The Civilization of China
Herbert A. Giles

THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA

by HERBERT A. GILES, M.A., LL.D.

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who has left it on record that after listening to a certain melody he
was so affected as not to be able to taste meat for three months.



CHAPTER II

LAW AND GOVERNMENT

In the earliest ages of which history professes to take cognizance,
persons who wished to dispose of their goods were obliged to have
recourse to barter. By and by shells were adopted as a medium of
exchange, and then pieces of stamped silk, linen, and deerskin. These
were followed by circular discs of copper, pierced with a round hole,
the forerunners of the ordinary copper coins of a century or two
later, which had square holes, and bore inscriptions, as they still do
in the present day. Money was also cast in the shape of "knives" and
of "trouser," by which names specimens of this early coinage (mostly
fakes) are known to connoisseurs. Some of these were beautifully
finished, and even inlaid with gold. Early in the ninth century, bills
of exchange came into use; and from the middle of the twelve century
paper money became quite common, and is still in general use all over
China, notes being issued in some places for amounts less even than a
shilling.

Measures of length and capacity were fixed by the Chinese after an
exceedingly simple process. The grain of millet, which is fairly
uniform in size, was taken as the unit of both. Ten of these grains,
laid end-ways, formed the inch, ten of which made a foot, and ten feet
a /chang/. The decimal system has always prevailed in China, with one
curious exception: sixteen ounces make a pound. How this came to be so
does not appear to be known; but in this case it is the pound which is
the unit of weight, and not the lower denomination. The word which for
more than twenty centuries signified "pound" to the Chinese, was
originally the rude picture of an axe-head; and there is no doubt that
axe-heads, being all of the same size, were used in weighing
commodities, and were subsequently split, for convenience's sake, into
sixteen equal parts, each about one-third heavier than the English
ounce. For measures of capacity, we must revert to the millet-grain, a
fixed number of which set the standard for Chinese pints and quarts.
The result of this rule-of-thumb calculation has been that weights and
measures vary all over the empire, although there actually exist an
official foot, pound and pint, as recognized by the Chinese
government. In one and the same city a tailor's foot will differ from
a carpenter's foot, an oilman's pint from a spirit-merchant's pint,
and so on. The final appeal is to local custom.

With the definitive establishment of the monarchy, two hundred years
before the Christian era, a system of government was inaugurated which
has proceeded, so far as essentials are concerned, upon almost uniform
lines down to the present day.

It is an ancient and well-recognized principle in China, that every
inch of soil belongs to the sovereign; consequently, all land is held
on consideration of a land-tax payable to the emperor, and so long as
this tax is forthcoming, the land in question is practically freehold,
and can be passed by sale from hand to hand for a small conveyancing
fee to the local authorities who stamp the deeds. Thus, the foreign
concessions or settlements in China were not sold or parted with in
any way by the Chinese; they were "leased in perpetuity" so long as
the ground-rent is paid, and remain for all municipal and such
purposes under the uncontrolled administration of the nation which
leased them. The land-tax may be regarded as the backbone of Chinese
finance; but although nominally collected at a fixed rate, it is
subject to fluctuations due to bad harvests and like visitations, in
which cases the tax is accepted at a lower rate, in fact at any rate
the people can afford to pay.

The salt and other monopolies, together with the customs, also
contribute an important part of China's revenue. There is the old
native customs service, with its stations and barriers all over the
empire, and the foreign customs service, as established at the treaty
ports only, in order to deal with shipments on foreign vessels trading
with China. The traditional and well-marked lines of taxation are
freely accepted by the people; any attempt, however, to increase the
amounts to be levied, or to introduce new charges of any kind, unless
duly authorized by the people themselves, would be at once sternly
resisted. As a matter of fact, the authorities never run any such
risks. It is customary, when absolutely necessary, and possibly
desirable, to increase old or to introduce new levies, for the local
authorities to invite the leading merchants and others concerned to a
private conference; and only when there is a general consent of all
parties do the officials venture to put forth proclamations saying
that such and such a tax will be increased or imposed, as the case may
be. Any other method may lead to disastrous results. The people refuse
to pay; and coercion is met at once by a general closing of shops and
stoppage of trade, or, in more serious cases, by an attack on the
official residence of the offending mandarin, who soon sees his house
looted and levelled with the ground. In other words, the Chinese
people tax themselves.

The nominal form of government, speaking without reference to the new
constitution which will be dealt with later on, is an irresponsible
autocracy; its institutions are likewise autocratic in form, but
democratic in operation. The philosopher, Mencius (372-289 B.C.),
placed the people first, the gods second, and the sovereign third, in
the scale of national importance; and this classification has sunk
deep into the minds of the Chinese during more than two thousand years
past. What the people in China will not stand is injustice; at the
same time they will live contentedly under harsh laws which they have
at one time or another imposed upon themselves.

Each of the great dynasties has always begun with a Penal Code of its
own, based upon that of the outgoing dynasty, but tending to be more
and more humane in character as time goes on. The punishments in old
days were atrocious in their severity; the Penal Code of the present
dynasty, which came into force some two hundred and fifty years ago,
has been pronounced by competent judges to take a very high rank
indeed. It was introduced to replace a much harsher code which had
been in operation under the Ming dynasty, and contains the nominally
immutable laws of the empire, with such modifications and restrictions
as have been authorized from time to time by Imperial edict. Still
farther back in Chinese history, we come upon punishments of ruthless
cruelty, such as might be expected to prevail in times of lesser
culture and refinement. Two thousand years ago, the Five Punishments
were--branding on the forehead, cutting off the nose, cutting off the
feet, mutilation, and death; for the past two hundred and fifty years,
these have been--beating with the light bamboo, beating with the heavy
bamboo, transportation for a certain period, banishment to a certain
distance, and death, the last being subdivided into strangling and
decapitation, according to the gravity of the offence.

Two actual instruments of torture are mentioned, one for compressing
the ankle-bones, and the other for squeezing the fingers, to be used
if necessary to extort a confession in charges of robbery and
homicide, confession being regarded as essential to the completion of
the record. The application, however, of these tortures is fenced
round in such a way as to impose great responsibility upon the
presiding magistrate; and in addition to the risk of official
impeachment, there is the more dreaded certainty of loss of influence
and of popular esteem. Mention is made in the code of the so-called
"lingering death," according to which first one arm is chopped off,
then the other; the two legs follow in the same way; two slits are
made on the breast, and the heart is torn out; decapitation finishes
the proceedings. It is worthy of note that, although many foreigners
have been present from time to time at public executions, occasionally
when the "lingering death" has been announced, not one has established
it as a fact beyond a doubt that such a process has ever been carried
out. Not only that; it is also well known that condemned criminals are
allowed to purchase of themselves, or through their friends, if they
have any, spirits or opium with which to fortify their courage at the
last moment. There is indeed a tradition that stupefying drinks are
served out by the officials to the batches of malefactors as they pass
to the execution ground at Peking. It would still remain to find
executioners capable of performing in cold blood such a disgusting
operation as the "lingering death" is supposed to be. The ordinary
Chinaman is not a fiend; he does not gloat in his peaceful moments,
when not under the influence of extreme excitement, over bloodshed and
cruelty.

The generally lenient spirit in which the Penal Code of China was
conceived is either widely unknown, or very often ignored. For
instance, during the excessive summer heats certain punishments are
mitigated, and others remitted altogether. Prompt surrender and
acknowledgment of an offence, before it is otherwise discovered,
entitles the offender, with some exceptions, to a full and free
pardon; as also does restitution of stolen property to its owner by a
repentant thief; while a criminal guilty of two or more offences can
be punished only to the extent of the principal charge. Neither are
the near relatives, nor even the servants, of a guilty man, punishable
for concealing his crime and assisting him to escape. Immense
allowances are made for the weakness of human nature, in all of which
may be detected the tempering doctrines of the great Sage. A feudal
baron was boasting to Confucius that in his part of the country the
people were so upright that a son would give evidence against a father
who had stolen a sheep. "With us," replied Confucius, "the father
screens the son, and the son screens the father; that is real
uprightness." To another questioner, a man in high authority, who
complained of the number of thieves, the Master explained that this
was due to the greed of the upper classes. "But for this greed," he
added, "even if you paid people to steal, they would not do so." To
the same man, who inquired his views on capital punishment, Confucius
replied: "What need is there for capital punishment at all? If your
aims are worthy, the people also will be worthy."

for instance, may be contracted during the period of mourning for
parents, which in theory extends to three full years, but in practice
is reckoned at twenty-seven months; neither may musical instruments be
played by near relatives of the dead. During the same period, no
mandarin may hold office, but must retire into private life; though
the observance of this rule is often dispensed with in the case of
high officials whose presence at their posts may be of considerable
importance. In such cases, by special grace of the emperor, the period
of retirement is cut down to three months, or even to one.

The death of an emperor is followed by a long spell of national
tribulation. For one hundred days no man may have his head shaved, and
no woman may wear head ornaments. For twelve months there may be no
marrying or giving in marriage among the official classes, a term
which is reduced to one hundred days for the public at large. The
theatres are supposed to remain closed for a year, but in practice
they shut only for one hundred days. Even thus great hardships are
entailed upon many classes of the community, especially upon actors
and barbers, who might be in danger of actual starvation but for the
common-sense of their rulers coupled with the common rice-pot at home.

The law forbidding marriage between persons of the same surname is
widely, but not universally, in operation. No Smith may marry a Smith;
no Jones may marry a Jones; the reason of course being that all of the
same surname are regarded as members of the same family. However,
there are large districts in certain parts of China where the people
are one and all of the surname, and where it would be a great hardship
--not to mention the impossibility of enforcing the law--if
intermarriages of the kind were prohibited. Consequently, they are
allowed, but only if the contracting parties are so distantly related
that, according to the legal table of affinity, they would not wear
mourning for one another in case of death--in other words, not related
at all. The line of descent is now traced through the males, but there
is reason to believe that in early days, as is found to be often the
case among uncivilized tribes, the important, because more easily
recognizable, parent was the mother. Thus it is illegal for first
cousins of the same surname to marry, and legal if the surnames are
different; in the latter case, however, centuries of experience have
taught the Chinese to frown upon such unions as undesirable in the
extreme.

The Penal Code forbids water burial, and also cremation; but it is
permitted to the children of a man dying at a great distance to
consume their father's corpse with fire if positively unable to bring
it back for ordinary burial in his native district. The idea is that
with the aid of fire immediate communication is set up with the
spirit-world, and that the spirit of the deceased is thus enabled to
reach his native place, which would be impossible were the corpse to
remain intact. Hence the horror of dying abroad, common to all
Chinese, and only faced if there is a reasonable probability that
their remains will be carried back to the ancestral home.

In spite of the above law, the cremation of Buddhist priests is
universal, and the practice is tolerated without protest. Priests who
are getting on in years, or who are stricken with a mortal disease,
are compelled by rule to move into a certain part of their monastery,
known as the Abode of a Long Old Age, in which they are required--not
to die, for death does not come to a good priest, but--to enter into
Nirvana, which is a sublime state of conscious freedom from all mental
and physical disturbance, not to be adequately described in words. At
death, the priest is placed in a chair, his chin supported by a
crutch, and then put into a wooden box, which on the appointed day is
carried in procession, with streaming banners, through the monastery,
and out into the cremation-ground attached, his brother priests
chanting all the while that portion of the Buddhist liturgies set
apart as the service for the dead, but which being in Pali, not a
single one of them can understand. There have, of course, been many
highly educated priests at one time and another during the long reign
of Buddhism in China; but it is safe to say that they are no longer to
be met with in the present day. The Buddhist liturgies have been
written out in Chinese characters which reproduce the sounds of the
original Indian language, and these the priests learn by heart without
understanding a word of their meaning. The box with the dead man in it
is now hoisted to the top of a funeral pyre, which has been well
drenched with oil, and set alight; and when the fire has burnt out,
the ashes are reverently collected and placed in an urn, which is
finally deposited in a mausoleum kept for that purpose.

