Imaginary Terrors & Real Dangers
Despite the high opinion which Westerners have of themselves and of their civilization, they are well aware that their control over the rest of the world is far from being definitely assured, and that it may be at the mercy of events that it is not within their power to foresee, still less to prevent. What they do refuse to see, however, is that the chief cause of the dangers that threaten them lies in the very character of the European civilization. Nothing that relies merely, as their civilization does, on the material order of things can hope for more than transitory success. Change, which is the law in this essentially unstable domain, may have the worst consequences in every respect, and these consequences will come with all the more lightning rapidity as the speed of change grows greater and greater, the very excess of material progress bringing with it the grave risk of ending in some cataclysm. One has only to think of the ceaseless perfecting of the means of destruction, of the increasingly important part that they play in modern warfare, of the scarcely reassuring prospects that certain inventions open up for the future, and one will hardly be disposed to deny such a possibility. Furthermore, the machines that are expressly intended for killing are not the only dangerous ones. Starting from the point that things have now reached, it does not need much imagination to picture the West ending by self-destruction, either in a gigantic war compared with which the last one will seem negligible, or through the unforeseen effects of some product which, when unskillfully manipulated, would be capable of blowing up, not merely a factory or a town as hitherto, but a whole continent. Certainly, it may still be hoped that
Europe and even America will pull themselves together and regain their self-control before reaching such extremities; lesser catastrophes may serve as useful warnings for them and, by the fear which they inspire, do something to arrest this dizzy course which can only lead to an abyss. All this is possible, especially if the fear is coupled with some overly strong sentimental disappointments such as may work upon the mass of the people to wipe out the illusion of 'moral progress'. Thus the excessive development of sentimentality might also contribute to this salutary result, and indeed it will have to, if the West, left to itself, is to look no further than in her own mentality for the means of a reaction which will become necessary sooner or later. Such means, however, would be far from sufficient to force upon Western civilization a change of trend, even if this reaction were to take place at once; and, as equilibrium is scarcely to be realized in such conditions, there would still be good reason to dread a return to barbarism pure and simple, as a quite natural consequence of the negation of intellectuality.
Setting aside for the moment these indications of a future which may be far off, it is clear that the Westerners of today are still apt to believe that progress, or what they call progress, can and must be unbroken and indefinite. While deluding themselves more than ever about their own importance, they have become the self-appointed missionaries for the world-wide propagation of this progress, imposing it, if need be, by force on those peoples who commit the offence - which is unpardonable in their eyes-of not eagerly accepting it. This rage for propaganda, which we have already alluded to, is very dangerous for everyone, but above all for the Westerners themselves, who make themselves dreaded and loathed as a result; the mania of conquest has never been developed so far, and until now there was never any question of hiding behind masks of hypocrisy such as belong to modern 'moralism'. The West forgets, moreover, that it had no historical existence at a time when the Eastern civilizations had already reached their full development[^1];
with its pretensions, the West seems to Easterners as a child might seem if, proud at having hurriedly acquired some scraps of rudimentary information, it should believe itself to possess the sum of all knowledge and should wish to teach it to old men full of wisdom and experience. This mistake would be harmless enough, and no more than amusing, if Westerners had not brutal force at their disposal; but the use that they make of it entirely alters the situation, since it is there, and not in an 'assimilation', that the true danger lies for those who, quite without wanting to, come into contact with them. Indeed, Westerners are quite incapable of assimilating others to themselves, being qualified neither intellectually nor even physically; European peoples, no doubt because they are made up of heterogeneous elements and do not strictly speaking constitute one race, are those whose racial characteristics are the least firmly fixed and the first to disappear when there is a mingling with other races; wherever such mixtures occur, it is always the Westerner who, far from being able to absorb the others, is absorbed himself. As for the intellectual point of view, the considerations that we have just been putting forward make it needless for us to insist on it; a civilization that never ceases to move, that has neither tradition nor deeprooted principle, obviously cannot have a real influence on those which possess those very things that it lacks itself; and if the inverse influence is in fact no longer exerted, it is simply because Westerners are incapable of understanding what is strange to them: they are impervious, in this respect, merely through mental inferiority, whereas the Easterners are so out of pure intellectuality.
