gration of ancient faiths is in progress in the upper strata of
society. Most of the ablest thinkers become pure Theists or
Unitarians."[76] That change took place within the nineteenth century, a
testimony to the force of Christian theism in building up belief, and to
the power of the modern Indian atmosphere to dissipate irrational and
unpractical beliefs. For, in contact with the practical instincts of
Europe, the pantheistic denial of one's own personality--a disbelief in
one's own consciousness, the thought that there is no thinker--was bound
to give way, as well as the irrational polytheism. Very unphilosophical
may have been Lord Byron's attitude to the idealism of Berkeley: "When
Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, 'twas no matter what he said."
But that represents the modern atmosphere which New India is breathing,
and it is fatal to pantheism.

[Sidenote: The spread of monotheism traced.]

It is interesting to note how monotheism spread. The Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j
of Madras was founded in 1864, theistic like the mother society, the
Br[=a]hma Sam[=a]j of Bengal. Three years later the first of similar
bodies on the west side of India was founded, the Pr[=a]rthan[=a]
Sam[=a]jes or Prayer Associations of Bombay. Their very name, the
_Prayer_ Associations, implies the dual conception of God and Man, for
the pantheistic conception does not admit of the idea of prayer any more
than it admits of the other dualistic conceptions of revelation, of
worship, and of sin. These movements, again, were followed in the United
Provinces and the North-West of India by the founding of the _[=A]rya
Sam[=a]j_, or, as I have called it, the Vedic Theistic Association, also
professedly theistic. Polytheism and pantheism alike, the [=A]ryas
repudiate. For the gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, the founder
of the [=A]ryas declared there was no recognition in the Vedas.
Demonstrable or not, that is the [=A]rya position. The rejection of
pantheism by such a body is noteworthy, for pantheism is identified with
India and the Vedanta, the most widely accepted of the six systems of
Indian philosophy, and the [=A]rya Sam[=a]j is nothing if not patriotic.
It is above all pro-Indian and pro-Vedic. Their direct repudiation of
pantheism may not be apparent to Western minds. [=A]ryas predicate three
eternal entities, God, the Soul, and Matter,[77] and this declaration of
the reality of the soul and of matter is a direct denial of the
panth