Chapter 3 chapter 3

But now to sum up in a few plain words the great problem of civilization in Europe rising out of this war. The people of Europe, I say, at first tried to maintain civil order by the help of the priest. But after a while, the priest cost too much expense and trouble. The people of Europe then, after the thirty years war, sent away the priest and called in the policeman and soldier to maintain civil order. But now they find the policeman and soldier are causing more expense and trouble even than the priests. Now what are the people of Europe to do? Send away the soldier and call back the priest? No, I do not believe the people of Europe will want to call back the priest. Besides the priest now would be useless. But then what are the people of Europe to do? I see Professor Lowes Dickinson of Cambridge in an article in the Atlantic Monthly, entitled "The War and the Way out, " says: "Call in the mob." I am afraid the mob when once called in to take the place of the priest and soldier, wil l give more trouble than even the priest and the soldier. The priests and soldiers in Europe have caused wars, but the mob will bring revolution and anarchy and then the state of Europe will be worse than before. Now my advice to the people of Europe is: Do not call back the priest, and for goodness sake dont call in the mob, _but call in the Chinaman; call in the real Chinaman with his Religion of good citizenship and his experience of ,years how to live in peace without priest and without soldier.

In fact I really believe that the people of Europe will find the solution of the great problem of civilization after this war, _here in China. There is, I say here again, an invaluable, but hitherto unsuspected asset of civilization here in China, and The asset of civilization is the real Chinaman. The real Chinaman is an asset of civilization because he has the secret of a new civilization which the people of Europe will want after this great war, and the secret of that new civilization is what I have called the Religion of good citizenship. The first principle of this Religion of good citizenship is to believe that the Nature of Man is good; to believe in the power of goodness; to believe in the power and efficacy of what the American Emerson calls the law of love and justice. But what is the law of love? The Religion of good citizenship teaches that the law of love means to love your father and mother. And what is the law of justice? The Religion of good citizenship teaches that thelaw of justice means to be true, to be faithful, to be loyal; that the woman in every country must be self-lessly, absolutely loyal to her husband, that the man in every country must be selflessly, absolutely loyal to his sovereign, to his King or Emperor. In fact the highest duty in this Religion of good citizenship I want to say finally here is the Duty of Loyalty, loyalty not only in deed, but loyalty in spirit or as Tennyson puts it,

To reverence the King as he were Their conscience and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ. THE SPIRIT OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE A Paper that was to have been read before the Oriental Society of Peking LET me first of all explain to you what I propose, with your permission, this afternoon to discuss. The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people. Chinese characteristics have often been described before, but I think you will agree with me that such description or enumeration of the characteristics of the Chinese people hither to have given us no picture at all of the inner being of the Chinaman. Besides, when we speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese, it is not possible to generalize. The character of the Northern Chinese, as you know, is as different from that of the Southern Chinese as the character of the Germans is different from that of the Italians.

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America. Perhaps I can best express what I mean by calling the subject of our discussion the Chinese type of humanity, or, to put it in plainer and shorter words, the real Chinaman. Now, what is the real Chinaman? That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman. In fact I propose that before the real Chinaman, the old Chinese type of humanity, disappears altogether From the world we should take a good last look at him and see if we can find anything organically distinctive in him which makes him so different from all other people and from the new type of humanity which we see rising up in China today.