without State support.' This is surely a somewhat pessimistic view to take of the prospects of Sikhism, and appears to be hardly consistent with the increase in the Sikhs between 1881 and 1901. When, in a case before it, the Panjab Chief Court declared the Sikhs to be only a sect of Hindus, the Sikhs asserted the fundamental difference of Sikhism in doctrine from Hinduism, as they believe in the unity of God, not in the Hindu pantheon or rites.

Mr Macauliffe does not explain what he means exactly by State support. The expression would, in politics, ordinarily mean pecuniary assistance. Such support of an Indian religion is out of the question. Religious neutrality, whatever the term may be held to mean, is the settled policy of the Government of India. A concession of pecuniary support to one religion would lead to applications from others. Such a total reversal of previous policy is hardly thinkable, and, even if India were much more tranquil than it is, would not come within the range of practical politics. The obvious comment is that the maintenance of their separate religion is a matter for the Sikhs themselves.

But on other and secular grounds it is open to the Government to do what they fairly can for the Sikhs, whose loyalty deserves recognition. Their numbers show them to be in a minority in the Panjab, as compared either with the Hindus or the Muhammadans. The latter, all over India, have succeeded, though in a minority compared with the Hindus, in obtaining political concessions on the ground of their historical and potential importance. The Sikhs are in a smaller minority; but no community can be of more value to the Government than one which supplies so large a proportion of her loyal and best soldiers, a prosperous military colony, and a flourishing peasantry. Professor Weber, of Berlin, the illustrious Oriental scholar, once wrote thus of the Sikhs: 'They are the best soldiers in the Indian army; and if ever (absit omen!) British rule should really be endangered, the Sikhs will remain, let us hope, its firm supporters.' The Muhammadans have lately, as applicants for favours, very properly asserted their loyalty to the Government, but they were not always so loyal. It might in the future be of the utmost importance to the

Government to have a warlike community, like the Sikhs, on which they could depend against these hereditary foes of the Sikhs, or against a combination of the other creeds or races into which India is divided. In such an event the traditional hatred of the Sikhs for the Muhammadans would be a material factor. There is, it is well known, a movement on foot in India to arouse a feeling of common nationality of all Indians, to induce Muhammadans to amalgamate with Hindus, to undermine the allegiance of the Native Princes, to excite animosity against British rule with a view to ending it. The success of the Hindu movement is hardly conceivable-only foolish flies yield to the blandishments of the spider-but of its existence in the propaganda of the extremists there is no doubt; the moderates and best Indians keep the attack on British rule out of their programmes. The endeavour to absorb the Sikhs into Hinduism is part of this movement for nationalism; it is not merely the reassertion of Hinduism over sectarians, as when Brahmanism overwhelmed Buddhism centuries ago, it is also part of the political game. Unfortunately the Sikhs themselves, having the defects of their qualities, have, through their own laches failed to maintain the position which they held when the Panjab was annexed. Like the Muhammadans, they have neglected their education, and been distanced by the Hindus in the race of life. The consciousness of their deficiencies is coming home to them. There are, it hardly need be said, men of the highest culture among the Sikhs, but their number is small. the Sikhs in general are backward in education, the Government can properly help them at the Khalsa College at Amritsar, and in their schools, and by recognising Panjabi as an alternative official language. The education of the young chiefs might be improved, as it has not always been successful. The Government can also protect the secular interests of the Sikhs, in the matter of appointments, whether in British territory or in the Sikh States; and it could by assignments of land or revenue, for distinguished gallantry in the field, afford such help as has been given to other institutions. The State, in its own interests, will utilise and encourage the military spirit of the Sikhs, and will doubtless enlist as many Sikhs as there is room for in the Indian army,

which, according to a return made in 1909, has a strength of 158,932 men, as compared with the 75,751 men of the European army in India.

