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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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[March 4, 1896.
constitute the process of evolution, yet failure to retain sufficient motion to render the matter pliable and adaptable during the course of development results in the arrest of evolution. Societies may become frozen into rigid masses, in the same way that suns and planets and living organisms do when they part with their life-heat. And when a society does this its mass is out of all comparison to its heterogeneity, or want of heterogeneity. both structural and functional. Hence the small physical, intellectual, and moral progress made in a vast period of time by such societies as the Chinese compared with the great progress made in a much shorter time by other peoples. Hence also the inability to make more or rapid progress. Hence also one of the most difficult problems Sociology has ever had to solve. But the encouraging amount of attention now being given to this question renders further insistence upon it unnecessary. Though the inferences drawn by those who have considered the matter have not always been correct, the fact that the Chinese society is an aggregate of this order is called in ques- tion by none.
great an impossibility, for certain types of of the fact that amongst the white races, as societies to change their natures as for the stiff they continue to advance from predatory limbed octogenarian to run a successful race savagery to peaceful civilization (a state with the supple athlete of twenty. The charac-foreshadowed in the present military industrial ter of a nation is the character of its com- constitution of society) the fighting spirit must ponent units. And character, bred in the bone, die ont, and that of the other races the yellow is above all things most difficult to change. at least have not the true military instinct and We try and fail in individual cases, yet-as-show no signs of acquiring it-in view of this tounding faith-we presume that to change fact, it is more reasonable to presume that the the character of a nation composed of hundreds contest will be not a military one, but an of millions of individuals is an easy matter! industrial one of the severest kind. In the Whilst in daily life wo recognise in an indis millennium a contest of this nature will not tinct way that it often takes as long to get out necessarily be one of the savage scrambles now of a given state as it took to get into it, in common in competitions both intra-national national life we presume that disease may and international, but one of civilized rivalry, be cured forthwith merely by the adoption in which a more perfect ethics than any at of some pet scheme, or the passing of a law, present in vogue will render the object to be or performance of some plausible feat of achieved the securing of due justice by each political alchemy. There is no such criterion. for both self and others (a reaction from a state The work of many centuries cannot be trans- of universal altruism, towards which, as a formed in a few minutes or weeks or months revolt against the pre-Christiau state of almost or years. Convalescence is as indispensable in
unqualified egoism, we seem at times to be national recovery as it is in individual recovery. progressing), instead of as at present the very And when, as in individual death, dissolution general endeavour to secure for others injustice, sets in, it is no use trying to keep the lifeless as long as this can be done with impunity. parts together by propping them up in the The struggle (to use this word for want of shape of a body corporate--the materials must à better) will be a rivalry of civilized friends, To call attention to our physical proficiency re-enter the great furnace and be moulded into not a mile of savage enemies. But there and to the glorious achievements due to our another and more appropriate and abiding is no short cut to tho milleuneum. As shape. The uation which fails in the
unsurpassed intellectual activity during the the mother must labour in order to give birth history of our society and especially during the must begin again at the beginning.
to her ebild, so to give birth to the Truth latter half of the present century would be Study of social structures and functions is the nations must labour in travail in pain. superfluous. We cannot open our eyes without thus seen to be an all-important pre-requisite to The pain to come in any marriage between evidence of it being thrust upon us everywhere. the drawing of legitimate inferences respecting the East and the West must be this contest we But, turn them which way we will, the sociolo- the courses which it is possible or impossible have indicated, the coming to pass of which gist's diagrams bring out into prominence one for social aggregates to follow. Without this must be regarded of sociological predictions of significant fact. They show us, not that the study, made comparatively easy by the laborious this order as the one most certain to be fulfilled. savage has outstripped us in any one of the three work of many scholars, it is dangerous to make To find that which we seek, then, we must look departments which make up complete civiliza-; statements respecting the future of any society. at the different qualities possessed by the two One of the many difficulties encountered in
tion; they show us, indeed, a great advance on combatants that are most likely to stand each sociological investigations, in attempting to in good stead in the coming conflict. During in physical, intellectual, and moral civilization; our part during the course of the national life reach definite conclusions concerning the things the different stages of life on this earth men which shall be, is the impossibility of projecting have held various opinions respecting the Uni- early stages, amongst savages of the present day
but they indicate also very clearly that, whilst in: our minds into the distaut future in anything verse, but they have always taken care to put or amongst primitive men, their prototypes, phy- more than an imperfect manner. The reason themselves in the centre of it. From out of sical, intellectual, and moral civilization stand for this is, that between this time and that so the dark past there there have emerged during nearly on an equal footing a footing, at least, many things must occur to modify and alter the centuries many races of men, whose one the course of events that, however sure
which would give reason for believing that, if wo object hitherto has been to exterminate each properly cared for, no one of the three would might be respecting the validity of our con- other. Yet no nation in the past has held be far behind either of the others throughout the clusions as to the near future, we cannot but God's warrant, and one by one they have gone regard conclusions respecting the distant futuru
race at the present time, amongst ourselves, the way of all flesh. Of the surviving races, physical and as likely to be more than mere approximations two varieties at least seem destined to meet in especially the latter, have advanced out of all intellectual civilization, and to the truth. Only of general principles can deadly conflict in the distaut futuro fer the roportion to our moral civilization, which, we allege sufficient virility for them to be of use inheritance of the earth. To estimate their judging from the great distance it has lagged to us.