There are truths which it is necessary to emphasize again and again, however unpalatable many people may find them. All the superiorities on which Westerners preen themselves are purely imaginary, with the sole exception of material superiority. This one is only too real; and no one denies it them, while, at heart, no one envies them for it either; but the trouble is that they abuse it. For anyone who has the courage to see things as they are, colonial conquest cannot, any more than any other armed conquest, base itself on any other right than that of brute force. By all means let it be said that a people that feels itself too cramped at home must enlarge its field of activity, and that it can only do so at the expense of those
who are too weak to resist it. We do not even see how things of this kind could be prevented from happening, but at least let there be no pretence of acting in the interests of 'civilization', which are quite beside the point. That is what we call 'moralist' hypocrisy: it is unconscious in the masses of the people, who never fail to accept with docility whatever ideas are inculcated, but it ought not to be equally so with everyone, and we cannot admit that statesmen, in particular, are the dupes of the phraseology which they use. When a European nation seizes some country, even if it should be only inhabited by truly barbarian tribes, no one will convince us that it is for the pleasure or the honor of 'civilizing' these poor people, who have shown not the least desire for it, that a costly expedition is undertaken, followed by all sorts of public works. A man must be very ingenuous indeed if he can help realizing that the true motive is quite different, and that it lies in the hope of more tangible profits. The chief object, whatever pretexts are put forward, is to exploit the country, and very often, if possible, its inhabitants at the same time, for they could not possibly be suffered to go on living there in their own way, even if they are untroublesome. But since the word 'exploit' sounds bad, one speaks, in the modern idiom, of 'developing the resources' of a country: it is the same thing, but a change of word is all that is needed to save the sensibility of the public from being shocked. Naturally, when the conquest has been carried out, the Europeans give free rein to their proselytism, because for them it is a real need. Each people brings to the task its own particular temperament, some performing it more brutally, others with more moderation, and the latter attitude, even when it is not calculated, is without doubt the more clever of the two. As for the results obtained, it is always forgotten that the civilization of certain peoples was not made for others of different mentalities. In the case of savages, the harm is perhaps not very great, and yet, in adopting the outward features of the European civilization (for their assimilation of it remains very superficial), they are generally more prone to imitate its evils than to take what good it may have. We have no desire to insist on this aspect of the question, which we are only considering incidentally; what is more serious is that the Europeans, when they find themselves face to face with civilized peoples, treat them
like savages, and it is then that they make themselves really intolerable; and we are not speaking only of the rather dubious people from among whom colonists and officials are too often drawn, but of the Europeans almost without exception. The minds of men, especially of those who never cease to talk about 'right' and 'liberty', must be in a strange state when they are so prone to deny civilizations other than theirs the right to an independent existence; that is all that is asked of them in many cases, and it is not asking too much. There are some Easterners who, on this sole condition, would even agree to a foreign administration, so little do they care about material contingencies; it is only when it attacks their traditional institutions that they begin to find European domination intolerable. But it is just this traditional outlook that Westerners are more hostile to than to anything else, because they are all the more afraid of it the less they understand it, being themselves without it; such men are instinctively afraid of everything that goes beyond them; all their attempts in this respect will always go on being in vain, for there is a force there whose immensity they do not suspect; but if their indiscretion brings certain mishaps upon them, they have only themselves to blame. Furthermore, in the name of what, it may be asked, do they seek to force everyone to interest themselves exclusively in what interests them, to put economic concerns above all, or to adopt the political regime which they happen to prefer, and which, even admitting it to be the best for certain peoples, is not necessarily so for all? And the most extraordinary thing is that they have similar pretensions not only with regard to the peoples that they have conquered, but also with regard to those among whom they have succeeded in introducing and installing themselves while seeming to respect their independence; in fact, they extend these pretensions to the whole of mankind.
