That the Chinese will survive, biologically, as a race--this no one doubts. That the Chinese will survive culturally is more open to question. The Chinese absorbed all their conquerors of the past because the country was large, because the people were extraordinarily homogeneous in ideology and habit, because the Chinese were wealthier than their conquerors and more cultured. Absorption or cultural extinction is not a matter of race; it is a question of ideology, of thought and the habits which arise from ways of thought. What ways of thought are there today that will absorb the conquerors? What ways of thought are there that the conquerors might tear apart from the long past, to change China into a mere geographical expression? In the past, China has been conquered by invaders who accepted the Chinese estimate of China, and who reciprocated the Chinese self-esteem with a deep admiration for Chinese culture. China's modern invaders bring with them a veritable cult of national self-aggrandizement. Their fondness for the Chinese past is mixed with contempt for modern China. Will the Chinese preserve their national equanimity and sanity in the face of such an attitude? Much depends upon their military and political fortune and its effect upon their confidence. Government in the Republican era demonstrates the fertility and inventiveness of the Chinese mind in building political and administrative institutions and in finding means of uniting and controlling the Chinese as a people. When the chaos from which they have been emerging is considered, their recent accomplishments are an attestation of political ability. The National Government and the Chinese Soviet Republic were worthy adversaries; each met disastrous odds, not the least of which was the other. Their governmental forms may be destroyed and yet reappear so long as the Chinese remain Chinese in the sense of their long past. Sun Yat-sen expressed his countrymen's elementary social and national consciousness, so different from the feverish nationalism of the West, in very clear language: Suppose that we, Chinese, were naturalized English or Americans and helped England or America to conquer China on the principle that we accept cosmopolitanism, would our consciences, I ask you, be at rest or not? If our consciences troubled us, that would be a sign that we have nationalism; nationalism would trouble our consciences.[2] Such nationalism may prove indestructible. With democracy and _min shêng_ as nationalism's corollaries, China promises to contribute a gift of peace and political intelligence to the world, and may yet return to her ancient role as the pacific preceptress of nations. NOTES [1] See above, pp. 41 ff. [2] Paschal M. d'Elia, S. J., _The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen_, p. 132, Wuchang, 1931. CHRONOLOGY OF DYNASTIES