{"id":1162,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","slug":"32-ancient-and-modern-methods-of-empire-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/32-ancient-and-modern-methods-of-empire-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-32_ Ancient and Modern Methods of Empire.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n\t\tCHAPTER <\/font><\/b>
\nVI<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 Ancient and Modern Methods of Empire<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                A <\/font>
\n<\/span>
\nCLEAR<\/span><\/font> distinction must be made between ,two political
\naggregates which go equally in current language by <\/font> <\/span>
\nname<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>of empire. For there is the homogeneous national and
\nthere <\/font>is the
\nheterogeneous composite empire. In a sense, all empires are composites, at any
\nrate, if we go back to their origins; but in practice there is a difference
\nbetween the imperial aggregate in which the component elements are not divided
\nfrom other by a strong sense of their separate existence in the ole and the
\nimperial aggregate in which this psychological is of separation is still in
\nvigour. Japan before the absorption ,Formosa and Korea was a national whole and
\nan empire only the honorific sense of the word; after that absorption it became
\nal and a composite empire. Germany again would have been purely national empire
\nif it had not burdened itself with three minor acquisitions, Alsace, Poland and
\nSchleswig- Holstein which e not united to it by the sense of German nationality
\nbut only military force. Let us suppose this Teutonic aggregate to have its
\nforeign elements and at most have acquired instead the Teutonic provinces of
\nAustria. Then we should have had an example of a homogeneous aggregate which
\nwould yet be an empire in the honorific sense of the word; for that would be a
\ncomposite of homogeneous Teutonic nations or, as we may conveniently call them
\nsub-nations, which would not naturally harbour any sentiment of separatism, but
\nrather, drawn always a natural unity, would form easily and inevitably a
\npsychological and not merely a political unit.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>But this
\nform in its purity is now difficult to find. The United States are the example
\nof such an aggregate, although from the accident of their rule by a
\nperiodically elected President and not <\/font><\/span>
\na<\/font><\/span> hereditary monarch we do not associate the type with the idea<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n <\/font><\/span>Page-293<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

of
\nan empire at all. Still if the imperial aggregate is to be changed from a
\npolitical to a psychological unit, it would seem that it must be done by
\nreproducing mutatis mutandis <\/i>something of the system of the United
\nStates, a system in which each element could preserve a sufficient local State
\nindependence and separate power of legislative and executive action and yet be
\npart of an inseparable greater aggregate. This could be effected most easily
\nwhere the elements are fairly homogeneous as it would be in a federation of
\nGreat Britain and her colonies.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A tendency to large homogeneous
\naggregations has shown itself recently in political thought, as in the dream of
\na Pan- Germanic Empire, a great Russian and Pan-Slavic Empire or the
\nPan-Islamic idea of a united Mahomedan world.1<\/sup> () But these tendencies are usually associated with the control by this
\nhomogeneous aggregate over other elements heterogeneous to it under the old
\nprinciple of military and political compulsion, the retention by Russia of
\nAsiatic nations under her sway,2<\/sup>  the seizure by Germany of wholly or partially
\nnon-Germanic countries and provinces, the control by the Caliphate of
\nnon-Moslem subjects.3<\/sup> Even if these
\nanomalies were absent, the actual arrangement of the world would lend itself
\nwith difficulty to a remodelling of empire on a racial or cultural basis. Vast
\naggregates of this kind would find enclaves in their dominion inhabited by
\nelements wholly heterogeneous to them or mixed. Quite apart therefore from the
\nresistance and refusal of kindred nations to renounce their cherished
\nnationality and fuse themselves in combinations of this kind, there would be
\nthis incompatibility of mixed or heterogeneous factors, recalcitrant to the
\nidea and the culture that sought to absorb them. Thus a Pan-Slavonic empire
\nwould necessitate the control of the Balkan Peninsula by Russia as the premier
\nSlav State; but such a scheme would have to meet<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1
\n\t\t<\/sup>All three have been broken by the effect of
\nrevolution and war, but if the nation idea dwindled, the last might still at some future date
\nrevive; the second, if Communism destroyed the national idea, may still be a
\npossibility.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\t2  <\/font><\/sup>This has been modified by the substitution of a
\nSoviet Union claiming to unite these Asiatic peoples voluntarily with Russia:
\nbut one is not quite sure whether this is a permanent reality or only a
\ntemporary apparent phenomenon<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\t\t3 <\/font><\/sup>These two empires have now
