by Will Durant
He stopped at the thresholds of the huts of the thousands of dispossessed, dressed like one of their own. He spoke to them in their own language. Here was living truth at last, and not only quotations from books. For this reason the Mahatma, the name given to him by the people of India, is his real name. Who else has felt like him that all Indians are his own flesh and blood? . . . When love came to the door of India that door was opened wide. . . . At Gandhi’s call India blossomed forth to new greatness, just as once before, in earlier times, when Buddha proclaimed the truth of fellow-feeling and compassion among all living creatures.70
It was Gandhi’s task to unify India; and he accomplished it. Other tasks await other men.
VII. FAREWELL TO INDIA
One cannot conclude the history of India as one can conclude the history of Egypt, or Babylonia, or Assyria; for that history is still being made, that civilization is still creating. Culturally India has been reinvigorated by mental contact with the West, and her literature today is as fertile and noble as any. Spiritually she is still struggling with superstition and excess theological baggage, but there is no telling how quickly the acids of modern science will dissolve these supernumerary gods. Politically the last one hundred years have brought to India such unity as she has seldom had before: partly the unity of one alien government, partly the unity of one alien speech, but above all the unity of one welding aspiration to liberty. Economically India is passing, for better and for worse, out of medievalism into modern industry; her wealth and her trade will grow, and before the end of the century she will doubtless be among the powers of the earth.
We cannot claim for this civilization such direct gifts to our own as we have traced to Egypt and the Near East; for these last were the immediate ancestors of our own culture, while the history of India, China and Japan flowed in another stream, and is only now beginning to touch and influence the current of Occidental life. It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such questionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all, our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future. As invention, industry and trade bind the continents together, or as they fling us into conflict with Asia, we shall study its civilizations more closely, and shall absorb, even in enmity, some of its ways and thoughts. Perhaps, in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the calm of the understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all living things.
BOOK THREE
THE FAR EAST
A. CHINA
An emperor knows how to govern when poets are free to make verses, people to act plays, historians to tell the truth, ministers to give advice, the poor to grumble at taxes, students to learn lessons aloud, workmen to praise their skill and seek work, people to speak of anything, and old men to find fault with everything.
—Address of the Duke of Shao to King Li-Wang,
ca. 845 B.C.1
CHRONOLOGY OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION*
B.C.
2852-2205:
Legendary Rulers:
2852-2737:
Fu Hsi
2737-2697:
Shen Nung
2697-2597:
Huang Ti
2356-2255:
Yao
2255-2205:
Shun
2205-1766:
Hsia Dynasty
2205-2197:
Yü
1818-1766:
Chieh Kuei
1766-1123:
Shang (and Yin) Dynasty
1766-1753:
T’ang
1198-1194:
Wu Yih, the atheist emperor
1154-1123:
Chou-Hsin, model of wickedness
1122-255:
Chou Dynasty
1122-1115:
Wu-Wang
Fl. 1123:
Wen Wang, author (?) of the Book of Changes
1115-1078:
Cheng Wang
1115-1079:
Chou Kung, author (?) of the Chou-li, or Laws of Chou
770-255:
The Feudal Age
683-640:
Kuang Chung, prime minister of Ts’i
604-517:
Lao-tze (?)
551-478:
Confucius
501:
Confucius Chief Magistrate of Chung-tu
498:
Confucius Acting Supt. of Public Works in Duchy of Lu
497:
Confucius Minister of Crime
496:
Resignation of Confucius
496-483:
Confucius’ Wander-years
Fl. 450:
Mo Ti, philosopher
403-221:
Period of the Contending States
Fl. 390:
Yang Chu, philosopher
372-289:
Mencius, philosopher
B. 370:
Chuang-tze, philosopher
D. 350:
Ch’u P’ing, poet
B. 305:
Hsün-tze, philosopher
D. 233:
Han Fei, essayist
230-222:
Conquest and unification of China by Shih Huang-ti
255-206:
Ch’in Dynasty
221-211:
Shih Huang-ti, “First Emperor”
206 B.C.-221 A.D.:
Han Dynasty
179-157 B.C.:
Wen Ti
B. 145:
Szuma Ch’ien, historian
140-87 B.C.:
Wu Ti, reformer emperor
5-25 A.D.:
Wang Mang, socialist emperor
67 A.D.:
Coming of Buddhism to China
Ca. 100:
First known manufacturer of paper in China
200-400:
Tartar invasions of China
221-264:
Period of the Three Kingdoms
221-618:
The Minor Dynasties
365-427:
T’ao Ch’ien, poet
Fl. 364:
Ku K’ai-chih, painter
490-640:
Great Age of Buddhist Sculpture
618-905:
T’ang Dynasty
618-627:
Kao Tsu
627-650:
T’ai Tsung
651-716:
Li Ssu-hsün, painter
699-759:
Wang Wei, painter
B. ca. 700:
Wu Tao-tze, painter
705-762:
Li Po, poet
712-770:
Tu Fu, poet
713-756:
Hsuan Tsung (Ming Huang)
755:
Revolt of An Lu-shan
CHRONOLOGY OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION
A.D.
