Eastern Civilization. 359 



Eastern Asia is, then, pie-eniinently the country of contrasts, of 

 isolated and strongly characterised regions ; for each forms a world 

 apart, and is sufficient unto itself. 



What must be the effect of this strong and massive nature upon 

 the nations who live under its influence, history will inform us. 



As Eastern Asia has a physical nature which belongs especially 

 to itself, so it has a particular race of men, the Mongolian race. 

 We have already pointed out the external characteristics of the 

 Mongolian family. With it the melancholic temperament seems to 

 prevail ; the intellect, moderate in range, exercises itself upon the 

 details, but never rises to the general ideas or high speculations of 

 science and philosophy. Ingenious, inventive, full of sagacity for 

 the useful arts and the conveniences of life, the Mongolian, never- 

 theless, is incompetent to generalize their application. Wholly 

 turned to the things of earth, the world of ideas, the spiritual world, 

 seems closed against him. His whole philosophy and religion are 

 reduced to a code of social morals, limited to the expression of those 

 principles of human conscience, without the observance of which so- 

 ciety is impossible. 



The principal seat of the Mongolian race is the central table-land 

 of Asia. The roaming life and the patriarchal form of their socie- 

 ties are the necessary consequence of the steril and arid nature of 

 the regions they inhabit. In this social state, the relations and the 

 ties which unite the individuals of the same nation are imposed by 

 kindred, by birth — that is, by nature. Association is compulsive, 

 not of free consent, as in more improved societies. Thus, the greater 

 part of Eastern Asia seems doomed to remain in this inferior state 

 of culture ; for the whole North — Siberia and its vast areas — is 

 scarcely more suited to favour the unfolding of a superior nature. 



Nevertheless, in the warm and maritime zone, in the fertile and 

 happy plains of China and India, along those rivers which support 

 life and abundance on their banks, nations, invited by so many ad- 

 vantages, establish themselves, and fix their dwelling-places. Their 

 number soon augments ; they demand tliL'ir support from the soil, 

 which an easy tillage yields them in abundance. They become hus- 

 bandmen ; cultivated societies are formed ; civilization rises to a 

 height unknown to the tribes of the table-land. 



The Chinese, of Mongolian I'ace, preserves, even in his civilization, 

 the character as well as the social principle stamped upon his race 

 by nature, — the patriarchal form. The whole nation is a large 

 family; the Emperor is the father of the family, whose absolute, des- 

 potic, but benevolent power governs all things by his will alone. 

 China, then, in the order of civilized nations, is the purest represen- 

 tative of Eastern Asia, and shews us to what point the patriarchal 

 principle of the earliest communities is compatible with a higher 

 cultivation. 



