Tennyson puts these famous words into the mouth of King Arthur in his poem The Passing of Arthur.’ When Arthur is about to die, Bedivere, one of his faithful followers, bewails the passing away of the old order – of the age of knighthood and chivalry-and complains that he has to live on in a different kind of society. Arthur consoles him with the well-known lines: The old order changeth yielding place to new, lest one good custom should corrupt the world, and God fulfils Himself in many ways.
Many Indians of the older generation would do well to ponder over these lines. They had been brought up in an atmosphere where traditional ideas and ways of life prevailed; they had been used to certain age-old practices and customs. They have witnessed, with anguish and dismay, the gradual disappearance of old beliefs and customs and their replacement by new ones. The joint family system has broken up and the general attitude to questions like religion, caste and marriage has undergone a sea-change.
Such people should remember that change is the law of life, and try to understand the new order with sympathy.
History proves that no social or political order, however powerful or stable it might be for a time, has been permanent. The ancient Greek and Roman civilisation passed away, making way for the domination of Christianity in Europe. The mighty British Empire could last only for a few centuries; it had to yield to the growing pressure of nationalism in Asia and Africa. Men are not static like stones or blocks of wood. They continuously advance, invent, create and destroy and interact upon one another. The result of this process is a succession of changes that come over a society or nation.
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When a particular order is unjust we can understand why it is bound to yield place, sooner or later, to a new and just order. But Tennyson says that even a just or good order passes away, and he suggests a reason for it. The reason is that even a good custom or practice, when followed for a very long period, corrupts the world. It is mechanically followed, while its true meaning is forgotten. There is nothing sacred about a single social or political system, and God fulfils Himself in many ways.