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would make clear the fact that the chief reason why all previous attempts, real or imaginary, honest or dishonest, have failed is because the time had not come. No reform for the abolition of caste system would have had any chance of success unless the whole of India was treated simultaneously by the reformer. Any simultaneous action would have been possible only when India should have been brought under one government, and under conditions when all the people of India should have felt their unity and should have had the opportunity of co-operating in the adoption of a uniform policy. More than this. Such a task calls forth men capable of influencing the whole country, with ability of managing vast empires, and with honest desire for social reform.

When I say that the time had not come I should not be construed to mean that the previous attempts were well meant and well directed, for a large number of them were not. Most of the so-called "religious reformers" were not men who were at all inspired by any motives of social reform. Some of them, whom European scholarship, often anxious to expose the folly of the Brāhmans, has styled "religious reformers," were men inspired by motives no other than that of getting incense burnt before themselves; some of them mendacious rogues, and some religious demagogues. Success in founding religions does not always require any great knowledge or a zeal for the improvement of the human lot, or even manly virtues. Very often, or almost always, the men who succeed are those who possess a great deal of audacity, impudence, appetite for honour, and capability for cheating, that is, for making miracles.

Some religious men or reformers were anxious to turn away the minds of their followers from material objects, and