cult found a
safe refuge when the old world was being overwhelmed and battered to
pieces by the onrush of peoples of a dense and rough-hewn nature.
When continental Europe lay a: desert waste under the heels of the
barbarians that almost wiped away the last vestiges of the Classical
Culture, it was Ireland who nursed and reared the New Child in her
bosom and when the time came sent Him out again to reconquer and
revivify Europe. Once more when the tide of Modernism began to rise
and swell and carry everything before it, Ireland stood firm and
threw up an impregnable barrier. The story of Ireland's struggle
against Anglo-Saxon domination is at bottom the story of the struggle
between Europe's soul power and body power. Ireland was almost slain
in the</span></FONT></P>
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<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 151</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">combat, physically, but would
not lose her soul. And now she rises victorious at long last, her
ancient spirit shines resplendent, the voice of the Irish Renaissance
that speaks through Yeats and Russell * heralds a new dawn for her
and who knows if not for Europe and the whole West?</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Is it meant that &quot;Mediaeval
obscurantism&quot; was Europe's supreme ideal and that the cry should
be: &quot;Back to the Dark Age, into the gloom of Mystic
superstitions and Churchian dogmas?&quot; Now, one cannot deny that
there was much of obscurantism and darkness in that period of
Europe's evolution. And the revolt launched against it by the heralds
of the Modern Age was inevitable and justified to some extent; but to
say that unadulterated superstition was what constituted the very
substance of Middle Age Culture an&amp; that the whole thing was more
or less a nightmare, is only to land into another sort of
superstition and obscurantism. The best when corrupt does become the
worst. The truth of the matter is that in its decline the Middle Age
clung to and elaborated only the formal aspect of its culture,
leaving aside its inner realisation, its living inspiration. The
Renaissance was a movement of reaction and correction against the
lifeless formalism, the dry scholasticism of a decadent Middle Age;
it sought to infuse a new vitality, by giving a new outlook and
intuition to Europe's moribund soul. But, in fact, it has gone a
little too far in its career of correction. In its violent enthusiasm
to pull down the worn-out edifice of the past and to build anew for
the future, it has almost gone to the length of digging up the solid
foundation and erasing the fundamental ground-plan upon which
Europe's real life and culture reposed and can still safely repose.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">If then Europe can cut across
the snares that Modernism has spread all about her and get behind the
surface turmoils and ebullitions and seek that which she herself once
knew and esteemed as the one thing needful, then will she really see
what the East means, then only will she find the bond of indissoluble
unity with Asia. For the Truth that Europe carried in her bosom is
much bigger than anything she ever suspected even in her best days.
And she carried it not with the full illumination and power of a
Master, but rather in the twilight consciousness of a servant or a devotee. </span></FONT></P>
			<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.47cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;"><BR>* </span><FONT STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">&quot;A. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">E.&quot;</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.47cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 152</span></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">The Truth in its purity flowed there for the most part much
under the main current of life, and its formulations in life were not
its direct expressions and embodiments but echoes and images. It is
Asia who grasps the Truth with the hand of the Master, the Truth in
its full and absolute truth and it is Asia who can show in fact and
life how to embody it integrally.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.33cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Europe's spiritual soul itself
in the last analysis will be found to be only a derivative of Asia's
own self. For all the Mysteries and Occult Disciplines – the
Christian, the Platonic, the Eleusinian and Orphic, the Kabalistic,
the Druidic – which lay imbedded in Europe's spiritual and
religious genius, when traced further up to the very source, will
carry us straight into Asia's lap, perhaps India's.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.3cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">And Europe in accepting or
embracing Asia comes back to the fountain-head pf her own inner being
and nature.</span></FONT></P>
<P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; text-indent:0.3cm; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 153</span></P>
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