If this were not so, there would not be, in general, prejudices or systematic hostility against Westerners; their relations with other men would be what the relations between different peoples normally are; they would be taken for what they are, with the qualities and faults that belong to them, and, in spite of a possible regret that no truly interesting intellectual relations could be kept up with them, there would be scarcely any attempt to change them, for the
Easterners are not in the least given to proselytizing. Even those of the Easterners who seem to be most closed to everything foreign, the Chinese for example, would not be repelled by the sight of Europeans coming individually to set up house among them for business purposes, if they did not know only too well, from sad experience, what they are exposing themselves to by letting them have their way, and what encroachments quickly follow on what seemed, in the beginning, to be so inoffensive. The Chinese are the most deeply pacific people that exists; we say pacific and not 'pacifist', for they feel not the least need to build up grandiloquent humanitarian theories on that score: their temperament makes war repellent to them, and that is all. If this is a weakness in a certain relative sense, there is, in the very nature of the Chinese race, a force of another order which makes up for it, and the consciousness of which undoubtedly goes toward making this peaceful frame of mind possible. This race is gifted with such a power of absorption that it has assimilated all its successive conquerors, and done so with incredible rapidity, as history shows. Nothing, therefore, could be more ridiculous than the imaginary terror of the 'yellow peril' invented one day by William II, who even symbolized it in one of those so-called 'mystical' pictures which he liked to fill up his spare time by painting. No one, without all the ignorance that most Westerners suffer from, and their incapacity to see how much the rest of mankind differs from themselves, could possibly imagine the Chinese rising up in arms and marching forth to conquer Europe[^2]; a Chinese invasion, if it should ever take place, could only be a peaceful penetration, and that is not, in any case, a very imminent danger. It is true that if the Chinese had the Western mentality, the hateful imbecilities that they are publicly credited with on every occasion would have been quite enough incitement for them to send out expeditions into Europe; much less would serve the West as a pretext for armed intervention, but these things leave the Easterners altogether indifferent. No one
has ever, to our knowledge, dared to tell the truth about the origin of the events which took place in 1900 . Here it is in a few words: the precincts of the European legations in Peking were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Chinese authorities, and a veritable den of robbers had been formed in the out-buildings of the German legation by people who were under the patronage of the Lutheran mission; these people used to spread themselves through the town, pillage as much as they could, and then, with their spoils, retreat into their refuge where, as no one had the right to pursue them, they were sure of impunity; in the end the townspeople were exasperated and threatened to invade the legation precincts so as to take hold of the malefactors who were there; the German minister wished to stop this and set himself to harangue the mob, but he only succeeded in getting killed in the turmoil; to avenge this outrage, an expedition was organized at once, and the strangest thing is that all the European states, even England, let themselves be drawn in the wake of Germany; the spectre of the 'yellow peril' had at least served some purpose in this case. It goes without saying that the belligerents got considerable benefits out of their intervention, especially from an economic point of view; and the profits made out of the mishap were not even confined to states as a whole: we know individuals who were placed in most fortunate circumstances in recognition of their military service... in the cellars of the legations; there would be no need to go and tell these people that the 'yellow peril' is not a reality!
