A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c32.94

v2.c32.94

appear to most men altogether chimerical. Yet the magnetism of their perfection tells powerfully upon their contemporaries. An enthusiasm is kindled, a group of adherents is formed, and many are emancipated from the moral condition of their age. Yet the full effects of such a movement are but transient. The first enthusiasm dies away, surrounding circumstances resume their ascendency, the pure faith is materialised, encrusted with conceptions that are alien to its nature, dislocated, and distorted till its first features have almost disappeared. The moral teaching being unsuited to the time becomes inoperative until its appropriate civilisation has dawned, or at most it faintly and imperfectly filters through an accumulation of dogmas, and thus accelerates in some measure the arrival of the condition it requires.” Vol. i, p. 305, Ed. 1900.