of Elizabeth be the outcome of the stirring of the minds of Englishmen
through the discovery of a new world, the multiplication of books, the
revival of learning, and the reformation of religion, how shall we
measure the effect upon the acute Indian mind of the far more
stimulating influences of this Indian Renaissance! What comparison, for
example, can be made between the stimulus of the new learning of the
sixteenth century and the stimulus of the first introduction to a modern
library? It would be an exaggeration to say that the Indian mind is now
showing all its power in response to the stimulus. But it is everywhere
active, and in some spheres, as in Religion and Philanthropy, in
History, in Archæology, in Law, in certain Natural Sciences, individuals
have already done service to India and contributed to knowledge.
Glimpses of great regions, unexplored, in these domains are rousing
students to secure for themselves a province. "More copies of books of
poetry, philosophy, law, and religion now issue every year from the
press of British India than during any century of native rule."[8] Of
course it would be misleading to ignore the fact that reaction as well
as progress has its apostles among the awakened minds of India. Much of
the awakened mental activity, also, is spent--much wasted--on political
writing and discussion, which is often uninformed by knowledge of
present facts and of Indian history. The general poverty also, and the
so-called Western desire to "get on," prevent many from becoming in any
real sense students or thinkers or men of public spirit.

Indian conservatism, therefore, we contend, is not the insurmountable
obstacle to new ideas that many superficially deem it to be.