Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 17th July 1909 — No.4
Facts and Opinions
An Unequal Fight
Our controversy with the Bengalee is like a conflict between denizens of two different elements.
Not only has our contemporary the advantage of prompt reply, but he has such a giant's gulp for formulas, such a magnificent and victorious method of dealing with great fundamental questions in a few sentences, such a generous faculty for clouding a definite point with sounding generalisations that he leaves us weak and gasping for breath.
However in our own feeble way we shall try to deal with the several points he has raised.
Their importance must be our excuse for the length of our reply.
One great difficulty in our way is that our contemporary for the convenience of his argument chooses to attribute to us the most ridiculous opinions born out of his own prolific brain and generous facility in reading whatever he chooses into other people's minds.
He thinks, for instance, that by seeing a special manifestation of Divine Power and Grace in a particular movement we mean to shut God out from all others.
This is a fair sample of the “inconsistencies” which the Bengalee is always finding in his own brain and projecting into ours.
If we have to guard ourselves at every point against such gratuitous misconceptions, argument becomes impossible.
Neither space nor patience will allow of it.