\n\t\tdisappeared and there seems to be no possibility of their revival<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span>Page-294<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nnot only the independent Serbian nationality and the
\nimperfect Slavism of the Bulgar but the quite incompatible Rumanian, Greek and
\nAlbanian elements. Thus it does not appear that this tendency towards vast
\nhomogeneous aggregates, although it has fo<\/font><\/span>r<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nsome<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>time played an important part in the world’s history a<\/font>nd is not exhausted or
\nfinally baffled, is ever likely to be the eventual solution; for even if it
\ntriumphed, it would have to meet a greater or less degree the difficulties of
\nthe heterogeneous ’empire, The true problem of empire therefore still remains,
\nhow to transform the artificial political unity of a heterogeneous empire,
\nheterogeneous in racial composition, language and culture, into real and
\npsychological unity.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>History
\ngives us only one great and definite example of an tempt to solve this problem
\non this large scale and with antecedent conditions which could at all afford
\nany guidance for the vast heterogeneous modern empires, those of Russia,
\nEngland,1<\/sup> <\/font><\/span> <\/font>Fr<\/font><\/span>ance to which the problem is
\nnow offered. The old Chinese empire of the five nations, admirably organised,
\nwas not a case point; for all its constituent parts were Mongolian in race and
\npresented no formidable cultural difficulties. But the imperial Roman had to
\nface essentially the same problems as the moderns minus one or two very
\nimportant complications and he solved them up to a certain point with a
\nmasterly success. His empire lured through several centuries and, though often
\nthreatened with disruption, yet by its inner principle of unity and by its
\noverpowering centripetal attraction triumphed over all disruptive tendencies.
\nIts one failure was the bisection into the Eastern and Western empires which
\nhastened its final ending. Still when that end came it was not by a disruption
\nfrom within but simply by e decaying of its centre of life. And it was not till
\nthis central life faded that the pressure of the barbarian world without, to
\nwhich its ruin is wrongly attributed, could prevail over its magnificent
\nsolidarity.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>The
\nRoman effected his sway by military conquest and military colonisation; but
\nonce that conquest was assured, he<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>T<\/font>his
\nempire has so altered its form into that of a free Commonwealth that the
\nobjection is no longer relevant; there is no longer an old-world empire but a
\nfree Commonwealth and a number of subject peoples moving rapidly towards
\nself-government.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>295<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

was not content with holding it together as an artificial
\npolitical unity, nor did he trust solely to that political convenience of a
\ngood, efficient and well-organised government economically and administratively
\nbeneficent which made it at first acceptable to the conquered peoples. He had
\ntoo sure a political instinct to be so easily satisfied; for it is certain that
\nif he had stopped short there, the empire would have broken up at a much
\nearlier date. The peoples under his sway would have preserved their sense of
\nseparate nationality and, once accustomed to Roman efficiency and
\nadministrative organisation, would inevitably have tended to the separate enjoyment
\nof these advantages as independent organised nations. It was this sense of
\nseparate nationality which the Roman rule succeeded in blotting out wherever it
\nestablished its own dominant influence. And this was done not by the stupid
\nexpedient of a brutal force after the Teutonic fashion, but by a peaceful
\npressure. Rome first compounded with the one rival culture that was superior in
\ncertain respects to her own and accepted it as part of her own cultural
\nexistence and even as its most valuable part; she created a Graeco-Roman
\ncivilisation, left the Greek tongue to spread and secure it in the East, but
\nintroduced it everywhere else by the medium of the Latin language and a Latin
\neducation and succeeded in peacefully overcoming the decadent or inchoate cultures
\nof Gaul and her other conquered provinces. But since even this process might
\nnot have been sufficient to abolish all separatist tendency, she not only
\nadmitted her Latinised subjects to the highest military and civil offices and
\neven to the imperial purple, so that within less than a century after Augustus,
\nfirst an Italian Gaul and then an Iberian Spaniard held the name and power of
\nthe Caesars, but she proceeded rapidly enough to deprive of all vitality and
\nthen even nominally to abolish all the grades of civic privilege with which she
\nhad started and extended the full Roman citizenship to all her subjects,
\nAsiatic, European and African, without distinction<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The result was that the whole empire
\nbecame psychologically and not only politically a single Graeco-Roman unity.