Life is remarkably safe in China. No man can be executed until his
name has been submitted to the emperor, which of course means to his
ministers at the capital. The Chinese, however, being, as has been so
often stated, an eminently practical people, understand that certain
cases admit of no delay; and to prevent the inevitable lynching of
such criminals as kidnappers, rebels, and others, caught red-handed,
high officials are entrusted with the power of life and death, which
they can put into immediate operation, always taking upon themselves
full responsibility for their acts. The essential is to allay any
excitement of the populace, and to preserve the public peace.

In the general administration of the law great latitude is allowed,
and injustice is rarely inflicted by a too literal interpretation of
the Code. Stealing is of course a crime, yet no Chinese magistrate
would dream of punishing a hungry man for simple theft of food, even
if such a case were ever brought into court. Cake-sellers keep a sharp
eye on their wares; farmers and market-gardeners form associates for
mutual protection, and woe to the thief who gets caught--his
punishment is short and sharp. Litigation is not encouraged, even by
such facilities as ought to be given to persons suffering wrongs;
there is no bar, or legal profession, and persons who assist
plaintiffs or defendants in the conduct of cases, are treated with
scant courtesy by the presiding magistrate and are lucky if they get
off with nothing worse. The majority of commercial cases come before
the guilds, and are settled without reference to the authorities. The
ordinary Chinese dread a court of justice, as a place in which both
parties manage to lose something. "It is not the big devil," according
to the current saying, "but the little devils" who frighten the suitor
away. This is because official servants receive no salary, but depend
for their livelihood on perquisites and tips; and the Chinese suitor,
who is a party to the system, readily admits that it is necessary "to
sprinkle a little water."

Neither do any officials in China, high or low, receive salaries,
although absurdly inadequate sums are allocated by the Government for
that purpose, for which it is considered prudent not to apply. The
Chinese system is to some extent the reverse of our own. Our officials
collect money and pay it into the Treasury, from which source fixed
sums are returned to them as salaries. In China, the occupants of
petty posts collect revenue in various ways, as taxes or fees, pay
themselves as much as they dare, and hand up the balance to a superior
officer, who in turn pays himself in the same sense, and again hands
up the balance to his superior officer. When the viceroy of a province
is reached, he too keeps what he dares, sending up to the Imperial
exchequer in Peking just enough to satisfy the powers above him. There
is thus a continual check by the higher grade upon the lower, but no
check on such extortion as might be practised upon the tax-payer. The
tax-payer sees to that himself. Speaking generally, it may be said
that this system, in spite of its unsatisfactory character, works
fairly well. Few officials overstep the limits which custom has
assigned to their posts, and those who do generally come to grief. So
that when the dishonesty of the Chinese officials is held up to
reprobation, it should always be remembered that the financial side of
their public service is not surrounded with such formalities and
safeguards as to make robbery of public money difficult, if not almost
impossible. It is, therefore, all the more cheering when we find, as
is frequently the case, retiring or transferred mandarins followed by
the good wishes and affection of the people over whom they have been
set to rule.

Until quite recently, there has been no such thing in China as
municipal administration and rating, and even now such methods are
only being tentatively introduced in large cities where there are a
number of foreign residents. Occupants of houses are popularly
supposed to "sweep the snow from their own doorsteps," but the repair
of roads, bridges, drains, etc., has always been left to the casual
philanthropy of wealthy individuals, who take these opportunities of
satisfying public opinion in regard to the obligations of the rich
towards the poor. Consequently, Chinese cities are left without
efficient lighting, draining, or scavengering; and it is astonishing
how good the health of the people living under these conditions can
be. There is no organized police force; but cities are divided into
wards, and at certain points barriers are drawn across the streets at
night, with perhaps one watchman to each. It is not considered
respectable to be out late at night, and it is not safe to move about
without a lantern, which is carried, for those who can afford the
luxury, by a servant preceding them.

One difference between life in China and life in this country may be
illustrated to a certain extent in the following way. Supposing a
traveller, passing through an English village, to be hit on the head
by a stone. Unless he can point out his assailant, the matter is at an
end. In China, all the injured party has to do is to point out the
village--or, if a town, the ward--in which he was assaulted. Then the
headman of such town or ward is summoned before the authorities and
fined, proportionately to the offence, for allowing rowdy behaviour in
his district. The headman takes good care that he does not pay the
fine himself. In the same way, parents are held responsible for the
acts of their children, and householders for those of their servants.



CHAPTER III

RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

The Chinese are emphatically not a religious people, though they are
very superstitious. Belief in a God has come down from the remotest
ages, but the old simple creed has been so overlaid by Buddhism as not
to be discernible at the present day. Buddhism is now the dominant
religion of China. It is closely bound up with the lives of the
people, and is a never-failing refuge in sickness or worldly trouble.
It is no longer the subtle doctrine which was originally presented to
the people of India, but something much more clearly defined and
appreciable by the plainest intellect. Buddha is the saviour of the
people through righteousness alone, and Buddhist saints are popularly
supposed to possess intercessory powers. Yet reverence is always
wanting; and crowds will laugh and talk, and buy and sell sweetmeats,
in a Buddhist temple, before the very eyes of the most sacred images.
So long as divine intervention is not required, an ordinary Chinaman
is content to neglect his divinities; but no sooner does sickness or
financial trouble come upon the family, than he will hurry off to
propitiate the gods.

He accomplishes this through the aid of the priests, who receive his
offerings of money, and light candles or incense at the shrine of the
deity to be invoked. Buddhist priests are not popular with the
Chinese, who make fun of their shaven heads, and doubt the sincerity
of their convictions as well as the purity of their lives. "No meat
nor wine may enter here" is a legend inscribed at the gate of most
Buddhist temples, the ordinary diet as served in the refectory being
strictly vegetarian. A tipsy priest, however, is not an altogether
unheard-of combination, and has provided more than one eminent artist
with a subject of an interesting picture.

Yet the ordeal through which a novice must pass before being admitted
to holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the
process of a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine,
pastilles are placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then
lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars
have been formed, the unfortunate novice being supported on both sides
by priests who encourage him all the time to bear what must be
excruciating pain. The fully qualified priest receives a diploma, on
the strength of which he may demand a day and a night's board and
lodging from the priests of any temple all over the empire.

At a very early date Buddhism had already taken a firm hold on the
imagination of Chinese poets and painters, the latter of whom loved to
portray the World-honoured One in a dazzling hue of gold. A poet of
the eighth century A.D., who realized for the first time the inward
meaning of the Law, as it is called, ended a panegyric on Buddhism
with the following lines:--

  O thou pure Faith, had I but known thy scope,
  The Golden God had long since been my hope!

Taoism is a term often met with in books about China. We are told that
the three religions of the people are Confucianism, Buddhism, and
Taoism, this being the order of precedence assigned to them in A.D.
568. Confucianism is of course not a religion at all, dealing as it
does with duty towards one's neighbour and the affairs of this life
only; and it will be seen that Taoism, in its true sense, has scarcely
a stronger claim. At a very remote day, some say a thousand, and
others six hundred, years before the Christian era, there flourished a
wise man named Lao Tzu, which may be approximately pronounced as
/Loudza/ (/ou/ as in /loud/), and understood to mean the Old
Philosopher. He was a very original thinker, and a number of his
sayings have been preserved to us by ancient authors, whom they had
reached by tradition; that is to say, the Old Philosopher never put
his doctrines into book form. There is indeed in existence a work
which passes under his name, but it is now known to be a forgery, and
is generally discarded by scholars.

The great flaw in the teaching of the Old Philosopher was its
extremely impractical character, its unsuitability to the needs of men
and women engaged in the ordinary avocations of life. In one sense he
was an Anarchist, for he held that the empire would fare better if
there were no government at all, the fact being that violence and
disorder had always been conspicuous even under the best rulers.
Similarly, he argued that we should get along more profitably with
less learning, because then there would be fewer thieves, successful
thieving being the result of mental training. It is not necessary to
follow him to his most famous doctrine, namely, that of doing nothing,
by which means, he declared, everything could be done, the solution of
which puzzle of left everybody to find out for himself. Among his
quaint sayings will be found several maxims of a very different class,
as witness his injunction, "Requite evil with kindness," and "Mighty
is he who conquers himself." Of the latter, the following illustration
is given by a commentator. Two men meeting in the street, one said to
the other, "How fat you have grown!" "Yes," replied his friend, "I
have lately won a battle." "What do you mean?" inquired the former.
"Why, you see," said the latter, "so long as I was at home, reading
about ancient kings, I admired nothing but virtue; then, when I went
out of doors, I was attracted by the charms of wealth and power. These
two feelings fought inside me, and I began to lose flesh; but now love
of virtue has conquered, and I am fat."

The teachings of the Old Philosopher were summed up in the word /Tao/,
pronounced as /tou(t)/, which originally meant a road, a way; and as
applied to doctrines means simply the right way or path of moral
conduct, in which mankind should tread so as to lead correct and
virtuous lives. Later on, when Buddhism was introduced, this Taoism,
with all its paradoxes and subtleties, to which alchemy and the
concoction of an elixir of life had been added, gradually began to
lose its hold upon the people; and in order to stem the tide of
opposition, temples and monasteries were built, a priesthood was
established in imitation of the Buddhists, and all kinds of ceremonies
and observances were taken from Buddhism, until, at the present day,
only those who know can tell one from the other.

Although alchemy, which was introduced from Greece, via Bactria, in
the second century B.C., has long ceased to interest the Chinese
public, who have found out that gold is more easily made from the
sweat of the brow than from copper or lead; and although only a few
silly people now believe that any mixture of drugs will produce an
elixir of life, able to confer immortality upon those who drink it;
nevertheless, Taoism still professes to teach the art of extending
life, if not indefinitely, at any rate to a considerable length. This
art would probably go some way towards extending life under any
circumstances, for it consists chiefly in deep and regular breathing,
preferably of morning air, in swallowing the saliva three times in
every two hours, in adopting certain positions for the body and limbs,
which are also strengthened by gymnastic exercises, and finally, as
borrowed from the Buddhists, in remaining motionless for some hours a
day, the eyes shut, and the mind abstracted as much as possible from
all surrounding influences. The upshot of these and other practices is
the development of "the pure man," on which Chuang Tzu (/Chwongdza/),
a Taoist philosopher of the third and fourth centuries B.C., to be
mentioned again, writes as follows: "But what is a pure man? The pure
men of old acted without calculation, not seeking to secure results.
They laid no plans. Therefore, failing, they had no cause for regret;
succeeding, no cause for congratulation. And thus they could scale
heights without fear; enter water without becoming wet, and fire
without feeling hot. The pure men of old slept without dreams, and
waked without anxiety. They ate without discrimination, breathing deep
breaths. For pure men draw breath from their heels; the vulgar only
from their throats."

Coupled with what may be called intellectual Taoism, as opposed to the
grosser form under which this faith appeals to the people at large, is
a curious theory that human life reaches the earth from some
extraordinarily dazzling centre away in the depths of space, "beyond
the range of conceptions." This centre appears to be the home of
eternal principles, the abode of a First Cause, where perfectly
spotless and pure beings "drink of the spiritual and feed on force,"
and where likeness exists without form. To get back to that state
should be the object of all men, and this is only to be attained by a
process of mental and physical purification prolonged through all
conditions of existence. Then, when body and soul are fitted for the
change, there comes what ordinary mortals call death; and the pure
being closes his eyes, to awake forthwith in his original glory from
the sleep which mortals call life.

For many centuries Buddhism and Taoism were in bitter antagonism.
Sometimes the court was Buddhist, sometimes Taoist; first one faith
was suppressed altogether, then the other; in A.D. 574 both were
abolished in deference to Confucianism, which, however, no emperor has
ever dared to interfere with seriously. At present, all the "three
religions" flourish happily side by side.

