THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

292 The Harmony of Virtuephilosophic idealism which to the less capable European seemsso impossible an atmosphere and of the prolific idolatry whichto the dogmatic and formalising Christian seems so gross. Inany other race-temperament this mental division would havesplit into two broadly disparate or opposing types and attemptsat compromise comprising action and reaction would have builtup the history of thought. In the myriad-minded and undogmaticHindu it worked not as mental division, but as the firstdiscord which prepares for a consistent harmony; the best andmost characteristic Hindu thought regards either tendency asessential to the perfect and subtle comprehension of existence;they are considered the positive and negative sides of one truth,and must both be grasped if we are not to rest in a half light.Hence the entire tolerance of the Hindu religion to all intellectualattitudes except sheer libertinism; hence also the marvellousperfection of grades in thought-attitudes which the Hindumind travels between the sheer negative and the sheer positiveand yet sees in them only a ladder of progressive and closelyrelated steps rising through relative conceptions to one final andabsolute knowledge.The intellectual temperament of a people determines the maincharacter-stamp of its poetry. There is therefore no considerablepoet in Sanskrit who has not the twofold impression (spiritualand romantic in aim, our poetry is realistic in method), whodoes not keep his feet on the ground even while his eyes arewith the clouds. The soaring lark who loses himself in light, theineffectual angel beating his luminous wings in the void are notdenizens of the Hindu plane of temperament. Hence the expectantcritic will search ancient Hindu literature in vain for the poetryof mysticism; that is only to be found in recent Bengali poetrywhich has felt the influence of English models. The old Sanskritpoetry was never satisfied unless it could show colour, energyand definiteness, and these are things incompatible with truemysticism. Even the Upanishads which declare the phenomenalworld to be unreal, yet have a rigidly practical aim and labourin every line to make the indefinite definite and the abstractconcrete. But of all our great poets Kalidasa best exemplifiesthis twynatured Hindu temperament under the conditions of