It may, however, be objected that not only are there the Chinese, but also the Japanese, and that these latter are certainly a warlike people; that is true, but in the first place the Japanese, who come from a mixture in which Malayan elements predominate, do not really belong to the yellow race, and consequently their tradition is bound to be of a different character. If Japan is today ambitious to have the hegemony of the whole of Asia and to 'organize' it after its own fashion, it is precisely because Shintoism, a tradition in many ways very unlike Chinese Taoism, and one which gives much prominence to ritual warfare, came into contact with nationalism, learnt of course from the West-for the Japanese have always been only too clever at imitation-and has been changed into an imperialism
very like what is to be found in certain other countries. However, if the Japanese attempt such an undertaking, they will meet with at least as much resistance as the Europeans do, and perhaps even more. In fact, the Chinese evince for no one such hatred as for the Japanese, no doubt because the Japanese, as their neighbors, seem to them particularly dangerous; they dread them as a man who loves his quiet dreads everything that shows signs of disturbing it, and above all they despise them. It is only in Japan that the so-called 'progress' of the West is eagerly received, and this eagerness is all the greater because they think they can make 'progress' serve toward their realizing this ambition that we have just spoken of; and yet superiority in armaments, even combined with the most remarkable fighting qualities, does not always prevail against certain forces of another order: this was brought home to the Japanese in Formosa, and they do not find Korea an altogether untroublesome possession either. In fact, if the Japanese very easily won a war that a large part of the Chinese knew nothing of until it was over, it is because they were for the moment favored, for special reasons, by certain elements that were hostile to the Manchu dynasty, and that knew very well that other influences would intervene in time to prevent things from going too far. In a country like China, many events, such as wars or revolutions, take on quite a different aspect according to whether they are looked at from far or near, and, however surprising it may seem, it is distance that enlargies them: seen from Europe, they look considerable; in China herself, they dwindle down to mere local incidents.
It is by an optical illusion of the same kind that Westerners give undue importance to the movements of turbulent small minorities, formed of people who are often quite unheard of by their own compatriots, and who, in any case, are totally ignored by them. We are referring to a few individuals, such as are to be found more or less in all Eastern countries today, who have been brought up and educated in Europe or America, and who, having lost through this education the sense of tradition and knowing nothing of their own civilization, think it as well to affect the most extreme 'modernism'. These 'young' Easterners, as they call themselves to make their tendencies more marked, could never acquire a real influence in the East;
sometimes, like puppets, unknown to themselves, they are used for playing a part that they have no idea of, being manipulated with all the greater ease because they take themselves very seriously; but it also happens sometimes that after renewing contact with their race they are gradually disabused, realize that their presumption was chiefly the result of ignorance, and end by becoming true Easterners once more. These elements are merely exceptions of the very lowest order, but, as they make a certain amount of noise which carries into other countries, they attract the attention of Westerners, who naturally look on them with sympathy, and who, in doing so, lose sight of the silent multitudes compared with which these few are quite inexistent. The true Easterners scarcely trouble about making themselves known to foreigners, and this accounts for some rather strange errors: we have often been struck by the ease with which people come to accept, as authentic representatives of Eastern thought, one or two incompetent and unauthorized writers, sometimes even in the pay of a European power, and almost exclusively putting forward ideas that are entirely Western. Because they have oriental names, they are taken eagerly at their word, and henceforth, since there are no means of judging them by comparison, all their fellow countrymen are credited with conceptions or opinions which only belong to these few, and which are often poles apart from the Eastern outlook; of course, their output is strictly reserved for the European or American public, and in the East no one has ever heard of them.
Apart from the individual exceptions just spoken of, and also the collective exception of Japan, material progress really interests no one in these Eastern countries, where it is held to have brought few advantages and many disadvantages; but there are, with regard to it, two different attitudes, which outwardly may even seem conflicting, though they proceed nonetheless from one and the same standpoint. There are some who will not hear this so-called progress spoken of at any price and, retiring into a shell of purely passive resistance, go on behaving as if it did not exist; the others, looking on this progress as an unpleasant necessity, imposed by circumstances that will not last, prefer to accept it for the time being, simply and solely because they see, in the instruments which it puts at
their disposal, a means of resisting Western domination more effectively and of hastening its end. These two currents run throughout the East, in China, in India, and in the Islamic countries. If the present tendency may seem to be for the latter to prevail over the former, it would be very rash to draw the conclusion that there has been any deep change in the East's way of existence; the whole difference amounts to no more than a mere question of timeliness, and it is not on such a basis that there could be a real renewal of relations with the West, but quite the contrary. Though some Easterners seek to promote in their country an industrial development which would enable them, for the future, to struggle without being at a disadvantage against the peoples of Europe-meeting them on the very ground over which these peoples extend their whole activitythey nonetheless, we maintain, give up nothing of what is the essence of their civilization. Besides, economic rivalry can only be a new source of conflicts, unless an understanding is reached in another domain and from a higher point of view. There are, however, some Easterners, very few, who have come to the following conclusion: since Westerners are definitely unamenable to intellectuality, let there be no longer any question of it; but, even so, friendly relations might perhaps be established in a purely economic way with some peoples of the West. That also is an illusion: either there must be agreement in the domain of the principles to start with, and then all the secondary difficulties will be smoothed away automatically, or else no real agreement of any sort will ever be reached; and it is for the West to take, if it can, the first steps toward an effective renewal of intellectual relations, since it is the misunderstanding hitherto shown by it that has actually given rise to all the obstacles.