768-824:
Han Yü, essayist
770:
Oldest extant block prints
722-846:
Po Chü-i, poet
868:
Oldest extant printed book
907-960:
Five “Little Dynasties”
932-953:
Block printing of Chinese Classics
950:
First appearance of paper money
960-1127:
Northern Sung Dynasty
960-976:
T’ai Tsu
970:
First great Chinese encyclopedia
1069-1076:
Administration of Wang Anshih, socialist prime minister
1040-1106:
Li Lung-mien, painter
1041:
Pi Sheng makes movable type
B. 1100:
Kuo Hsi, painter
1101-1126:
Hui Tsung, artist emperor
1126:
Tatars sack Hui Tsung’s capital, Pien Lang (K’aifeng); removal of capital to Lin-an (Hangchow)
1127-1279:
Southern Sung Dynasty
1130-1200:
Chu Hsi, philosopher
1161:
First known use of gunpowder in war
1162-1227:
Genghis Khan
1212:
Genghis Khan invades China
1260-1368:
Yüan (Mongol) Dynasty
1269-1295:
Kublai Khan
1269:
Marco Polo leaves Venice for China
1295:
Marco Polo returns to Venice
1368-1644:
Ming Dynasty
1368-1399:
T’ai Tsu
1403-1425:
Ch’eng Tsu (Yung Lo)
1517:
Portugese at Canton
1571 :
Spanish take the Philippines
A.D.
1573-1620:
Shen Tsung (Wan Li)
1637:
English traders at Canton
1644-1912:
Ch’ing (Manchu) Dynasty
1662-1722:
K’ang Hsi
1736-1796:
Ch’ien Lung
1795:
First prohibition of opium trade
1800:
Second prohibition of opium trade
1823-1901:
Li Hung-chang, statesman
1834-1908:
Tzu Hsi, “Dowager Empress”
1839-1842:
First “Opium War”
1850-1864:
T’ai-p’ing Rebellion
1856-1860:
Second “Opium War”
1858-1860:
Russia seizes Chinese territory north of the Amur River
1860:
France seizes Indo-China
1866-1925:
Sun Yat-sen
1875-1908:
Kuang Hsu
1894:
The Sino-Japanese War
1898:
Germany takes Kiaochow; U. S. takes the Philippines
1898:
The reform edicts of Kuang Hsu
1900:
The Boxer Uprising
1905:
Abolition of the examination system
1911 :
The Chinese Revolution
1912:
(Jan.-Mar.): Sun Yat-sen Provisional President of the Chinese Republic
1912-1916:
Yuan Shi-k’ai, President
1914:
Japan takes Kiaochow
1915:
The “Twenty-one Demands”
1920:
Pei-Hua (“Plain Speech”) adopted in the Chinese schools; height of the “New Tide”
1926:
Chiang K’ai-shek and Borodin subdue the north
1927:
The anti-communist reaction
1931 :
The Japanese occupy Manchuria
CHAPTER XXIII
The Age of the Philosophers
I. THE BEGINNINGS
1. Estimates of the Chinese
THE intellectual discovery of China was one of the achievements of the Enlightenment. “These peoples,” Diderot wrote of the Chinese, “are superior to all other Asiatics in antiquity, art, intellect, wisdom, policy, and in their taste for philosophy; nay, in the judgment of certain authors, they dispute the palm in these matters with the most enlightened peoples of Europe.”1a “The body of this empire,” said Voltaire, “has existed four thousand years, without having undergone any sensible alteration in its laws, customs, language, or even in its fashions of apparel. . . . The organization of this empire is in truth the best that the world has ever seen.”2 This respect of scholars has survived closer acquaintance, and in some contemporary observers it has reached the pitch of humble admiration. Count Keyserling, in one of the most instructive and imaginative books of our time, concludes that
altogether the most perfect type of humanity as a normal phenomenon has been elaborated in ancient China . . . China has created the highest universal culture of being hitherto known . . . The greatness of China takes hold of and impresses me more and more . . . The great men of this country stand on a higher level of culture than ours do; . . . these gentlemen* . . . stand on an extraordinarily high level as types; especially their superiority impresses me. . . . How perfect the courtesy of the cultured Chinaman! . . . China’s supremacy of form is unquestionable in all circumstances. . . . The Chinaman is perhaps the profoundest of all men.3
