Prothero discoursed much upon the essential goodness of Russians.  He said they were a people of genius, that they showed it in their faults and failures just as much as in their virtues and achievements.  He extolled the “germinating disorder” of Moscow far above the “implacable discipline” of Berlin.  Only a people of inferior imagination, a base materialist people, could so maintain its attention upon precision and cleanliness.  Benham was roused to defence against this paradox.  “But all exaltation neglects,” said Prothero.  “No religion has ever boasted that its saints were spick and span.”  This controversy raged between them in the streets of Irkutsk.  It was still burning while they picked their way through the indescribable filth of Pekin.

“You say that all this is a fine disdain for material things,” said Benham.  “But look out there!”

Apt to their argument a couple of sturdy young women came shuffling along, cleaving the crowd in the narrow street by virtue of a single word and two brace of pails of human ordure.

“That is not a fine disdain for material things,” said Benham.  “That is merely individualism and unsystematic living.”

“A mere phase of frankness.  Only frankness is left to them now.  The Manchus crippled them, spoilt their roads and broke their waterways.  European intervention paralyses every attempt they make to establish order on their own lines.  In the Ming days China did not reek. . . .  And, anyhow, Benham, it’s better than the silly waste of London. . . .”

And in a little while Prothero discovered that China had tried Benham and found him wanting, centuries and dynasties ago.

What was this new-fangled aristocratic man, he asked, but the ideal of Confucius, the superior person, “the son of the King”?  There you had the very essence of Benham, the idea of self-examination, self-preparation under a vague Theocracy. ("Vaguer,” said Benham, “for the Confucian Heaven could punish and reward.”) Even the elaborate sham modesty of the two dreams was the same.  Benham interrupted and protested with heat.  And this Confucian idea of the son of the King, Prothero insisted, had been the cause of China’s paralysis.  “My idea of nobility is not traditional but expectant,” said Benham.  “After all, Confucianism has held together a great pacific state far longer than any other polity has ever lasted.  I’ll accept your Confucianism.  I’ve not the slightest objection to finding China nearer salvation than any other land.  Do but turn it round so that it looks to the future and not to the past, and it will be the best social and political culture in the world.  That, indeed, is what is happening.  Mix Chinese culture with American enterprise and you will have made a new lead for mankind.”

From that Benham drove on to discoveries.  “When a man thinks of the past he concentrates on self; when he thinks of the future he radiates from self.  Call me a neo-Confucian; with the cone opening forward away from me, instead of focussing on me. . . .”