Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/191

Boulger, published recently, is perhaps the worst history that could have been written of a civilised people like the Chinese. Such a history as Mr. Boulger has written might be tolerated if written of some such savage people as the Hottentots. The very fact that such a history of China could have been published, servies only to show how very far from being perfect yet is the knowledge of Chinese among Europeans. Without a knowledge of their history, therefore, no correct judgment can be formed of the social institutions of a people. Such works as Dr. Williams's Middle Kingdom and other works on China from want of such knowledge, are not only useless for the purpose of the scholar, but are even misleading for the massf o general readers. Just to take one instance,—the social ceremony of the people. The Chinese are certainly a ceremonious people, and it is true that they owe this to the influence of the teaching of Confucius. Now Mr. Balfour may speak of the pettifogging observances of a ceremonial life as much as he pleases; nevertheless, even "the bows and scrapes of external decorum," as Mr. Giles calls them, have their roots deep in the universal nature of man, in that side of human nature, namely, which we have defined as the sense of the beautiful. "In the use of ceremony," says a disciple of Confucius, "what is important, is to be natural; this is what is really beautiful in the ways of the ancient Emperors." Again, it is said somewhere in the Classics: "Ceremony is simply the expression of reverence."