CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION CONTRASTED
There is at present in China, as we have seen in previous chapters, a
close contact between our civilization and that which is native to the
Celestial Empire. It is still a doubtful question whether this contact
will breed a new civilization better than either of its parents, or
whether it will merely destroy the native culture and replace it by that
of America. Contacts between different civilizations have often in the
past proved to be landmarks in human progress. Greece learnt from Egypt,
Rome from Greece, the Arabs from the Roman Empire, mediæval Europe from
the Arabs, and Renaissance Europe from the Byzantines. In many of these
cases, the pupils proved better than their masters. In the case of
China, if we regard the Chinese as the pupils, this may be the case
again. In fact, we have quite as much to learn from them as they from
us, but there is far less chance of our learning it. If I treat the
Chinese as our pupils, rather than vice versa, it is only because I fear
we are unteachable.
I propose in this chapter to deal with the purely cultural aspects of
the questions raised by the contact of China with the West. In the three
following chapters, I shall deal with questions concerning the internal
condition of China, returning finally, in a concluding chapter, to the
hopes for the future which are permissible in the present difficult
situation.
With the exception of Spain and America in the sixteenth century, I
cannot think of any instance of two civilizations coming into contact
after such a long period of separate development as has marked those of
China and Europe. Considering this extraordinary separateness, it is
surprising that mutual understanding between Europeans and Chinese is
not more difficult. In order to make this point clear, it will be worth
while to dwell for a moment on the historical origins of the two
civilizations.
Western Europe and America have a practically homogeneous mental life,
which I should trace to three sources: (1) Greek culture; (2) Jewish
religion and ethics; (3) modern industrialism, which itself is an
outcome of modern science. We may take Plato, the Old Testament, and
Galileo as representing these three elements, which have remained
singularly separable down to the present day. From the Greeks we derive
literature and the arts, philosophy and pure mathematics; also the more
urbane portions of our social outlook. From the Jews we derive fanatical
belief, which its friends call "faith"; moral fervour, with the
conception of sin; religious intolerance, and some part of our
nationalism. From science, as applied in industrialism, we derive power
and the sense of power, the belief that we are as gods, and may justly
be, the arbiters of life and death for unscientific races. We derive
also the empirical method, by which almost all real knowledge has been
acquired. These three elements, I think, account for most of our
mentality.
No one of these three elements has had any appreciable part in the
development of China, except that Greece indirectly influenced Chinese
painting, sculpture, and music.[93] China belongs, in the dawn of its
history, to the great river empires, of which Egypt and Babylonia
contributed to our origins, by the influence which they had upon the
Greeks and Jews. Just as these civilizations were rendered possible by
the rich alluvial soil of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, so
the original civilization of China was rendered possible by the Yellow
River. Even in the time of Confucius, the Chinese Empire did not stretch
far either to south or north of the Yellow River. But in spite of this
similarity in physical and economic circumstances, there was very little
in common between the mental outlook of the Chinese and that of the
Egyptians and Babylonians. Lao-Tze[94] and Confucius, who both belong to
the sixth century B.C., have already the characteristics which we should
regard as distinctive of the modern Chinese. People who attribute
everything to economic causes would be hard put to it to account for the
differences between the ancient Chinese and the ancient Egyptians and
Babylonians. For my part, I have no alternative theory to offer. I do
not think science can, at present, account wholly for national
character. Climate and economic circumstances account for part, but not
the whole. Probably a great deal depends upon the character of dominant
individuals who happen to emerge at a formative period, such as Moses,
Mahomet, and Confucius.
The oldest known Chinese sage is Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism. "Lao
Tze" is not really a proper name, but means merely "the old
philosopher." He was (according to tradition) an older contemporary of
Confucius, and his philosophy is to my mind far more interesting. He
held that every person, every animal, and every thing has a certain way
or manner of behaving which is natural to him, or her, or it, and that
we ought to conform to this way ourselves and encourage others to
conform to it. "Tao" means "way," but used in a more or less mystical
sense, as in the text: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." I
think he fancied that death was due to departing from the "way," and
that if we all lived strictly according to nature we should be immortal,
like the heavenly bodies. In later times Taoism degenerated into mere
magic, and was largely concerned with the search for the elixir of life.
But I think the hope of escaping from death was an element in Taoist
philosophy from the first.
