Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/121

 in its lowest form, which only takes on a positive character when a direct assault is made on the lares and penates of the office-holders. In the past it has been clearly shown how every time the defenders of the Republic have attempted to adopt definite formulae in place of this obscurantism, they have been beaten into retirement in the provinces because they have lacked the necessary force to win. With this inchoate condition in the capital and with the chief cities held by military rule, watchful drifting has become the slogan. And although all Chinese know perfectly well that without organization, and without the supremacy of the civil authority, it is vain to hope for national solidarity or greatness, no single man has yet been able to effect any lasting improvement. Thus although the empire has gone never to return, and although a definite and recognizable advance in ideas is generally admitted to have occurred throughout China, obscure causes which must be referred back to climate and soil, and to the city-type, which a hundred city-bred generations have evolved, tends to perpetuate this political palsy and to make many foreign critics declare there is actual chaos and retrogression. That behind all this—deep-buried in the twilight of a myriad homes—the supreme