Beyond such methods of assistance as these, it is difficult to see what can be done. The Sikhs must work out their own salvation as a community. Under the Pax Britannica their religion will have the fairest chances. In its civil aspect, it has been said, the Sikh religion connotes unquestioning loyalty, and in its military aspect the highest heroism and self-sacrifice. A late Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab expressed an opinion that the Government should take advantage of every legitimate opportunity offered to promote the cause of Sikhism. If the difficulties of the Gurumukhi and other languages of the Granths have hitherto proved obstacles to the spread of their religion, this impediment will no longer operate. Mr Macauliffe's elaborate and sympathetic work will supply an authorised translation, which should find its way into every Sikh school and family; it can easily be expounded to any one with a knowledge of English, which is not uncommon and will spread; the translation will facilitate the study of the original Granth. The existence of the Granth, the maintenance of the temple, the separate worship and ritual, will always be rallying points for the religion against Hinduism. It is a manly faith for which much sympathy may be felt. Whether Sikhism is increasing numerically or diminishing will be shown by the forthcoming census of 1911. It will be desirable that the census returns should carefully distinguish between Gobindi Sikhs, Nanaki, and other Sikhs, and Hindus respectively.

Art. 9. THE FIRST CONTACT OF CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

1. The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire. By T. R. Glover. London: Methuen and Co., 1909. 2. Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus (in the 'Texte und Untersuchungen' of Gebhardt and Harnack, vol. xv). By W. Anz. Leipzig: J. C. Heinrichs, 1897. 3. Poimandres. By R. Reitzenstein. Leipzig: Teubner, 1904.

4. Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum. By Paul Wendland. Tubingen: Mohr, 1907.

5. Hauptprobleme der Gnosis. By Wilhelm Bousset. Göttingen: Vandenhoek, 1907.

6. The Origins of Christianity. By the late Charles Bigg, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.

·

THE development during modern times of what is called the historical imagination,' the growth of descriptive psychology and accumulative anthropology, has made the task of the historian seem far more delicate and difficult than it was in former generations. What we now want to do with the documents of the past is something more ambitious than what our fathers attempted, and yet we must realise in a way they could not have done how hard that ambition is to satisfy. The facts of history in the narrower sense of that word the issue of a battle, the promulgation of a law, the establishment of a religion-have a rational interest, we perceive, only in connection with a larger context of human life, a life which was actually the experience of individuals, and involved a whole world of ideas, of emotions, of desires. What the battle, the law, the religion really were is events in such a life, in such a stream of experience; only as such have they any significance for us. We want to re-live that experience imaginatively ourselves, to feel how it was affected by the events, or the statement of them does not give us anything real. Even where history seems to occupy itself with statistics or naked 'facts' which can

have no imaginative content, it does so only because these things ultimately bear upon a life which we can more or less realise in imagination, because they serve to explain causes which made it what it was. And it is just this context of past events, this atmosphere of ideas, emotions and desires, that it is so hard to recapture. Not only because the millions of individuals in whom they existed have, with the exception of some one or two here and there, left no record of themselves at all. More than that, modern psychology has taught us to realise in truer measure the disconcerting variations between individuals in their inner life, and in a still greater degree the variations in the mentality (that is the convenient catch-word) of different races and different ages. We can never completely understand the person closest to us. And what are we to say of an ambition to understand the buried world of a thousand or two thousand years ago from the scraps of writing, shreds merely of their life and thought, bequeathed us by some score or so of individuals? We must acknowledge at the outset that our end can never be more than very imperfectly attained. Probably, however intelligently anyone had read up modern India or Japan, he would find, on going there, a good deal to correct, a vast deal to supplement, in his impressions. But the accessible literature in England on India or Japan is far more extensive than the literary remains of any period of antiquity. The most finished modern scholar would, no doubt, find much to surprise him if he were dropped into the Athens of Euripides or the Rome of Augustus. And yet our ambition is not utterly vain. We may hope to achieve a measure of success. And that for the reason that these variations are, after all, variations in a common human nature, differences in the relative proportion of elements, none of which are wholly absent in ourselves. This feat of entering into another mentality than our own we have to achieve in studying both alien peoples of to-day and the men of old time. And in the case of the latter there is the added difficulty which comes from the niggardly amount of our data. We can hold intercourse of question and reply with living Indians and Japanese, but for the past we have to make what we can of the limited number of words set down in writing once