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12
MYSTICISM IN INDIA
matter, law uniform, universal and inexorable reigns supreme; and there is absolutely no room for the interference of any outside personal agency (the Hindus never said that there was any outside personal agency). The last remnant of supernaturalism therefore apart from Christian miracles has shrunk into that doubtful and shady borderland of ghosts, spiritualism and mesmerism, where vision and fact and partly real, partly imaginary effects of abnormal nervous conditions are mixed up in a nebulous haze with a large dose of imposture and credulity.
Let us hear what his neighbour says. These are the words of Dr. Heinrich Hensoldt of Germany:Apart from the material progress, or mere outward development which the Hindus had already attained in times which we are apt to call pre-historic as evidenced by the splendour of their buildings and the luxuries and refinements of their civilization in general, it would seem as if this greatest and most subtle of Aryan races had developed an inner life even more strange and wonderful. Let those who are imbued with the prevalent inodern conceit that we Westerners have reached the highest pinnacle of intellectual culture, go to India. Let them go to the land of mystery, which was ancient when the great Alexander crossed the Indus with his warriors, ancient when Abraham roamed the plains of Chaldæa with his cattle, ancient when the first pyramid was built; and if after a careful
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