\nNot only superior force or the recognition of Roman peace and good government,
\nbut all the desires, associations, pride, cultural<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage-296<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

affinities
\nof the provinces made them firmly attached to the maintenance of the empire.
\nEvery attempt of provincial ruler or military chief to start provincial empires
\nfor their own benefit failed because it found no basis, no supporting tendency,
\nno national sentiment and no sense of either material or any other advantage to
\nbe gained by the change, in the population on whom the successful continuity of
\nthe attempt had to depend. So far the Roman succeeded; where he failed, it was
\ndue to the essential vice of his method. By crushing out, however peacefully,
\nthe living cultures or the incipient individuality of the peoples he ruled, he
\ndeprived the peoples of their sources of vitality, the roots of their force. No
\ndoubt, he removed all positive causes of disruption and secured a passive force
\nof opposition to all disruptive change;. but his empire lived only at the
\ncentre and when that centre tended to become exhausted, there was no positive
\nand abounding life throughout the body from which it could be replenished. In
\nthe end Rome could not even depend on a supply of vigorous individuals from the
\npeoples whose life she had pressed out under the weight of a borrowed
\ncivilisation; she had to draw on the frontier barbarians. And when she fell to
\npieces, it was these barbarians and not the old peoples resurgent who became
\nher heirs. For their barbarism was at least a living force and a principle of
\nlife, but the Graeco- Roman civilisation had become a principle of death. All
\nthe living forces were destroyed by whose contact it could have modified and
\nrenewed its own force. In the end it had itself to be destroyed in its form and
\nits principle resown in the virgin field of the vital and vigorous culture of
\nmediaeval Europe. What the Roman had not the wisdom to do by his organised
\nempire,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>for even the profoundest and surest political instinct
\nis not wisdom,<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>– had to <\/font> <\/span>
\nbe done by Nature herself in the loose but living
\nunity of mediaeval Christendom.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The example of Rome has haunted the
\npolitical imagination of Europe ever since. Not only has it been behind the Holy
\nRoman Empire of Charlemagne and Napoleon’s gigantic attempt and the German
\ndream of a world-empire governed by Teutonic efficiency and Teutonic culture,
\nbut all the imperial nations, including France and England, have followed to a
\ncertain extent<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span>Page-297<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

in its footsteps. But, significantly enough, every attempt
\nat renewing the Roman success has failed. The modern nations have not been able
\nto follow Rome completely in the lines she had traced out or if they tried to
\nfollow, have clashed against different conditions and either collapsed or been
\nobliged to call a halt. It is as if Nature had said, "That experiment has
\nbeen carried once to the logical consequences and once is enough. I have made
\nnew conditions; find you new means or at least mend and add to the old where
\nthey were deficient or went astray."<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nThe European nations have extended
\ntheir empires by the old Roman method of military conquest and colonisation,
\nabandoning for the most part the pre-Roman principle of simple over lordship or
\nhegemony which was practised by the Assyrian and Egyptian kings, the Indian
\nStates and the Greek cities. But this principle also has been sometimes used in
\nthe shape of the protectorate to prepare the more normal means of occupation.
