The Evolution of States. J. M. Robertson

the help of an analysis of analogous types of civilisation, what has happened in the modern past of our country. The simple general laws under notice are universal, and will be found to apply in all stages of history, though the interpretation of many phases of life by their means may be a somewhat complex matter.

For instance, the life of China[157] (above discussed) and that of India may at first sight seem to give little colour to the assumption of a constant play of social attraction and repulsion. The "unprogressiveness of Asia" is dwelt on alike by many who know Asia and many who do not. But this relative unprogressiveness is to be explained, like European progress, in terms of the conditions. China is simply a case of comparative culture-stability and culture-isolation. The capital condition of progress in civilisation has always been, as aforesaid, the contact of divergent races whose independent culture-elements, though different, are not greatly different in grade and prestige. Now, the outside contacts of China, down till the eighteenth century, had been either with races which had few elements of civilisation to give her, like the Mongols, or with a civilisation little different from or less vigorous than her own, like that of India. Even these contacts counted for much, and Chinese history has been full of political convulsions, despite—or in keeping with—the comparative stagnation of Chinese culture. (On this see Peschel, Races of Men, Eng. tr. pp. 361–74. Cp. Huc, Chinese Empire, Eng. tr. ed. 1859, p. xvii; Walckenaer, Essai sur l'histoire de l'espèce humaine, 1798, pp. 175, 176; and Maine, Early History of Institutions, pp. 226, 227). The very pigtail which for Europe is the symbol of Chinese civilisation is only two hundred years old, having come in with the Mantchoo dynasty; and the policy of systematically excluding foreigners dates from the same period (Huc, p. 236). "No one," writes Professor Flint, "who has felt interest enough in that singular nation to study the researches and translations of Remusat, Pauthier, Julien, Legge, Plath, Faber, Eitel, and others, will hesitate to dismiss as erroneous the commonplace that it has been an unprogressive nation" (History of the Philosophy of History, vol. i, 1893, p. 88).

China was in fact progressive while the variety of stocks scattered over her vast area reacted on each other in virtue of variety of government and way of life:[158] it was when they were reduced under one imperial government that unity of state-system, coupled with the exclusion of foreign contacts, imposed stagnation. But the stagnation was real, and other factors contributed to its continuance. The fecundity of the soil has always maintained a redundant and therefore a poor and ignorant population—a condition which we have described as fatal to progress in culture if not counteracted, and which further favours the utter subjection of women and the consequent arrest of half the sources of variation. Mencius, speaking to the rulers of his day (3rd c. B.C.), declared with simple profundity that "They are only men of education who, without a certain livelihood, are able to maintain a fixed heart. As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart there is nothing they will not do in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license" (Legge, Life and Works of Mencius, 1875, p. 49). That lesson the rulers of China could not learn, any more than their European congeners.

We cannot, therefore, accede to Professor Flint's further remark that "The development and filiation of thought is scarcely less traceable in the history and literature of China than of Greece"—that is, if it be meant that Chinese history down till our own day may be so compared with the history of pagan Greece. The forces of fixation in China have been too strong to admit of this. The same factors have been at work in India, where, further, successive conquests, down till our own, had results very similar to those of the barbarian conquest of the Roman Empire. Yet at length, next door to China, in Japan, there has rapidly taken place a national transformation that is not to be paralleled in the world's history; and in India the Congress movement has developed in a way that twenty years ago was thought impossible.[159] And while these things are actually happening before the world's eyes, certain Englishmen vociferate more loudly than ever the formula of the "unchangeableness of Asia." A saner, though still a speculative view, is put forth by Mr. C.H. Pearson in his work on National Character. It was anticipated by—among others—M. Philarète Chasles. See his L'Angleterre politique, édit. 1878, pp. 250, 251. And Walckenaer, over a hundred years ago (Essai cited, p. 368), predicted the future civilisation of the vast plains of Tartary.

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      [134] On this may be consulted a suggestive paper by Mr. Lowes Dickinson in the Free Review, April, 1894, and an instructive study by Mr. T. Whittaker, "A Critical Essay on the Philosophy of History," in his Essays and Notices, 1895. Cp. Spencer, "Progress: Its Law and Cause," in Essays, vol. i.

[135] This also is posited by Dunbar, Essays cited, pp. 230, 233.

[136] This again, as well as the general importance of culture-contacts, is noted by Walckenaer, Essai cited, pp. 202–3.

[137] This was seen in antiquity. Julian, at least, pointed to the fashion in which the Greeks had perfected studies the rudiments of which they had received from other peoples (apud Cyrill, v. 8); and Celsus had said it before him (Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 2).

[138] See some just remarks by Bagehot in Physics and Politics, pp. 67–69, proceeding on Quatrefages, as to the varying success of given race-mixtures in different regions, in terms of the difference of the physical environment. Compare Schäffle, Bau und Körper de Socialen Lebens, 1875–8, ii, 468.

[139] Cp. Dunbar, as cited, p. 211, and Bagehot, as cited, p. 71. In such cases as those of British India and French Algiers the exception is only apparent, the European control being kept up by annual drafts of new men.

[140] E.g. the ancient Ægean civilisation, as seen in "Minoan" Crete; the colonies of the Phœnicians; those of the Greeks in Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily; the medieval Italian Republics; the Hansa towns; those of the Netherlands; and the United States.

[141] See Dr. Cunningham, Western Civilisation, pp. 73, 74, 83–86, 94–97, etc., for an interesting development of this principle. Cp. Prof. Ashley, Introduction to Economic History, 1888–93, i, 43, and Hildebrand, as there cited. The originality of Hildebrand's ideas on this point has perhaps been overrated by Ochenkowski and others. Smith recognised the main facts (Wealth of Nations, bk. i, c. iv). See also the passage from Torrens cited by M'Culloch in his essay on "Money," Treatises, ed. 1859, pp. 9, 10.

[142] E.g. Babylonia, Egypt, Alexander's empire, and Rome.

[143] This was written before the recent revolution.

[144] Since this was written China has undergone her new birth.

[145] Cp. Pearson's History