Perhaps one should not be too critical, nor expect other than these inconsistencies in humanity. Misery will be largely its _own_ cause. Great populations do not herd together without shocking inequalities of condition; yet, the reflection will arise, Is not the _boast_ of refinement and civilization too much for patience--would not humility be better? The boast means self-content--humility would mean a steady work for improvement. One sees not, nor really cares to see; the other sees and feels, and wishes to remove what gives a sense of humiliation and of pain. Splendid London may disregard the blackness of the East End (as the poorest quarter is called), and think itself a good _Christian_ to shun it as a place of horror; but, to my _pagan_ wisdom, it seems indispensable to devote that money and energy to the civilization of the English Barbarians, which is now sent to "_the benighted heathen_." These, no doubt, have the poor and the degraded, the black spots of moral imbecility; nor would one object to any really benevolent enterprise, though not too rational. But the missionary [kan-te] spirit rises so distinctly from an ignorant self-sufficiency and blindness, a merely superstitious notion of a thing to be done as any rite or ceremony is to be done--_for the good of the doer_--that it is impossible to have much respect for it. Then, too, the whole thing shapes into a machine, by the working of which men are to live and get honours and places. If a truly grand benevolence moved the people, it would be impossible to overlook _the Heathen at home_. CHAPTER XIV. SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. It is the business of a wise man (as our illustrious _Confutzi_ and _Menzi_ say) to seek the _conditions_ of the visible forms of things--whether the things be those which we see, or only those which take form in the mind. The conditions are what the Barbarians call _laws_. We see that the use of a certain earth will enrich some soils, and impoverish others; we examine into the cause; we try to discover the conditions which make this difference. We know that, generally and broadly, the elements are the same, but they are differently combined. The Western Barbarians are of the same race with ourselves--inherently the general nature is the same. What difference of combination of similar elements has produced results so dissimilar?