The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c6.s2.19

c6.s2.19

Both these attitudes must be set aside as superficial. It is not necessary to claim extraordinary achievements for Orientals in order to prove their political *viriya* and administrative *śakti* (genius). Nor again is it permissible to read modern ideas into the “liberties” of Athens and Rome or forget the limitations of feudal and Hapsburg Europe or be blind to the two thousand years of occidental autocracy from Alexander to the end of the *ancien régime*.¹