s a question as to which no prudent person would
venture to pronounce. But it is easy to point to certain respects in
which we are better than old China, and to other respects in which we
are worse. If intercourse between Western nations and China is to be
fruitful, we must cease to regard ourselves as missionaries of a
superior civilization, or, worse still, as men who have a right to
exploit, oppress, and swindle the Chinese because they are an "inferior"
race. I do not see any reason to believe that the Chinese are inferior
to ourselves; and I think most Europeans, who have any intimate
knowledge of China, would take the same view.

In comparing an alien culture with one's own, one is forced to ask
oneself questions more fundamental than any that usually arise in regard
to home affairs. One is forced to ask: What are the things that I
ultimately value? What would make me judge one sort of society more
desirable than another sort? What sort of ends should I most wish to see
realized in the world? Different people will answer these questions
differently, and I do not know of any argument by which I could persuade
a man who gave an answer different from my own. I must therefore be
content merely to state the answer which appeals to me, in the hope that
the reader may feel likewise.

The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not
merely as means to other things, are: knowledge, art, instinctive
happiness, and relations of friendship or affection. When I speak of
knowledge, I do not mean all knowledge; there is much in the way of dry
lists of facts that is merely useful, and still more that has no
appreciable value of any kind. But the understanding of Nature,
incomplete as it is, which is to be derived from science, I hold to be a
thing which is good and delightful on its own account. The same may be
said, I think, of some biographies and parts of history. To enlarge on
this topic would, however, take me too far from my theme. When I speak
of art as one of the things that have value on their own account, I do
not mean only the deliberate productions of trained artists, though of
course these, at their best, deserve the highest place. I mean also the
almost unconscious effort after beauty which one finds among Russian
peasants and Chinese coolies, the sort of impulse that creates
folk-songs, that existed among ourselves before the time of the
Puritans, and survives in cottage gardens. Instinctiv