Sources from Which Great Empires Come [pp. 698-705]

SOURCES FROM WHICH GREAT EMPIRES COME. 701
in the blood so widely compounded. Victory, when they
warred, soon learned to hover over the offipring of the criminal and the outcast, and wisdom to crown their councils, when
at peace. The causes which commenced have ever been
contributing to nourish our strength. The asylum of the
weary and wandering, wherever they were born, has been in
our midst. And as the blood of every nation that treads upon
the earth is throbbing in Americans veins, so it is no exaggeration to say that the energy and enterprise of all the world
bid fair to concentrate upon American shores.
If these positive examnples are not enough to prove our position, look at the negative arguments which are affbrded by the
history of China, and the condition of European aristocracy.
The annals of the "Celestial empire" may be traced back,
with certainty, to the second or third century after the flood.
During all this long period which has since intervened, it has
been the policy of each successive government to shut up the
country in "the gloom of its own exclusiveness." The people
have been too tame and spiritless to engage in wars of conquest. Commerce with foreign nations has been prohibited
by stringent laws. Colonies have never been allowed to immigrate from foreign lands; and the angels might as soon
think of emigrating from heaven as the Chinese of' leaving
their celestial abode. Even the ravages of the Tartars, while
they have subverted so many dynasties from the throne, have
introduced no new elements among the masses of the people.
Their intercourse at home has been scarcely greater than that
abroad. Different provinces are bound together by no congenital ties. Cities have known each other only as "a tale
that is told." And whole generations have been born and
lived and died within the same brick walls.
The degrading influence of the policy thus pursued is evident in every feature of the nation's character. China: almost
realizes the story of the petrified city in the Arabian Nights.
The whole current of life has been stagnated. The growth
of civilization has been stopped. Generation after generation
has witnessed the same customs and habits in society. Age
after age has rolled away without evolving a single idea of its
own. For thousands of years the peasant has done as his
fathers did. The mechanic of to day understands his art no
better than the blunderer who hit upon it at first. And the
wisdom atld knowledge of the modern sages are just as little
as those of Confucius in the mystic pages of the Yking.
But this exclusive intercourse has not operated more injuriously upon the Chinese than it has upon the upper classes