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New China is the product of two civilizations—the Oriental and the Occidental.The union of these two forces has given color and shape to the present status of China, and it will determine and mold her future destiny and possibilities. It has not been long since Mr. Kipling 2 wrote,“O the East is East, and the West is West, and never the twain shall meet/Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great Judgment seat.”Today Mr. Kipling will be surprised to know that the East and the West have indeed found a meeting place in China.
In certain fields of activity, the meeting of the two civilizations takes the form of volcanic explosion or formidable conflict. It results in the supremacy of the one over the other or in the substitution of the one for the other. It involves both victory and submission. In other fields, it assumes the form of a union. Sometimes it is like the union of oxygen and hydrogen, sudden and jarring. At other times it may be compared with caress, courtship, or matrimonial contract.The process is essentially careful selection, adaptation, compromise, or reconciliation. It works like yeast, gradual but errective.The product is sweet and delightful.
Since the day of direct contact, the two civilizations have never ceased to conflict and unite. They react upon one another, and each is thereby modified by the other. As a result, life begins to have a richer content and much more variety. A cross-section of Chinese present-day life will perhaps reveal a lateral surface of the main characteristics of many centuries. In China we find nearly every city is surrounded by a medieval wall:there we find the great desire for a new life, hostile to the restrictive and pedantic scheme of scholasticism, which is the heart of the Renaissance;there we find the strong tendency to observe, compare, and criticize spiritual faith, which is the soul of the Reformation;there we find the starting tide of the eighteenth century industrial revolution, and there we cannot fail to find the outburst of nationalism and national consciousness, which characterizes the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a surprise to a great many of us when we find an inland farmer, sitting in a modern railway train, smoking a bamboo pipe with a fire made from a piece of flint and iron, inquiring, with an attitude of curiosity, about the woman suffrage movement in America, or talking enthusiastically about a boycott against foreign goods, in order to satisfy his patriotic conviction. So it is not quite true that“China is the European Middle Ages made visible,”as Prof. Ross 3 has led us to believe. Much more than that: the present day China is the European Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, nineteenth century and twentieth century made visible. There we find a dynamic picture of the transition and mingling of centuries of civilization. If we like, we may call it a spectrum of civilization, through which civilizations of different continents and centuries are brought to sharp, vivid, and beautiful contrasts.
This phenomenon reveals itself in every branch of life—in the home, in the school, in the church, in society, and in the state—but it may be best illustrated in the changes of ideals.
The Chinese old ideals of life are essentially of the Roman type. We come pretty near to the understanding of the Chinese old ideals if we just think of them in the terms of the Roman.The Chinese and the Romans seem to have reached independently the same conclusions in regard to life ideals.Their conception of life looks for a golden age in the past, and therefore it is conservative;it conceives society as an ordered institution, and therefore it is static;it emphasizes the rule of authority, and therefore it demands obedience. On the other hand, modern civilization which has its main flow from ancient Greece, has its Utopia in the future;it has a dynamic conception of society, and it encourages freedom and liberty. As a consequence of the mingling of the two civilizations, we find that in the present day Chinese world of ideals there exist, side by side, conservatism and radicalism, order and progress, authority and freedom.
Doubtless there are many persons who hold to either extreme, and battle furiously against each other. It must also be admitted that there is a pendulum of tremendous force swinging back and forth between the two extremes.These conditions we take as a matter of course, which cannot be avoided in a stage of transition.
However, there is a very fortunate fact to be mentioned, i.e., the group between the two extremes has become more and more numerous, and has become more and more powerful.This group of men recognizes the value of both the old and the new. Whatever is good must be preserved and assimilated, and whatever is not good must be cast away, no matter whether it comes from the old or the new. To them, the past is the foundation of the present and the future, while the future must be the goal of the past and the present;to them, no progress is possible without order, while order exists only for the insurance of progress; to them, authority is the guardian of freedom, and freedom is the end to which authority is a means. In a word, they find that there is a right place for every one of the apparently conflicting ideals—a right place for German efficiency as well as for American liberty. It is this group of men who have effectively overthrown the extreme conservatives and have constantly checked the wild fanaticism of the radicals; it is this group of men who are leading New China out of this critical stage of transition and are now nursing her for a great future. Blessed are those whose loyalty, wisdom, and courage the nation can rely upon to stand the test of the day.