The Chinese believe firmly in the existence of spirits, which they
classify simply as good and evil. They do not trouble their heads much
about the former, but they are terribly afraid of the latter. Hideous
devils infest dark corners, and lie in wait to injure unfortunate
passers-by, often for no cause whatever. The spirits of persons who
have been wronged are especially dreaded by those who have done the
wrong. A man who has been defrauded of money will commit suicide,
usually by poison, at the door of the wrongdoer, who will thereby
first fall into the hands of the authorities, and if he escapes in
that quarter, will still have to count with the injured ghost of his
victim. A daughter-in-law will drown or hang herself to get free from,
and also to avenge, the tyranny or cruelty of her husband's mother.
These acts lead at once to family feuds, which sometimes end in
bloodshed; more often in money compensation; and the known risk of
such contingencies operates as a wholesome check upon aggressive
treatment of the weak by the strong.

Divination and fortune-telling have always played a conspicuous part
in ordinary Chinese life. Wise men, of the magician type, sit at
stalls in street and market-place, ready for a small fee to advise
those who consult them on any enterprise to be undertaken, even of the
most trivial kind. The omens can be taken in various ways, as by
calculation based upon books, of which there is quite a literature, or
by drawing lots inscribed with mystic signs, to be interpreted by the
fortune-teller. Even at Buddhist temples may be found two kidney-
shaped pieces of wood, flat on one side and round on the other, which
are thrown into the air before an altar, the results--two flats, two
rounds, or one of each--being interpreted as unfavourable, medium, and
very favourable, respectively.

Of all Chinese superstitions, the one that has been most persistent,
and has exerted the greatest influence upon national life, is the
famous Wind-and-Water system (/feng shui/) of geomancy. According to
the principles which govern this system, and of which quite a special
literature exists, the good or evil fortunes of individuals and the
communities are determined by the various physical aspects and
conditions which surround their everyday life. The shapes of hills,
the presence or absence of water, the position of trees, the height of
buildings, and so forth, are all matters of deep consideration to the
professors of the geomantic art, who thrive on the ignorance of
superstitious clients. They are called in to select propitious sites
for houses and graves; and it often happens that if the fortunes of a
family are failing, a geomancer will be invited to modify in some way
the arrangement of the ancestral graveyard. Houses in a Chinese street
are never built up so as to form a line of uniform height; every now
and again one house must be a little higher or a little lower than its
neighbour, or calamity will certainly ensue. It is impossible to walk
straight into an ordinary middle-class dwelling-house. Just inside the
front door there will be a fixed screen, which forces the visitor to
turn to the right or to the left; the avowed object being to exclude
evil spirits, which can only move in straight lines.

Mention of the ancestral graveyard brings to mind the universal
worship of ancestors, which has been from time immemorial such a
marked feature of Chinese religious life. At death, the spirit of a
man or woman is believed to remain watching over the material
interests of the family to which the deceased had belonged. Offerings
of various kinds, including meat and drink, are from time to time made
to such a spirit, supposed to be particularly resident in an ancestral
hall--or cupboard, as the case may be. These offerings are made for
the special purpose of conciliating the spirit, and of obtaining in
return a liberal share of the blessings and good things of this life.
This is the essential feature of the rite, and this it is which makes
the rite an act of worship pure and simple; so that only superficial
observers could make the mistake of classifying ancestral worship, as
practised in China, with such acts as laying wreaths upon the tombs of
deceased friends and relatives.

With reference to the spirit or soul, the Chinese have held for
centuries past that the soul of every man is twofold; in a popular
acceptation it is sometimes regarded as threefold. One portion is that
which expresses the visible personality, and is permanently attached
to the body; the other has the power of leaving the body, carrying
with it an appearance of physical form, which accounts for a person
being seen in two different places at once. Cases of catalepsy or
trance are explained by the Chinese as the absence from the body of
this portion of the soul, which is also believed to be expelled from
the body by any violent shock or fright. There is a story of a man who
was so terrified at the prospect of immediate execution that his
separable soul left his body, and he found himself sitting on the
eaves of a house, from which point he could see a man bound, and
waiting for the executioner's sword. Just then, a reprieve arrived,
and in a moment he was back again in his body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who
can hardly have been acquainted with the Chinese view, told a similar
story in his /Father and Son/: "During morning and evening prayers,
which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing, I fancied that one of my
two selves could flit up, and sit clinging to the cornice, and look
down on my other self and the rest of us."

In some parts of China, planchette is frequently resorted to as a
means of reading the future, and adapting one's actions accordingly.
It is a purely professional performance, being carried through
publicly before some altar in a temple, and payment made for the
response. The question is written down on a piece of paper, which is
burnt at the altar apparently before any one could gather knowledge of
its contents; and the answer from the god is forthwith traced on a
tray of sand, word by word, each word being obliterated to make room
for the next, by two men, supposed to be ignorant of the question, who
hold the ends of a V-shaped instrument from the point of which a
little wooden pencil projects at right angles.

Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the
unseen world is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long
been known to the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back
as the middle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia
of altar, candles, incense, etc., a medium is thrown into a hypnotic
condition, during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a
spirit, and every word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An
amusing instance is recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic
influence, not only blurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain
men who had been collecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so
far as to admit that he had had some of the money himself.

This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, but
always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark /seances/ for
communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese
authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely
to be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick
person, or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind
are equally under the ban of the law, the assumption--a very
justifiable one--being that the aim of these societies is to upset the
existing order of political and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth
Society is among the most famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps
because it has never been entirely suppressed. The lodges of this
fraternity, the oath of fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission,
remind one forcibly of Masonry in the West; but the points of conduct
are merely coincidences, and there does not appear to be any real
connexion.

Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden Orchid
Society, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not only
threaten, but positively commit suicide upon any attempt at coercion.
At one time this society became such a serious menace that the
authorities were compelled to adopt severe measures of repression.

Another old-established society is that of the Vegetarians, who eat no
meat and neither smoke nor drink. From their seemingly harmless ranks
it is said that the Boxers of 1900 were largely recruited.

For nearly twenty-five centuries the Chinese have looked to Confucius
for their morals. Various religions have appealed to the spiritual
side of the Chinese mind, and Buddhism has obtained an ascendancy
which will not be easily displaced; but through all this long lapse of
time the morality of China has been under the guidance of their great
teacher, Confucius (551-479 B.C.), affectionately known to them as the
"uncrowned king," and recently raised to the rank of a god.

His doctrines, in the form sometimes of maxims, sometimes of answers
to eager inquirers, were brought together after his death--we do not
know exactly how soon--and have influenced first and last an enormous
proportion of the human race. Confucius taught man's duty to his
neighbour; he taught virtue for virtue's sake, and not for the hope of
reward or fear of punishment; he taught loyalty to the sovereign as
the foundation stone of national prosperity, and filial piety as the
basis of all happiness in the life of the people. As a simple human
moralist he saw clearly the limitations of humanity, and refused to
teach his disciples to return good for evil, as suggested by the Old
Philosopher, declaring without hesitation that evil should be met by
justice. The first systematic writer of Chinese history, who died
about 80 B.C., expressed himself on the position and influence of
Confucius in terms which have been accepted as accurate for twenty
centuries past: "Countless are the princes and prophets that the world
has seen in its time--glorious in life, forgotten in death. But
Confucius, though only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses,
remains with us after numerous generations. He is the model for such
as would be wise. By all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest
student, the supremacy of his principles is freely and fully admitted.
He may indeed be pronounced the divinest of men."

The Son of Heaven is of course the Emperor, who is supposed to be
God's chosen representative on earth, and responsible for the right
conduct and well-being of all committed to his care. Once every year
he proceeds in state to the Temple of Heaven at Peking; and after the
due performance of sacrificial worship he enters alone the central
raised building with circular blue-tiled roof, and there places
himself in communication with the Supreme Being, submitting for
approval or otherwise his stewardship during the preceding twelve
months. Chinese records go so far as to mention letters received from
God. There is a legend of the sixth century A.D., which claims that
God revealed Himself to a hermit in a retired valley, and bestowed on
him a tablet of jade with a mysterious inscription. But there is a
much more circumstantial account of a written communication which in
A.D. 1008 descended from heaven upon mount T'ai, the famous mountain
in Shantung, where a temple has been built to mark the very spot. The
emperor and his courtiers regarded this letter with profound reverence
and awe, which roused the ire of a learned statesman of the day. The
latter pointed out that Confucius, when asked to speak, so that his
disciples might have something to record, had bluntly replied: "Does
God speak? The four seasons pursue their courses and all things are
produced; but does God say anything?" Therefore, he argued, if God
does not speak to us, still less will He write a letter.

The fact that the receipt of such a letter is mentioned in the
dynastic history of the period must not be allowed to discredit in any
way the general truth and accuracy of Chinese annals, which, as
research progresses, are daily found to be far more trustworthy than
was ever expected to be the case. We ourselves do not wholly reject
the old contemporary chronicles of Hoveden and Roger of Wendover
because they mention a letter from Christ on the neglect of the
Sabbath.

In Chinese life, social and political alike, filial piety may be
regarded as the keystone of the arch. Take that away, and the
superstructure of centuries crumbles to the ground. When Confucius was
asked by one of his disciples to explain what constituted filial
piety, he replied that it was a difficult obligation to define; while
to another disciple he was able to say without hesitation that the
mere support of parents would be insufficient, inasmuch as food is
what is supplied even to horses and dogs. According to the story-books
for children, the obligation has been interpreted by the people at
large in many different ways. The twenty-four standard examples of
filial children include a son who allowed mosquitoes to feed upon him,
and did not drive them away lest they should go and annoy his parents;
another son who wept so passionately because he could procure no
bamboo shoots for his mother that the gods were touched, and up out of
the ground came some shoots which he gathered and carried home;
another who when carrying buckets of water would slip and fall on
purpose, in order to make his parents laugh; and so on. No wonder that
Confucius found filial piety beyond his powers of definition.

Now for a genuine example. There is a very wonderful novel in which a
very affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic
conclusion. The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally
dies of consumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less
fascinating youth, enters the Buddhist priesthood. A lady, the mother
of a clever young official, was so distressed by the pathos of the
tale that she became quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in
vain. At length, when things were becoming serious, the son set to
work and composed a sequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the
heroine and made the lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he
had the intense satisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health.

Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to the
fanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes. In
consequence of the serious or prolonged illness of parents, it is very
usual for sons and daughters to repair to the municipal temple and
pray that a certain number of years may be cut off their own span of
life and added to that of the sick parents in question.

Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have
accrued from the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a
long period, and over such swarming myriads of the human race. It is a
commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese are
hardworking, thrifty, and sober--the last-mentioned, by the way, in a
land where drunkenness is not regarded as a crime. Shallow observers
of the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked by
professional thieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who
have not much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison,
will assert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those
who have lived long in China and have more seriously devoted
themselves to discover the truth, may one and all be said to be
arrayed upon the other side. The amount of solid honesty to be met
with in every class, except the professionally criminal class, is
simply astonishing. That the word of the Chinese merchant is as good
as his bond has long since become a household word, and so it is in
other walks of life. With servants from respectable families, the
householder need have no fear for his goods. "Be loyal," says the
native maxim, "to the master whose rice you eat;" and this maxim is
usually fulfilled to the letter. Hence, it is that many foreigners who
have been successful in their business careers, take care to see, on
their final departure from the East, that the old and faithful
servant, often of twenty to thirty years' standing, shall have some
provision for himself and his family. In large establishments,
especially banks, in which great interests are at stake, it is
customary for the Chinese staff to be guaranteed by some wealthy man
(or firm), who deposits securities for a considerable amount, thus
placing the employer in a very favourable position. The properly
chosen Chinese servant who enters the household of a foreigner, is a
being to whom, as suggested above, his master often becomes deeply
attached, and whom he parts with, often after many years of service,
to his everlasting regret. Such a servant has many virtues. He is
noiseless over his work, which he performs efficiently. He can stay up
late, and yet rise early. He lives on the establishment, but in an
out-building. He provides his own food. He rarely wants to absent
himself, and even then will always provide a reliable /locum tenens/.
He studies his master's ways, and learns to anticipate his slightest
wishes. In return for these and other services he expects to get his
wages punctually paid, and to be allowed to charge, without any notice
being taken of the same, a commission on all purchases. This is the
Chinese system, and even a servant absolutely honest in any other way
cannot emancipate himself from its grip. But if treated fairly, he
will not abuse his chance. One curious feature of the system is that
if one master is in a relatively higher position than another, the
former will be charged by his servants slightly more than the latter
by his servants for precisely the same article. Many attempts have
been made by foreigners to break through this "old custom," especially
by offering higher wages; but signal failure has always been the
result, and those masters have invariably succeeded best who have
fallen in with the existing institution, and have tried to make the
best of it.