Lao-Tze's book, or rather the book attributed to him, is very short, but
his ideas were developed by his disciple Chuang-Tze, who is more
interesting than his master. The philosophy which both advocated was one
of freedom. They thought ill of government, and of all interferences
with Nature. They complained of the hurry of modern life, which they
contrasted with the calm existence of those whom they called "the pure
men of old." There is a flavour of mysticism in the doctrine of the Tao,
because in spite of the multiplicity of living things the Tao is in some
sense one, so that if all live according to it there will be no strife
in the world. But both sages have already the Chinese characteristics of
humour, restraint, and under-statement. Their humour is illustrated by
Chuang-Tze's account of Po-Lo who "understood the management of
horses," and trained them till five out of every ten died.[95] Their
restraint and under-statement are evident when they are compared with
Western mystics. Both characteristics belong to all Chinese literature
and art, and to the conversation of cultivated Chinese in the present
day. All classes in China are fond of laughter, and never miss a chance
of a joke. In the educated classes, the humour is sly and delicate, so
that Europeans often fail to see it, which adds to the enjoyment of the
Chinese. Their habit of under-statement is remarkable. I met one day in
Peking a middle-aged man who told me he was academically interested in
the theory of politics; being new to the country, I took his statement
at its face value, but I afterwards discovered that he had been governor
of a province, and had been for many years a very prominent politician.
In Chinese poetry there is an apparent absence of passion which is due
to the same practice of under-statement. They consider that a wise man
should always remain calm, and though they have their passionate moments
(being in fact a very excitable race), they do not wish to perpetuate
them in art, because they think ill of them. Our romantic movement,
which led people to like vehemence, has, so far as I know, no analogue
in their literature. Their old music, some of which is very beautiful,
makes so little noise that one can only just hear it. In art they aim at
being exquisite, and in life at being reasonable. There is no admiration
for the ruthless strong man, or for the unrestrained expression of
passion. After the more blatant life of the West, one misses at first
all the effects at which they are aiming; but gradually the beauty and
dignity of their existence become visible, so that the foreigners who
have lived longest in China are those who love the Chinese best.
The Taoists, though they survive as magicians, were entirely ousted from
the favour of the educated classes by Confucianism. I must confess that
I am unable to appreciate the merits of Confucius. His writings are
largely occupied with trivial points of etiquette, and his main concern
is to teach people how to behave correctly on various occasions. When
one compares him, however, with the traditional religious teachers of
some other ages and races, one must admit that he has great merits, even
if they are mainly negative. His system, as developed by his followers,
is one of pure ethics, without religious dogma; it has not given rise to
a powerful priesthood, and it has not led to persecution. It certainly
has succeeded in producing a whole nation possessed of exquisite manners
and perfect courtesy. Nor is Chinese courtesy merely conventional; it is
quite as reliable in situations for which no precedent has been
provided. And it is not confined to one class; it exists even in the
humblest coolie. It is humiliating to watch the brutal insolence of
white men received by the Chinese with a quiet dignity which cannot
demean itself to answer rudeness with rudeness. Europeans often regard
this as weakness, but it is really strength, the strength by which the
Chinese have hitherto conquered all their conquerors.
There is one, and only one, important foreign element in the traditional
civilization of China, and that is Buddhism. Buddhism came to China from
India in the early centuries of the Christian era, and acquired a
definite place in the religion of the country. We, with the intolerant
outlook which we have taken over from the Jews, imagine that if a man
adopts one religion he cannot adopt another. The dogmas of Christianity
and Mohammedanism, in their orthodox forms, are so framed that no man
can accept both. But in China this incompatibility does not exist; a man
may be both a Buddhist and a Confucian, because nothing in either is
incompatible with the other. In Japan, similarly, most people are both
Buddhists and Shintoists. Nevertheless there is a temperamental
difference between Buddhism and Confucianism, which will cause any
individual to lay stress on one or other even if he accepts both.
Buddhism is a religion in the sense in which we understand the word. It
has mystic doctrines and a way of salvation and a future life. It has a
message to the world intended to cure the despair which it regards as
natural to those who have no religious faith. It assumes an instinctive
pessimism only to be cured by some gospel. Confucianism has nothing of
all this. It assumes people fundamentally at peace with the world,
wanting only instruction as to how to live, not encouragement to live at
all. And its ethical instruction is not based upon any metaphysical or
religious dogma; it is purely mundane. The result of the co-existence of
these two religions in China has been that the more religious and
contemplative natures turned to Buddhism, while the active
administrative type was content with Confucianism, which was always the
official teaching, in which candidates for the civil service were
examined. The result is that for many ages the Government of China has
been in the hands of literary sceptics, whose administration has been
lacking in those qualities of energy and destructiveness which Western
nations demand of their rulers. In fact, they have conformed very
closely to the maxims of Chuang-Tze. The result has been that the
population has been happy except where civil war brought misery; that
subject nations have been allowed autonomy; and that foreign nations
have had no need to fear China, in spite of its immense population and
resources.