It would be as well if Westerners would become resigned to seeing the cause of the most dangerous misunderstandings where it really lies, that is, in themselves, and rid themselves of these ridiculous terrors of which the all too familiar 'yellow peril' is certainly the extreme example. The spectre, too, of 'Pan-Islamism' has a way of being conjured up, regardless of facts: in this case there is no doubt that the fear is less absolutely devoid of foundation, for the Islamic peoples, occupying the place of intermediaries between the East and
the West, combine certain characteristics of both, and they are, for example, much more warlike than the pure Easterners; but when all is said and done there is no need to exaggerate. True Pan-Islamism is primarily a statement of principle, essentially doctrinal in character; for it to take the form of political vindication, the Europeans would have to have compromised themselves considerably; in any case, it has nothing in common with any sort of 'nationalism', which is quite incompatible with the fundamental conceptions of Islam. The fact is that in most cases (and here we are thinking chiefly of North Africa) a clearly understood policy of 'association', respecting Islamic legislation in its entirety and implying a definite renunciation of all attempt at 'assimilation', would probably be enough to do away with the danger, if danger there be. Considering, for example, that the conditions imposed for obtaining French naturalization amount quite simply to an abjuration of the Islamic faith (and there are many other facts that might be mentioned in the same connection), it is small wonder that there are frequent jars and difficulties that might easily be avoided by a truer understanding of the situation. But, once again, it is precisely this understanding which the Europeans lack altogether. What must not be forgotten is that the Islamic civilization, in all its essential elements, is strictly traditional, as are all the Eastern civilizations; this is quite a sufficient reason to prevent Pan-Islamism, whatever form it may take, from ever identifying itself with Bolshevism or other such movements, as one or two misinformed people seem to fear. We have not the least desire to give here an account of Russian Bolshevism, for it is very difficult, as far as this is concerned, to know exactly what to go on; no doubt the reality is rather different from what it is generally reputed to be, and more complex than its opponents and champions think; but it is at least certain that the movement is clearly antitraditional and therefore altogether modern and Western in outlook. It is utterly absurd to claim that the German or even the Russian mentality is in opposition to the outlook of the West, and we do not know what sense words can have for those who maintain such an opinion, any more than for those who describe Bolshevism as 'Asiatic'; in fact, Germany is on the contrary one of the countries where the Western outlook is carried to its extreme pitch; and, as for
the Russians, even if they have derived some outward characteristics from the Easterners, they are also as far removed from them intellectually as it is possible to be. We should add that when we speak of the West, we also include Judaism, which has never exerted any influence except in a Westerly direction, and which may even have helped somewhat toward forming the modern mentality in general. In point of fact, the large part played in Bolshevism by Israelite elements is a serious reason for the Easterners, and for the Muslims above all, to be distrustful and to keep their distance; we are not speaking of certain agitators of the 'Young Turk' type, who are profoundly anti-Muslim, being not seldom also of Jewish origin, and not having the least authority. Bolshevism cannot penetrate into India either, because it is opposed to all the traditional institutions, and especially to that of the castes; from this point of view, the Hindus would see no difference between its destructive action and the destructive action that the English have long tried to carry out by every sort of means, and where the one has failed, the other would