Civilization, says Gandhi, is civilization in name only. In reality it corresponds to what ancient Hinduism called the dark ages. It has set material well-being up as the only goal of life. It scorns spiritual values. It maddens Europeans, leads them to worship money only, and prevents them from finding peace or cultivating the best within them. Civilization in the Western sense means hell for the weak and for the working classes. It saps the vitality of the race. But this Satanic civilization will destroy itself. Western civilization is India's real enemy, much more than the English, who, individually, are not bad, hut simply suffer from their civilization. Gandhi criticizes those of his compatriots who would want to drive out the English, to develop India themselves, and civilize her according to European standards. This, he says, would be like having the nature of a tiger without the tiger. India's aim should be to repudiate Western civilization.
In his arraignment of Western civilization Gandhi scores three categories of men particularly: magistrates, doctors, and teachers.
Gandhi's objection to teachers is quite comprehensible, since they have brought the Hindus up to scorn or neglect their own language and to disown their real aspirations; in fact, the teachers in India have inflicted a sort of national degradation on the schoolchildren in their charge. Besides, Western teachers appeal to the mind only; they neglect the education of the heart and of the character. Finally, they depreciate bodily labor, and to spread a purely literary education in a country where eighty per cent of the population is agricultural and ten per cent industrial is positively criminal.
The profession of magistrate is immoral. In India the courts are an instrument of British domination; they encourage dissensions among Indians, and in a general way they foster and increase misunderstanding and animosity. They stand for a fattening, lucrative exploitation of the worst instincts.
As for the medical profession, Gandhi admits he was attracted to it at first, but he soon realized it was not honorable. For Western medical science is concerned with giving relief to suffering bodies only. It does not strive to do away with the cause of suffering and disease, which, as a rule, is nothing but vice. In fact, Western medical science may almost be said to encourage vice by making it possible for a man to satisfy his passions and appetites at the least possible risk. It contributes, therefore, to demoralize people; it weakens their will-power by helping them to cure themselves with "black magic" prescriptions instead of forcing them to strengthen their character by disciplinary rules for body and soul.[42] In opposition to the false medical science of the West, which Gandhi has often criticized unfairly, he places preventive medical science. He has written a little pamphlet on the subject entitled "A Guide to Health," which is the fruit of twenty years' experience. It is a moral as well as a therapeutic treatise, for, according to Gandhi, "disease is the result of our thoughts as much as of our acts." He considers it a relatively simple matter to establish certain rules that will prevent disease. For all disease springs from the same origin, i. e., from neglect of the natural laws of health. The body is God's dwelling-place. It must be kept pure. There is truth in Gandhi's point of view, but he refuses a little too obstinately to recognize the efficacy of remedies that have really proved to be useful. His moral precepts are also extremely rigid.[43]
§ 7
But the nucleus of modern civilization, its heart, so to speak, is machinery. Age of iron! Heart of iron! The machine has become a monstrous idol. It must be done away with. Gandhi's most ardent desire is to see machinery wiped out of India. To a free India, heir to British machinery, he would prefer an India dependent on the British market. It would be better to buy materials manufactured in Manchester than to set up Manchester factories in India. An Indian Rockefeller would be no better than a European capitalist. Machinery is the great sin which enslaves nations, and money is a poison as much as sexual vice.
Indian progressives, however, imbued with modern ideas, ask what would become of India if she were to have no railroads, tramways, or industries? To this Gandhi asks if India did not exist before they were invented? For thousands of years India has resisted, alone, unshaken, the changing flood of empires. Everything else has passed. But thousands of years ago India learned the art of self-control and mastered the science of happiness. She has nothing to learn from other nations. She does not need the machinery of large cities. Her ancient prosperity was founded on the plow and the spinning-wheel, and on a knowledge of Hindu philosophy. India must go back to the sources of her ancient culture. Not all at once, of course, but gradually. And every one must help in the evolution.[44]
This is Gandhi's fundamental argument. It is a very important one, and demands discussion. For it stands for a denial of progress and, virtually, of Europe's scientific achievement.[45] This medieval conception is apt, therefore, to clash with the volcanic forward march of the human mind and incurs the risk of being blown to bits. But, first of all, it would perhaps be wiser to say, the "forward march of a certain phase of the human mind," for if one may believe, as I believe, in the symphonic unity of the universal spirit, one must realize that it is made up of many different voices, each one singing its own part. Our youthful Occident carried away by its own score, does not realize sufficiently that it has not always led the song, nor that its own law of progress is subject to eclipses, backslidings, and recommencements; that the history of human civilization is really a history of human civilizations, and that while within the domain of each civilization a certain progress may be discernible, a progress irregular, chaotic, broken, and at times completely halted, it would be wrong to say that the predominance of one great civilization over another necessarily implies general human progress.
But without entering into a discussion as to the European dogma of progress and merely bearing in mind that this dogma, such as it is, conflicts with Gandhi's faith, we must realize that no conflict will weaken Gandhi's faith. To believe anything else would be to show a total ignorance of the workings of the Oriental mind. As Gobineau says: "Asiatics are much more obstinate than we, in every way. They will wait centuries, if necessary, for the fulfilment of their ideal, and when it rises triumphant after such a long slumber it does not seem to have aged or lost any of its vitality." Centuries mean nothing to a Hindu. Gandhi is prepared for the triumph of his cause within the year. But he is equally prepared for it within the course of several centuries. He does not force time. And if time makes haste slowly, he regulates his gait by its march.