In speaking of this faith in human solidarity as Western, I am aware that I am making broad statements which badly need qualification.  I am far from wishing to suggest that there is no such sentiment of humanity in the great structures of Asiatic civilization, particularly in the ethical systems of China.  But I am persuaded that there is a broad contrast between West and East in this respect, and that in particular there is a significant gulf between the West and Hinduism.  In the West, this often inarticulate faith in humanity has acted as a spring of progress.  It inspires our faith in democracy, it acts as a perpetual challenge to privilege and oppression, as a constant denial of permanence to divisions of class, nationality, and race.  The very difficulty which the orthodox Hindu experiences in appreciating the spiritual meaning of democracy—­his feeling that the democratic movement is an irrational blindly selfish confusing of a divine appointed social order—­discloses the existence of this gulf.  It is not for nothing that the religious traditions of Hinduism trace the four castes back to divine appointment and regard them as coeval with the race.  Nor is it without significance that India rejected Buddhism—­a movement which challenged caste and whose missionary enthusiasm embodied a broader sentiment of humanity than has yet been woven into Indian civilization.  The influence of the West is now renewing the attack on caste which Buddha initiated and failed to accomplish.

Without serious injustice we may claim that this faith in human solidarity has attained clearer expression and exerts greater influence in the West than in the East.  To detail its influence is impossible.  It underlies our hopes of social reform, it refuses to believe in the subhuman—­at least it refuses to believe in the necessity of his continued existence.  It inspires the religious enthusiasm with which men embrace Socialism as ‘a hope for mankind’.  It turns the brotherhood of man into a ‘masked word.’  As a character in one of St. John Ervine’s novels puts it, ’Brother’ood of man, my boy—­that’s my motter.  Brother’ood of man! the ’ole world, see!  Not a little bit like England! the ‘ole world! all of us! see?  No fightin or nothink!  Just peace an’ ’appiness!  Takes your breath away when you think on it.  It do, straight.’  The same religious impulse is at work in that disease of humanitarianism which distresses Chauvinists—­the humanitarianism which Bernhardi denounces in Germany and Mr. Moreton Fullerton deplores in France.  It is reflected in the religious life alike of Russia and of France.  Paul Sabatier’s book is largely concerned with following out the influence of this sense of solidarity in all philosophic and religious schools and in all classes in France.  He notes, for example, the anti-clericalism of the French peasant, which does not, however, lead him to embrace the dogmatic negations of Free-thought.  The peasant still clings to the rites of the Church through ’the perhaps