\nThe colonies have not been of the pure Roman, but of a mixed Carthaginian and
\nRoman type, official and military, enjoying like the Roman colonies superior
\ncivic rights to the indigenous population, they have been at the same time and
\nfar more commercial colonies of exploitation. The nearest to the Roman type has
\nbeen the English settlement in Ulster, while the German system in Poland
\ndeveloped under modern conditions the old Roman principle of expropriation. But
\nthese are exceptions, not the rule.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The conquered territory once occupied and
\nsecure, the modern nations have found themselves brought up short by a
\ndifficulty which they have not been able to surmount as the Romans surmounted
\nit,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>the difficulty of uprooting the indigenous culture and
\nwith it the indigenous sense of separateness. All these empires have at first
\ncarried with them the idea of imposing their culture along with the flag, first
\nsimply as an instinct of the conqueror and as a necessary adjunct to the fact
\nof political domination and a security for its permanence, but latterly with
\nthe conscious intention of extending, as it is some- what pharisaically put,
\nthe benefits of civilisation to the "inferior" races. It cannot be
\nsaid that the attempt has anywhere been very prosperous. It was tried with
\nconsiderable thoroughness<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Page-298<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

and
\nruthlessness in Ireland, but although the Irish speech was stamped out except
\nin the wilds of Connaught and all distinctive signs of the old Irish culture
\ndisappeared, the outraged nationality simply clung to whatever other means of
\ndistinctiveness it could find, however exiguous, its Catholic religion, its
\nCeltic race <\/font>and
\nnationhood, and even when it became Anglicised, refused<\/font><\/span> to become <\/font> <\/span>
\nEnglish. The removal or
\nslackening of the foreign pres<\/font><\/span>sure has
\nresulted in a violent recoil, an attempt to revive the Gaelic speech, to
\nreconstitute the old Celtic spirit and culture. The German failed to
\nPrussianise Poland or even his own kin who speak his own language, the
\nAlsatians. The Finn remained unconquerably Finnish in Russia. The mild Austrian
\nmethods left the Austrian Pole as Polish as his oppressed brother in German
\nPosen. Accordingly, there began to rise everywhere a growing sense of the
\ninutility of the endeavour and the necessity of leaving the soul of the subject
\nnation free, confining the action of the sovereign State to the enforcement of
\nnew administrative and economic conditions with as much social and cultural
\nchange as may be freely accepted or may come about by education and the force
\nof circumstances.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The German, indeed, new and inexperienced in imperial methods,
\nclung to the old Roman idea of assimilation which he sought to execute both by
\nRoman and by un-Roman means. He showed even a tendency to go back beyond the
\nCaesars of old, to the methods of the Jew in Canaan and the Saxon in Eastern
\nBritain, methods of expulsion and massacre. But since he was, after all,
\nmodernised and had some sense of economic necessity and advantage, he could not
\ncarry out this policy with any thoroughness or in times of peace. Still he insisted
\non the old Roman method, sought to substitute German speech and culture for the
\nindigenous and, as he could not do it by peaceful pressure, he tried it by
\nforce. An attempt of this kind is bound to fail; instead of bringing about the
\npsychological unity at which it aims, it succeeds only in accentuating the
\nnational spirit and plants a rooted and invincible hatred which is dangerous to
\nthe empire and may even destroy it if the opposed elements are not too small in
\nnumber and weak in force. And if this effacing of heterogeneous cultures is
\nimpossible in Europe where the<\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Page-299<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

differences are only variations of a common type and there
\nare only small and weak elements to overcome, it is obviously out of the
\nquestion for those empires which have to deal with great Asiatic and African
\nmasses rooted for many centuries in an old and well-formed national culture. If
\na psychological unity has to be created, it must be by other means.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The impact of different cultures upon
\neach other has not ceased but has rather been accentuated by the conditions of
\nthe modern world. But the nature of the impact, the ends towards which it moves
\nand the means by which the ends can most successfully be worked out, are
\nprofoundly altered. The earth is in travail now of one common, large and
\nflexible civilisation for the whole human race into which each modem and
\nancient culture shall bring its contribution and each clearly defined human
\naggregate shall introduce its necessary element of variation. In the working
\nout of this aim, there must necessarily be some struggle for survival. The
