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CHAPTER XI
CHINESE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION CONTRASTED
There is at present in China, as we have seen in previous chapters, a
close contact between our civilization and that which is native to the
Celestial Empire. It is still a doubtful question whether this contact
will breed a new civilization better than either of its parents, or
whether it will merely destroy the native culture and replace it by that
of America. Contacts between different civilizations have often in the
past proved to be landmarks in human progress. Greece learnt from Egypt,
Rome from Greece, the Arabs from the Roman Empire, mediaeval Europe from
the Arabs, and Renaissance Europe from the Byzantines. In many of these
cases, the pupils proved better than their masters. In the case of
China, if we regard the Chinese as the pupils, this may be the case
again. In fact, we have quite as much to learn from them as they from
us, but there is far less chance of our learning it. If I treat the
Chinese as our pupils, rather than vice versa, it is only because I fear
we are unteachable.
I propose in this chapter to deal with the purely cultural aspects of
the questions raised by the contact of China with the West. In the three
following chapters, I shall deal with questions concerning the internal
condition of China, returning finally, in a concluding chapter, to the
hopes for the future which are permissible in the present difficult
situation.
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