Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-10-02

people see; Heaven hard as the
people hear: the guilty emperor ex-
hausts the mandate Of Heaven.
Killing bad monarch Is no murder"
II love life," said Mencius, land l
love righteousness. II / cannot have
both ! choose Righteousness" And
he wrote the best epitaph for Lincoln:
when Heaven Is about to confer a
great Office on any man, 1t first dis
ciplines his mind with suffering. and
his bones and sinews with toll. 1t ex-
poses him to want and subjects him
to extreme poverty. It confounds his
undertakings. By all these methods it
stimulates his mind, hardens him,
and supplies his incompetencies."
There were other great names in
Chinese philosophy, like Chu.hsi the
skeptic. and Yang-chu the Epicurean;
but we must here let them be mere
names. Only one more philosopher
shall lure our pen; and this one has
left us, from far back in the Tang
dynasty, not a book, nor a name, but
a series Of paintings in which he pro.
poses to give history Of human
thought. The pictures show man in
search of a bull. He finds its tracks,
follows them. sights it, captures it,
and takes it home. He leads it to
his stable. and places it in a stall.
Then, turning as he leaves the stable,
he finds that the stall is empty; there
is no bull. Truth. perhaps. Is like
the fair maiden on Keats immortal
urn-forever to be wooed, and never
to be won.
We have stolen space from war so
that we might speak Of philosophy
and art. Perhaps the civilization we
have SO specifically described Is dead;
or perhaps 1t Is but alternating quietly
under the Winter Of European inva.
sion and exploitation. Everybody
knows how in the last 100 years Eng
land, Germany, France and Japan
have bitten like wolves into the body
of the sleeping giant; how piece after
piece Of Chinese territory has been
stolen to insure the selling Of opium
and the control Of soil and trade.
China seemed to take the affront I'M
resistingly; she had long forgotten the
dominate her. She protested in 1851,
and again in 1898; today she protests
once more, and only America seems
ready to understand.
When the Boxer rebellion was put
down the nations Of the West exacted
q severe indemnity. America, with a
wise generosity seldom seen among
governments, returned her share of
the indemnity, on condition that it
should be used in the education of
Chinese students at home and in the
United States. Out Of that unique
courtesy many results have flowed.
The students educated here have
taken back to their native land ideas
Of progress and science which have
acted like fertilizing sperm upon the
East. Inevitably the Manchus fell;
and through inevitable chaos a re-
public emerged in which youth might
find some expression for it's ambitions
and its growth. The ancient mode Of
education by memory was ended, the
system Of examinations was abolished;
and the conservative pressure of the
old was partly lifted from the new.
Today 1t is another China that is being
born, another avatar of the Oldest
race.
We cannot tell its future; but there
1t stands, a portent for us all. Po-
tentially, through the fertility and
hardness of its people. and the
Astounding minerals in its soil, 1t Is
tuC iidllUfl LNe WOTlQ. WIN
China submit forever to invasion, ex-
tortion, dictation, poverty. exploita-
ton and insult: or will it sit subtly at
our feet, with almond eyes half shut
but ears wide open. and learn our
science, our industry and our war. and
at last, with patience ended, turn and
destroy us and itself, lettering our
vile instruction? Or will their wis
dom and ours find a way in which we
can live together on the earth? Only
q complete perspective can save us
from that Last Judgment: for GER
tainly we shall walk into folly unless
we can come to see history Coperni.
caniy. with ourselves not as the cen.
ter Of all things. but as one part Of
a moral whole.
must approach the East: modesty
learns most. Emerson said that in
even the simplest man he met he
could find some element wherein he
might be that mans pupil. This was
the secret OF the sage. But so it is
with every nation, too; in some way it
can teach US and make us grow.
Oscar Wilde believed that no country
should go to war with France, be-
cause 1t had written perfect prose.
And that, though it seems fanciful.
Is the truth; we must honor every
nation to the last point OF tolerance
IL its civilization is one Of the precious
stones with which men have crowned
the earth. Let England he beyond at.
tack because of its perfect poetry,
Germany because of its music, Russia
because Of its novelists. Japan because
Of it's art. And China?-let us honor
1t with the highest, because for 5000
wears II has cherished 1entleness and
wisdom, and peace.
Copyright. 1927. by Will Durant.)