'Chinese nation; it is that which preserves the other causes, and gives efficacy to their operation.'

The first of the above doctrines is grounded upon the favourite Chinese notion, that, at the beginning, man's nature is radically good-Jinchetsoo, Singpunshen.' Reversing the great scriptural tenet of universal depravity, the illustrious Choo-tsze, whose commentaries on the Yih King and the Four Sacred Books are committed to memory by millions of the Celestials, taught the people that the primary impulse of the heart was to do good, but that this disposition was smothered by the influences of the external world. And in drawing such a conclusion, says Mr. Meadows, 'à priori reasoning completely justifies them. If man's 'nature be radically bad, where is the use of appealing to a sense of right, a generosity, a charity, or a love of peace, which have 'no existence? It is obvious that, in such a case, physical force, 'whether as a restraint or a stimulant, is the only practical means ' of government. But if man's nature be radically good, the 'easiest means of attaining the ends of government is evidently to appeal to his higher qualities, the very existence of which are, on the other hand, certain to make him indignantly intractable, if physical force is gratuitously employed.'

Now if Mr. Meadows and the illustrious Choo-tsze simply mean that there are moral principles in human nature, and that it is better to rule by negotiating with those principles than by employing muscle and steel, there can be no difficulty in adopting the proposition. But the Jinchetsoo, Singpunshen, seems to imply something more. Without, however, stopping to inquire into the Pelagianism of this assertion, it seems to us that it will not suffice to solve the problem of Chinese civilization. In a certain sense, the constitution of the state is undoubtedly of a moral cast. But the people are not radically good any more than Western nations, who have never learnt the Jinchetsoo, Singpunshen, by heart. In the absence of other protectives, with what confidence could we appeal to the higher qualities of men who, to a large extent, we fear, are practical Atheists; who lie on the simplest subjects with distressing pertinacity; and who would play the rogue at any hour if they could only turn a tael by the fraud? What would become of moral England, though studded as it is with churches and chapels, with colleges and ragged-schools, with hospitals and almshouses, if its Legislature were to adopt the Jinchetsoo Singpunshen principle, and frame all its laws or adapt all our institutions in accordance with this doctrine? So far from fixing our civilization in perpetuity, the country would probably be ruined in much less than a hundred years.

Flogging an Empire.

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We imagine it would be more correct to say that the Chinese are radically a quiet, pacific race, rather than to assert that there is any special moral element in the people. Without stigmatizing them as a nation of cowards, it may be safely asserted that amongst them a small amount of physical force will go much further in maintaining order, and carrying on the machinery of government, than it would do amongst more intrepid and excitable tribes. Look, for instance, at the power of the bamboo. The Turks, who are diligent enough in the infliction of the bastinado, have a proverb that the stick is a gift from Allah—one of Heaven's express donations to man. But of a surety (says an 'old traveller) there is no such country for stick as Cathay; here men are always beating, or being beaten.' For every offence, except those of the more heinous classes, the delinquent is liable to a flagellation with the larger or lesser bamboo. All officials, from the lowest to the highest, may suffer corporal punishment, as if they were still unfledged urchins. The great mandarin may have the little mandarin flogged, and the little mandarin may revenge himself by administering chastisement to the people. Nor is the bamboo a public character merely; it is as active in private households as it is on behalf of law and good order. A father bamboos his son when a child, when a youth, when a man. The boy can never hope to escape from its jurisdiction whilst his sire is alive, for should the parent's feeble fingers have but just sufficient strength to brandish the weapon, the patient is bound to receive the stroke, however ridiculous, with as much veneration as if it were a vigorous blow from the hands of some Chinese Doctor Busby. Not that we would speak slightingly of the capabilities of the instrument. Those may be respectable enough in their way; but what nation with any spirit would permit itself to be castigated in this schoolboy fashion? Would England, France, America? What should we say if our government were to send a detachment of policemen to flog a village when it grew unruly, or to put down a tumult by caning the rioters all round? John Bull, though he does tolerate the lash for military purposes,-at least, so far as privates are concerned,would feel as much insulted by the introduction of the bamboo for the use of civilians, as if he, a grown-up gentleman, were required to submit to a dispensation of Birch rod. But China is a grey-haired empire, and yet allows itself to be feruled as if it were still in its teens! We can only conclude that a nation which allows such liberties to be taken with its person must either be very deficient in courage and dignity, or very insensible to the degradation which corporal punishment always involves.

If, therefore, the Chinese Government is one which works by

moral agencies in preference to physical force, it does so not because those agencies, generally speaking, are superior to such as are elsewhere employed, but because the unwarlike temperament of the people and their ready submission to control enable the authorities to keep them well in hand with little exertion of strength. In other words, the influence of race must primarily be taken into account. The Hindoos, like the Chinese, are a peaceful, sinewless people; like them, they feed chiefly on rice and vegetables; like them, they are notorious for their stereotyped usages and utter aversion to progress; and like them, also, they are prominent amongst the nations of the earth for their vast antiquity and the extraordinary longevity of their institutions. Had either of their countries been peopled by a fiery, martial race, full of vigour and butcher's meat, the moral agencies' wielded by the Celestial Government would not in themselves have sufficed to steer it quietly through a single dynasty.

