There was the tradition an emperor ruled for the people.  The office of ruler was divine; the man that held it was kept an impersonality as much as possible.  He changed his name on coming to the throne, and perhaps several times afterwards:  thus we speak of the great emperors Han Wuti and Tang Taitsong; who might, however, be called more exactly, Liu Ch’e, who was emperor during the period Wuti of the Han Dynasty; Li Shihmin, who filled the throne during the T’ang period called Taitsong. Again, there was the great idea, Confucio-Mencian, that the son of Heven must be ‘compliant’:  leading rather than driving.  He promulgated edicts, but they were never rigidly enforced; a certain voluntaryism was allowed as to the carrying out of them:  if one of them was found unsuccessful, or not to command popular approval, another could be—­and was—­issued to modify or change it.  So that the whole system was far removed from what we think of as an ‘Oriental Despotism’; on the contrary, there was always a large measure of freedom and self-government.  You began with the family:  the head of that was its ruler, and responsible for order in his little realm.  But he governed by consent and affection, not by force.  Each village-community was self-governing; the headman in it taking the place of the father in the family; he was responsible for order, so it was his business to keep the people happy;—­and the same principle was extended to fit the province, the viceroyalty, the empire.  Further, there was the absence of any aristocracy or privileged class; and the fact that all offices were open to all Chinamen (actors excepted)—­the sole key to open it being merit, as attested by competitive examinations.

The system is Mencian; the inspiration behind it from Confucius.  It is the former’s working out of the latter’s superb idea of the li.

The Mencian system has broken down, and been abolished.  It had grown old, outworn and corrupt.  But it was established a couple of centuries before that of Augustus, and has been subject to the same stress of time and the cycles; and only broke down the other day.  Time will wear out anything made by man.  There is no garment, but the body will out-grow or out-wear it; no body, but the soul will outlive it and cast it away.  Mencius, inspired by his Master Confucius, projected a system that time took two thousand years and more to wear out in China.  It was one that did much or everything to shield the people from tyranny.  Whether a better system has been devised, I do not know; but should say not—­in historical times.  As to the inspiration behind it—­well, lest you should doubt the value of Confucius, compare the history of Europe with that of China.  We have disproportioned ideas, and do not see these things straight.  The Chinese Empire was founded some two centuries before the Roman:  both composed of heterogeneous elements.  Both, after about four centuries, fell; but China, after about four