New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments by John Morrison
page 81 of 233 (34%)
page 81 of 233 (34%)
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that, given opportunity, the nearer to truth the greater certainty of
survival. Given opportunity, as already postulated, the law of beliefs is the survival of the truest. Truth will prevail. [Sidenote: Dynamical elements of Christianity.] [Sidenote: Dynamical doctrines in other spheres] To the student of Christianity, again, that same concurrent testimony is profoundly interesting. Certain Christian ideas are being assimilated in India. Certain cardinal aspects of Christianity are proving themselves possessed of inherent force and attractiveness. They are showing that they possess force not from authority, or tradition, or as part of a system of doctrine, or as racially fitting, but when presented in new and often very unfavourable surroundings. Borrowing an expression from physical science, certain elements of Christianity are proving _themselves dynamical_. For in non-Christian India, ecclesiastical authority or tradition and the system of Christian doctrine as such, possess no force. By illustrations from other spheres, let us make clear what is meant by such dynamical elements of Christianity. The doctrine of the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection was put before the world by Darwin in 1859, and within the half century has been accepted almost as an axiom by the whole civilised world. Undoubtedly that doctrine has proved itself dynamical. On the other hand, a few years earlier than the publication of _The Origin of Species_, another body of new doctrine was propounded to Britain and the world, and strongly urged by its upholders, namely, the doctrine of Free Trade--the advantage to the community of buying in the cheapest market. True or false, that body of doctrine has not proved dynamical among the nations, for the great majority of peoples still repudiate the doctrines of Free |
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