6

So, again, the influence of race is exemplified in the character of the Chinese mind. The Celestial intellect is neither profound nor capacious. It is singularly minute and ingenious, but at the same time decidedly puerile. Every one has heard of their ivory balls, consisting of a series of shells hollowed out within each other, and exciting as much surprise in the observer as was felt by George III. when, according to that wicked wit, Peter Pindar, his Majesty discovered that apples had been introduced into a dumpling, although no seam or suture could be perceived in the savoury globe. At Chin-hae,' says Colonel Cunynghame, 'we were shown a very pretty grotto, for which the Chinese are so justly celebrated. Although curious in the extreme, it I was ridiculously childish, and in all did not occupy much more space than a large-sized room. In it were ingeniously con'structed passages, staircases, and arbours innumerable, formed 'by pieces of rock heaped upon one another-the whole as if by "accident, or the freak of nature; and although none could help 'admiring the cleverness of its construction, at the same time ' we could not help regretting that so much time and ingenuity 'should have been thrown away with so paltry a result." their ceremonies, too, the same spirit of minute and elaborate frivolity prevails. To make a morning call correctly, or to receive a morning visitor with every punctilio of politeness, is an achievement involving a considerable amount of study and adroitness. The Board of Rites regulates the dress and etiquette of the nation with microscopic care, not even forgetting to fix the time when the people shall change their summer for their winter garb. The memorable fuss which was made about the

Confucius, the true Emperor of China.

71

Ko-too shows what importance is attached to a petty obeisance. In all this there is doubtless something very pleasing to the Chinese mind. It revels in trifles. It is so puerile that grownup men will amuse themselves by flying paper kites or playing at shuttle-cock. And the same spirit of triviality, the same disposition to expend their energies in small insignificant efforts, may be said to pervade the entire Chinese economy. Is it any wonder, then, that their civilization, though to some extent high in its kind, should still, as has been remarked, be low and feeble in degree?

This question, however, is far too large to be discussed in the narrow limits we can now command. In alluding to race-to national idiosyncracy-as the most prominent item for consideration, we do not undervalue the other agencies which have contributed to make China the Parr or Jenkyns, if not the Nestor of nations. Least of all could we forget the benefits arising from the remarkable practice of manning the vessel of state with a crew of picked literati. It does not certainly follow that mandarins who have passed the ordeal of a severe examination are the wisest, though they may be the most learned in the land; still less can it be assumed that those who, however well skilled in the classics of the country, are accustomed to plunder the people, to deceive the Emperor, to lie with invincible enthusiasm, and to play the rogue as if it were the chief duty of man in the kingdom of the dragon, are exactly the persons to work a government of 'moral agencies' with effect; but we believe, with Mr. Meadows, that the principle of scholastic promotion has been of incalculable value in binding the people together and in enlisting the talent of the realm in the service of the state.

And where shall we find a more striking illustration of literary dominion than that which a single Chinese philosopher has afforded? It is quite a mistake to suppose that Confucius is dead. It is true he was born about the year 550 B.C., and that the tall and venerable form to which the name was attached disappeared from the Celestial empire after some three-and-seventy years had elapsed. But if the body has been resolved into dust.

that dust having the whole of China for its tomb-the spirit still lives. With far more justice than was said of Voltaire in his boastful epitaph, it may be asserted of the great sage of Cathay that there, at least, son esprit est partout. It walks every street; it is at home in every house. It teaches in every school, and adjudicates from every tribunal. In each districttown a temple has been erected to his honour, and his statue is to be found wherever the learned meet, or literary examinations are conducted. There is scarcely an academy in the land where

a tablet to his memory does not appear, and where masters and pupils do not perform an obeisance to the illustrious name at the commencement and conclusion of the lessons. His descendants are regarded as classic personages, and the heads of the Confucian families constitute the real aristocracy of the country. The books he compiled must be learnt by heart by every one who wishes to take his place amongst the lettered portions of the community, or gain a seat in the College of the Han-lin. His very demeanour is still copied by zealous students, and his traditional gestures imitated by aspiring disciples. His conversations, chronicled in the Lun-yu, are devoured more lovingly than ever youth did those of Socrates in the pages of Plato and Xenophon, or those of Samuel Johnson in the marvellous memoir of Boswell. His sayings are in their seventieth generation, at least, and his maxims have passed through a longer line of lips, and been drilled into a larger number of ears, than the utterances of any other uninspired preceptor of nations. He it was who settled the morals of the country, regulated her laws, adjusted her manners, and shaped her philosophy. To this man belongs the widest and yet the most silent of human sovereignties. Without a battle, still less without a revolution; without the gathering of hosts, the shoutings of captains, the frenzy of combat, or the tumult of victory-this simple sage overran a whole empire with his thoughts, subjugated millions by the might of his influence, and laid the most populous of nations prostrate at his feet. For ages China has been the private property of Confucius. He is seized in fee of its brains. With most of the inhabitants, to believe in him is religion; to do homage to his memory is worship. Vast as the country is, his great shade seems to overarch it from the Great Wall of Tartary to the River of Canton; it forms the mental canopy, the moral ceiling, the spiritual firmament, beyond which the people neither care to look nor hope to soar. Truly, if we regard the matter in a purely mundane light, this is perhaps the most splendid immortality that has yet been achieved by any single philosopher. For upwards of twenty centuries, nearly one-third of the human race have thought after Confucius, spoken after Confucius, lived after Confucius, died after Confucius. He has been one of the uncrowned kings of men-one of the untitled Agamemnons of the world; and, without troops or treasures, has maintained a dominion which nothing could overthrow, though Greek phalanxes and Roman legions, after wielding their spears and swords like sceptres, have melted away, meanwhile, into the obscurities of history, and become mere ghosts and shadows of the past. Whilst the rest of the planet has been shaken with political and