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0255 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
チベットとトルキスタン : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / 255 ページ(白黒高解像度画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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of lay power. But here nature seems to have
made permanent those conditions which favour
monastic development. Nor can it be doubted that
in spite of some moral decay (less, it would seem,
than in the shameful eras of European orders) there
is a certain civilising, conserving influence exerted
by bodies of men whose theoretical rule of life is one
of simplicity and charity, and who keep alive the
flame of learning among rude peoples. True, theirs
is the puerile learning which was so dear to the
Christian mind for centuries—so satisfying until this
world began to be made agreeably interesting.
And some may charge the monks with delaying
progress toward that betterment of physical condi-
tion which will alleviate the misery and eventually
lessen the ignorance of the people.
In an existence like ours, made up of inextricably
crossed cause and effect, we can see but a few se-
quences at a time. We do not know that an irrup-
tion of the Gauls, an establishment of the feudal
system, or an enraged Reformation, have been fol-
lowed by more, or less, of evil than would have re-
sulted from some supposed alternative course. We
only know that they existed; that we may discover,
in close connection with them, certain elements of
pain, certain elements of pleasure; and that we are
blindly driven on to do and to undo. We may be
fairly secure in this, that the violent destruction of
any long-established institution by a force exterior
to the society which has produced such institution,
must generally be immediately followed by evil in
much greater proportion than good. The distant
future, perhaps, will balance the account; yet