73 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they have become injurious. The paternal system, which in a small 

 and rude society was of the greatest benefit, is now so strongly in- 

 herent in the Chinese character as to be an injury to society by re- 

 tarding its development ; and perhaps, also, by preventing the intro- 

 duction of Western knowledge and arts. 



That vital relation which exists between the mind and the body 

 would of itself lead us to expect the operation of the same general 

 laws in social development which control the evolution of organisms. 

 We are led to the same conclusion by an examination of the history 

 of the past and by the social condition of the present. Their opera- 

 tion in the future follows as a necessary corollary. The union of the 

 civilizations of China and America, which differ as their races differ, 

 would produce a society with parts so fundamentally antagonistic that 

 permanent national existence for which homogeneity is necessary 

 would be impossible. Assimilation could be effected only by the 

 gradual and slow change of the more yielding characters of each. In 

 the involuntary conflict ensuing, those characters which originated 

 before the dawn of an ancient history, and have been strengthened 

 through the inheritance of unnumbered generations, would persist 

 with greater force than those new and changing characters which 

 seem by comparison like the fashions of a season. The manners and 

 customs which were described by the Arabs in the ninth century the 

 same as they are by the travelers in the nineteenth century would be 

 little affected by the changing forms of the society around them. 

 The new society would assume more the character of its persistent 

 than of its more yielding part. Intense conservatism would check 

 the progress of reform and improvement. That liberty of personal 

 thought and action, the assertion and exercise of which have secured 

 the freedom and independence of governmental or religious control 

 we now enjoy, would receive a severe shock, were our society com- 

 posed in part of a people whose first and highest duty has always been 

 to obey and depend implicitly upon an authority, and who have no 

 word for liberty in their language.* 



If the further development of our civilization is to be desired, it 

 must be guarded from the retarding influence of a different race. If 

 our institutions and governmental principles are worthy of preserva- 

 tion, tbey must be protected from a people who represent in all the 

 instincts of their nature different feelings and forms. If we ignore 

 the plain teachings of history upon the effect of the mingling of soci- 

 eties composed of different races, or having different civilizations, and, 

 as is commonly the case with individuals, will learn only from our 

 own experience, the experience is likely to come too late for us to 

 profit by it. 



The permanence of a civilization and of a nation depends upon their 

 homogeneity. The Chinese present their uniform and unparalleled 



* Williams, " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i, p. 321. 



