The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-12-22

1t was our fathers sacrifice;
1t may be they were eased.
We know no harm to come of it;
1t may be God is pleased.
Since his only principle is to live
and let live, the Chinese has no prin-
ciple-if the term means anything
that can't be compromised. Or again,
it may be said that his only principle
is to compromise AS fighting for con-
viction is our outstanding virtue the
gift of compromise is his. AS belliger-
ency and intolerance, closely related
to our sense of principle, are our vices,
opportunism and guile, growing out
of compromise, are his.
With us principle comes first, human
kind second. Our virtuous men have
been willing to destroy both them
selves and others for the establish
ment of ethical conceptions or the
carrying out of what they conceive to
be divine will.
Humanity must be sacrificed to
principle, not principle to humanity.
Even the most perverse and scandal
Gus of our philosophers have hardly
dared suggest the converse. 1t is thus
that we have made our progress. Iol-
erance, like compromise, is for us an
uncertain virtue. We like a pleasant
rill of it in our dooryards, but river
of it would undermine the very walls
of our civilization 1t is to our glor1-
fcation of conflict that we owe our
noble as we'll as our despicable traits.
1t is to this that the brilliant rise and
sudden decline Of western civilizations
are due. In this lie both our superior
ity and our inferiority to the Chinese.
Absence of Revelation.
The absence of revelation has cast
the Chinese entirely upon reason. Rea-
son is as warped in China as else
where. Since people cannot think
back through the unfolding OF the
cosmos before each action, reason IS
crystalized for quick reference and
daily use. And precedent sits, hard on
originality. There can be as much log
omachy over reason as over dogma.
The Chinese system has serious faults.
But it has remained tolerant. Lack OF
the conviction that they are Gods
: agents may partly account for the toll
erance of Chinese, though so-called
rationalists in times of social overturn
have not shown freedom from bigotry.
Human beings are included, however,
to hate transgreSsOrs against God
more than offenders against man.
Blasphemy arouses more horror than
inhumanity.
A further explanation of the dis
tinctly humanistic and pacihst trend
) taken by Chinese thoughts second
great divergence from Eur-american
cu1ture-is probably ethnographic. We
shall understand the Chinese better
when we have studied more that most
remarkable soil deposit in the world,
the loess OF the upper Yellow river
: basin, and its influence on the habits
of the race that grew up on it. No
race has kept its blood purer, and
none shows more satisfactory the in
fluences of its early physical environ
ment. If the Norsemen are the chill
dren of the rocks and tides, the Chi
nese are even more obviously the chill
dren of the clay.
Chinese records of antiquity give
us a slight clue to the forefathers OF
the race in the Hundred Surnames,
which is even yet the expression for
"the common people" although the
book of surnames has expanded to
contain a thousand or more cogno-
mems.
Whether or not the progenitors OF
the "Black-haired People" by which
designation alone the early Chinese
knew their race, numbered one hun
bred, it is obvious that they are 10
Gated on the loess plateau of Shensi
and Shans, ere this plastic, yielding
wind deposit was serried and gashed
into it's present picturesque condition.
Presumably the land was empty and
spacious; there was no race to kill off
before it could be occupied. 1t was
intensely fertile. The early Chinese
discovered that it required less effort
to take sustenance from the soil than
from their brothers and cousins, and
1.-THE race grew up under that convic-
ton.
After the beginnings in the loess
LANDS there was no nomad stage. This
in spite of the speculations of old
Sinologists, based on the Importance
of the sheep telegraph and the ten
like shape of Chinese roofs. But farm
ers as well as nomads keep sheep.
These animals were form of cur
rency. They are still the most support
ant domestic animals of the loess re-
gion.
AS for Chinese architecture, it looks
as auspiciously like an imitation of the
original cave homes of the loess cliffs
as the nomad's yurt In fact it does
not really resemble the Asian tent,
which is round The sagging round
roof of the Chinese pavilion is diff
ferent hing-evolved from the Mon
gol yurt in historical times.
CropCTA IrAOc ATT cTATEc