We have thus shown that as a nation the people of India have devoted their efforts more to the development of the spiritual side of life than the material. Unlike the aggressive and combative character of western civilization, the prominent features of Hindu culture are a passive and reflective attitude toward life. Compared with the record of her sister nations in the West, the history of the country has been happier, less fierce, and more peaceful and stable; the inhabitants have been more careful and thoughtful, passive and tolerant. Two great civilizations of the world--India and China--separated only by a long border, have flourished for centuries, and not once in their entire history have they been at war with each other. They early realized the truth that the object of human life is not possession of immense wealth and dominion over weaker races for the sake of physical comforts. The aim of human effort, as they saw it, should be the development of the “mental, moral, and spiritual powers latent in man.” The Hindus evolved for themselves the idea of a God that was omnipotent and all-merciful, of a human soul that was part of the Universal soul and must be pure, of a life that has the divine spark in it and must be boundless and consecrated to the service of all. Truthfulness, generosity, kindness of heart, gentleness of behavior, forgiveness, and compassion were taught in India as everyday precepts long before any such thing as ethics existed in any other part of the world. Their insistence upon kindness and charity are marks of true virtue; their belief that ethics must form the basis of religion and a moral life is the criterion of religious mind; their realization that all men are brothers and that a virtuous slave is better than a corrupt master, mark the Hindus as a race of highly intelligent and moral people. Many of these statements may not be novel, but they have for us a significant appeal in the fact that “they were thought out and enunciated many centuries ago, and that they reflected life, not as it might be imagined in a Utopia, but as it was actually lived by the common people in the small villages and towns of India.” Thus wrote Manu, the great law-giver of India: “That man obtains supreme happiness hereafter who _seeks to do good to all creatures_.” FOOTNOTES: [21] Max Müller. [22] Max Müller. [23] Quoted from Max Müller. [24] Quoted from _Sister India_. CHAPTER IV THE CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA