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"I confess it has always seemed to me one of the sadest chapters in the history of the world to see the early inhabitants of India, who knew nothing of the rest of the world, of the mighty empires of Egypt and Babylon, of their wars and conquests, who wanted nothing from the outside world and were bappy and content in their own earthly paradise, protected as it seemed by the mountain remparts in the north and watched on every other side by the jealous waves of the Indian Ocean, to see these happy people suddenly. overrun by foreign warriors, whether Persiaus, Greeks or Macedonians, or at a later time, Scythians, Moham. medans, Mongolians and Christians, and conquered for no fault of theirs, except that they had neglected to cultivate the art of killing their neighbors. They themselves never wished for conquests, they simply wished to be left alone and to be allowed to work out their views of life which was contemplative and joyful, though deficient in one point, namely, the art of selfdefence and destruction. They had no idea that a tempest could break upon them and when the black clouds came suddenly driving through the northern and western mountain-passes, they had no shelter they were simply borne down by superior brute force, They remind us at Archimedes imploring the cruel invader not to disturb his philosophical circles, but there was no help for them. That ideal of human life which they had pictured to themselves and which to u
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