१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

SWADHARMA & SWARAJ
true idea of them by means of simple description, or even
by tracing them backwards to accidental causes. An up-
right and impartial historian must try to discover the
foundations on which the revolutionary structure was
erected. He must try to discover and discuss funda-
mental causes.
Mazzini, in a critical article on Carlyle's French
Revolution, has said that every revolution must have had
a fundamental principle. Revolution is a complete re-
arrangement in the life of historic man. A revolutionary
movement cannot be based on a flimsy and momentary
grievance. It is always due to some all-moving principle
for which hundreds and thousands of men fight, before
which thrones totter, crowns are destroyed and created,
existing ideals are shattered and new ideals break forth,
and for the sake of which vast masses of people think
lightly of shedding sacred human blood. The moving
spirits of revolutions are deemed holy or unholy in pro-
portion as the principle underlying them is beneficial or
wicked. As in private life, so also in history, the deeds
of an individual or a nation are judged by the character
of the motive. If we forget this test, we cannot appreciate
the vast difference between the empire-building wars of
Alexander the Great and Italy's fight for liberty under
Garibaldi. Just as to decide about the merits of these two
different events one has to consider the prime motive of
the chief actors in those wars, so also to write a full history
of a revolution means necessarily the tracing of all the
events of that revolution back to their source,—the motive,
the innermost desire of those who brought it about. This
is the telescope which will show clearly the lights and
shadows obscured by the blurred presentation of partial
and prejudiced historians. When a beginning is made in
this manner, order appears in the apparent chaos of in-
consistent facts, crooked lines become straight, and straight
lines appear crooked, light appears where darkness is, and
darkness spreads over light, what appeared ugly becomes
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