Comparing the civilization of China with that of Europe, one finds in
China most of what was to be found in Greece, but nothing of the other
two elements of our civilization, namely Judaism and science. China is
practically destitute of religion, not only in the upper classes, but
throughout the population. There is a very definite ethical code, but it
is not fierce or persecuting, and does not contain the notion "sin."
Except quite recently, through European influence, there has been no
science and no industrialism.
What will be the outcome of the contact of this ancient civilization
with the West? I am not thinking of the political or economic outcome,
but of the effect on the Chinese mental outlook. It is difficult to
dissociate the two questions altogether, because of course the cultural
contact with the West must be affected by the nature of the political
and economic contact. Nevertheless, I wish to consider the cultural
question as far as I can in isolation.
There is, in China, a great eagerness to acquire Western learning, not
simply in order to acquire national strength and be able to resist
Western aggression, but because a very large number of people consider
learning a good thing in itself. It is traditional in China to place a
high value on knowledge, but in old days the knowledge sought was only
of the classical literature. Nowadays it is generally realized that
Western knowledge is more useful. Many students go every year to
universities in Europe, and still more to America, to learn science or
economics or law or political theory. These men, when they return to
China, mostly become teachers or civil servants or journalists or
politicians. They are rapidly modernizing the Chinese outlook,
especially in the educated classes.
The traditional civilization of China had become unprogressive, and had
ceased to produce much of value in the way of art and literature. This
was not due, I think, to any decadence in the race, but merely to lack
of new material. The influx of Western knowledge provides just the
stimulus that was needed. Chinese students are able and extraordinarily
keen. Higher education suffers from lack of funds and absence of
libraries, but does not suffer from any lack of the finest human
material. Although Chinese civilization has hitherto been deficient in
science, it never contained anything hostile to science, and therefore
the spread of scientific knowledge encounters no such obstacles as the
Church put in its way in Europe. I have no doubt that if the Chinese
could get a stable government and sufficient funds, they would, within
the next thirty years, begin to produce remarkable work in science. It
is quite likely that they might outstrip us, because they come with
fresh zest and with all the ardour of a renaissance. In fact, the
enthusiasm for learning in Young China reminds one constantly of the
renaissance spirit in fifteenth-century Italy.
It is very remarkable, as distinguishing the Chinese from the Japanese,
that the things they wish to learn from us are not those that bring
wealth or military strength, but rather those that have either an
ethical and social value, or a purely intellectual interest. They are
not by any means uncritical of our civilization. Some of them told me
that they were less critical before 1914, but that the war made them
think there must be imperfections in the Western manner of life. The
habit of looking to the West for wisdom was, however, very strong, and
some of the younger ones thought that Bolshevism could give what they
were looking for. That hope also must be suffering disappointment, and
before long they will realize that they must work out their own
salvation by means of a new synthesis. The Japanese adopted our faults
and kept their own, but it is possible to hope that the Chinese will
make the opposite selection, keeping their own merits and adopting ours.
The distinctive merit of our civilization, I should say, is the
scientific method; the distinctive merit of the Chinese is a just
conception of the ends of life. It is these two that one must hope to
see gradually uniting.
Lao-Tze describes the operation of Tao as "production without
possession, action without self-assertion, development without
domination." I think one could derive from these words a conception of
the ends of life as reflective Chinese see them, and it must be admitted
that they are very different from the ends which most white men set
before themselves. Possession, self-assertion, domination, are eagerly
sought, both nationally and individually. They have been erected into a
philosophy by Nietzsche, and Nietzsche's disciples are not confined to
Germany.
But, it will be said, you have been comparing Western practice with
Chinese theory; if you had compared Western theory with Chinese
practice, the balance would have come out quite differently. There is,
of course, a great deal of truth in this. Possession, which is one of
the three things that Lao-Tze wishes us to forego, is certainly dear to
the heart of the average Chinaman. As a race, they are tenacious of
money--not perhaps more so than the French, but certainly more than the
English or the Americans. Their politics are corrupt, and their powerful
men make money in disgraceful ways. All this it is impossible to deny.
Nevertheless, as regards the other two evils, self-assertion and
domination, I notice a definite superiority to ourselves in Chinese
practice. There is much less desire than among the white races to
tyrannize over other people. The weakness of China internationally is
quite as much due to this virtue as to the vices of corruption and so on
which are usually assigned as the sole reason. If any nation in the
world could ever be "too proud to fight," that nation would be China.
