e happiness, or joy
of life, is one of the most important widespread popular goods that we
have lost through industrialism and the high pressure at which most of
us live; its commonness in China is a strong reason for thinking well of
Chinese civilization.

In judging of a community, we have to consider, not only how much of
good or evil there is within the community, but also what effects it has
in promoting good or evil in other communities, and how far the good
things which it enjoys depend upon evils elsewhere. In this respect,
also, China is better than we are. Our prosperity, and most of what we
endeavour to secure for ourselves, can only be obtained by widespread
oppression and exploitation of weaker nations, while the Chinese are not
strong enough to injure other countries, and secure whatever they enjoy
by means of their own merits and exertions alone.

These general ethical considerations are by no means irrelevant in
considering the practical problems of China. Our industrial and
commercial civilization has been both the effect and the cause of
certain more or less unconscious beliefs as to what is worth while; in
China one becomes conscious of these beliefs through the spectacle of a
society which challenges them by being built, just as unconsciously,
upon a different standard of values. Progress and efficiency, for
example, make no appeal to the Chinese, except to those who have come
under Western influence. By valuing progress and efficiency, we have
secured power and wealth; by ignoring them, the Chinese, until we
brought disturbance, secured on the whole a peaceable existence and a
life full of enjoyment. It is difficult to compare these opposite
achievements unless we have some standard of values in our minds; and
unless it is a more or less conscious standard, we shall undervalue the
less familiar civilization, because evils to which we are not accustomed
always make a stronger impression than those that we have learned to
take as a matter of course.

The culture of China is changing rapidly, and undoubtedly rapid change
is needed. The change that has hitherto taken place is traceable
ultimately to the military superiority of the West; but in future our
economic superiority is likely to be quite as potent. I believe that, if
the Chinese are left free to assimilate what they want of our
civilization, and to reject what strikes them as bad, they will be able
to achieve an organic growth from their own