Volume II Part 21 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Application of these principles to Europe.] Europe is now entering on its mature phase of life. Each of its nations will attempt its own intellectual organization, and will accomplish it more or less perfectly, as certainly as that bees build combs and fill them with honey. The excellence of the result will altogether turn on the suitability and perfection of the means.
[Sidenote: Example offered by China.] There are historical ill.u.s.trations which throw light upon the working of these principles. Thus, centuries ago, China entered on her Age of Reason, and instinctively commenced the operation of mental organization. What is it that has given to her her wonderful longevity? What is it that insures the well-being, the prosperity of a population of three hundred and sixty millions--more than one fourth of the human race--on a surface not by any means as large as Europe? Not geographical position; for, though the country may in former ages have been safe on the East by reason of the sea, it has been invaded and conquered from the West. Not a docility, want of spirit, or submissiveness of the people, for there have been b.l.o.o.d.y insurrections. The Chinese empire extends through twenty degrees of lat.i.tude; the mean annual temperature of its northern provinces differs from that of the southern by twenty-five Fahrenheit degrees. Hence, with a wonderful variety in its vegetation, there must be great differences in the types of men inhabiting it. But the principle that lies at the basis of its political system has confronted successfully all these human varieties, and has outlived all revolutions.
[Sidenote: She has organized her public intellect,] The organization of the national intellect is that principle. A broad foundation is laid in universal education. It is intended that every Chinese shall know how to read and write. The special plan then adopted is that of compet.i.tive examinations. The way to public advancement is open to all. Merit, real or supposed, is the only pa.s.sport to office. Its degree determines exclusively social rank. The government is organized on mental qualifications. The imperial const.i.tution is imitated in those of the provinces. Once in three years public examinations are held in each district or county, with a view of ascertaining those who are fit for office. The bachelors, or those who are successful, are triennially sent for renewed examination in the provincial capital before two examiners deputed from the general board of public education. The licentiates thus sifted out now offer themselves for final examination before the imperial board at Pekin. Suitable candidates for vacant posts are thus selected. There is no one who is not liable to such an inquisition. When vacancies occur they are filled from the list of approved men, who are gradually elevated to the highest honours.
[Sidenote: and obtains stability for her inst.i.tutions.] It is not because the talented, who, when disappointed const.i.tute in other countries the most dangerous of all cla.s.ses, are here provided for, that stability of inst.i.tutions has been attained, but because the political system approaches to an agreement with that physiological condition which guides all social development. The intention is to give a dominating control to intellect.
[Sidenote: Imperfection of the method she employs.] The method through which that result is aimed at is imperfect, and, consequently, an absolute coincidence between the system and the tendency is not attained, but the stability secured by their approximation is very striking. The method itself is the issue of political forms through which the nation for ages has been pa.s.sing. Their insufficiency and imperfections are incorporated with and reappear in it.
[Sidenote: Its literary basis inadequate.] To the practical eye of Europe a political system thus founded on a literary basis appears to be an absurdity. But we must look with respect on anything that one-fourth of mankind have concluded it best to do, especially since they have consistently adhered to their determination for several thousand years.
Forgetting that herein they satisfy an instinct of humanity which every nation, if it lives long enough, must feel, Europe often a.s.serts that it is the compet.i.tive system which has brought the Chinese to their present state, and made them a people without any sense of patriotism or honour, without any faith or vigour. These are the results, not of their system, but of old age. There are octogenarians among us as morose, selfish, and conceited as China.
[Sidenote: Relative position of Europe and China.] The want of a clear understanding of our relative position vitiates all our dealings with that ancient empire. The Chinese has heard of our discordant opinions, of our intolerance toward those who differ in ideas from us, of our wors.h.i.+p of wealth, and the honour we pay to birth; he has heard that we sometimes commit political power to men who are so little above the animals that they can neither read nor write; that we hold military success in esteem, and regard the profession of arms as the only suitable occupation for a gentleman. It is so long since his ancestors thought and acted in that manner that he justifies himself in regarding us as having scarcely yet emerged from the barbarian stage. On our side, we cherish the delusion that we shall, by precept or by force, convert him to our modes of thought, religious or political, and that we can infuse into his stagnating veins a portion of our enterprise.
[Sidenote: What China has really accomplished.] A trustworthy account of the present condition of China would be a valuable gift to philosophy, and also to statesmans.h.i.+p. On a former page I have remarked (Chap. I.
Vol. I.) that it demands the highest policy to govern populations living in great differences of lat.i.tude. Yet China has not only controlled her climatic strands of people, she has even made them, if not h.o.m.ogeneous, yet so fitted to each other that they all think and labour alike. Europe is inevitably hastening to become what China is. In her we may see what we shall be like when we are old.
A great community, aiming to govern itself by intellect rather than by coercion, is a spectacle worthy of admiration, even though the mode by which it endeavours to accomplish its object is plainly inadequate.
[Sidenote: Difference in government by force and intelligence.] Brute force holds communities together as an iron nail binds pieces of wood by the compression it makes--a compression depending on the force with which it has been hammered in. It also holds more tenaciously if a little rusted with age. But intelligence binds like a screw. The things it has to unite must be carefully adjusted to its thread. It must be gently turned, not driven and so it retains the consenting parts firmly together.
Notwithstanding the imperfections of a system founded on such a faulty basis, that great community has accomplished what many consider to be the object of statesmans.h.i.+p. They think that it should be permanence in Inst.i.tutions. But permanence is only, in an apparent sense, the object of good statesmans.h.i.+p; progression, in accordance with the natural tendency, is the real one. The successive steps of such a progression follow one another so imperceptibly that there is a delusive appearance of permanence. Man is so const.i.tuted that he is never aware of continuous motion. Abrupt variations alone impress his attention.