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814
EAST ASIA.
succeed in again reviving it. The peasantry and labouring classes, a great
part of whose existence has not been spent in the study of the written language,
perceive how much reduced has been the distance separating them from the literati.
The centre of gravity
in the empire is being displaced, to the advantage of
the people and at the expense of the authorities, and political revolutions are the
inevitable consequence of the intellectual evolution now taking place.
PENDING CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL SYSTEM.
To speak,
as many do, of the immobility of the Chinese Empire, is altogether
unjust, for nowhere else have more revolutions been 'accomplished, or more
"
varied systems of government been essayed. To improve, renew yourself daily,"
said one of the ancient sages quoted by Confucius. But it is not difficult to
vmderstand why great changes
are now slower in China than elsewhere. The
people have, the consciousness of their ancient culture, and they may have well
believed for centuries that they were the only civilised nation, surrounded
as they were either ,by barbarians or by populations whose teachers they had been.
Suddenly from beyond the seas and over the plateaux and deserts they behold
other nations advancing, who with a more recent history outstrip them in
knowledge and industry. The world becomes enlarged and peopled around them,
and those outer spaces, to which they attached such little importance, are
discovered to be ten times larger and twice as populous as China itself. Their
assumed superiority thus disappears for ever. Assuredly such a proud people
could not without bitterness contemplate the relative diminution of their impor-
tance in the world, and it must have cost them many a pang to have to learn
new lessons of wisdom in the school of the stranger. Nevertheless these lessons
they are prepared to learn, without, however, losing their self-respect. They
study the European sciences and industries, not as pupils, but rather as rivals,
anxious to turn their opponents' resources against themselves.
It was high time that this outward impulse should come and quicken the
nation into a new life. Science had been reduced in China to the art of skilfully
handling the pencil in the reproduction of empty classic formulas. Proud of
possessing in their ideographic signs a really universal language, the literati, who
are also the rulers of the people, had come to regard reading and writing that is,
the instruments of science as science itself. Hence they were content to pass
their life in learning to read. The measure of their reputation was filled when,
after a long course of studies, they had mastered all the mysteries of their written
language. Short indeed was life for this long art, which left them no time
for independent studies. Ignorant of the present, indifferent to the future, they
have hitherto lived only in the past. Everything must be judged by tradition
and the precedents found in the classics, where must also be sought the rules
of government. To write and understand the official dispatches, to discover the
formulas of the rites accompanying all important social and political acts, consti-
tuted, in fact, the distinctive functions of the mandarin, the foundation of his
prestige, his only claim to the obedience of his subjects.