The Chinese do not trouble to deny this; and until the present century (there are now occasional exceptions) they were unanimous in regarding the inhabitants of Europe and America as barbarians.4 It was the gentle custom of the Chinese, in official documents before 1860, to employ the character for “barbarian” in rendering the term “foreigner”; and the barbarians had to stipulate by treaty that this translation should be improved.5* Like most other peoples of the earth, “the Chinese consider themselves the most polished and civilized of all nations.”7 Perhaps they are right, despite their political corruption and chaos, their backward science and sweated industry, their odorous cities and offal-strewn fields, their floods and famines, their apathy and cruelty, their poverty and superstition, their reckless breeding and suicidal wars, their slaughters and ignominious defeats. For behind this dark surface that now appears to the alien eye is one of the oldest and richest of living civilizations: a tradition of poetry reaching as far back as 1700 B.C.; a long record of philosophy idealistic and yet practical, profound and yet intelligible; a mastery of ceramics and painting unequaled in their kind; an easy perfection, rivaled only by the Japanese, in all the minor arts; the most effective morality to be found among the peoples of any time; a social organization that has held together more human beings, and has endured through more centuries, than any other known to history; a form of government which, until the Revolution destroyed it, was almost the ideal of philosophers; a society that was civilized when Greece was inhabited by barbarians, that saw the rise and fall of Babylonia and Assyria, Persia and Judea, Athens and Rome, Venice and Spain, and may yet survive when those Balkans called Europe have reverted to darkness and savagery. What is the secret of this durability of government, this artistry of hand, this poise and depth of soul?
2. The Middle Flowery Kingdom
Geography—Race—Prehistory
If we consider Russia as Asiatic—which it was till Peter, and may be again—then Europe becomes only a jagged promontory of Asia, the industrial projection of an agricultural hinterland, the tentative fingers or pseudopodia of a giant continent. Dominating that continent is China, as spacious as Europe, and as populous. Hemmed in, through most of its history, by the largest ocean, the highest mountains, and one of the most extensive deserts in the world, China enjoyed an isolation that gave her comparative security and permanence, immutability and stagnation. Hence the Chinese called their country not China but Tien-hua—“Under the Heavens”—or Sz-hai—“Within the Four Seas”—or Chung-kuo—“Middle Kingdom”—or Chung-hwa-kuo—“Middle Flowery Kingdom”—or, by decree of the Revolution, Chun-hwa-min-kuo—“ Middle Flowery People’s Kingdom.”8 Flowers it has in abundance, and all the varied natural scenery that can come from sunshine and floating mists, perilous mountain crags, majestic rivers, deep gorges, and swift waterfalls amid rugged hills. Through the fertile south runs the Yang-tze River, three thousand miles in length; farther north the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, descends from the western ranges amid plains of loess to carry its silt through vacillating estuaries once to the Yellow Sea, now to the Gulf of Pechili, tomorrow, possibly, to the Yellow Sea again. Along these and the Wei and other broad streams* Chinese civilization began, driving back the beast and the jungle, holding the surrounding barbarians at bay, clearing the soil of brush and bramble, ridding it of destructive insects and corrosive deposits like saltpetre, dr
aining the marshes, fighting droughts and floods and devastating changes in the courses of the rivers, drawing the water patiently and wearily from these friendly enemies into a thousand canals, and building day by day through centuries—huts and houses, temples and schools, villages, cities and states. How long men have toiled to build the civilizations that men so readily destroy!
No one knows whence the Chinese came, or what was their race, or how old their civilization is. The remains of the “Peking Man”† suggest the great antiquity of the human ape in China; and the researches of Andrews have led him to conclude that Mongolia was thickly populated, as far back as 20,000 B.C., by a race whose tools corresponded to the “Azilian” development of mesolithic Europe, and whose descendants spread into Siberia and China as southern Mongolia dried up and became the Gobi Desert. The discoveries of Andersson and others in Honan and south Manchuria indicate a neolithic culture one or two thousand years later than similar stages in the prehistory of Egypt and Sumeria. Some of the stone tools found in these neolothic deposits resemble exactly, in shape and perforations, the iron knives now used in northern China to reap the sorghum crop; and this circumstance, small though it is, reveals the probability that Chinese culture has an impressive continuity of seven thousand years.10