I do not think that there is much profit in comparing religions, which generally means exalting one at the expense of the others, but rather that it is interesting and useful to learn what others, especially those least like ourselves, think of these matters.  And in religious questions Asia has a distinct right to be heard.

For if Europeans have any superiority over Asiatics, it lies in practical science, finance and administration, not in thought or art.  If one were collecting views about philosophy and religion in Europe, one would not begin by consulting financiers and engineers, and the policeman who stands in the middle of the street and directs the traffic to this side and that is not intellectually superior to those who obey him as if he were something superhuman.  Europeans in Asia are like such a policeman:  their gifts are authority and power to organize:  in other respects their superiority is imaginary.

I do not think that Christianity will ever make much progress in Asia, for what is commonly known by that name is not the teaching of Christ but a rearrangement of it made in Europe and like most European institutions practical rather than thoughtful.  And as for the teaching of Christ himself, the Indian finds it excellent but not ample or satisfying.  There is little in it which cannot be found in some of the many scriptures of Hinduism and it is silent on many points about which they speak, if not with convincing authority, at least with suggestive profundity.  Neither do I think that Europe is likely to adopt Buddhist or Brahmanic methods of thought on any large scale.  Theosophical and Buddhist societies have my sympathy but it is sympathy with lonely workers in an unpopular cause and I am not sure that they always understand what they try to teach.  There is truth at the bottom of the dogma that all Buddhas must be born and teach in India:  Asiatic doctrine may commend itself to European minds but it fits awkwardly into European life.

But this is no reason for refusing to accord to Indian religion at least the same attention that we give to Plato and Aristotle.  Every idea which is held strongly by any large body of men is worthy of respectful examination, although I do not think that because an opinion is widespread it is therefore true.  Thus the idea that in the remote past there was some kind of paradise or golden age and that the span of human life was once much longer than now is found among most nations.  Yet research and analogy suggest that it is without foundation.  The fact that about half the population of the world has come under the influence of Hindu ideas gives Indian thought historical importance rather than authority.  The claim of India to the attention of the world is that she, more than any other nation since history began, has devoted herself to contemplating the ultimate mysteries of existence and, in my eyes, the fact that Indian thought diverges widely from our own popular thought is a positive merit.  In intellectual and philosophical pursuits we want new ideas and Indian ideas are not familiar or hackneyed in the west, though I think that more European philosophers and mystics have arrived at similar conclusions than is generally supposed.