410 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

oi European adventurers (missionary, mercantile, and mill-
tary < came in the wake of Marco Polo. It was all along
the story of the Cross followed by a pair of scales enforced
by the booming guns. The result was the outcome of the
entire historical process in China as well as of the Chinese
character. As Bertrand Russell has remarked : " China
may be regarded as an artist nation, with the virtues and
vices to be expected of the artist : virtues chiefly useful
to others, and vices chiefly harmful to oneself."1 Culture
has been China's greatest virtue and disunion her greatest
vice. The woes of the Chinese are the product of Western
Imperialism acting on a people with a rich inheritance,
vast resources, but lacking the security that a strong and
united government alone can give.

Under the Ming dynasty the Celestial Empire included
the major portion of Asia, excluding only India, Persia,
Afghanistan, Arabia, Asia-Minor, and Japan. The rest—in-
cluding China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Indo-China,
Burma and Tibet—was either directly ruled by the Ming
Emperors or subject to them as tributary states. At one time
even Nepal was compelled to pay tribute to China for inter-
fering with Titfct across the snow-clad mountains. But such
vast territories were a source of weakness rather than strength.
. The outlying parts were in a chronic state of revolt. The
Tuchuns or war-lords created a sort of feudal anarchy
which the occupants of the Dragon Throne were able to
control only occasionally. But despite the constant dis-
turbances and the consequent misery of the people, Chinese
pre-occupations with Culture produced such works as the
Encyclopaedia compiled under the Ming Emperor Yung Lo
(Yoong Law, 1403-25), and the standard Dictionary of

1. The Problem of China, p. 10.