When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years ago,
they found that almost all the arts had reached a certain degree of
perfection there; and they were surprised that a people which had
attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later period
they discovered some traces of the higher branches of science which were
lost. The nation was absorbed in productive industry: the greater part
of its scientific processes had been preserved, but science itself no
longer existed there. This served to explain the strangely motionless
state in which they found the minds of this people. The Chinese, in
following the track of their forefathers, had forgotten the reasons by
which the latter had been guided. They still used the formula, without
asking for its meaning: they retained the instrument, but they no longer
possessed the art of altering or renewing it. The Chinese, then, had
lost the power of change; for them to improve was impossible. They
were compelled, at all times and in all points, to imitate their
predecessors, lest they should stray into utter darkness, by deviating
for an instant from the path already laid down for them. The source of
human knowledge was all but dry; and though the stream still ran on, it
could neither swell its waters nor alter its channel. Notwithstanding
this, China had subsisted peaceably for centuries. The invaders who had
conquered the country assumed the manners of the inhabitants, and
order prevailed there. A sort of physical prosperity was everywhere
discernible: revolutions were rare, and war was, so to speak, unknown.

It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that the
barbarians are still far from us; for if there be some nations which
allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are others who
trample it themselves under their feet.