The Biots, Kaeuffer, Gutzlaff, etc.
China belongs to the present and to the remotest past of the Asiatic world. The historical existence of China and her civilization are at least coeval1 with that of Egypt and of Assyria, perhaps older than that of the Aryas.
Some geological investigators2 affirm that the table-land inclosed between the northern slopes of the Himalayas, the Kuenlun, the desert of Gobi—which is said to be older than the formation of the Himalayas—the Heavenly or Blue mountains, and the Alta?, was the first land which rose from the waters, and that therefore it was the first, and perhaps the only place in the north, where man appeared. This admitted, the probability is, that from that first human family issued a race bearing to-day various appellations3, as the Yellow, the Alta?c, Turanian, Scythic, Finnic, Mongolian and Tartar—which is the last general denomination4 adopted by science, at least for the branches occupying central Asia, and reaching to the frontiers of Europe and the descendants of the Aryas. The first immigrants to China from the Kuenlun probably followed the current of the Yellow[Pg 90] river; and it seems that the aborigines retired5 before the invaders6, or perhaps the new yellow settlers mixed with the primitive7 occupants. In the southern parts of China, in the mountains of the interior, are still found tribes of dark-colored men resembling the negroes or the Pacific islanders, and using notched8 characters similar to those used by the Malays.
Agriculture seems to have been the sacred occupation of these yellow-hued settlers along the banks of the Yellow river—as it was in the valley of the Nile, of the Euphrates, and on the plains of Iran. Everywhere the origin of agriculture is lost in the night of time, and Quain or Cain—that is, the kernel9, the young, the generating, etc., the husbandman of the Scriptures—is many thousand years older than Abraham, the wandering and slave-holding patriarch. The oldest Chinese records show agriculture to have been the special occupation of the father of a family, of the chief of a clan10, and then of the emperor of the entire nation. With his own hands he directs the plough—therefore the plough could not have been desecrated11 by the hands of a slave. And it was not. In the family, in the domestic as well as in the national life, slavery first dimly appears only about the thirteenth century B.C.
In the remotest time, labor12 was, as it is now, the basis, the cement and the soul of the Chinese social and political life and growth—and by labor I mean, intellectual and manual labor in its most varied13 departments and developments. No classes, no castes,[Pg 91] existed in the old primitive times; and perhaps, during many thousand years, no dynasties. The best and ablest person was selected as the chief and ruler: all the offices or functions were obtained by intellectual faculty14 and by superiority of knowledge, but not inherited; and the same system prevailed throughout all the occupations and pursuits of life. No labor whatever was degraded or degrading; it was carried on by men free and equal, and in principle recognized as such.
In China, as everywhere else, slavery appeared as a disease in the social body. It was generated by war and crime. Prisoners of war and condemned15 criminals became, so to say, slaves of the state, which used them for public labors16 or hired them out to private individuals. The highest officers of state, persons over seventy years old, and children, could not be condemned to slavery, excepting children exposed or abandoned by their parents. Slaves hired by private individuals were only used as helps or servants in households and families. But most of the servants were always freemen—they are so now; and slaves never were used in agriculture or in the different handicrafts. The land being generally considered as the property of the state, or of the emperor, the sovereign divided, distributed it, under certain conditions and servitudes, for tribute in money or kind, etc. But slaves are not mentioned among the various objects enumerated17 as constituting the tribute. The increase of population generated poverty, and paupers18 sold and still sell themselves or their children into slavery. Repeated[Pg 92] domestic or internecine19 wars, recorded at a very distant historical epoch20, were among the prominent agencies in increasing poverty. Impoverished21 persons and those deprived of their homes either sold themselves or became serfs attached to the soil, but not chattels22. As serfs their legal condition and denomination is preserved in the books written about the twelfth century B.C., by Ma-tuan-lin—they are named usurped24 families or usurpees. Even after the conquest by the Mantschou Tartars, chattelhood did not get hold of the political structure, nor did it absorb the agricultural and industrial domestic economy of the Chinese. With the exception of the reigning25 family, no social position or function is privileged as hereditary26; and in the same way, accidental slavery was not transmitted to the children of the enslaved. Their condition was and is controlled and regulated by law, which watches over the property of the state. Among the numerous domestic wars there are never recorded any revolts of slaves—an evidence of their very limited number.
Over-population generated and generates the most terrible and varied oppressions and miseries27; but all of them lose their sting when compared with chattelhood. Over-population and misery28 generated the so-called coolie-system, which in principle is based on voluntary indenture29. The reckless cruelties and the numerous infamies30 characterizing the manner in which the coolie trade is carried on, is evidence of the utter moral degradation31 and depravity of the white civil[Pg 93]ized Christian32 traders, and the inefficiency33 of their respective governments.
The Chinese civilization is commonly looked down upon from the heights of narrow-minded presumption34 and ignorance. About three thousand years B.C., public schools existed in China, and a full scientific and material culture prevailed there. Chinese records (among them the Books of the Sehu Kings), going back, perhaps, as far as two thousand five hundred years B.C.—contain the most correct and detailed35 statistical36 accounts of tribute, and give most reliable geographical37 notions of China, and of the subdued38 and neighboring countries—notions superior in exactitude to all similar records transmitted from classical antiquity39. The Chinese lived in houses, in orderly communities, were humanized, polished, familiar with the sciences, industries, and all kinds of refinements40, at a time, and during countless41 centuries, when the races of northern Europe—prominently the Slavi, the Germans, the Anglo-Saxons included—did not, in all probability, even understand how to construct huts, and, as savages42, roved about in the wilderness43.