be no more successful. As for China, she is generally very much out of sympathy with everything Russian, and moreover the traditional outlook is no less firmly established there than in all the rest of the East; if certain things can be tolerated more easily there for the moment, it is because of this power of absorption that is inherent in the Chinese race, and that enables it to turn in the end to its own advantage even a momentary disorder. In fact it would be quite irrelevant, for the sake of bringing credit to the legend of non-existent and impossible agreements, to mention the presence in Russia of a few bands of mercenaries who are no more than common brigands, and whom the Chinese are very glad to be rid of at their neighbors' expense. When the Bolsheviks tell of champions gained for their ideas among the Easterners, it is either mere boasting or self-deception. The truth is that some Easterners see in Russia, Bolshevist or no, a possible means of help against the domination of certain other Western powers, but they have not the slightest interest in Bolshevist ideas, and furthermore, if they consider a temporary agreement or alliance as acceptable in certain circumstances, it is because they know perfectly well that these ideas can never take
root in their country; otherwise they would beware of showing them the least semblance of favor. It is quite possible for a state to accept as auxiliaries, in view of a certain definite course of action, people with whom it has no common thought, and for whom it feels neither respect nor sympathy; for the true Easterners, Bolshevism, like everything else which comes from the West, will never be anything but a brutal force. If this force can do them some passing service, they will undoubtedly be glad of it, but one may rest assured that, as soon as there is nothing more to be got from it, they will take all the necessary steps to prevent it from becoming harmful to them. Besides, the Easterners, whose ambition it is to escape from the domination of one Western power, would certainly never consent to place themselves, for the sake of realizing this ambition, in a situation that might involve their falling again immediately under the domination of another Western power; they would gain nothing by the change, and, as their temperament is opposed to all feverish haste, they will always prefer to wait for more favorable circumstances, however remote they may seem, rather than to expose themselves to such a risk.
This last remark may explain why those Easterners who seem most impatient to shake off England's yoke did not dream of taking advantage of the war in 1914 for this purpose: it was because they knew well that Germany, in case of victory, would not fail to impose on them at least a more or less disguised protectorate, and this further state of subjection was to be avoided at any price. No Easterner who has had a reasonably close view of the Germans thinks it possible to arrive at mutual understanding with them any more than with the English; the same applies to the Russians, but Germany, with her formidable organization, generally inspires, and with good reason, more fears than Russia. Easterners will never be for any European power, but they will always be against those, whichever they may be, that seek to oppress them, and against those only; as for the rest, their attitude can only be neutral: We are speaking, of course, from the political point of view alone and as far as states or collectivities are concerned; there may always be individual sympathies or antipathies which remain outside these considerations, just
as, when we speak of Western lack of understanding, we have in mind only the general mentality, and not the possible exceptions. These exceptions, moreover, are very rare; nonetheless, if one is convinced, as we are, of the desirability of restoring proper relations between East and West, a beginning must certainly be made now to encourage this by all available means, however inadequate they may be; and the foremost of these means is to bring home, to those who are capable of understanding, what are the indispensable conditions of this restoration.
