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CHAPTER V THE CULT OF ASCETICISM AND
RENUNCIATION
A SOCIAL DISEASE The National Renaissance of any people has for one of its conditions a critical view not only of the given epoch, but of its entire history. For the present is but a product of the past. A thorough change of the conditions of any given period requires, first of all, the discovery of the causes of those conditions which are usually rooted even in the remotest past of its history. An unbroken causal chain connects historical events which superficially might appear not only disconnected, but positively chaotic. The present conditions of India, for example, are considered to be the result of foreign rule. To stop there is to tell only half the truth. What was the cause of the foreign conquest ? That could not be an historical phenomenon without cause. The cause of that event must be sought in the past history of the Indian people. Some social disease must have enervated it so as to become an easy prey of foreign invaders. In short, only a critical examination of the past enables a people to discover the root cause of its present conditions, and the change of these latter depends upon the eradication of the former.
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