The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-07-06

of a rather thin film of white Aryans
upon an "aborlginal" race-in other
words. a race we know nothing about
except that it was not Aryan-which
accepted from teachers of whose names
only a few survive lessons which pro-
duced a civilization that in the course of
| few generations penetrated to the bot
| tom, and became in reality a religion,
| the only one which a singularly earthly
| people ever sincerely embraced, II be-
came to them what Responsibility" Is
to many Of us English, the final rule of
conduct. the solvent of ideals, the one
test to be applied to every new propo-
| sal effort to advance or novelty in cir
| cumstance. To the Chinese mind it is
| incapable of improvement, the one
thing to be reverenced the one system
which must never be abandoned or Sc
riously changed,
1t probably might have produced a
better people, but that with this civil
! ization, perhaps as result of 1t, GER
tainly following it speedily in order OF
time, came the master curse of China,
congestion of population so terrible that
| it compelled the whole population to
postpone everything, especially reflee-
ton and the nobler qualities, to a con-
| tinuous struggle for the means Or eXls-
tence, as interpreted by a people in
| whom the desire for comfort and per-
sonal happiness is as strong as in any
| European race. The result was ma
ton of countless millions Of self-seekers,
in whom passive endurance of evil cir
cumstances became the first and most
necessary quality, industry universal
disease the conscience an atrophied en-
tity, and all ideals subject to postpone
| ment in presence OF the immediate ne
| cessity of the hour. Left by their his
tory without an aristocracy, they turned
for guidance to those who knew, as they
| thought, the principles of their civillza-
| ton, and these men, selfish as the COM
monalty, without link with the past or
| hope of q future, used their elevation for
| personal advancement Like the Ro-
man mobiles of the declining empire as
painted in Mr. Dlll's remarkable work,
| they mistook criticism for culture, and
craved above all things for official rank
and the protection which wealth afford
ed them. Society began to rot and the
degradation was accelerated by an ir-
| luDltOIi VI Dell bttlletiN' ilOill lliC NlCppN1
precisely akin to the Turks, but with no
antiseptic in Mahometanism who We're
absorbed and partly lost in the huge
mass of the civilization below them,
but who brought to it no new or nober
| quality, and infused into 1t d faint Of
| their own ferocity.
| The modern Chinaman is therefore
| the most selfish Of mankind callous as
an animal, with only relic of a con-
science, disinclined to fight because he
thinks of himself first, and utterly cor
ruptibe because money Is to him the
supreme protection, but nevertheless a
strong man with clear head for affairs,
and with a strong faith, though it is in
his civilization and not In any creed.
His most earnest hatred is neither for
the bad nor the good, but for all who
threaten or who despise that civliza-
ton, among whom he reckons, not with
out reason, all foreigners. especially the
English and the Russians He fears
both these, wishes I'll to both, and, If it
We're convenient would inflict on them
mortal injury. This convenience IS,
however, his first care, and 1t is proba-
BILE that though they are brave men the
first leader who viii make good Chinese
soldiers is the leader who will inaict
torture for cowardice
In the ordinary details of life the Chi
naman is kindly, he IL the most strenu-
Gus of workers, because If he were not
the awful crowding would crush him,
and as upright as a conscienceless man
of clear brain ever is. When cheating
would diminish business he never
II. h., NJ.
liar in the world but he does not love
lying. does not think of it, as Hindoo
does, as pleasurable intellectual exer-
else, but lies exactly UP to the point
where, as his native shrewdness tells
him, tying is convenient for his inter-
ests He is boastful as a renchman Is
because he believes his civilization per-
feet. and being an Asiatic and without
anything to measure himself by except
himself, his boastfuness is grandoise
and to Europeans comic.
This is not pretty picture, but it
must be studied by the light of a con-
Guiding sentence, which we believe eve
ry experienced missionary or accom-
plished Sinologue viii indorse There is
in almost every Chinaman something
imponderable, unaccountable, not to be
reckoned with, which impels him to ac-
tions which do not seem to arise out Of
his character. He will on rare occa-
sions suppress his enlightened selfish
ness for a moment and then he Is for |
that moment different man. What
happens to him nobody knows, but it is
because 1T does occasionally happen
that he Is a separate creation, In maxi
ing whom the soul had been forontto,, ar |
mislaid,- Spectator.