Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c5.46

c5.46

The world has changed a good deal in this twentieth century of ours. Through the materialistic and positivistic tendencies of centuries we have now learnt to care more for our material life than for anything higher and spiritual. The advancement of positive sciences, the growing keenness in the struggle for existence,—the sternly acute problems of the grossly real life have turned the mind of the general mass away from the problems of the supra-mental reality. This life of flesh and blood, the apparently repulsive naked truths of the mysterious sphere, commonly known as the mind, the real weal and woe with which we are beset in our ordinary daily life,—the suppressed pangs of depressed humanity—the injustice of the powerful, the suffering of the weak—inequity of the social machine, crashing of the innocent heart,—triumph of the bourgeoisie and the cry of the proletariat—these are the things that are engaging our whole attention,—and these are the things which we think and feel, and the mysteries of which we try to give expression to. The influence of the Continental literature and the closer contact of our life with the rapidly progressive life of the rising powers of the world around are rousing in us almost a craze for realism, and history must have its course.