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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
so it is a historic necessity that human spirit, in course of time, should outgrow that stage, and learn to think differently. The failure in that respect on the part of any community means that it has not followed a normal course of development and, therefore, its future is bound to be embittered by all sorts of misfortunes until it is violently shaken out of the rut to catch up with the ground lost in the path of progress.
Physically, childhood is inevitably followed by adolescence, and this in its turn by maturity. The physical stages respectively are characterised spiritually by infantile notions, mental restlessness, and stable ideas. In the life history of a community, these spiritual characteristics are religion, rationalism and scientific knowledge. When infantile notions persist in a youth, he is suspected of cretinism or imbecility. These are psycho-physical maladies that are treated medically for cure. Infantile notions in a fullgrown adult indicate senile decay. Similarly, the absence of rationalist thought-skepticism as against faith, revolt as against tradition, enquiry as against superstition, criticism as against prejudice-in a community with as long a history as the Indian people has, is not a sign of superiority, but the symptom of a disease, the germs of which are bred in the pool of social stagnation. The complete domination of its life by childish religious beliefs, the clouding of its spiritual horizon by antiquated ideas, is the evidence
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