In the old Chinese world-society the control of the ideology was normally vested in the _literati_ who were either government officials or hoped to become such. The populace, however, acting in conformity with the ideology, could overthrow the government, and, to that extent, consciously control the content and the development of the ideology. Moreover, as the efficacy of an ideology depends upon its greater acceptance, the populace had the last word in control of the ideology both consciously and unconsciously. Politics, however, rarely comes to the last word. In the normal and ordinary conduct of social affairs, the populace was willing to let the _literati_ uphold the classics and modify their teachings in accordance with the development of the ideology—in the name of _chêng ming_. The old ideology was so skilfully put together out of traditional elements that are indissociable from the main traits of Chinese culture, together with the revisions made by Confucius and his successors, that it was well-nigh unchallengeable. The whole Confucian method of government was based, as previously stated, on the control of men through the control of their ideas by men—and these latter men, the ideologues, were the scholar administrators of successive dynasties. The identification of the _literati_ and officials, the respect in which learning was held, the general distribution of a leaven of scholars through all the families of the Empire, and the completeness—almost incredible to a Westerner—of traditional orthodoxy, permitted the interpreters of the tradition also to mould and transform it to a considerable degree. As a means of adjusting the mores through the course of centuries, interpretation succeeded in gradually changing popular ideas, where open and revolutionary heterodoxy would have failed. Now, in modern times, even though men might still remain largely under the control of the ideology (learn to behave rightly instead of being governed), the ideology was necessarily weakened in two ways: by the appearance of men who were recalcitrant to the ideology, and by the emergence of conceptions and ideas which could not find a place in the ideology, and which consequently opened up extra-ideological fields of individual behavior. In other words, _li_ was no longer all-inclusive, either as to men or as to realms of thought. Its control had never, of course, been complete, for in that case all institutions of government would have become superfluous in China and would have vanished; but its deficiencies in past ages had never been so great; either with reference to insubordinate individuals or in regard to unassimilable ideas, as they were in modern times.