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The revolutionary tendencies of the Bengalis provide us with suitable present-day material for comparison with the sources of rebellion in mythology, and the analysis of the factors exposed in these two instances, with the aid of the knowledge which psycho-analysis has gleaned from the study of similar factors in individuals, may throw some light on those deeper revolutionary tendencies the outbreak of which from time to time marks the history of human evolution.
It is proposed, therefore, to quote instances which will provide material for further analysis, in the reading of which some patience on the reader's part will be required.
In his fascinating book, The Heart of Aryavarta, from which all of the extracts are taken, Lord Ronaldshay writes:
The spirit of modern India is in large measure a manifestation of the pride of race of the intellectual Hindu—a thing born of a rapidly awakening consciousness of past greatness, giving birth in its turn to an extreme sensitiveness to any suggestion of inferiority where East and West come into contact.
To the psychologist, however, it would appear that such sensitiveness to any suggestion of inferiority could only arise from a deep-seated sense of inferiority, the unconscious source of which we will endeavour to shew. Whilst acknowledging the emphasis placed on 'pride of race' by the Hindu, we also know it to be one of the peculiarities of the race which on close observation appears not to be founded on that true pride originating in consciousness of power.
Many of the idiosyncrasies of man are really the over-compensation for the opposite tendencies in his unconscious. On this question Berkeley-Hill writes: 'We find in a recent text-book published for the use of the Central Hindu College at Benares such desperate expressions resulting from the attempt to compensate a powerful insufficiency complex as the following: