“Pardon me, but I do not quite follow the sense of your words.”

“Please consider the slow, steady advance of the Russians in Asia.  Every land that they have brought under their sway—­all the immense territories of Central Asia have become their assured, undisputed possessions.  And why?  Because the Russians have known how to win over the hearts of their subject races, and how to humour their religious views.  The victors and the vanquished thus better assimilate.  The English, on the other hand, have governed India purely from the political side.  The hearts of the various races in India have remained strange and hostile to us.”

“There may be some truth in what you say.  But you must allow that the English have in India substituted a new civilisation in return, that inculcates a spirit of intellectual progress, and I conceive that no nation can for any length of time remain blind in the face of higher ideals.  All history forms a continuous chain of evidence for the truth of this statement.”

“The word ‘civilisation’ has various significations.  If it is only a question of investigating whether the government and administration of the country have improved, the answer is that the civilisation we brought to India has, beyond all doubt, made enormous strides, in comparison with the conditions that obtained in former centuries.  We have broken the despotism of the native princes, and have put an end to the endless sanguinary wars which they waged with each other and with their Asiatic neighbouring despots.  We have laid down roads and railways, drained marshes and jungles, constructed harbours, won great tracts of lands from the sea, and built protecting dams and piers.  The terrible mortality of the large cities has considerably decreased.  We have given them laws assuring personal security and guaranteeing new outlets for trade and commerce.  But the aspirations of our English Government have been purely utilitarian, and as regards the deeper-lying current of development no progress is anywhere perceivable.”

“And, pray, what do you exactly mean by this?”

“Your views in this matter are possibly divergent.  I discern in most of our achievements in India only another manifestation of that materialism which has ever proved the worst obstacle to all real development.”

“It appears to me, Mr. Proctor,” Heideck interrupted, with a smile, “that you have become a Buddhist, owing to your sojourn in India!”

“Perhaps so, sir, and I should not be ashamed of such a creed.  Many a one, who on first coming here regarded India with the eyes of a Christian, has, on nearer acquaintance, become a Buddhist.  Greek wise men once expressed the wish that kings should be chosen from among the philosophers.  That may possibly be an unrealisable hope, but I do not believe that a ruler who has a contempt for philosophy will ever properly fulfil the high duties of his station.  A policy without philosophy is, like an unphilosophical