there is much myth there is little history, and _vice versa_, and
though this may not be universally true, undoubtedly the persistently
truthful recording of facts, events, and sayings, even at the risk
of loss, yea, and actual loss of life of the historian as the result
of his refusal to make false entries in his chronicle at the bidding
of the emperor (as in the case of the historiographers of Ch'i in
547 B.C.), indicates a type of mind which would require some very
strong stimulus to cause it to soar very far into the hazy realms of
fanciful imagination.


Chinese Rigidity

A further cause, already hinted at above, for the arrest of
intellectual progress is to be found in the growth of the nation
in size during many centuries of isolation from the main stream
of world-civilization, without that increase in heterogeneity
which comes from the moulding by forces external to itself. "As
iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his
friend." Consequently we find China what is known to sociology as an
'aggregate of the first order,' which during its evolution has parted
with its internal life-heat without absorbing enough from external
sources to enable it to retain the plastic condition necessary to
further, or at least rapid, development. It is in a state of rigidity,
a state recognized and understood by the sociologist in his study of
the evolution of nations.


The Prerequisites to Myth