To anyone who has devoted much labour to getting clear ideas of the laws governing the lives of nations—in other words to the study of Sociolozy—it is quite painful to note the awful assumptions which are constantly being made in the name of that science. Socivlogy is the most difficult of all the sciences, because the factors are extremely involved; many of its laws are still undiscovered, and carnot be discovered until further investigations have been made into the structures and functions of societies past and present. Yet one has but to take up a paper or magazine at the present day to see questions respecting the future of these complex aggregates settled in a few pages by writers who have obviously never given a thought to the laws by which they are governed, or been at the pains to accumulate inductively the necessary facts on which to base legiti inferences. Instances of this been much in evidence of late with regard to Crina. When a man is in health there is no talk of "what he wants," but when he has become a ''sick" man we hear of remedies galore, many of which, like the two poisons administered to the hero of a recent sensational romance, woul: doubtless counteract each other and leave the patient unharmed. It is easy, for instance, to say that China wants an aristocracy: but that is much the same as telling a patient that, if he were well, he would not be ill, or asserting that, if the Chinese had green skins, they would not now have yellow ones, or asserting that, if the spirit of peculation had been absent, they might have an honest administration. We may all agree that, if China had an aristocracy, she might at the present day have been more advanced in the path of progress, Lut when we come to test this remedy practically we find it is but a quack prescription. For observe that a nation is but an aggre suppose that an aristocracy made of individuals taken from the aggregate would differ in nature from the mass of individuals out of which they were taken or grew is to, suppose, something that is Warranted neither by reason nor experience. If out of ten dishonest men we take two, and call these tw an aristocracy, they will still be two dishonest men. We have not changed in the one thing we want to change, namely, their dishonest nature, Now the English aristocracy probably the highest type of aristocracy which has yet existed on the earth, though anyone unacquainted with the inner lives of the majority of its members would scarcely be in " position to form an opinion of much value, "Moreover, various factors must be taken into account which are commonly overlooked. There is, for example, the absence of temptation to commit crime which exists amongst the very poor. As we do not consider strong until we see some test of his strength, so Ethics do not consider a man moral until his morals have been put to provf. Occasional sensational revelations do indeed seem to show that temptations of various kinds are not always resisted or overcome by members of the English aristocracy, nor that they are all unspotted fron; the world. For Philosophy does not judge a man by his clothes, or his jewels, or his position, or even by the morals he professes, but by the morals he lites. A man who is ready to desert his principles because he finds he cannot othorwise gain pecuniary advantage or social preferment is not an ideal type of aristocrat or leader of men. Still, taking it all round, it cannot be denied that, as far as the evidence goes, the English aristocracy is a very yood aristocracy, and we can quite believe that, if the Chinese had one like it, they would be the better for it.
Yet this does not help us very much.
Tne Chinese have not one like it, never have had, and are never likely to have. As we do not expect a pomegranate to bear figs, so neither do we (or at-least those of us who do not abuse our reason) expect a huge aggregate of unscrupulous Asiatics to put forth an English aristocracy. And _unless this happens, the supposed benefits cannot bevin to accrue; for the only logical alternative would be a Chinese aristocracy, which, aa has been shown, would be tainted of its birth. Therefore, to say that if the Chinese had an aristocracy such and such results would follow, is to beg the whole question.
We sce it gravely asserted, to take another instance, that the Chinese peasant is not decaying" the idea evident being that, if China is, as is alleged, in decay," the Chinese peasant should somehow "go to pieces" in the midst of his agricultural operations This brings out the distinction, on which I have frequently insisted, between the Chinese government and the Chinese people.
To assert that the Chinese people are decaying would he to make a statement directly in face of the little evidence which isto. So far as this goes, I should be clined to say that the Chinese people can no more be said to be decaying than a weed can be said to be decaying when it overspreats a garden, Whether the Chiness Government is decaying is a ques: tion of quite another kind, which, partake ing as it does of the nature of prophecy, I prefer to leave undiscussed.
Similarly, another of the many remedies proposed—the extension of the written law—brings us no nearer to practical results. Ido not wish to dwell upon the fact that, as every student of law knows, the progress: sive nations have been those nations which have had no written, or, if written, very widely-drawn constitutions, to which they had to mould their natures, instead of making laws to fit their natives and circumstances as occasion demanded—~making the shoe to fit the foot and not, Chinese-fashion, the foot to fit the shoe—so on the fact that—so Mose is the thinking on subjects of this kind—we occasionally find laws (conventions) confused with natural laws,—but I would very strongly emphasise the fact, that however perfect, theoretically, any system of written laws may be, it must and will prove abortive unless there exists a moral determination to administer it justly. There not only exists in China no determination, but no such determination can exist. The system of bribery and peculation has become more than a habit: it has been so engrained into the Chinese character for many centuries as to have become part of their nature. Now, we all know how difficult it is to. change our habits; bat to change our natures is looked upon us impossible as it is for the leopard to change his spots. To change other people's natures, especially when those people do all they can to resist the change, must be still more difficult. Lot anyone try to change, by any means he can devise, the habits of "any Chinese with whom he is in daily contact, say his personal servant, and he will at once see he has sot himself no easy task. When he has done this, let him try to change the nature of the same individual, and then begin his experiments on the habits and natures of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.