The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c6.s2.17

c6.s2.17

The “superior races” of the last hundred years have been misled by their fact of success to postulate the whole development of Asian polity as nothing but an unchanging record of semi-savage, i. e., almost un-political or pre-political group-life, and the entire literature of oriental political thought as at best but commonplace speculation pervaded by theocratic ideas. Thus has been engendered a monumental *idola* in the realm of social science. They manage to forget that the superior races of the ancient and mediaeval world were not Europeans but Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Mohammedans and Buddhist-Shamanist Tartars, whether in the strength of arms or in the “more glorious victories” of peace. Down to the second siege of Vienna in 1699 it was the historic role of Asia to be always the aggressor and of Europe to be on the defensive.