There is one more, and in many ways the most important, side of a
Chinese servant's character. He will recognize frankly, and without a
pang, the superior position and the rights of his master; but at the
same time, if worth keeping, he will exact from his master the proper
respect due from man to man. It is wholly beside the mark to say that
he will not put up for a moment with the cuffs and kicks so freely
administered to his Indian colleague. A respectable Chinese servant
will often refuse to remain with a master who uses abusive or violent
language, or shows signs of uncontrollable temper. A lucrative place
is as nothing compared with the "loss of face" which he would suffer
in the eyes of his friends; in other words, with his loss of dignity
as a man. If a servant will put up with a blow, the best course is to
dismiss him at once, as worthless and unreliable, if not actually
dangerous. Confucius said: "If you mistrust a man, do not employ him;
if you employ a man, do not mistrust him;" and this will still be
found to be an excellent working rule in dealings with Chinese
servants.



CHAPTER IV

A.D. 220-1200

The long-lived and glorious House of Han was brought to a close by the
usual causes. There were palace intrigues and a temporary usurpation
of the throne, eunuchs of course being in the thick of the mischief;
added to which a very serious rebellion broke out, almost as a natural
consequence. First and last there arose three aspirants to the
Imperial yellow, which takes the place of purple in ancient Rome; the
result being that, after some years of hard fighting, China was
divided into three parts, each ruled by one of the three rivals. The
period is known in history as that of the Three Kingdoms, and lasted
from A.D. 220 to A.D. 265. This short space of time was filled,
especially the early years, with stirring deeds of heroism and
marvellous strategical operations, fortune favouring first one of the
three commanders and then another. The whole story of these civil wars
is most graphically told in a famous historical romance composed about
a thousand years afterwards. As in the case of the Waverley novels, a
considerable amount of fiction has been interwoven with truth to make
the narrative more palatable to the general reader; but its basis is
history, and the work is universally regarded among the Chinese
themselves as one of the most valuable productions in the lighter
branches of their literature.

The three to four centuries which follow on the above period were a
time of political and social disorganisation, unfavourable, according
to Chinese writers, to the development of both literature and art. The
House of Chin, which at first held sway over a once more united
empire, was severely harassed by the Tartars on the north, who were in
turn overwhelmed by the House of Toba. The latter ruled for some two
hundred years over northern China, while the southern portions were
governed by several short-lived native dynasties. A few points in
connexion with these times deserve perhaps brief mention.

The old rule of twenty-seven months of mourning for parents was
re-established, and has continued in force down to the present day.
The Japanese sent occasional missions, with tribute; and the Chinese,
who had already in A.D. 240 dispatched an envoy to Japan, repeated the
compliment in 608. An attempt was made to conquer Korea, and envoys
were sent to countries as far off as Siam. Buddhism, which had been
introduced many centuries previously--no one can exactly say when--
began to spread far and wide, and appeared to be firmly established.
In A.D. 399 a Buddhist priest, named Fa Hsien, started from Central
China and travelled to India across the great desert and over the
Hindu Kush, subsequently visiting Patna, Benares, Buddha-Gaya, and
other well-known spots, which he accurately described in the record of
his journey published on his return and still in existence. His object
was to obtain copies of the sacred books, relics and images,
illustrative of the faith; and these he safely conveyed to China by
sea from India, via Ceylon (where he spent three years), and Sumatra,
arriving after an absence of fifteen years.

In the year A.D. 618 the House of T'ang entered upon its glorious
course of three centuries in duration. Under a strong but dissolute
ruler immediately preceding, China had once more become a united
empire, undivided against itself; and although wars and rebellions
were not wanting to disturb the even tenor of its way, the general
picture presented to us under the new dynasty of the T'angs is one of
national peace, prosperity, and progress. The name of this House has
endured, like that of Han, to the present day in the popular language
of the people; for just as the northerners still delight to style
themselves "good sons of Han," so are the southerners still proud to
speak of themselves as "men of T'ang."

One of the chief political events of this period was the usurpation of
power by the Empress Wu--at first, as nominal regent on behalf of a
step-child, the son and heir of her late husband by his first wife,
and afterwards, when she had set aside the step-child, on her own
account. There had been one previous instance of a woman wielding the
Imperial sceptre, namely, the Empress Lu of the Han dynasty, to whom
the Chinese have accorded the title of legitimate ruler, which has not
been allowed to the Empress Wu. The latter, however, was possessed of
much actual ability, mixed with a kind of midsummer madness; and so
long as her great intellectual faculties remained unimpaired, she
ruled, like her successor of some twelve centuries afterwards, with a
rod of iron. In her old age she was deposed and dismissed to private
life, the rightful heir being replaced upon his father's throne.

Among the more extravagant acts of her reign are some which are still
familiar to the people of to-day. Always, even while her husband was
alive, she was present, behind a curtain, at councils and audiences;
after his death she was accustomed to take her place openly among the
ministers of state, wearing a false beard. In 694 she gave herself the
title of Divine Empress, and in 696 she even went so far as to style
herself God Almighty. In her later years she became hopelessly
arrogant and overbearing. No one was allowed to say that the Empress
was fair as a lily or lovely as a rose, but that the lily was fair or
the rose lovely as Her Majesty. She tried to spread the belief that
she was really the Supreme Being by forcing flowers artificially and
then in the presence of her courtiers ordering them to bloom. On one
occasion she commanded some peonies to bloom; and because they did not
instantly obey, she caused every peony in the capital to be pulled up
and burnt, and prohibited the cultivation of peonies ever afterwards.
She further decided to place her sex once and for all on an equality
with man. For that purpose women were admitted to the public
examinations, official posts being conferred upon those who were
successful; and among other things they were excused from kneeling
while giving evidence in courts of justice. This innovation, however,
did not fulfil its promise; and with the disappearance of its vigorous
foundress, the system also disappeared. It was not actually the first
time in Chinese history that the experiment had been tried. An emperor
of the third century A.D. had already opened public life to women, and
it is said that many of them rose to high office; but here too the
system was of short duration, and the old order was soon restored.

Another striking picture of the T'ang dynasty is presented by the
career of an emperor who is usually spoken of as Ming Huang, and who,
after distinguishing himself at several critical junctures, mounted
the throne in 712, in succession to his father, who had abdicated in
his favour. He began with economy, closing the silk factories and
forbidding the palace ladies to wear jewels or embroideries,
considerable quantities of which were actually burnt. He was a warm
patron of literature, and schools were established in every village.
Fond of music, he founded a college for training youth of both sexes
in this art. His love of war and his growing extravagance led to
increased taxation, with the usual consequences in China--discontent
and rebellion. He surrounded himself by a brilliant court, welcoming
men of genius in literature and art; at first for their talents alone,
but finally for their readiness to participate in scenes of revelry
and dissipation provided for the amusement of a favourite concubine,
the ever-famous Yang Kuei-fei (pronounced /Kway-fay/). Eunuchs were
appointed to official posts, and the grossest forms of religious
superstition were encouraged. Women ceased to veil themselves, as of
old. At length, in 755, a serious rebellion broke out, and a year
later the emperor, now an old man of seventy-one, fled before the
storm. He had not proceeded far before his soldiery revolted and
demanded vengeance upon the whole family of the favourite, several
unworthy members of which had been raised to high positions and loaded
with honours. The wretched emperor was forced to order the head eunuch
to strangle his idolized concubine, while the rest of her family
perished at the hands of the troops. He subsequently abdicated in
favour of his son, and spent the last six years of his life in
seclusion.

This tragic story has been exquisitely told in verse by one of China's
foremost poets, who was born only a few years later. He divides his
poem into eight parts, dealing with the /ennui/ of the monarch until
he discovers /beauty/, the /revelry/ of the pair together, followed by
the horrors of /flight/, to end in the misery of /exile/ without her,
the /return/ when the emperor passes again by the fatal spot, /home/
where everything reminds him of her, and finally /spirit-land/. This
last is a figment of the poet's imagination. He pictures the
disconsolate emperor sending a magician to discover Yang Kuei-fei's
whereabouts in the next world, and to bear to her a message of
uninterrupted love. The magician, after a long search, finds her in
one of the Isles of the Blest, and fulfils his commission accordingly.

  Her features are fixed and calm, though myriad tears fall,
  Wetting a spray of pear-bloom, as it were with the raindrops of
    spring.
  Subduing her emotions, restraining her grief, she tenders thanks
    to His Majesty.
  Saying how since their parting she had missed his form and voice;
  And how, although their love on earth had so soon come to an end,
  The days and months among the Blest were still of long duration.
  And now she turns and gazes towards the above of mortals,
  But cannot discern the Imperial city, lost in the dust and haze.
  Then she takes out the old keepsake, tokens of undying love,
  A gold hairpin, an enamel brooch, and bids the magician carry
    these back.
  One half of the hairpin she keeps, and one half of the enamel
    brooch,
  Breaking with her hands the yellow gold, and dividing the enamel
    in two.
  "Tell him," she said, "to be firm of heart, as this gold and
    enamel,
  And then in heaven or on earth below we two may meet once more."

The magnificent House of T'ang was succeeded by five insignificant
dynasties, the duration of all of which was crowded into about half a
century. Then, in A.D. 960, began the rule of the Sungs (pronounced
/Soongs/), to last for three hundred years and rival in national peace
and prosperity any other period in the history of China. The nation
had already in a great measure settled down to that state of material
civilization and mental culture in which it has remained to the
present time. To the appliances of ordinary Chinese life it is
probable that but few additions have been made since a very early
date. The dress of the people has indeed undergone several variations,
but the ploughs and hoes, the water-wheels and well-sweeps, the tools
of the artisans, mud huts, carts, junks, chairs, tables, chopsticks,
etc., which we still see in China, are probably very much those of two
thousand years ago. Mencius, of the third century B.C., observed that
written characters had the same form, and axle-trees the same breadth,
all over the empire; and to this day an unaltering uniformity is one
of the chief characteristics of the Chinese people in every department
of life.

In spite, however, of the peaceful aspirations of the House of Sung,
the Kitan Tartars were for ever encroaching upon Chinese territory,
and finally overran and occupied a large part of northern China, with
their capital where Peking now stands. This resulted in an amicable
arrangement to divide the empire, the Kitans retaining their conquests
in the north, from which, after about two hundred years, they were in
turn expelled by the Golden Tartars, who had previously been subject
to them.

Many volumes, rather than pages, would be required to do justice to
the statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, poets, historians, art critics,
and other famous men of this dynasty. It has already been stated that
the interpretation of the Confucian Canon, accepted at the present
day, dates from this period; and it may now be of interest to give a
brief account of another remarkable movement connected with the
dynasty, though in quite a different line.

