Real Revolution — Page 29
29 well; when he believes that if he makes sacrifices for the benefit of others, he may not gain much in the worldly sense but would undoubtedly benefit in the spiritual sense. On the other hand, when a man is convinced that there is no lite other than this, he sees no sense in forgoing any gain, legitimate or illegitimate. . The extreme type of nationalism is a result of the materialistic philosophy of life. It leads to luxurious living, for which the desire is rooted in a material point of view which emphasises the over-riding need for making the utmost of this life, by whatever means should happen to be handy, this being the main reason why luxury has been developed in the West into an art and a cult. . . Difference between the Roman and Modern. Western Civilizations. . Government among the Romans was government by law, that being the reason why their philosophy followed, for the greater part, the method of deduction, being in most parts only a fuller development and a fuller exposition of Greek philosophy and culture. All branches of this philosophy follow the principle of déduction-medicine, ethics, religion, and political theory. But modern Western civilization being based on materialism, (i. e. observation and experiment of the particulars), it starts from the particular and proceeds to the general. The general is either arrived at on the basis of the particular