\nfittest to survive will be here all that can best serve the tendencies Nature
\nis working out in humanity, <\/font>–<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>not only the tendencies of the hour, but the reviving
\ntendencies of the past and the yet inchoate tendencies of the future. And it
\nwill be too all that can best help as liberating and combining forces, best
\nmake for adaptation and adjustment and for deliverance of the hidden sense of
\nthe great Mother in her strivings. But success in this struggle is worst and
\nnot best served by military violence or political pressure. German culture for
\ngood or ill was making rapid conquests throughout the world before the rulers
\nof Germany were ill-advised enough to rouse the latent force of opposing ideals
\nby armed violence. And even now that which is essential in it, the State idea
\nand the organisation of the life of the community by the State which is common
\nboth to German imperialism and to German socialism, is far more likely to
\nsucceed by the defeat of the former in the War than it could have done by its
\nvictory in a brute struggle.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nThis change in the movement and
\norientation of the world’s tendencies points to a law of interchange and
\nadaptation and to the emergence of a new birth out of the meeting of many
\nelements. Only those imperial aggregates are likely to succeed and eventually
\nendure which recognise the new law and shape their<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-300<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

organisation to accord with it. Immediate victories of an opposite
\nkind may indeed be gained and violence done to the law; but such present
\nsuccesses are won, as history has repeatedly shown, at the cost of a nation’s
\nwhole future. The recognition of the new truth had already commenced as a
\nresult of increased communication and the widening of knowledge. The value of
\nvariations had begun to be acknowledged and the old arrogant claims of this or
\nthat culture to impose itself and crush out all others were losing their force
\nand self-confidence when the old outworn creed suddenly leaped up armed with
\nthe German sword to vindicate itself, if it might, before it perished. The only
\nresult has been to give added force and clear recognition to the truth it
\nsought to deny. The importance even of the smallest States, Belgium, Serbia,1
\n<\/sup>as cultural units in the European
\nwhole has been lifted almost to the dignity of a creed. The recognition of the
\nvalue of Asiatic cultures, confined formerly to the thinker, scholar and
\nartist, has now been brought into the popular mind by association on the
\nbattlefield. The theory of "inferior" races, an inferiority and
\nsuperiority measured by approximation to one’s own form of culture, has
\nreceived what may well turn out to have been its death-blow. The seeds of a new
\norder of things are being rapidly sown in the conscious mentality of the race.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis new turn of the impact of cultures shows
\nitself most clearly where the European and the Asiatic meet. French culture in
\nNorthern Africa, English culture in India cease at once to be French or English
\nand become simply the common European civilisation in face of the Asiatic; it is
\nno longer an imperial domination intent to secure itself by assimilation, but
\ncontinent parleying with continent. The political motive sinks into
\ninsigni\u00adficance; the world-motive takes its place. And in this confron\u00adtation it
\nis no longer a self-confident European civilisation that offers its light and
\ngood to the semi-barbarous Asiatic and the latter that gratefully accepts a
\nbeneficent transformation. Even adaptable Japan, after the first enthusiasm of
\nacceptance, has retained all that is fundamental in her culture, and every\u00adwhere
\nelse the European current has met the opposition of an<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>Now Yugoslavia<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Page-301<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\ninner voice and force which cries halt to its
\nvictorious impetus.1<\/sup> <\/font> <\/font><\/sup>The
\nEast is on the whole, in spite of certain questionings and scruples, willing
\nand, where not wholly willing, forced by cir\u00adcumstances and the general tendency
\nof mankind to accept the really valuable parts of modern European culture, its
\nscience, its curiosity, its ideal of universal education and uplift, its
\naboli\u00adtion of privilege, its broadening, liberalising democratic tenden\u00adcy, its
\ninstinct of freedom and equality, its call for the breaking down of narrow and
\noppressive forms, for air, space, light. But at a certain point the East refuses
\nto proceed farther and that is precisely in the things which are deepest, most
\nessential to the future of mankind, the things of the soul, the profound things
\nof the mind and temperament. Here, again, all points not to substi\u00adtution and
\nconquest, -but to mutual understanding and inter\u00adchange, mutual adaptation and
\nnew formation.<\/font><\/p>\n

   
\nThe old idea is not entirely dead and will not die without a last struggle.
