But, accepting the universally received belief of India that _Kali yuga_ is now five thousand and eight years old, who can tell us what was the condition of things in India before this? Everything before that time is absolutely prehistoric. The best authorities, and indeed all authorities, claim that the Vedas were first sung, that the Rishis of India came into existence, that the Sanscrit tongue and the Indian Aryans who spoke it and the religion of Hinduism which they brought or cultivated,--all of these find their origin during the last five thousand years. All the evidences of history unite to assure us that there is practically nothing existing at the present time in this land which is not in some way the child of these last fifty centuries of _Kali yuga_. Who, then, can dogmatically tell us that these centuries have been better or worse than the eras preceding them? We know no more about the _Dwapara_ and the other previous eras, if any such ever existed, than we know about the inhabitants of other planets, if such there be. It is therefore futile, yea more, thoroughly wicked, to impose upon the people a chronological system which is so pessimistic and hopeless in its tenor as this. But even looking back through the probably four thousand years which embrace all that we really know about India, what do we see to encourage this pessimistic view of our era? Let it not be assumed that the people of India in the days of the Rishis of old were purer in life or loftier in ideals than many who live in India to-day. It is true that such evils as caste, infant marriage, and many similar customs did not exist at all in Vedic days. But it is also true that not a few serious evils of ancient times, such as drunkenness, human sacrifice, and slavery, do not generally exist in India to-day. But if we desire to know what the condition of the present time is, we should compare this beginning of the twentieth with the beginning of the eighteenth century and see what progress has been achieved. During the last two centuries numberless crimes and evils have been swept away. I need only mention such enormities as _thuggee_, _sattee_, infant murder, etc., all of which were thriving even a hundred years ago, but which are now things of the past. And what shall I say of a horde of other customs that have cursed the land, such as infant marriage, _thevathasis_, caste, all of which are beginning to yield to the enlightened thought of the present and will soon be driven out of the country?