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mental agencies alone can put a stop to opium smoking, and that it can only cease as drunkenness has ceased in classes of English, with whom that vice was, but two generations back, a daily habit. And if the Chinese were, as many now are and as all eventually will be, fully convinced of this, I should certainly not advocate any limitation of the opium production in India. The proper way to ascertain how to stop any widely prevalent practice, is first to ascertain how each individual begins it. Now all my inquiries on this point prove that people in China begin opium smoking because it is thought rather a fine thing to do,-because it is fashionable among wealthy people; and that, consequently, one of the most essential parts of any plan to stop opium smoking is to cheapen the article, and thus gradually vulgarize the practice. If I therefore hint at such a thing as the East India Company producing from its own lands sugar or other innoxious articles instead of opium, it is solely on political, not on moral grounds; as I am thoroughly convinced that the cause of true morality in China would not be in the least benefited by such a step. That step would, however, undoubtedly place us in a much more favourable position for negotiating on other subjects with the rulers of China, whether the present Manchoos or the Tae pings. Practically, there fore, the subject is reducible to three questions. Is the more favourable position in international dealings with the Chinese worth purchasing by the loss of revenue which the East India Company would sustain by substituting the sugar cane, &c. for the poppy? If worth purchasing, can the Company carry on the government of India with the reduced revenue? If the Company cannot, is the English people willing to keep on the income tax, to make up the deficit?

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As it seems certain that the last two questions can at pre

By this I mean articles that may be taken in considerable quantities without perceptibly injuring the health. Opium in small quantities is an invaluable medicine; and sugar habitually taken in large quantities would undermine the health. It is not the articles themselves, but our use, misuse, or abuse of them that makes them innoxious or noxious.

sent only receive negative answers, it would be waste of time to attempt now the solution of the first. I therefore close my remarks on the subject of opium, with the following opinions as to our negotiations with the Chinese. I hold that though we may use all those perfectly sound arguments which prove that coercive measures directed against opium smokers, must continue as ineffectual as they have hitherto proved, still that we have no right whatever to prevent, by intimidation, any Chinese rulers from trying such measures against the smokers, their own subjects, if they so please. On the other hand, I hold it quite possible to strike into a line of reasoning-perfectly truthful and therefore certain, after sufficient time, to produce conviction-in which a determination not to put down the opium trade by any physical coercion on our own part, would be completely justified to all educated Chinese; and I hold it possible, in arguing with men who are acquainted with State difficulties, at the least to excuse, politically, our Indian government in continuing the production of opium till we see our way to a different means of raising the revenue which it produces. Consequently, I believe that, though the opium question may prove matter for much explanation and argument, it is not by any means an inevitable necessity that it should prove a cause of quarrel, whether with a new native dynasty, or with the Manchoo rulers, re-established in full power.

ON CIVILIZATION.

CHAPTER I.

DEFINITION OF CIVILIZATION.

SHORTLY after commencing the study of the Chinese language under Dr. Neumann at the Munich University, I was led to ask the professor, from the class, if the Chinese were a civilized people? He answered, "Yes; certainly, (jawohl);" and I remember that, in spite of this distinct answer, I was not a whit more enlightened about the Chinese than before. It was some years afterwards, before I discovered that the question I wanted to put was: What is civilization? I had mentally anticipated the professor's answer; but what I wanted to know was, why the Chinese, differing so much from Occidentals, should yet be a civilized people, as well as the civilized English and Germans.

The question that I had put to my professor was, after I had resided among the Chinese a few years, often put to me by newer arrivals from Europe: "Are the Chinese, a civilized people?" To which the inevitable reply at length became: "If you will explain what you understand by civilization I shall be able to answer you."

now,

In process of time, I happened to get hold of Guizot's

"History of Civilization in Europe;" and examined it eagerly in the confident expectation that I should there find the much wanted definition. But I found that M. Guizot gave none. The following is what he says on the subject:*"For a long time past, and in many countries, the word civilization has been in use; ideas more or less clear and of wider or more contracted signification have been attached to it; still it has been constantly employed and generally understood. Now it is the popular common signification of this word that we must investigate. In the usual general acceptation of terms there will always be found more truth than in the seemingly more precise and rigorous definitions of science. It is common sense which gives to words their popular signification, and common sense is the genius of humanity. The popular signification of a word is formed by degrees, and while the facts it represents are themselves present. As often as a fact comes before us which seems to answer to the signification of a known term, this term is naturally applied to it, its signification gradually extending and enlarging itself, so that at last the various facts and ideas which, from the nature of things, ought to be brought together and embodied in this term, will be found collected and embodied in it. When on the contrary the signification of a word is determined by science, it is naturally done by one or a few individuals, who at the time are under the influence of some particular fact which has taken possession of their imagination. Thus it is that scientific definitions are much narrower, and on that very account much less correct than the popular significations given to words. So in the investigation of the meanings of the word civilization as a fact,-by seeking out all the ideas it comprises, according to the common sense of mankind, we shall arrive much nearer to the knowledge of the fact itself than by attempting to give our own scientific definition of it, though this might at first sight appear more clear and precise."

* I quote from the English translation published by Talboys in 1838.

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