Wang An-shih (as /shi/ in /shirk/), popularly known as the Reformer,
was born in 1021. In his youth a keen student, his pen seemed to fly
over the paper. He rose to high office; and by the time he was forty-
eight he found himself installed as confidential adviser to the
emperor. He then entered upon a series of startling political reforms,
said to be based upon new and more correct interpretations of portions
of the Confucian Canon, which still remained, so far as explanation
was concerned, just as it had been left by the scholars of the Han
dynasty. This appeal to authority was, of course, a mere blind,
cleverly introduced to satisfy the bulk of the population, who were
always unwilling to move in any direction where no precedent is
forthcoming. One of his schemes, the express object of which was to
decrease taxation and at the same time to increase the revenue, was to
secure a sure and certain market for all products, as follows. From
the produce of a given district, enough was to be set aside (1) for
the payment of taxes, and (2) to supply the wants of the district; (3)
the balance was then to be taken over by the state at a low rate, and
held for a rise or forwarded to some centre where there happened to be
a demand. There would be thus a certainty of market for the farmer,
and an equal certainty for the state to make profits as a middleman.
Another part of this scheme consisted in obligatory advances by the
state to cultivators of land, whether these farmers required the money
or not, the security for the loans being in each case the growing
crops.

There was also a system of tithing for military purposes, under which
every family having more than two males was bound to supply one to
serve as a soldier; and in order to keep up a breed of cavalry horses,
every family was compelled to take charge of one, which was provided,
together with its food, by the government. There was a system under
which money payments were substituted for the old-fashioned and
vexatious method of carrying on public works by drafts of forced
labourers; and again another under which warehouses for bartering and
hypothecating goods were established all over the empire.

Of all his innovations the most interesting was that all land was to
be remeasured and an attempt made to secure a more equitable incidence
of taxation. The plan was to divide up the land into equal squares,
and to levy taxes in proportion to the fertility of each. This scheme
proved for various reasons to be unworkable; and the bitter opposition
with which, like all his other measures of reform, it was received by
his opponents, did not conduce to success. Finally, he abolished all
restrictions upon the export of copper, the result being that even the
current copper "cash" were melted down and made into articles for sale
and exportation. A panic ensued, which Wang met by the simple
expedient of doubling the value of each cash. He attempted to reform
the examination system, requiring from the candidate not so much
graces of style as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects.
"Accordingly," says one Chinese author, "even the pupils at the
village schools threw away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to
study primers of history, geography, and political economy"--a
striking anticipation of the movement in vogue to-day. "I have myself
been," he tells us, "an omnivorous reader of books of all kinds, even,
for example, of ancient medical and botanical works. I have, moreover,
dipped into treatises on agriculture and on needlework, all of which I
have found very profitable in aiding me to seize the great scheme of
the Canon itself." But like many other great men, he was in advance of
his age. He fell into disfavour at court, and was dismissed to a
provincial post; and although he was soon recalled, he retired into
private life, shortly afterwards to die, but not before he had seen
the whole of his policy reversed.

His career stands out in marked contrast with that of the great
statesman and philosopher, Chu Hsi (pronounced /Choo Shee/), who
flourished A.D. 1130-1200. His literary output was enormous and his
official career successful; but his chief title to fame rests upon his
merits as a commentator on the Confucian Canon. As has been already
stated, he introduced interpretations either wholly or partly at
variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the
Han dynasty, and hitherto received as infallible, thus modifying to a
certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social
morality. His guiding principle was merely one of consistency. He
refused to interpret words in a given passage in one sense, and the
same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. The effect of this
apparently obvious method was magical; and from that date the
teachings of Confucius have been universally understood in the way in
which Chu Hsi said they ought to be understood.

To his influence also must be traced the spirit of materialism which
is so widely spread among educated Chinese. The God in whom Confucius
believed, but whom, as will be seen later on, he can scarcely be said
to have "taught," was a passive rather than an active God, and may be
compared with the God of the Psalms. He was a personal God, as we know
from the ancient character by which He was designated in the written
language of early ages, that character being a rude picture of a man.
This view was entirely set aside by Chu Hsi, who declared in the
plainest terms that the Chinese word for God meant nothing more than
"abstract right;" in other words, God was a principle. It is
impossible to admit such a proposition, which was based on sentiment
and not on sound reasoning. Chu Hsi was emphatically not a man of
religious temperament, and belief in the supernatural was distasteful
to him; he was for a short time under the spell of Buddhism, but threw
that religion over for the orthodoxy of Confucianism. He was,
therefore, anxious to exclude the supernatural altogether from the
revised scheme of moral conduct which he was deducing from the
Confucian Canon, and his interpretation of the word "God" has been
blindly accepted ever since.

When Chu Hsi died, his coffin is said to have taken up a position,
suspended in the air, about three feet from the ground. Whereupon his
son-in-law, falling on his knees beside the bier, reminded the
departed spirit of the great principles of which he had been such a
brilliant exponent in life--and the coffin descended gently to the
ground.



CHAPTER V

WOMEN AND CHILDREN

The Chinese are very fond of animals, and especially of birds; and on
the whole they may be said to be kind to their animals, though cases
of ill-treatment occur. At the same time it must be carefully
remembered that such quantum of humanity as they may exhibit is
entirely of their own making; there is no law to act persuasively on
brutal natures, and there is no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals to see that any such law is enforced. A very large number
of beautiful birds, mostly songless, are found in various parts of
China, and a great variety of fishes in the rivers and on the coast.
Wild animals are represented by the tiger (in both north and south),
the panther and the bear, and even the elephant and the rhinoceros may
be found in the extreme south-west. The wolf and the fox, the latter
dreaded as an uncanny beast, are very widely distributed.

Still less would there be any ground for establishing a Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the very name of which would
make an ordinary, unsophisticated Chinaman stare. Chinese parents are,
if anything, over-indulgent to their children. The father is, indeed,
popularly known as the "Severe One," and it is a Confucian tradition
that he should not spare the rod and so spoil the child, but he draws
the line at a poker; and although as a father he possesses the power
of life and death over his offspring, such punishments as are
inflicted are usually of the mildest description. The mother, the
"Gentle One," is, speaking broadly, a soft-hearted, sweet-natured
specimen of humanity; one of those women to whom hundreds of Europeans
owe deep debts of gratitude for the care and affection lavished upon
their alien children. In the absence of the Severe One, it falls to
her to chastise when necessary; and we even read of a son who wept,
not because his mother hurt him, but because, owing to her advanced
age, she was no longer able to hit him hard enough!

Among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair fame of
the Chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge of female
infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading from the
calculations of those who seek the truth. Fifty years ago it was
generally believed that the Chinese hated their female children, and
got rid of them in early infancy by wholesale murder. It may be
admitted at once that boys are preferred to girls, inasmuch as they
carry on the family line, and see that the worship of ancestors is
regularly performed in due season. Also, because girls require
dowries, which they take away with them for the benefit of other
families than their own; hence the saying, "There is no thief like a
family of five daughters," and the term "lose-money goods," as
jestingly applied to girls, against which may be set another term, "a
thousand ounces of gold," which is commonly used of a daughter. Of
course it is the boy who is specially wanted in a family; and little
boys are often dressed as little girls, in order to deceive the angels
of disease and death, who, it is hoped, may thus pass them over as of
less account.

To return to the belief formerly held that female infanticide was
rampant all over China. The next step was for the honest observer to
admit that it was not known in his own particular district, but to
declare that it was largely practised elsewhere. This view, however,
lost its validity when residents "elsewhere" had to allow that no
traces of infanticide could be found in their neighbourhood; and so
on. Luckily, still greater comfort is to be found in the following
argument,--a rare example of proving a negative--from which it will be
readily seen that female infanticide on any abnormal scale is quite
beyond the bounds of the possible. Those who have even a bowing
acquaintance with Chinese social life will grant that every boy, at
about the age of eighteen, is provided by his parents with a wife.
They must also concede the notorious fact that many well-to-do Chinese
take one or more concubines. The Emperor, indeed, is allowed seventy;
but this number exists only on paper as a regulation maximum. Now, if
every Chinaman has one wife, and many have two, over and above the
host of girls said to be annually sacrificed as worthless babies, it
must follow that the proportion of girls born in China enormously
outnumbers the proportion of boys, whereas in the rest of the world
boys are well known to be always in the majority. After this, it is
perhaps superfluous to state that, apart from the natural love of the
parent, a girl is really, even at a very early age, a marketable
commodity. Girls are sometimes sold into other families to be brought
up as wives for the sons; more often, to be used as servants, under
what is of course a form of slavery, qualified by the important
condition, which can be enforced by law, that when of a marriageable
age, the girl's master shall find her a husband. Illegitimate
children, the source of so much baby-farming and infanticide
elsewhere, are practically unknown in China; and the same may be said
of divorce. A woman cannot legally divorce her husband. In rare cases
she will leave him, and return to her family, in spite of the fact
that he can legally insist upon her return; for she knows well that if
her case is good, the husband will not dare to risk the scandal of an
exposure, not to mention the almost certain vengeance of her affronted
kinsmen. It is also the fear of such vengeance that prevents mothers-
in-law from ill-treating the girls who pass into their new homes
rather as servants than daughters to the husband's mother. Every
woman, as indeed every man, has one final appeal by which to punish an
oppressor. She may commit suicide, there being no canon, legal or
moral, against self-slaughter; and in China, where, contrary to
widespread notions on the subject, human life is held in the highest
degree sacred, this course is sure to entail trouble and expense, and
possibly severe punishment, if the aggrieved parties are not promptly
conciliated by a heavy money payment.

A man may divorce his wife for one of the seven following reasons:--
Want of children, adultery, neglect of his parents, nagging, thieving
(i.e. supplying her own family with his goods, popularly known as
"leakage"), jealous temper and leprosy. To the above, the humanity of
the lawgiver has affixed three qualifying conditions. He may not put
her away on any of the above grounds if she has duly passed through
the period of mourning for his parents; if he has grown rich since
their marriage; if she has no longer any home to which she can return.

Altogether, the Chinese woman has by no means such a bad time as is
generally supposed to be the case. Even in the eye of the law, she has
this advantage over a man, that she cannot be imprisoned except for
high treason and adultery, and is to all intents and purposes exempt
from the punishment of the bamboo. Included in this exemption are the
aged and the young, the sick, the hungry and naked, and those who have
already suffered violence, as in a brawl. Further, in a well-known
handbook, magistrates are advised to postpone, in certain
circumstances, the infliction of corporal punishment; as for instance,
when either the prisoner or they themselves may be under the influence
of excitement, anger or drink.

The bamboo is the only instrument with which physical punishment may
legally be inflicted; and its infliction on a prisoner or recalcitrant
witness, in order to extort evidence, constitutes what has long been
dignified as "torture;" but even that is now, under a changing system,
about to disappear. This must not be taken to mean that torture, in
our sense of the term, has never been applied in China. The real facts
of the case are these. Torture, except as already described, being
constitutionally illegal, no magistrate would venture to resort to it
if there were any chance of his successful impeachment before the
higher authorities, upon which he would be cashiered and his official
career brought abruptly to an end. Torture, therefore, would have no
terrors for the ordinary citizen of good repute and with a backing of
substantial friends; but for the outcast, the rebel, the highway
robber (against whom every man's hand would be), the disreputable
native of a distant province, and also for the outer barbarian (e.g.
the captives at the Summer Palace in 1860), another tale must be told.
No consequences, except perhaps promotion, would follow from too
rigorous treatment in such cases as these.

Resort to the bamboo as a means of extorting the confession of a
prisoner is regarded by the people rather as the magistrate's
confession of his own incapacity. The education of the official, too
easily and too freely turned into ridicule, gives him an insight into
human nature which, coupled with a little experience, renders him
extremely formidable to the shifty criminal or the crafty litigant. As
a rule, he finds no need for the application of pain. There is a
quaint story illustrative of such judicial methods as would be sure to
meet with full approbation in China. A magistrate, who after several
hearings had failed to discover, among a gang accused of murder, what
was essential to the completion of the case, namely, the actual hand
which struck the fatal blow, notified the prisoners that he was about
to invoke the assistance of the spirits, with a view to elicit the
truth. Accordingly, he caused the accused men, dressed in the black
clothes of criminals, to be led into a large barn, and arranged around
it, face to the wall. Having then told them that an accusing angel
would shortly come among them, and mark the back of the guilty man, he
went outside and had the door shut, and the place darkened. After a
short interval, when the door was thrown open, and the men were
summoned to come forth, it was seen directly that one of the number
had a white mark on his back. This man, in order to make all secure,
had turned his back to the wall, not knowing, what the magistrate well
knew, that the wall had been newly white-washed.

