successfully oppose an immoral blackguard to become a similar immoral blackguard oneself.
The Chinese should not imitate Western nations, but profit by their example in order to avoid falling into the same desperate straits.
All that the Western nations are doing can and should be an example for the Eastern ones,—not, however, an example of what they should do, but of what they should not do under any consideration whatever.
VII.
To follow the way of the Western nations means to go the way to certain ruin. But also to remain in the position in which the Russians in Russia, the Persians in Persia, the Turks in Turkey, and the Chinese in China are is also impossible. But for you, the Chinese, it is particularly obviously impossible, because you remaining with your love of peace in the position of a State without an army amidst armed States, which are unable to exist independently, will inevitably be subject to plunder and seizure which these States are compelled to have recourse to for their maintenance.
What, then, is to be done?
For us Russians I know, I most undoubtedly know, what we Russians should not do and what we should do in order to free ourselves from the evils from which we are suffering, and, not to fall into still worse ones, We Russians first of all should not obey the existing authorities, but we also should not do that which is being attempted amongst us by unenlightened people, as amongst you, by the party of reform,—we should not imitate the West: we should not substitute one Power for another and organise a constitution, whether it be monarchial or republican. This for certain we should not do, because it would necessarily bring us to the same calamitous position in which the Western nations are placed. But we should and can do only one thing, and that the
