"In India, a holy man is usually one who sits almost naked by the roadside, living meagrely upon the alms of those who pass by. His saintly qualities are exhibited in negations: he cares nothing for material possessions, he does not strive or struggle, he ignores the body for the sake of the spirit. All the complicated apparatus of civilised life is unnecessary to him... This form of sanctification would be both difficult and disagreeable in a cold climate, where the fakir's nudity would soon cause his death and his immobility would make his blood stagnate and his limbs freeze. Clothing and warmth and shelter, with us, are not luxuries but necessaries; activity, however the mystic may view it as a bondage to matter, is essential to health. Even extreme ascetics choose virtues which are in some way attractive. In the tropics it is pleasant to think that holiness is to be achieved by sitting still; in the north the saint prefers to think that holiness and hustle go together... Are our ethics better in this than those of tropical civilisations? I see no way of deciding this question. The only thing that seems clear is that our morality is dominated by the difficulty of keeping warm, and that of India by the difficulty of keeping cool. As Lao-tse said about 600 BC: 'Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.' This seems the last word on the subject."