"Surely it is manifest enough that by selecting the evidence, any
society may be relatively blackened, and any other society relatively
whitened."[*] We hope that no such principle of selection can be
traced in the preceding pages. Irritation against traducers of China
and her morality[+] may have occasionally tinged our views with a
somewhat rosy hue; but we have all along felt the danger of this bias,
and have endeavoured to guard against it. We have no wish to exalt
China at the expense of European civilisation, but we cannot blind
ourselves to the fact that her vices have been exaggerated, and her
virtues overlooked. Only the bigoted or ignorant could condemn with
sweeping assertions of immorality a nation of many millions absolutely
free, as the Chinese are, from one such vice as drunkenness; in whose
cities may be seen--what all our legislative and executive skill
cannot secure--streets quiet and deserted after nine or ten o'clock at
night. Add to this industry, frugality, patriotism,[:] and a boundless
respect for the majesty of office: it then only remains for us to
acknowledge that China is after all "a nation of much talent, and, in
some respects, even wisdom."[!]
[*] Spencer's Sociology: The Bias of Patriotism.
[+] "The miseries and horrors (?) which are now destroying (?) the
Chinese Empire are the direct and organic result of the moral
profligacy of its inhabitants."--_Froude's Short Studies on Great
Subjects_.
[:] "Every patriotic Chinese--and there are millions of such."--_Dr
Legge to London and China Telegraph_, July 5, 1875.
[!] Mill's Essay on Liberty.