The Problem of China | Page 5

perhaps for weeks, until a boat
came in which they could go to some distant place in which they had
heard--falsely perhaps--that the earth was more generous than in the
country they had left. Some would die by the way, all would suffer
hunger and thirst and the scorching mid-day sun, but their sufferings
would be dumb. To me they seemed to typify the very soul of Russia,
unexpressive, inactive from despair, unheeded by the little set of
Westernizers who make up all the parties of progress or reaction.
Russia is so vast that the articulate few are lost in it as man and his
planet are lost in interstellar space. It is possible, I thought, that the
theorists may increase the misery of the many by trying to force them
into actions contrary to their primeval instincts, but I could not believe
that happiness was to be brought to them by a gospel of industrialism
and forced labour.
Nevertheless, when morning came I resumed the interminable
discussions of the materialistic conception of history and the merits of a
truly popular government. Those with whom I discussed had not seen
the sleeping wanderers, and would not have been interested if they had
seen them, since they were not material for propaganda. But something
of that patient silence had communicated itself to me, something lonely
and unspoken remained in my heart throughout all the comfortable
familiar intellectual talk. And at last I began to feel that all politics are
inspired by a grinning devil, teaching the energetic and quickwitted to
torture submissive populations for the profit of pocket or power or
theory. As we journeyed on, fed by food extracted from the peasants,
protected by an army recruited from among their sons, I wondered what
we had to give them in return. But I found no answer. From time to
time I heard their sad songs or the haunting music of the balalaika; but
the sound mingled with the great silence of the steppes, and left me
with a terrible questioning pain in which Occidental hopefulness grew
pale.

It was in this mood that I set out for China to seek a new hope.


CHAPTER II
CHINA BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Where the Chinese came from is a matter of conjecture. Their early
history is known only from their own annals, which throw no light
upon the question. The Shu-King, one of the Confucian classics (edited,
not composed, by Confucius), begins, like Livy, with legendary
accounts of princes whose virtues and vices are intended to supply
edification or warning to subsequent rulers. Yao and Shun were two
model Emperors, whose date (if any) was somewhere in the third
millennium B.C. "The age of Yao and Shun," in Chinese literature,
means what "the Golden Age" mean with us. It seems certain that,
when Chinese history begins, the Chinese occupied only a small part of
what is now China, along the banks of the Yellow River. They were
agricultural, and had already reached a fairly high level of
civilization--much higher than that of any other part of Eastern Asia.
The Yellow River is a fierce and terrible stream, too swift for
navigation, turgid, and full of mud, depositing silt upon its bed until it
rises above the surrounding country, when it suddenly alters its course,
sweeping away villages and towns in a destructive torrent. Among
most early agricultural nations, such a river would have inspired
superstitious awe, and floods would have been averted by human
sacrifice; in the Shu-King, however, there is little trace of superstition.
Yao and Shun, and Yü (the latter's successor), were all occupied in
combating the inundations, but their methods were those of the
engineer, not of the miracle-worker. This shows, at least, the state of
belief in the time of Confucius. The character ascribed to Yao shows
what was expected of an Emperor:--
He was reverential, intelligent, accomplished, and thoughtful--naturally
and without effort. He was sincerely courteous, and capable of all

complaisance. The display of these qualities reached to the four
extremities of the empire, and extended from earth to heaven. He was
able to make the able and virtuous distinguished, and thence proceeded
to the love of the nine classes of his kindred, who all became
harmonious. He also regulated and polished the people of his domain,
who all became brightly intelligent. Finally, he united and harmonized
the myriad States of the empire; and lo! the black-haired people were
transformed. The result was universal concord.[1]
The first date which can be assigned with precision in Chinese history
is that of an eclipse of the sun in 776 B.C.[2] There is no reason to
doubt the general correctness of the records for considerably earlier
times, but their exact chronology cannot be fixed. At this period, the
Chou dynasty,