These conditions, as we have already said, are above all intellectual, and they are at the same time both negative and positive: firstly, all the prejudices, each of which is an obstacle, must be destroyed, and it is this end that is aimed at essentially by all the considerations which we have put forward so far; then there must be a restoration of true intellectuality, which the West has lost, and which the study of Eastern thought, if undertaken as it ought to be, can greatly help it to recover. In short, the Western outlook must be completely reformed; that is, at least, the ultimate goal to be reached; but this reform, at the beginning, could evidently not be realized except within a limited elite, though no more would be needed for it to bear fruit sooner or later, owing to the influence that this elite would not fail to exert, even without expressly seeking to do so, upon the whole Western world. This would be, in all probability, the sole means of rescuing the West from very real dangers which, though they are not those that it believes in, will become more and more imminent if it continues to go along its present path; and it would also be the sole means of saving, when the time came, all that might be worth keeping of Western civilization, that is, everything in it that may be in some ways advantageous and compatible with a normal state of intelligence, instead of letting the whole of it disappear in one of those cataclysms whose possibility we indicated at the beginning of the present chapter, without however wishing to venture upon the least prediction. Furthermore, in such an eventuality, an elite, if it was already intellectual in the true sense of the word, would alone be able to prevent a return to barbarism; and also, if this elite had had time to act deeply enough upon the general mentality, it would save the West from having to
be absorbed or assimilated by other civilizations, a possibility which is much less terrible than the last, but which would give rise to some disadvantages, for a time at least, by reason of the ethnic revolutions which would have to lead up to this assimilation. At this point, before going any further, we are anxious to make our attitude quite clear: we are not attacking the West in itself, but only, which is quite different, the modern outlook, in which we see the cause of the West's intellectual ruin; nothing would be more desirable, in our opinion, than the reconstitution of a truly Western civilization on normal foundations, for the diversity of the civilizations, which has always existed, is the natural outcome of the mental differences that characterize the races. But diversity in the forms does not in the least exclude agreement on the principles; concord and harmony do not mean uniformity, and to think that they do would be to defer to those theories of utopian equality which are one of the very things we denounce. A normal civilization, in the sense in which we understand it, will always be able to develop itself without being a danger to other civilizations; being conscious of the exact place that it ought to occupy among mankind as a whole, it will know how to keep to it and will not create any antagonism, because it will not have any pretension toward taking the lead, and because it will abstain from all proselytizing. We would not venture to maintain, however, that a purely Western civilization would be quite the equal intellectually of the Eastern civilizations; the West of old, going back as far as history will let us, does not show itself to be fully their equal (except perhaps in certain very secret schools, which, for this reason, it is difficult to speak of with certainty); but there are nonetheless, in this respect, some things which are far from negligible, and which our contemporaries are quite wrong in systematically ignoring. Besides, if the West comes one day to hold intellectual relations with the East, we see no reason why it should not take advantage of them for supplying itself with what it may still lack; lessons or inspirations may be taken from others without giving up one's independence, especially if, instead of resting content with borrowings pure and simple, one knows how to adapt what has been acquired so that it may conform as well as possible with one's own mentality. But, once again, these are remote possibilities; and, while waiting for the
West to return to its own traditions, there is perhaps no other means of preparing for this return and recovering what is essential to it than to go by analogy with the traditional forms that still exist today, and that, as such, can be studied directly. In this way the West, through understanding the Eastern civilizations, would come nearer to being brought back into the traditional paths which it so rashly and foolishly broke away from, while, on the other hand, the return to this tradition would bring about of itself an effective reestablishment of relations with the East. These are two things which are intimately bound up with one another, from whatever angle they are looked at, and in our eyes they seem equally desirable, not to say necessary. All this will be made clearer by what we have yet to say; but it should already be clear that we are not criticizing the West for the empty pleasure of criticism, nor even for the sake of showing up her intellectual inferiority when compared with the East. If the work which is to be done first seems chiefly negative, it is because, as we said at the beginning, the ground must necessarily be cleared before it can be built on. In fact, if the West were to give up its prejudices, the task would be already half done, and perhaps even more than half, for nothing would stand any longer in the way of constituting an intellectual elite, and those with the faculties required for taking part in it, no longer seeing almost insuperable barriers set up before them by present conditions, would easily find from then on the means of using and developing these faculties, instead of having them cramped and stifled by the mental formation or rather deformation which is at present imposed on whoever has not the courage to place himself resolutely outside the ranks of convention. Besides, to take in the full inanity of the prejudices in question, there must already be a certain degree of positive understanding, and, for some at least, it is perhaps harder to reach this degree than to go further once it has been reached. For a well constituted intelligence, the truth, however high, should be more easily assimilated than all the idle subtleties that the 'profane wisdom' of the Western world delights in.
HOW THE DIFFERENCES
MIGHT BE BRIDGED