The Impact of the West. Mere physical shock could not derange the old Chinese society as easily as it might some other, dependent for its stability upon complex, fragile political mechanisms. China was over-run many times by barbarians; the continuity of its civilization was undisturbed. Each group of conquerors added to the racial composition of the Chinese, but contributed little to the culture. The Ch’in, the Mongols, the Manchus—all ruled China as Chinese rulers. This strength of the Chinese society—in contrast to the Roman—must not, however, lead us to suppose that there were any extraordinary virtues in the Chinese social organization that made Chinese civilization indestructible. On the contrary, the continued life of the Chinese society may be ascribed, among others, to four conditions acting definitely and overwhelmingly in its favor: China’s greater physical extent, homogeneity, wealth, and culture. No barbarian conqueror, with the possible exception of the Mongol, would have been a match for an orderly and united China. Without exception, the barbarian incursions occurred in times of social and political disorder and weakness. That this is no freakish coincidence, may be shown by the contrast between China and any of the peripheral realms. None approached China in extent, in heaviness of population. Conquest of China was always conquest by sufferance of the Chinese. Second, China’s neighbors were divided among themselves. There was never any coalition extensive enough to present a genuine threat to a thriving China. The Chinese, in spite of diversities of spoken language, were united—so far as they were literate—by a common writing and literature; the common ideology had, moreover, fostered an extreme sympathy of thought and behavior among the Chinese. Persons speaking mutually unintelligible dialects, of different racial composition, and in completely different economic and geographical environments displayed—and, for all that, still display in modern times—an uncanny uniformity of social conditioning. China faced barbarians on many fronts; China was coördinated, homogeneous; the barbarians of North and South did not, in all probability, know anything of each other’s existence, except what they heard from the Chinese. Third, China’s wealth was a socially fortifying factor. In all Eastern Asia, no other society or form of social organization appeared which could produce a higher scale of living. The Chinese were always materially better off than their neighbors, with the possible exception of the Koreans and Japanese. Fourth, Eastern Asia was Chinese just as Europe was Graeco-Roman. The peripheral societies all owed a great part, if not all, of their culture to the Chinese. China’s conquerors were already under the spell of Chinese civilization when they swept down upon it. None of them were anxious to destroy the heritage of science, arts, and invention which the Chinese had developed.