The natural Chinese attitude is one of tolerance and friendliness,
showing courtesy and expecting it in return. If the Chinese chose, they
could be the most powerful nation in the world. But they only desire
freedom, not domination. It is not improbable that other nations may
compel them to fight for their freedom, and if so, they may lose their
virtues and acquire a taste for empire. But at present, though they have
been an imperial race for 2,000 years, their love of empire is
extraordinarily slight.
Although there have been many wars in China, the natural outlook of the
Chinese is very pacifistic. I do not know of any other country where a
poet would have chosen, as Po-Chui did in one of the poems translated by
Mr. Waley, called by him _The Old Man with the Broken Arm_, to make a
hero of a recruit who maimed himself to escape military service. Their
pacifism is rooted in their contemplative outlook, and in the fact that
they do not desire to change whatever they see. They take a pleasure--as
their pictures show--in observing characteristic manifestations of
different kinds of life, and they have no wish to reduce everything to a
preconceived pattern. They have not the ideal of progress which
dominates the Western nations, and affords a rationalization of our
active impulses. Progress is, of course, a very modern ideal even with
us; it is part of what we owe to science and industrialism. The
cultivated conservative Chinese of the present day talk exactly as their
earliest sages write. If one points out to them that this shows how
little progress there has been, they will say: "Why seek progress when
you already enjoy what is excellent?" At first, this point of view seems
to a European unduly indolent; but gradually doubts as to one's own
wisdom grow up, and one begins to think that much of what we call
progress is only restless change, bringing us no nearer to any desirable
goal.
It is interesting to contrast what the Chinese have sought in the West
with what the West has sought in China. The Chinese in the West seek
knowledge, in the hope--which I fear is usually vain--that knowledge may
prove a gateway to wisdom. White men have gone to China with three
motives: to fight, to make money, and to convert the Chinese to our
religion. The last of these motives has the merit of being idealistic,
and has inspired many heroic lives. But the soldier, the merchant, and
the missionary are alike concerned to stamp our civilization upon the
world; they are all three, in a certain sense, pugnacious. The Chinese
have no wish to convert us to Confucianism; they say "religions are
many, but reason is one," and with that they are content to let us go
our way. They are good merchants, but their methods are quite different
from those of European merchants in China, who are perpetually seeking
concessions, monopolies, railways, and mines, and endeavouring to get
their claims supported by gunboats. The Chinese are not, as a rule, good
soldiers, because the causes for which they are asked to fight are not
worth fighting for, and they know it. But that is only a proof of their
reasonableness.
I think the tolerance of the Chinese is in excess of anything that
Europeans can imagine from their experience at home. We imagine
ourselves tolerant, because we are more so than our ancestors. But we
still practise political and social persecution, and what is more, we
are firmly persuaded that our civilization and our way of life are
immeasurably better than any other, so that when we come across a nation
like the Chinese, we are convinced that the kindest thing we can do to
them is to make them like ourselves. I believe this to be a profound
mistake. It seemed to me that the average Chinaman, even if he is
miserably poor, is happier than the average Englishman, and is happier
because the nation is built upon a more humane and civilized outlook
than our own. Restlessness and pugnacity not only cause obvious evils,
but fill our lives with discontent, incapacitate us for the enjoyment of
beauty, and make us almost incapable of the contemplative virtues. In
this respect we have grown rapidly worse during the last hundred years.
I do not deny that the Chinese go too far in the other direction; but
for that very reason I think contact between East and West is likely to
be fruitful to both parties. They may learn from us the indispensable
minimum of practical efficiency, and we may learn from them something of
that contemplative wisdom which has enabled them to persist while all
the other nations of antiquity have perished.
When I went to China, I went to teach; but every day that I stayed I
thought less of what I had to teach them and more of what I had to learn
from them. Among Europeans who had lived a long time in China, I found
this attitude not uncommon; but among those whose stay is short, or who
go only to make money, it is sadly rare. It is rare because the Chinese
do not excel in the things we really value--military prowess and
industrial enterprise. But those who value wisdom or beauty, or even the
simple enjoyment of life, will find more of these things in China than
in the distracted and turbulent West, and will be happy to live where
such things are valued. I wish I could hope that China, in return for
our scientific knowledge, may give us something of her large tolerance
and contemplative peace of mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 93: See Cordier, op. cit. i. p. 368, and Giles, op. cit. p.
187.]
[Footnote 94: With regard to Lao-Tze, the book which bears his name is
of doubtful authenticity, and was probably compiled two or three
centuries after his death. Cf. Giles, op. cit., Lecture V.]
[Footnote 95: Quoted in Chap. IV, pp. 82-3.]