We have said that the moral code of the Hindus at its best seems to be on a par with the best as found elsewhere.  Not to lie, not to steal, not to injure another illegally,[19] to be brave, to be loyal, to be hospitable,—­these are the factors of its early and late law.  In certain late cases may be added ‘to be self-restrained.’  But if these laws be compared with those of the savage races it will be found that most of them are also factors of primitive ethics.  Therefore we say that the Hindu code as a whole is savage and antique, and that, excluding religious excess and debauchery, it is on a par with the modern ethical code only nominally.  In reality, however, this savage and ancient code is not on a level with that of to-day.  And the reason is that the ideal of each is different.  In the savage and old-world conception of morality it is the ideal virtue that is represented by the code.  It was distinct laudation to say of a man that he did not lie, or steal, and that he was hospitable.[20] But to-day, while these factors remain to formulate the code, they no longer represent ideal virtue.  Nay rather, they are but the assumed base of virtue, and so thoroughly is this assumed that to say of a gentleman that he does not lie or steal is not praise, but rather an insult, since the imputation to him of what is but the virtue of children is no longer an encomium when applied to the adult, who is supposed to have passed the point where theft and lying are moral temptations, and to have reached a point where, on the basis of these savage, antique, and now childish virtues, he strives for a higher moral ideal.  And this ideal of to-day, which makes fair-mindedness, liberality of thought, and altruism the respective representatives of the savage virtues of manual honesty, truth-speaking, and hospitality, is just what is lacking in the more primitive ideal formulated in the code of savages and of the Brahman alike.[21] It is not found at all among savages, and they may be left on one side.  In India all the factors of the modern code are entirely lacking at the time when the old code was first completely formulated.  Liberality of thought comes in with the era of the Upanishads, but it is a restricted freedom.  Altruism is unknown to pure Brahmanism.  But it obtains among the Buddhists, who also have liberality of thought and fair-mindedness.  Hence, from the point of view of the higher morality, one must confess that Buddhism offers the best parallel to the best of to-day.  On the other hand, Buddhistic altruism exceeds all other.

We have sketched the sphere of influence exerted by the West upon India, and found it on the whole inconsiderable.  The Indic religions till the twelfth century assimilated what little they drew from foreign sources, and stand before the world as a peculiar growth, native to the soil in all their essential characteristics.[22]