\nThere are still those who dream of a Christianised India, the English tongue
\npermanently dominating if not re\u00adplacing the indigenous languages, or the
\nacceptance of European social forms and manners as the necessary precondition
\nfor an equal status between a European and Asiatic. But they are those who
\nbelong in spirit to a past generation and cannot value the signs of the hour
\nwhich point to a new era. Christianity, for instance, has only succeeded where
\nit could apply its one or two features of distinct superiority, the readiness to
\nstoop and uplift the fallen and oppressed where the Hindu bound in the forms of
\ncaste would not touch nor succour, its greater swiftness to give relief where it
\nis needed, in a word, the active compassion and helpfulness which it inherited
\nfrom its parent Buddhism. Where it could not apply this lever, it has failed
\ntotally and even this lever it may easily lose; for the soul of India reawakened
\nby the new impact is beginning to recover its lost tendencies. The social forms
\nof the past are changing where they are unsuited to the new political and
\neconomic conditions and ideals or incompatible with the increasing urge towards
\nfreedom and equality; but<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1
\n\t\t<\/sup>There
\nhas been a recrudescence of the Europeanising turn in Turkey and in China
\nre\u00adinforced by the influence of Bolshevist Russia. Wherever there is a
\nretardatory orthodoxy to overcome, this movement is likely to appear, but only
\n\t\tas a passing phase.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nPage-302<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthere is no sign that anything
\nbut a new Asiatic society broadened and liberalised will emerge from this
\ntravail. The signs every\u00adwhere are the same; the forces everywhere work in the
\nsame sense. Neither France nor England has the power\u2014and they are fast or slowly
\nlosing the desire \u2014 to destroy and replace the Islamic culture in Africa or the
\nIndian in India. All they can do is to give what they have of value to be
\nassimilated according to the needs and the inner spirit of the older nations.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n    <\/font>
\nIt was necessary to dwell on this question because it is vital
\nto the future of imperialism. The replacement of the local by the imperial
\nculture and as far as possible by the speech of the con\u00adqueror was essential to
\nthe old imperial theory; but the moment that becomes out of the question and the
\nvery desire of it has to be renounced as impracticable, the old Roman model of
\nempire ceases to be of any avail for the solution of the problem. Some\u00adthing of
\nthe Roman lesson remains valid, \u2014 those features espe\u00adcially that are essential
\nto the very essence of imperialism and the meaning of empire;
\nbut a new model is demanded. That new model has already begun to evolve in
\nobedience to the require\u00adments of the age; it
\nis the model of the federal or else the confe\u00adderate empire. The problem we have
\nto consider narrows itself down to this: is
\nit possible to create a securely federated empire of vast extent and composed of
\nheterogeneous races and cultures ? And
\ngranting that in this direction lies the future, how can such an empire so
\nartificial in appearance be welded into a natural and psychological unit?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-303<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER VI  Ancient and Modern Methods of Empire                   A CLEAR distinction must be made between ,two political aggregates which go equally in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}