In the question under consideration we relative chances of success we must try to find, behind, shows signs of giving up the race may with confidence make one assertion. Be first, what qualities will be of most value in altogether. We have but to look around us. the struggle, and, second, in what degree each to see on all sides proofs of our glaring de- is possessed of them so as to render it aid in ficiency in this most important of all the attaining the victory. To this end it is necessary to ask once more that oft-repeated almost forced to conclude that the signs of elements of progress. Now and again we are question: "What is civilization ?" We moral degeneration we had taken for mere turn to the latest edition of the last new dictionary and we find the following explana-real retrogression. Compare the intellectual
temporary relapses are part and parcel of tions:-"Civilization. The action or process triumphs of the present and recent ages with of civilizing or of being civilised; (more usual- the degree of morality manifested day by day ly) civilized condition or state; & developed or advanced state of human society." And then and hundreds of other savage traits which dis- in the reports of murders, adulteries, fraud, to make our conception more complete we look grace our modern life and show what a little up the word "civilize." and see that it
way we have as get succeeded in getting from to inake civil; to bring out of a state of our primitive state of barbarism, and it will barbarism; to instruct in the arts of life and be obvious that it needs but to give these thus elevate in the scale of humanity; to en- facts the briefest consideration to find abùn- lighten, refine, and polish; to polish what is dant proof of the proposition that however rude or uncouth; to domesticate, tame; to con- form to the requirements of civil life, to behave lectually, our morality has relatively made high a stage we may have reached intel- decently." As seen in its historical develop scarcely any advance at all. Devoting nearly ment these are the various meanings of the all our energies to the building up of our word; and summing them up, we may briefly brains we have used up a large portion of the define civilization as a triple strand of physical, materials which properly belonged to the con- intellectual, and moral advance, and the further struction of our hearts, with the result that the advance the higher the degree of civiliza- these are small and weak and beat very feebly. tian. To be wanting in any one of these Alike in public and in private life the same - three component elements is to be, in so far, truth is forced upon our attention. Actions uncivilized; without this triple proficiency there classed as international, though by force of can be no complete civilization. Let us see in circumstances not so immoral as is usually sup what degree the peoples with whom we are posed, are nevertheless in many cases as immoral here concerned have progressed towards the as the circumstances admit, and often degenerate from legitimate diplomacy into a competition classed as ungentlemanly, if not criminal. Yet in trickery which in individual life would be in individual life we may discern a like hypo- crisy. How many of our friends can we really trust? Who is there who has not to meet every day a man ora woman who he knows would; if he or she had not to give an equivalent (an immoral sentiment), stab him in the back on the first opportunity?" He who commits criminal
tween the white and the yellow races-between
the West and the East-there can never be per- fect amalgamation. The iron and the clay, the rigid and the plastic, can never coalesce. Some contest there must be. The plastic may absorb the rigid in a certain way, but there can in no case be the kind of blended life we might expect were both formed of the same or similar sub- stance. That this contest, which Sociology shows is one of those things which must come and will come, will not be a military contest. might be inferred from present data, but the in- terval may yet produce factors, at present invi- sible, which may render a return on our part to a military life-now gradually giving way be fore the industrial life, and by and by to be absorbed by it-an unavoidable necessity. Whether such a return would, in view of the change of nature we shall by that time have undergone, be possible in a manner thorough enough to be of any use to us is another ques- tion, which, were it here considered, would pro- bably be answered in the negative. But in view * A good illustration of the time and trouble which might have been saved by some sociological preparation is afforded by the present crusade of European women in China against the foot-linding custom. Whilst we have nothing to say against the efforts which are being made privately to indice the women to let their feet grow in the natural way, yet from the sociological standpoint we cannot Lut regard as absurd the endeavour to persuade the Enloul state. peror to issue an elict prohibiting the custom, since, having been forbidden by the Emperor K'ang: Hsi, it was re-introduced only four years afterwards, popular prejudice proving too strong even for in- perial command. To suppose that greater success in influencing the public mind of the Chinese to break through the "cake of custom" would attend the issue of an edict instigated by a people they hate and despise is but one more proof both of popular irra- tionality and of the value of sociological enquiry.
means
would here be necessary, for symmetry's sake, Had it not been done so often before, it to dwell upon the rigid state into which those societies gel which conform to one part of the law of evolution and not to the other. Though integration of matter and dissipation of motion, during which both matter and motion undergo a change from an indefinite, incoherent homo- geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity,