still, for if we carefully study Chinese history, we shall find
that this vast nation has not been so inert as we have long
supposed. The very revolutions and internal commotions of all
kinds through which China has passed would have prevented
mere inertia. But when we compare these movements and the
changes that they have wrought with the kaleidoscopic
transformations in Europe and America, China appears the most
stationary of nations. She has moved less in centuries than
western peoples have in decades. The restless Anglo-Saxon is
alternately irritated and awed by this massive solidity, not to
say stolidity. There is, after all, something impressive about
it, the impressiveness of a mighty glacier which moves, indeed,
but so slowly and majestically that the duration of an ordinary
nation's life appears insignificant as compared with the almost
timeless majesty of the Chinese Empire.

Second, the vastness of China. Her territory and population
are so enormous that her people found sufficient scope for
their energies within their own borders. They therefore felt
independent of outsiders. The typical European nation is so
limited in area and is so near to equally civilized and powerful
peoples that it could not if it would live unto itself. The
situation of most nations forces them into relations with others.
But China had a third of the human race and a tenth of the
habitable globe entirely to herself, with no neighbours who had
anything that she really cared for. It was inevitable, therefore,
that a naturally conservative people should become a self-
centred and self-satisfied people.

Third, the character of adjacent nations. None of them