In a work written by Prince Tscheu-Kong, about one thousand one hundred years B.C., are given the most minute details of the then existing organization of the empire. The administrative44 mechanism45 of that distant epoch finds no equal in the whole history of governments or of nations. Several thousand years ago the empire was adminis[Pg 94]tered by six supreme46 state departments, each with perfectly47 defined attributes, each subdivided48 into special branches, with directors and all orders of lower officials and functionaries49. Chinese civilization passed its periods of youth and maturity50 many thousand years ago; and its senility has not yet reached total decrepitude51. It crumbles52 not to pieces even now in its comparatively disjointed and disorganized condition.
No one can consider China in any way a model social organism; but its duration is marvellous and unequalled in the history of the race. The absence of hereditary privilege and of chattelhood as social or religious institutions, accounts, among other reasons, for this unique phenomenon. With all its drawbacks and defects, this long-lived civilization, with its schools, its general intelligence, its thousands-of-years old routine, compares, in many respects, favorably with that in the Southern States calling itself Christian, which, having partly inherited the great European development, and receiving influences from the free sections of the union, has, nevertheless, for the last thirty or forty years, turned on its own crooked53 tracks, and, now prohibits, under severe penalty, schools for the children of its field laborers54, whom it keeps in bondage55. It sighs also for a further extension of oligarchic56 privileges, and for the enslavement of all human labor: re-enslaves the free or expels them; legalizes and sanctifies the sum of all social villanies: whose last word is the Lynch law, and the reckless,[Pg 95] lawless persecution57 of free speech and even of free thought; while assassination58 becomes more and more frequent.
In the most ancient Asiatic world, the primitive societies generally had analogous59 beginnings, whatever may have been the regions and climates cradling them, whatever the difference of time, epochs, or race-characteristics. Analogous events and conditions evoked60 similar developments in the primitive men. The manifestations61 of man's intellectual and physical activity were everywhere spontaneous: a transmission of the various rudiments62 of civilization cannot logically be admitted.
Osiris, Cain, Yao, were urged by like necessities, when they inaugurated agriculture in Egypt, in Euphratia, or along the valleys of the Yellow river. On the Nile, on the Euphrates, on the Ganges, on the Hoang-ho, man—red or black, white or yellow—observed nature, utilized63 even the inundations, regulated and embanked the beds of rivers, cut canals and trenches64 to irrigate65 the parched66 soil. Everywhere—and certainly without imitating each other—but urged by surrounding circumstances, man worked, toiled67, constructed habitations with the materials at hand—stone in Egypt; bricks, plaster, wood, etc., in Babylonia and China; raised cities in rich and fertile plains, erected68 edifices69, and invented characters and signs to fix and to transmit to others ideas, notions and facts. Whatever may have been the special nature and form of these characters, whether hieroglyphics[Pg 96] or phonetics, etc., undoubtedly70 they were original and not transmitted creations. These inventions arose at places separated by distances then almost impassable, by the same necessities and thoughts, by observation and imitation of nature, and by many other inner and outer promptings and circumstances. The rudiments of mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences, were created by this contact of man's mind with nature; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to admit that Egyptians or Chaldeans were the instructors71 of the Aryas or of the Chinese, or vice72 versa.
Of late an attempt has been made to justify73 American chattelhood by the fact that at the birth of Christ, half of the population of the Roman empire—about sixty millions—groaned under domestic slavery. This estimate may be below the true mark; but the humanity whose emancipation74 or redemption was to be accomplished75, was not limited to the Roman world. For, from Iran and the Indus to the Kuenlun ridges76, dwelt a population five or six times greater than that which populated the Roman empire, and that, too, almost unvisited by that terrible social plague which is now represented as being a divine blessing77. Whatever may have been the other multiform social calamities78 which befell them—wars, massacres79, destructions, impoverishments, and desolations—are, after all, but transient visitations; while American chattelhood, as devised by its apostles, eternally degrades both master and chattel23.
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1
coeval
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| adj.同时代的；n.同时代的人或事物 | |
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investigators
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| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
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appellations
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| n.名称，称号( appellation的名词复数 ) | |
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denomination
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| n.命名，取名，(度量衡、货币等的)单位 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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notched
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| a.有凹口的，有缺口的 | |
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kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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17
enumerated
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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paupers
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| n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 )；贫民；贫穷 | |
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internecine
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| adj.两败俱伤的 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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chattels
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| n.动产，奴隶( chattel的名词复数 ) | |
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chattel
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| n.动产；奴隶 | |
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usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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indenture
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| n.契约；合同 | |
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infamies
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| n.声名狼藉( infamy的名词复数 )；臭名；丑恶；恶行 | |
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31
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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inefficiency
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| n.无效率，无能；无效率事例 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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40
refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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42
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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43
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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46
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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48
subdivided
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| 再分，细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
functionaries
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| n.公职人员，官员( functionary的名词复数 ) | |
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50
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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51
decrepitude
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| n.衰老；破旧 | |
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52
crumbles
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| 酥皮水果甜点( crumble的名词复数 ) | |
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53
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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54
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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55
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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56
oligarchic
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| adj.寡头政治的，主张寡头政治的 | |
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57
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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58
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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59
analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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60
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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65
irrigate
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| vt.灌溉，修水利，冲洗伤口，使潮湿 | |
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66
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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68
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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edifices
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| n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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70
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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instructors
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| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
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72
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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73
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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74
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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75
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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76
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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77
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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massacres
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| 大屠杀( massacre的名词复数 )； 惨败 | |
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