so well adapted to its end should have come to be regarded with a reverence akin to that felt for the Classics. It would be a curious discovery if some learned student of Chinese history should succeed in ascertaining and explaining the processes by which the Chinese government came to be what it is. If ever those processes should be discovered, we think it certain that it will then be clearly seen why there have been in China so few of those interior revolutions to which all other peoples have been subject. There is a story of a man who built a stone wall six feet wide and only four feet high, and on being asked his reasons for so singular a proceeding, he replied that it was his purpose that when the wall blew over, it should be higher than it was before! The Chinese government is by no means incapable of being blown over, but it is a cube, and when it capsizes, it simply falls upon some other face, and to external appearance, as well as to interior substance, is the same that it has always been. Repeated experience of this process has taught the Chinese that this result is as certain as that a cat will fall upon its feet, and the conviction is accompanied by a most implicit faith in the divine wisdom of those who planned and built so wisely and so well. To suggest improvements would be the rankest heresy. Hence it has come about that the unquestioned superiority of the ancients rests upon the firm basis of the recognised inferiority of those who come after them.
With these considerations clearly in mind, it is not difficult to perceive the rationale of what seems at first the blind and obstinate adherence of the Chinese to the ways of the past. To the Chinese, as to the ancient Romans, manners and morals are interchangeable ideas, for they have the same root and are in their essence identical. To the Chinese an invasion of their customs is an invasion of the regions which are most sacred. It is not necessary for this effect that the customs should be apprehended in their ultimate relations, or in-