As to the punishment of crime by flogging, a sentence of one or two
hundred--even more--blows would seem to be cruel and disgusting;
happily, it may be taken for granted that such ferocious sentences are
executed only in such cases as have been mentioned above. An acute
observer, for many years a member of the municipal police force in
Shanghai, whose duty it was to see that floggings were administered to
Chinese criminals, stated plainly in a public report that the bamboo
is not necessarily a severe ordeal, and that one hundred blows are at
times inflicted so lightly as to leave scarcely a mark behind, though
the recipient howls loudly all the time. Those criminals who have
money can always manage to square the gaoler; and the gaoler has
acquired a certain knack in laying on, the upshot being great cry and
little wool, very satisfactory to the culprit. Even were we to accept
the cruellest estimate in regard to punishment by the bamboo, it would
only go to show that humanitarian feelings in China are lagging
somewhat behind our own. In /The Times/ of March 1, 1811, we read
that, for allowing French prisoners to escape from Dartmoor, three men
of the Nottingham militia were sentenced to receive 900 lashes each,
and that one of them actually received 450 lashes in the presence of
pickets from every regiment in the garrison. On New Year's Day, 1911,
a eunuch attempted to assassinate one of the Imperial Princes. For
this he was sentenced to be beaten to death, some such ferocious
punishment being necessary, in Chinese eyes, to vindicate the majesty
of the law. That end having been attained, the sentence was commuted
to eighty blows with the bamboo and deportation to northern Manchuria.

The Chinese woman often, in mature life, wields enormous influence
over the family, males included, and is a kind of private Empress
Dowager. A man knows, says the proverb, but a woman knows better. As a
widow in early life, her lot is not quite so pleasant. It is not
thought desirable for widows to remarry; but if she remains single,
she becomes "a rudderless boat;" round which gathers much calumny.
Many young women brave public opinion, and enter into second nuptials.
If they are bent upon remarrying, runs the saying, they can no more be
prevented than the sky can be prevented from raining.

The days of "golden lilies," as the artificially small feet of Chinese
women are called, are generally believed to date from the tenth
century A.D., though some writers have endeavoured to place the custom
many centuries earlier. It must always be carefully remembered that
Manchu women--the women of the dynasty which has ruled since 1644--do
not compress their feet. Consequently, the empresses of modern times
have feet of the natural size; neither is the practice in force among
the Hakkas, a race said to have migrated from the north of China to
the south in the thirteenth century; nor among the hill tribes; nor
among the boating population of Canton and elsewhere. Small feet are
thus in no way associated with aristocracy or gentleness of birth;
neither is there any foundation for the generally received opinion
that the Chinese lame their women in this way to keep them from
gadding about. Small-footed women may be seen carrying quite heavy
burdens, and even working in the fields; not to mention that many are
employed as nurses for small children. Another explanation is that
women with bound feet bear finer children and stronger; but the real
reason lies in another direction, quite beyond the scope of this book.
The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any
Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed
girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her
swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a
general sense of delicate grace quite beyond expression in words.

The lady of the tenth century, to whom the origin of small feet is
ascribed, wished to make her own feet like two new moons; but whether
she actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter of
conjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a long
time upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shy
on the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, though
Manchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk about
unshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wear
shoes or stockings at all.

The "pigtail," or long plait of hair worn by all Chinamen, for the
abolition of which many advanced reformers are now earnestly pleading,
is an institution of comparatively modern date. It was imposed by the
victorious Manchu-Tartars when they finally established their dynasty
in 1644, not so much as a badge of conquest, still less of servitude,
but as a means of obliterating, so far as possible, the most patent
distinction between the two races, and of unifying the appearance, if
not the aspirations, of the subjects of the Son of Heaven. This
obligation was for some time strenuously resisted by the natives of
Amoy, Swatow, and elsewhere in that neighbourhood. At length, when
compelled to yield, it is said that they sullenly wound their queues
round their heads and covered them with turbans, which are still worn
by natives of those parts.

The peculiar custom of shaving the head in front, and allowing the
hair to grow long behind, is said to have been adopted by the Manchus
out of affectionate gratitude to the horse, an animal which has played
an all-important part in the history and achievements of the race.
This view is greatly reinforced by the cut of the modern official
sleeves, which hang down, concealing the hands, and are shaped exactly
like a pair of horse's hoofs.

In many respects the Manchu conquerors left the Chinese to follow
their own customs. No attempt was made to coerce Chinese women, who
dress their hair in styles totally different from that of the Manchu
women; there are, too, some tolerated differences between the dress of
the Manchu and Chinese men, but these are such as readily escape
notice. Neither was any attempt made in the opening years of the
conquest to interfere with foot-binding by Chinese women; but in 1664
an edict was issued forbidding the practice. Readers may draw their
own conclusions, when it is added that four years after the edict was
withdrawn. Hopes are now widely and earnestly entertained that with
the dawn of the new era, this cruel custom will become a thing of the
past; it is, however, to be feared that those who have been urging on
this desirable reform may be, like all reformers, a little too
sanguine of immediate success, and that a comparatively long period
will have to go by before the last traces of foot-binding disappear
altogether. Meanwhile, it seems that the Government has taken the
important step of refusing admission to the public schools of all
girls whose feet are bound.

The disappearance of the queue is another thing altogether. It is not
a native Chinese institution; there would be no violation of any
cherished tradition of antiquity if it were once and for ever
discarded. On the contrary, if the Chinese do not intend to follow the
Japanese and take to foreign clothes, there might be a return to the
old style of doing the hair. The former dress of the Japanese was one
of the numerous items borrowed by them from China; it was indeed the
national dress of the Chinese for some three hundred years, between
A.D. 600-900. One little difficulty will vanish with the queue. A
Chinese coolie will tie his tail round his head when engaged on work
in which he requires to keep it out of the way, and the habit has
become of real importance with the use of modern machinery; but on the
arrival of his master, he should at once drop it, out of respect, a
piece of politeness not always exhibited in the presence of a foreign
employer. The agitation, now in progress, for the final abolition of
the queue may be due to one or all of the following reasons.
Intelligent Chinese may have come to realize that the fashion is
cumbrous and out of date. Sensitive Chinese may fear that it makes
them ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners. Political Chinese, who
would gladly see the re-establishment of a native dynasty, may look to
its disappearance as the first step towards throwing off the Manchu
yoke.

On the whole, the ruling Manchus have shown themselves very careful
not to wound the susceptibilities of their Chinese subjects. Besides
allowing the women to retain their own costume, and the dead, men and
women alike, to be buried in the costume of the previous dynasty, it
was agreed from the very first that no Chinese concubines should be
taken into the Palace. This last condition seems to be a concession
pure and simple to the conquered; there is little doubt, however, that
the wily Manchus were only too ready to exclude a very dangerous
possibility of political intrigue.



CHAPTER VI

LITERATURE AND EDUCATION

The Chinese people reverence above all things literature and learning;
they hate war, bearing in mind the saying of Mencius, "There is no
such thing as a /righteous/ war; we can only assert that some wars are
better than others;" and they love trade and the finesse of the
market-place. China can boast many great soldiers, in modern as well
as in ancient days; but anything like a proper appreciation of the
military arm is of quite recent growth. "Good iron is not used for
nails, nor good men for soldiers," says the proverb; and again, "One
stroke of the civilian's pen reduces the military official to abject
submission." On the other hand, it is admitted that "Civilians give
the empire peace, and soldiers give it security."

Chinese parents have never, until recent days, willingly trained their
sons for the army. They have always wished their boys to follow the
stereotyped literary curriculum, and then, after passing successfully
through the great competitive examinations, to rise to high civil
office in the state. A good deal of ridicule has been heaped of late
on the Chinese competitive examination, the subjects of which were
drawn exclusively from the Confucian Canon, and included a knowledge
of ancient history, of a comprehensive scheme of morality, initiated
by Confucius, and further elaborated by Mencius (372-289 B.C.), of the
ballads and ceremonial rites of three thousand years ago, and of an
aptitude for essay-writing and the composition of verse. The whole
curriculum may be fitly compared with such an education as was given
to William Pitt and others among our own great statesmen, in which an
ability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled with an intimate
knowledge of the Peloponnesian War, carried the student about as far
as it was considered necessary for him to go. The Chinese course, too,
has certainly brought to the front in its time a great many eminent
men, who have held their own in diplomacy, if not in warfare, with the
subtlest intellects of the West.

Their system of competitive examinations has indeed served the Chinese
well. It is the brightest spot in the whole administration, being
absolutely above suspicion, such as attaches to other departments of
the state. Attempts have been made from time to time to gain admission
by improper means to the list of successful candidates, and it would
be absurd to say that not one has ever succeeded; the risk, however,
is too great, for the penalty on detection may be death.

The ordeal itself is exceedingly severe, as well for the examiners as
for the candidates. At the provincial examinations, held once in every
third year, an Imperial Commissioner, popularly known as the Grand
Examiner, is sent down from Peking. On arrival, his residence is
formally sealed up, and extraordinary precautions are taken to prevent
friends of intending candidates from approaching him in any way. There
is no age limit, and men of quite mature years are to be found
competing against youths hardly out of their teens; indeed, there is
an authenticated case of a man who successfully graduated at the age
of seventy-two. Many compete year after year, until at length they
decide to give it up as a bad job.

At an early hour on the appointed day the candidates begin to
assemble, and by and by the great gates of the examination hall are
thrown open, and heralds shriek out the names of those who are to
enter. Each one answers in turn as his name is called, and receives
from the attendants a roll of paper marked with the number of the open
cell he is to occupy in one of the long alleys into which the
examination hall is divided. Other writing materials, as well as food,
he carries with him in a basket, which is always carefully searched at
the door, and in which "sleeve" editions of the classics have
sometimes been found. When all have taken their seats, the Grand
Examiner burns incense, and closes the entrance gates, through which
no one will be allowed to pass, either in or out, dead or alive, until
the end of the third day, when the first of the three sessions is at
an end, and the candidates are released for the night. In case of
death, not unusual where ten or twelve thousand persons are cooped up
day and night in a confined space, the corpse is hoisted over the
wall; and this would be done even if it were that of the Grand
Examiner himself, whose place would then be taken by the chief
Assistant Examiner, who is also appointed by the Emperor, and
accompanies the Grand Examiner from Peking.

The long strain of three bouts of three days each has often been found
sufficient to unhinge the reason, with a variety of distressing
consequences, the least perhaps of which may be seen in a regular
percentage of blank papers handed in. On one occasion, a man handed in
a copy of his last will and testament; on another, not very long ago,
the mental balance of the Grand Examiner gave way, and a painful scene
ensued. He tore up a number of the papers already handed in, and bit
and kicked every one who came near him, until he was finally secured
and bound hand and foot in his chair. A candidate once presented
himself dressed in woman's clothes, with his face highly rouged and
powdered, as is the custom. He was arrested at the entrance gate, and
quietly sent home to his friends.

Overwork, in the feverish desire to get into the Government service,
is certainly responsible for the mental break-down of a large
proportion of the comparatively few lunatics found in China. There
being no lunatic asylums in the empire, it is difficult to form
anything like an exact estimate of their number; it can only be said,
what is equally true of cripples or deformed persons, that it is very
rare to meet them in the streets or even to hear of their existence.

