in our minds.  Yet we still hold that it would be the height of political folly for us at this moment to refuse to do all we can, with prudence and energy, to rally the Moderates to the cause of the Government, simply because the policy will not satisfy the Extremists.  Let us, if we can, rally the Moderates, and if we are told that the policy will not satisfy the Extremists, so be it.  Our line will remain the same.  It is the height of folly to refuse to rally sensible people, because we do not satisfy Extremists.  I am detaining you unmercifully, but I doubt whether—­and do not think I say it because it happens to be my department—­of all the questions that are to be discussed perhaps for years to come, any question can be in all its actual foundations, and all its prospective bearings, more important than the question of India.  There are many aspects of it which it is not possible for me to go into, as, for example, some of its Military aspects.  I repeat my doubt whether there is any question more commanding at this moment, and for many a day to come, than the one which I am impressing upon you to-night.  Is all that is called unrest in India mere froth?  Or is it a deep rolling flood?  Is it the result of natural order and wholesome growth in this vast community?  Is it natural effervescence, or is it deadly fermentation?  Is India with all its heterogeneous populations—­is it moving slowly and steadily to new and undreamt of unity?  It is the vagueness of the discontent, which is not universal—­it is the vagueness that makes it harder to understand, harder to deal with.  Some of them are angry with me.  Why?  Because I have not been able to give them the moon.  I have got no moon, and if I had I would not part with it.  I will give the moon, when I know who lives there, and what kind of conditions prevail there.

I want, if I may, to make a little literary digression.  Much of this movement arises from the fact that there is now a large body of educated Indians who have been fed, at our example and our instigation, upon some of the great teachers and masters of this country, Milton, Burke, Macaulay, Mill, and Spencer.  Surely it is a mistake in us not to realise that these masters should have mighty force and irresistible influence.  Who can be surprised that educated Indians who read those high masters and teachers of ours, are intoxicated with the ideas of freedom, nationality, self-government, that breathes the breath of life in those inspiring and illuminating pages.  Who of us that had the privilege in the days of our youth, at college or at home, of turning over those golden chapters, and seeing that lustrous firmament dawn over our youthful imaginations—­who of us can forget, shall I call it the intoxication and rapture, with which we strove to make friends with truth, knowledge, beauty, freedom?  Then why should we be surprised that young Indians feel the same movement of mind, when they are made free of our own immortals.  I would