[Sidenote:  Indian life estimated by the economic standard of life’s value.]

The value of life and the little worth of life in India may be gauged in another way.  In the language of the political economist, the value of human life in any country may be estimated by the average wage, which determines the standard of comfort and how far a man is restricted to the bare necessities of bodily life.  Again, judged by that standard, life is probably in no civilised country at a lower estimate than in India, where the labourer spends over 90 per. cent of his income upon the bare necessities for the sustenance of the bodies of his household.

[Sidenote:  Indian pessimism only a mood.]

[Sidenote:  Humanlife is rising in value]

[Sidenote:  Pessimism is declining]

All that is true, and yet the conclusion is only partly true.  In spite of all such reasoning, and acknowledging that the physical characteristics of India have largely made her what she is, politically, socially, and even religiously, I venture to think that the pessimism of India is exaggerated.  Not a pessimistic temperament, but a mood, a mood of helpless submissiveness, a bowing to the powers that be in nature and in the world, seems to me the truer description of the prevailing “pessimism.”  At least, if it be the case, as I have tried to show, that during the past century in India, human life has been rising in value, the pessimistic mood must be declining.  Let us observe some facts again.  In a Government or Mission Hospital, there is a European doctor taking part in the offensive work of the dressing of a coolie’s sores,—­we assume that the doctor’s touch is the touch of a true Christian gentleman.  To the despised sufferer, life is gaining a new sweetness, and to the high-caste student looking on and ready to imitate his teacher, life is attaining a new dignity.  That human life has been rising in value is patent.  The wage of the labourer has been steadily rising—­in one or two places the workers are become masters of the situation; the rights of woman are being recognised, if only slowly; the middle classes are eager for education and advancement; the individual has been gaining in independence as the tyranny of caste and custom has declined; the sense of personal security and of citizenship and of nationality has come into being.  Whatever the merits of the great agitation in 1905 against the partition of the Province of Bengal, and inconceivable as taking place a century ago, it is manifestly the doing of men keenly interested in the conditions under which they live.  It is a contradiction of the theory of an inherent Indian pessimism.  Self-respect and a sense of the dignity and duties of manhood are surely increasing, and making our earth a place of hope and making life worth living, instead of a burden to be borne.  “The Hindus,” says Sir Alfred Lyall, “have been rescued by the English out of a chronic state of anarchy, insecurity, lawlessness, and precarious exposure to the caprice of despots."[107]