As a further measure of precaution against corrupt practices at
examinations, the papers handed in by the candidates are all copied
out in red ink, and only these copies are submitted to the examiners.
The difficulty therefore of obtaining favourable treatment, on the
score of either bribery or friendship, is very much increased. The
Chinese, who make no attempt to conceal or excuse, in fact rather
exaggerate any corruption in their public service generally, do not
hesitate to declare with striking unanimity that the conduct of their
examination system is above suspicion, and there appears to be no
valid reason why we should not accept this conclusion.

The whole system is now undergoing certain modifications, which, if
wisely introduced, should serve only to strengthen the national
character. The Confucian teachings, which are of the very highest
order of morality, and which have moulded the Chinese people for so
many centuries, helping perhaps to give them a cohesion and stability
remarkable among the nations of the world, should not be lightly cast
aside. A scientific training, enabling us to annihilate time and
space, to extend indefinitely the uses and advantages of matter in all
its forms, and to mitigate the burden of suffering which is laid upon
the greater portion of the human race, still requires to be
effectively supplemented by a moral training, to teach man his duty
towards his neighbour. From the point of view of science, the Chinese
are, of course, wholly out of date, though it is only within the past
hundred and fifty years that the West has so decisively outstripped
the East. If we go back to the fifteenth century, we shall find that
the standard of civilization, as the term is usually understood, was
still much higher in China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the
famous Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, who actually
lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an official under
Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the magnificence of Chinese
cities, and the splendour of the Chinese court, outrivalled anything
he had ever seen or heard of.

Pushing farther back into antiquity, we easily reach a time when the
inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom "held learning in high esteem, while
our own painted forefathers were running naked and houseless in the
woods, and living on berries and raw meat." In inventive, mechanical
and engineering aptitudes the Chinese have always excelled; as witness
--only to mention a few--the art of printing (/see below/); their
water-wheels and other clever appliances for irrigation; their
wonderful bridges (not to mention the Great Wall); the "taxicab," or
carriage fitted with a machine for recording the distance traversed,
the earliest notice of which takes us back to the fourth century A.D.;
the system of fingerprints for personal identification, recorded in
the seventh century A.D.; the carved ivory balls which contain even so
many as nine or ten other balls, of diminishing size, one within
another; a chariot carrying a figure which always pointed south,
recorded as in existence at a very early date, though unfortunately
the specifications which have came down to us from later dates will
not work out, as in the case of the "taxicab." The story goes that
this chariot was invented about 1100 B.C., by a wonderful hero of the
day, in order to enable an ambassador, who had come to the court of
China from a far distant country in the south, to find his way
expeditiously home. The compass proper the Chinese cannot claim; it
was probably introduced into China by the Arabs at a comparatively
late date, and has been confused with the south-pointing chariot of
earlier ages. As to gunpowder, something of that nature appears to
have been used for fireworks in the seventh century; and something of
the nature of a gun is first heard of during the Mongol campaigns of
the thirteenth century; but firearms were not systematically employed
until the fifteenth century. Add to the above the art of casting
bronze, brought to a high pitch of excellence seven or eight centuries
before the Christian era, if not earlier; the production of silk,
mentioned by Mencius (372-289 B.C.) as necessary for the comfort of
old age; the cultivation of the tea-plant from time immemorial; also
the discovery and manufacture of porcelain some sixteen centuries ago,
subsequently brought to a perfection which leaves all European
attempts hopelessly out-classed.

In many instances the Chinese seem to have been so near and yet so
far. There is a distinct tradition of flying cars at a very remote
date; and rough woodcuts have been handed down for many centuries,
showing a car containing two passengers, flying through the clouds and
apparently propelled by wheels of a screw pattern, set at right angles
to the direction in which the travellers are proceeding. But there is
not a scrap of evidence to show what was the motive power which turned
the wheels. Similarly, iron ships are mentioned in Chinese literature
so far back as the tenth century, only, however, to be ridiculed as an
impossibility; the circulation of the blood is hinted at; added to
which is the marvellous anticipation of anaesthetics as applied to
surgery, to be mentioned later on, an idea which also remained barren
of results for something like sixteen centuries, until Western science
stepped in and secured the prize. Here it may be fairly argued that,
considering the national repugnance to mutilation of the body in any
form, it could hardly be expected that the Chinese would seek to
facilitate a process to which they so strongly object.

In the domain of painting, we are only just beginning to awake to the
fact that in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied to
all save artists of supreme power, and that their art was already on a
lofty level many centuries before our own great representatives had
begun to put brush to canvas. Without going so far back as the famous
picture in the British Museum, by an artist of the fourth and fifth
centuries A.D., the point may perhaps be emphasized by quotation from
the words of a leading art-critic, referring to painters of the tenth
and eleventh centuries:--"To the Sung artists and poets, mountains
were a passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art thus founded, and
continued by the Japanese in the fifteenth century, must rank as the
greatest school of landscape which the world has seen. It is the
imaginative picturing of what is most elemental and most august in
Nature--liberating visions of storm or peace among abrupt peaks,
plunging torrents, trembling reed-beds--and though having a fantastic
side for its weakness, can never have the reproach of pretty tameness
and mere fidelity which form too often the only ideal of Western
landscape."

Great Chinese artists unite in dismissing fidelity to outline as of
little importance compared with reproduction of the spirit of the
object painted. To paint a tree successfully, it is necessary to
produce not merely shape and colour but the vitality and "soul" of the
original. Until with the last two or three centuries, nature itself
was always appealed to as the one source of true inspiration; then
came the artist of the studio, since which time Chinese art has
languished, while Japanese art, learned at the feet of Chinese artists
from the fourteenth century onwards, has come into prominent notice,
and is now, with extraordinary versatility, attempting to assimilate
the ideals of the West.

The following words were written by a Chinese painter of the fifth
century:--

"To gaze upon the clouds of autumn, a soaring exaltation in the soul;
to feel the spring breeze stirring wild exultant thoughts;--what is
there in the possession of gold and gems to compare with delights like
these? And then, to unroll the portfolio and spread the silk, and to
transfer to it the glories of flood and fell, the green forest, the
blowing winds, the white water of the rushing cascade, as with a turn
of the hand a divine influence descends upon the scene. . . . These
are the joys of painting."

Just as in poetry, so in pictorial art, the artist avoids giving full
expression to his theme, and leaving nothing for the spectator to
supply by his own imaginative powers. "Suggestion" is the key-note to
both the above arts; and in both, "Impressionism" has been also at the
command of the gifted, centuries before the term had passed into the
English language.

Literature and art are indeed very closely associated in China. Every
literary man is supposed to be more or less a painter, or a musician
of sorts; failing personal skill, it would go without saying that he
was a critic, or at the lowest a lover, of one or the other art, or of
both. All Chinese men, women and children seem to love flowers; and
the poetry which has gathered around the blossoms of plum and almond
alone would form a not inconsiderable library of itself. Yet a
European bouquet would appear to a man of culture as little short of a
monstrosity; for to enjoy flowers, a Chinaman must see only a single
spray at a time. The poorly paid clerk will bring with him to his
office in the morning some trifling bud, which he will stick into a
tiny vase of water, and place beside him on his desk. The owner of
what may be a whole gallery of pictures will invite you to tea,
followed by an inspection of his treasures; but on the same afternoon
he will only produce perhaps a single specimen, and scout the idea
that any one could call for more. If a long landscape, it will be
gradually unwound from its roller, and a portion at a time will be
submitted for the enjoyment and criticism of his visitors; if a
religious or historical picture, or a picture of birds or flowers, of
which the whole effort must be viewed in its completeness, it will be
studied in various senses, during the intervals between a chat and a
cup of tea. Such concentration is absolutely essential, in the eyes of
the Chinese critic, to a true interpretation of the artist's meaning,
and to a just appreciation of his success.

The marvellous old stories of grapes painted by Zeuxis of ancient
Greece, so naturally that birds came to peck at them; and of the
curtain painted by Parrhasius which Zeuxis himself tried to pull
aside; and of the horse by Apelles at which another horse neighed--all
these find their counterparts in the literature of Chinese art. One
painter, in quite early days, painted a perch and hung it over a river
bank, when there was immediately a rush of otters to secure it.
Another painted the creases on cotton clothes so exactly that the
clothes looked as if they had just come from the wash. Another
produced pictures of cats which would keep a place free from rats. All
these efforts were capped by those of another artist, whose picture of
the North Wind made people feel cold, while his picture of the South
Wind made people feel hot. Such exaggerations are not altogether
without their value; they suggest that Chinese art must have reached a
high level, and this has recently been shown to be nothing more than
the truth, by the splendid exhibition of Chinese pictures recently on
view in the British Museum.

The literary activities of the Chinese, and their output of
literature, have always been on a colossal scale; and of course it is
entirely due to the early invention of printing that, although a very
large number of works have disappeared, still an enormous bulk has
survived the ravages of war, rebellion and fire.

This art was rather developed than invented. There is no date, within
a margin even of half a century either way, at which we can say that
printing was invented. The germ is perhaps to be found in the
engraving of seals, which have been used by the Chinese as far back as
we can go with anything like historical certainty, and also of stone
tablets from which rubbings were taken, the most important of these
being the forty-six tablets on which five of the sacred books of
Confucianism were engraved about A.D. 170, and of which portions still
remain. However this may be, it was during the sixth century A.D. that
the idea of taking impressions on paper from wooden blocks seems to
have arisen, chiefly in connexion with religious pictures and tracts.
It was not widely applied to the production of books in general until
A.D. 932, when the Confucian Canon was so printed for the first time;
from which point onwards the extension of the art moved with rapid
strides.

It is very noticeable that the Chinese, who are extraordinarily averse
to novelties, and can hardly be induced to consider any innovations,
when once convinced of their real utility, waste no further time in
securing to themselves all the advantages which may accrue. This was
forcibly illustrated in regard to the introduction of the telegraph,
against which the Chinese had set their faces, partly because of the
disturbance of geomantic influences caused by the tall telegraph
poles, and partly because they sincerely doubted that the wires could
achieve the results claimed. But when it was discovered that some wily
Cantonese had learnt over the telegraph the names of the three highest
graduates at the Peking triennial examination, weeks before the names
could be known in Canton by the usual route, and had enriched himself
by buying up the tickets bearing those names in the great lotteries
which are always held in connexion with this event, Chinese opposition
went down like a house of cards; and the only question with many of
the literati was whether, at some remote date, the Chinese had not
invented telegraphy themselves.

Moveable types of baked clay were invented about A.D. 1043, and some
centuries later they were made of wood and of copper or lead; but they
have never gained the favour accorded to block-printing, by which most
of the great literary works have been produced. The newspapers of
modern days are all printed from moveable types, and also many
translations of foreign books, prepared to meet the increasing demand
for Western learning. The Chinese have always been a great reading
people, systematic education culminating in competitive examinations
for students going back to the second century A.D. This is perhaps a
suitable place for explaining that the famous /Peking Gazette/, often
said to be the oldest newspaper in the world, is not really a
newspaper at all, in that it contains no news in our sense of the
term. It is a record only of court movements, list of promoted
officials, with a few selected memorials and edicts. It is published
daily, but was not printed until the fifteenth century.

Every Chinese boy may be said to have his chance. The slightest sign
of a capacity for book-learning is watched for, even among the
poorest. Besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever boy will
soon find a patron; and in many cases, the funds for carrying on a
curriculum, and for entering the first of the great competitions, will
be subscribed in the district, on which the candidate will confer a
lasting honour by his success. A promising young graduate, who has won
his first degree with honours, is at once an object of importance to
wealthy fathers who desire to secure him as a son-in-law, and who will
see that money is not wanting to carry him triumphantly up the
official ladder. Boys without any gifts of the kind required, remain
to fill the humbler positions; those who advance to a certain point
are drafted into trade; while hosts of others who just fall short of
the highest, become tutors in private families, schoolmasters,
doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and booksellers' hacks.

