It is a fact long familiar to those who are acquainted with the Chinese, that as people they are more easily governed than almost any other civilised nation, when governed on lines to which they are accustomed. It is well known that they do not easily revolt against constituted authority, and that whenever they do so, it is always because there is the gravest. provocation. This provocation often amounts toa sort of necessity. But under ordinary or even extraordinary circumstances, the capacity of the Chinese to hear the ills they have is to us a wonderful and in most cases an incomprehensible talent. Nut-withstanding their apparently hopeless condition, they do not appear to lose hope, or rather they seem to struggle on without hope, and often against all hope. We do not perceive among them that restlessness which characterises the people of most other nations, especially in the last half of the nineteenth century. They do not cherish plans which seem to them to lead ultimately to 'a good time coming', and they do not appear to have the least idea that the future has or can have any ood time coming', which at all eouceras them. Such being a general statement of the case, what explanation can be given of phenomena so unique? This question has been recently declared to be *a psychological paradox'. Can any light be thrown upon it? The individual who sets general' relating to the Chinese, and who claims to be able to explain all that is generally regarded as inexplicable, will have his energy powers' taxed to an unexampled extent. Far be such rashness from us! All that we wish to do, is to offer a few suggestions. which way help us the better to comprehend the problem.
I.—Itis important to understand precisely what we mean by contentedness.'. Ttdves imply that any particular individual in atistied with what he has, in such away and to such a degree that he does not wish to better his condition, It isa familiar saw, that You can't fill a man as you fill up a pitcher 5 He always will hold a little more gold, "And is never so rich that he wouldn't be richer."
The Chinese affirm this axiom to be true of themsel Water flows down, but man aspires." "Every man has in his heart two hundred acres of land." But. while maw common sayings indicate that Chinese human nature is in this respect exactly ike that of the rest of the rave, we must recognise the fact that the contentedness of the Chinese is not with their own indivi-
Qual circumstances, but with the system ruler which they live. That system la, in a word, the predominance of moral force over physical, ad the government of the empire vy the most fit, that is, the most virtuous and the most able, It is, in the etymological sense of the terwis, an ideal aristucracy—the rule of the best.' On the countenances of many have who lived in China for a long time, such a statement of the theory of the Chinese government must raisea broadamile, It reminds us of the leading peculiarity morning dream, That this theory 1s not carried into practice, june are more ready to admit than the Chinese themselves. They are their own sternest and must relentless critics. But they wake a broad distinction between the ideal which is set forth in the classical theory of good government, and the imperfect realisation of that ideal. If this seems to be a case of gross blindness to facts, lot us compare it with the attitude of mind of a large part of those who live in 'Christian' lands, towards the system of morality which they have been taught ever since they can remember. To thous it appears to be nu ial, a yerfct system. But no one can be found why lives up to it, or who claims for himself thst he does so, The warmest friends of this system of morality clu not assort that it is or ever has been carried into practice anywhere or at any time. Yet they continue, and as they think with reason, to gard it as not the less perfect, though it is but imperfectly realised. It is not otherwise with the Chinese. They have become as deeply convinced of thy ideal excellence of their system as any nation ever was of the ideal excellence of any system, But even apart from the persuasion of its excellence, there is to the Chinese a perfectly satisfactory reason for refusing to assail or even seriously tu ct their system, simply because it is their system. They louk upon it as we luck upon the conbyuration of the country in which we happen to have been burn, it isan ultimate fact, and whether better than some other configuration elsewhere, ur, on the whole not sv good, is an idle question. It exists, and that is enough. It is like a climate, not likely to be modified by any suggestions which may be offered by those who are affected by it.
'That this is the temper of the great mss of the Chinese we have no doubt whatever. It is a mode of viewing the phenomena of life, which we designate by the general narine conservative', and of this the Chinese are as conspicuous examples as any people of which we have avy ree.rd, It must be evident that such conceptions of the theory of Chinese society, permeating the whole mess of the people, and inherited from distant ages, must powerfully tend to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.