Western inventions and Western ideas have taken permanent root in India; the modern incursion is too emphatic to be denied or opposed. Is it not better, then, to adopt a balanced sensible view, to cling to the past only where it is worthwhile, and to desert outworn fanatical or uneconomical ways? All that is true and useful in European and American ideas and goods should be made freely available for the proper service of Indians. It is only in such ready commingling, both here and in the West itself, that both will benefit, both will become reconciled despite external differences, and both will be ultimately perfected. India can and should keep all that is best in her cultural inheritance, yet she can also imitate the West in wise restrained material development, in the swift use of new inventions. Thus posterity will be made to prove that the adventurous English did not enter India without a higher purpose than they were conscious of.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 1 : Meetings of East and West > # 280