Of high-class Chinese literature, it is not possible to give even the
faintest idea in the space at disposal. It must suffice to say that
all branches are adequately represented, histories, biographies,
philosophy, poetry and essays on all manner of subjects, offering a
wide field even to the most insatiate reader.

And here a remark may be interjected, which is very necessary for the
information of those who wish to form a true estimate of the Chinese
people. Throughout the Confucian Canon, a collection of ancient works
on which the moral code of the Chinese is based, there is not a single
word which could give offence, even to the most sensitive, on
questions of delicacy and decency. That is surely saying a good deal,
but it is not all; precisely the same may be affirmed of what is
mentioned above as high-class Chinese literature, which is pure enough
to satisfy the most strait-laced. Chinese poetry, of which there is in
existence a huge mass, will be searched in vain for suggestions of
impropriety, for sly innuendo, and for the other tricks of the
unclean. This extraordinary purity of language is all the more
remarkable from the fact that, until recent years, the education of
women has not been at all general, though many particular instances
are recorded of women who have themselves achieved success in literary
pursuits. It is only when we come to the novel, to the short story, or
to the anecdote, which are not usually written in high-class style,
and are therefore not recognized as literature proper, that this
exalted standard is no longer always maintained.

There are, indeed, a great number of novels, chiefly historical and
religious, in which the aims of the writers are on a sufficiently high
level to keep them clear of what is popularly known as pornography or
pig-writing; still, when all is said and done, there remains a balance
of writing curiously in contrast with the great bulk of Chinese
literature proper. As to the novel, the long story with a worked-out
plot, this is not really a local product. It seems to have come along
with the Mongols from Central Asia, when they conquered China in the
thirteenth century, and established their short-lived dynasty. Some
novels, in spite of their low moral tone, are exceedingly well written
and clever, graphic in description, and dramatic in episode; but it is
curious that no writer of the first rank has ever attached his name to
a novel, and that the authorship of all the cleverest is a matter of
entire uncertainty.

The low-class novel is purposely pitched in a style that will be
easily understood; but even so, there is a great deal of word- and
phrase-skipping to be done by many illiterate readers, who are quite
satisfied if they can extract the general sense as they go along. The
book-language, as cultivated by the best writers, is to be freely
understood only by those who have stocked their minds well with the
extensive phraseology which has been gradually created by eminent men
during the past twenty-five centuries, and with historical and
biographical allusions and references of all sorts and things. A word
or two, suggesting some apposite allusion, will often greatly enhance
the beauty of a composition for the connoisseur, but will fall flat on
the ears of those to whom the quotation is unknown. Simple objects in
everyday life often receive quaint names, as handed down in
literature, with which it is necessary to be familiar. For instance, a
"fairy umbrella" means a mushroom; a "gentleman of the beam" is a
burglar, because a burglar was once caught sitting on one of the open
beams inside a Chinese roof; a "slender waist" is a wasp; the "throat
olive" is the "Adam's apple"--which, by the way, is an excellent
illustration from the opposite point of view; "eyebrow notes" means
notes at the top of a page; "cap words" is sometimes used for
"preface;" the "sweeper-away of care" is wine; "golden balls" are
oranges; the "golden tray" is the moon; a "two-haired man" is a grey-
beard; the "hundred holes" is a beehive; "instead of the moon" is a
lantern; "instead of steps" is a horse; "the man with the wooden
skirt" is a shopman; to "scatter sleep" means to give hush-money; and
so on, almost /ad infinitum/.

Chinese medical literature is on a very voluminous scale, medicine
having always occupied a high place in the estimation of the people,
in spite of the fact that its practice has always been left to any one
who might choose to take it up. Surgery, even of an elementary kind,
has never had a chance; for the Chinese are extremely loath to suffer
any interference with their bodies, believing, in accordance with
Confucian dogma, that as they received them from their parents, so
they should carry them into the presence of their ancestors in the
next world. Medicine, as still practised in China, may be compared
with the European art of a couple of centuries ago, and its
exceedingly doubtful results are fully appreciated by patients at
large. "No medicine," says one proverb, "is better than a middling
doctor;" while another points out that "Many sons of clever doctors
die of disease."

Legend, however, tells us of an extraordinary physician of the fifth
century B.C. who was able to see into the viscera of his patients--an
apparent anticipation of the X-rays--and who, by his intimate
knowledge of the human pulse, effected many astounding cures. We also
read of an eminent physician of the second and third centuries A.D.
who did add surgery to this other qualifications. He was skilled in
the use of acupuncture and cautery; but if these failed he would
render his patient unconscious by a dose of hashish, and then operate
surgically. He is said to have diagnosed a case of diseased bowels by
the pulse alone, and then to have cured it by operation. He offered to
cure the headaches of a famous military commander of the day by
opening his skull under hashish; but the offer was rudely declined.
This story serves to show, in spite of its marvellous setting, that
the idea of administering an anaesthetic to carry out a surgical
operation must be credited, so far as priority goes, to the Chinese,
since the book in which the above account is given cannot have been
composed later than the twelfth century A.D.



CHAPTER VII

PHILOSOPHY AND SPORT

Chinese philosophy covers altogether too large a field to be dealt
with, even in outline, on a scale suitable to this volume; only a few
of its chief features can possibly be exhibited in the space at
disposal.

Beginning with moral philosophy, we are confronted at once with what
was in early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely
set at rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the
universal acceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught
in no indistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil
only by contact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this
dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that
within a couple of centuries it was to be called seriously in
question. It remained for his great follower, Mencius, born a hundred
years later, to defend the proposition against all comers, and
especially against one of no mean standing, the philosopher Kao
(/Cow/). Kao declared that righteousness is only to be got out of
man's nature in the same way that good cups and bowls are to be got
out of a block of willow wood, namely, by care in fashioning them.
Improper workmanship would produce bad results; good workmanship, on
the other hand, would produce good results. In plain words, the nature
of man at birth is neither good nor bad; and what it becomes
afterwards depends entirely upon what influences have been brought to
bear and in what surroundings it has come to maturity. Mencius met
this argument by showing that in the process of extracting cups and
bowls from a block of wood, the wood as a block is destroyed, and he
pointed out that, according to such reasoning, man's nature would also
be destroyed in the process of getting righteousness out of it.

Again, Kao maintained that man's nature has as little concern with
good or evil as water has with east or west; for water will flow
indifferently either one way or the other, according to the conditions
in each case. If there is freedom on the east, it will flow east; if
there is freedom on the west, it will flow west; and so with human
nature, which will move similarly in the direction of either good or
evil. In reply, Mencius freely admitted that water would flow either
east or west; but he asked if it would flow indifferently up or down.
He then declared that the bent of human nature towards good is
precisely like the tendency of water to flow down and not up. You can
force water to jump up, he said, by striking it, and by mechanical
appliances you can make it flow to the top of a hill; but what you do
in such cases is entirely contrary to the nature of water, and is
merely the result of violence, such violence, in fact, as is brought
into play when man's nature is bent towards evil.

"That which men get at birth," said Kao, "is their nature," implying
that all natures were the same, just as the whiteness of a white
feather is the same as the whiteness of white snow; whereupon Mencius
showed that on this principle the nature of a dog would be the same as
that of a an ox, or the nature of an ox the same as that of a man.
Finally, Mencius declared that for whatever evil men may commit, their
natures can in nowise be blamed. In prosperous times, he argued, men
are mostly good, whereas in times of scarcity the opposite is the
case; these two conditions, however, are not to be charged against the
natures with which God sent them into the world, but against the
circumstances in which the individuals in question have been situated.

The question, however, of man's original nature was not set
permanently at rest by the arguments of Mencius. A philosopher, named
Hsun Tzu (/Sheundza/), who flourished not very much later than
Mencius, came forward with the theory that so far from being good
according to Confucius, or even neutral according to Kao, the nature
of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the
following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a
love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is
distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to
envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the
influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good
government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood must be
subjected to pressure in order to make it straight, and metal must be
subjected to the grindstone in order to make it sharp, so must the
nature of man be subjected to training and education in order to
obtain from it the virtues of justice and self-sacrifice which
characterize the best of the human race. It is impossible to maintain
that man's nature is good in the same sense that his eyes see and his
ears hear; for in the latter there is no alternative. An eye which
does not see, is not an eye; an ear which does not hear, is not an
ear. This proves that whereas seeing and hearing are natural to man,
goodness is artificial and acquired. Just as a potter produces a dish
or a carpenter a bench, working on some material before them, so do
the sages and teachers of mankind produce righteousness by working
upon the nature of man, which they transform in the same way that the
potter transforms the clay or the carpenter the wood. We cannot
believe that God has favourites, and deals unkindly with others. How,
then, is it that some men are evil while others are good? The answer
is, that the former follow their natural disposition, while the latter
submit to restraints and follow the guidance of their teachers. It is
indeed true that any one may become a hero, but all men do not
necessarily become heroes, nor is there any method by which they can
be forced to do so. If a man is endowed with a capacity for
improvement, and is placed in the hands of good teachers, associating
at the same time with friends whose actions display such virtues as
self-sacrifice, truth, kindness, and so forth, he will naturally
imbibe principles which will raise him to the same standard; whereas,
if he consorts with evil livers, he will be a daily witness of deceit,
corruption, and general impurity of conduct, and will gradually lapse
into the same course of life. If you do not know your son, says the
proverb, look at his friends.

The next step was taken by the philosopher Yang Hsiung (/Sheeyoong/),
53 B.C. to A.D. 18. He started a theory which occupies a middle place
between the last two theories discussed above, teaching that the
nature of man at birth is neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but a
mixture of both, and that development in either direction depends
altogether on environment. A compromise in matters of faith is not
nearly so picturesque as an extreme, and Yang's attempted solution has
attracted but scant attention, though always mentioned with respect.
The same may also be said of another attempt to smooth obvious
difficulties in the way of accepting either of the two extremes or the
middle course proposed by Yang Hsiung. The famous Han Yu, to be
mentioned again shortly, was a pillar and prop of Confucianism. He
flourished between A.D. 768 and 824, and performed such lasting
services in what was to him the cause of truth, that his tablet has
been placed in the Confucian temple, an honour reserved only for those
whose orthodoxy is beyond suspicion. Yet he ventured upon an attempt
to modify this important dogma, taking care all the time to appear as
if he were criticizing Mencius rather than Confucius, on whom, of
course, the real responsibility rests. He declared, solely upon his
own authority, that the nature of man is not uniform but divided into
three grades--namely, highest, middle, and lowest. Thus, natures of
the highest grade are good, wholly good, and nothing but good; natures
of the lowest grade are evil, wholly evil, and nothing but evil; while
natures of the middle grade may, under right direction, rise to the
highest grade, or, under wrong direction, sink to the lowest.

Another question, much debated in the age of Mencius, arose out of the
rival statements of two almost contemporary philosophers, Mo Ti (/Maw
Tee) and Yang Chu. The former taught a system of mutual and
consequently universal love as a cure for all the ills arising from
misgovernment and want of social harmony. He pointed out, with much
truth, that if the feudal states would leave one another alone,
families cease to quarrel, and thieves cease to steal, while sovereign
and subject lived on terms of benevolence and loyalty, and fathers and
sons on terms of kindness and filial piety--then indeed the empire
would be well governed. But beyond suggesting the influence of
teachers in the prohibition of hatred and the encouragement of mutual
love, our philosopher does little or nothing to aid us in reaching
such a desirable consummation.

The doctrine of Yang Chu is summed up as "every man for himself," and
is therefore diametrically opposed to that of Mo Ti. A questioner one
day asked him if he would consent to part with a single hair in order
to benefit the whole world. Yang Chu replied that a single hair could
be of no possible benefit to the world; and on being further pressed
to say what he would do if a hair were really of such benefit, it is
stated that he gave no answer. On the strength of this story, Mencius
said: "Yang's principle was, every man for himself. Tho