roughly divided into Hindus and Mohammedans. In that case complete freedom is impracticable, for as soon as we retired, civil war would ensue between the creeds. The result of this anarchy would be, of course, the victory of one party. If the Mohammedans won, India would be unfortunately placed. For Islam is so ill adapted to modern government, that to-day nearly nine-tenths of the whole vast body of Islamites have accepted nonIslamite rulers. Three Moslem states claim, indeed, the imperial title, Morocco, Persia, and Turkey, but we all know whether they are governed tolerably. On the other hand, if the Hindus won, the caste system, the negation of progress, would reassert itself unchecked, and would render civilised government a dead letter.
The second religious possibility is that Indian pessimism, uprooted by western culture, will become atheistical. There are, no doubt, some signs of that mischief. The best Moslem and the best Hindus agree in dreading it, and they feel that our government, in its total religious abstinence, has unconsciously fostered this danger to some degree. As late as 1904, the Education Resolution laid down that "in government institutions the instruction is, and must continue to be, exclusively secular," though the natives would welcome more freedom for their religious teaching in our schools. But a good proof that the future is not with atheism in India, lies in the fact that, as Sir Andrew Fraser has stated, "the genius of
