The "unrest" of which we hear so much finds no echo in Mr. Banerjea's pages. It is, indeed, confined to a minute percentage of the population, even including the callow schoolboys who have been tempted to waste precious years on politics. The masses are too ignorant and too absorbed by the struggle for existence to care one jot for reforms. They may, however, be stirred to blind fury by appealing to their prejudices. Therein lies a real danger. Divergence of religious ideals, to which I have already alluded, accounts for the tranquillity that prevails throughout Bihar as compared with the spirit of revolution in Bengal proper. The microbe of anarchy finds an excellent culture-ground in minds which grovel before the goddess Káli. But the unrest cannot be isolated from other manifestations of cosmic energy, which flash from mind to mind and keep the world in turmoil. Every force of nature tends to be periodic. The heart's systole and diastole; alternations of day and night, of season and tide, are reflected in the history of our race. Progress is secured by the swing of a giant pendulum from East to West, the end of each beat ushering in drastic changes in religion, economics and social polity. It is probable that one of these cataclysmic epochs opened with the victories wrested from
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INTRODUCTION
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