Progress, if we brush aside all superficialities and consider the meaning of those things which are pointed to as evidence of advance, will be found to be simply adaptation to surroundings in the struggle for existence. And this is true whether we speak of moral or national progress. Without the faculty of adaptation any organism, whether belonging to the animal or vegetable kingdom, or any organisation, such as a State, is des-fined to inevitable deterioration and disappearance. There is no standing still. Even religions undergo a course of evolution or they are supplanted. In discussing the question whether China can progress, we are enquiring whether China as a nation is to continue and to become more powerful or is to disappear as an organised State. The surrounding conditions have changed abruptly for China. Formerly she was a predominant Bower among States weak and undeveloped in comparison. Now she has come into close contact with the most advanced and most powerful nations of the age, and she has to face the alternatives of becoming of equal might or of bowing beneath the yoke of foreign domination. In forecasting the future we have two} ides. First, a consideration of} the Asiatic character and the history of Asiatic nations generally, and secondly the history of the Chinese people in particular. Speaking of Asiatics generally, it may be asserted that there is wanting in their character a certain moral fibre (which is i responsibilities of government. Conquest and power are invariably the preludes to defeat and enslavement. Asiatic Power which at the present is impossible to point to a single
day retains any of its past power and glory. The powerful Mfogul Empire, one of the most mighty and magnificent the world has ever seen, became so rotten in two hundred years that it was easily shattered. With the decline of the Moguls arose the Mahrattas, and their reign of power was even shorter. Compare the present power of Persia with the past. Look at the condition of the Mongols who conquered China and overran a great part of Europe. When we turn to the Chinese we find them groaning under the corrupt government of an alien dynasty, with their tributary States being lopped away one after another. The story is always the same. There is a fatal taint in the Asiatic nature which turns power into oppression and wealth into sloth and self-indulgence, As regards the Chinese it cannot be said that this is the result of ignorance.' The ethics of Government form the chief part of their education, and their theories are admirable. It is not from want of ability, for they are an exceptionally clever-race. It is simply due to the fact that they are Asiatics, and the Asiatic is destined always to be" either a tyrant to the weak or a slave to the strong. The apparent exception of the Japanese may be disregarded. They are probably at the zenith of their power. Nothing except a remarkable initiative faculty has been proved about them as yet. Their present title to fame rests on their successful but unnecessary attack on China, which has apparently done them more harm than good as far as the political results have gone; and there are not wanting native thinkers who complain that they have paid a heavy price for their so-called progress in the deterioration of certain national qualities.
Can anyone explain, except on the theory that the Asistic cannot progress beyond a certain point, why the Turk resists advancement? No nation has had greater stimulus to exertion:—Surrounded by power-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.