The Problem of China | Page 2

prudent
person would venture to pronounce. But it is easy to point to certain
respects in which we are better than old China, and to other respects in
which we are worse. If intercourse between Western nations and China
is to be fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as missionaries of a
superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to exploit,
oppress, and swindle the Chinese because they are an "inferior" race. I
do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior to
ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate
knowledge of China, would take the same view.
In comparing an alien culture with one's own, one is forced to ask
oneself questions more fundamental than any that usually arise in
regard to home affairs. One is forced to ask: What are the things that I
ultimately value? What would make me judge one sort of society more
desirable than another sort? What sort of ends should I most wish to see
realized in the world? Different people will answer these questions
differently, and I do not know of any argument by which I could
persuade a man who gave an answer different from my own. I must
therefore be content merely to state the answer which appeals to me, in
the hope that the reader may feel likewise.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and
not merely as means to other things, are: knowledge, art, instinctive
happiness, and relations of friendship or affection. When I speak of
knowledge, I do not mean all knowledge; there is much in the way of
dry lists of facts that is merely useful, and still more that has no
appreciable value of any kind. But the understanding of Nature,
incomplete as it is, which is to be derived from science, I hold to be a
thing which is good and delightful on its own account. The same may
be said, I think, of some biographies and parts of history. To enlarge on

this topic would, however, take me too far from my theme. When I
speak of art as one of the things that have value on their own account, I
do not mean only the deliberate productions of trained artists, though of
course these, at their best, deserve the highest place. I mean also the
almost unconscious effort after beauty which one finds among Russian
peasants and Chinese coolies, the sort of impulse that creates
folk-songs, that existed among ourselves before the time of the Puritans,
and survives in cottage gardens. Instinctive happiness, or joy of life, is
one of the most important widespread popular goods that we have lost
through industrialism and the high pressure at which most of us live; its
commonness in China is a strong reason for thinking well of Chinese
civilization.
In judging of a community, we have to consider, not only how much of
good or evil there is within the community, but also what effects it has
in promoting good or evil in other communities, and how far the good
things which it enjoys depend upon evils elsewhere. In this respect,
also, China is better than we are. Our prosperity, and most of what we
endeavour to secure for ourselves, can only be obtained by widespread
oppression and exploitation of weaker nations, while the Chinese are
not strong enough to injure other countries, and secure whatever they
enjoy by means of their own merits and exertions alone.
These general ethical considerations are by no means irrelevant in
considering the practical problems of China. Our industrial and
commercial civilization has been both the effect and the cause of
certain more or less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in
China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through the spectacle of
a society which challenges them by being built, just as unconsciously,
upon a different standard of values. Progress and efficiency, for
example, make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who have
come under Western influence. By valuing progress and efficiency, we
have secured power and wealth; by ignoring them, the Chinese, until
we brought disturbance, secured on the whole a peaceable existence
and a life full of enjoyment. It is difficult to compare these opposite
achievements unless we have some standard of values in our minds;
and unless it is a more or less conscious standard, we shall undervalue

the less familiar civilization, because evils to which we are not
accustomed always make a stronger impression than those that we have
learned to take as a matter of course.
The culture of China is changing rapidly, and undoubtedly rapid
change is needed. The change that has hitherto taken place is traceable
ultimately to the military superiority of