The unprecedentedly long existence of the Chinese nation, of their language and literature, their laws and their philosophy, has naturally produced in the people a high veneration for antiquity. Their geographical position isolated them from all the rest of the world, excepting the rude nomads of Tartary. So, for many ages, they saw no people equal to themselves in education and intelligence, and no laws like their own. They were constrained to despise the barbarism, even while they feared the power, of their neighbours or their enemies. Their intercourse with the Romans was not sufficiently close to give them much idea of the culture of that people, and they judged of mankind at large by their experience of the Tartars. It was therefore in the nature of things that an overweening self-satisfaction should spring up among them, which would ripen into arrogance. They came to think themselves _the_ nation, the "middle kingdom," the centre of the world, and to look upon all foreign races as "outer barbarians." Whatever _we_ may think of this national conceit now, there can be no question that, up to a recent period, the Chinese were justified in their high opinion of themselves, and their contempt for all other races, languages and laws. It is necessary to keep this in view, in order rightly to appreciate the character of the Chinese. They are very generally supposed to be so proud and bigoted that they cling with blind affection to the traditions of the past, insensible to excellence of any kind that is new, or of extraneous origin. But this notion of their character is wide of the truth. As their own greatness comes from ancient times, and they have passed the culminating point of their civilisation, so their reason dictates to them reverence for the past, just as their experience has taught them to despise everything external. The intercourse between the Chinese and the civilised nations of Europe has, in the first instance, brought out the weak side of the Chinese character into prominent relief, and held it up to the derision of the world; but as that intercourse has become more intimate and thorough, it has afforded a rational explanation of some apparently anomalous traits of character, and has produced among those of the Chinese who have come within its influence, modifications in their views of relative superiority. Ideas that have grown with the growth of a people, through many ages, are not likely to be eradicated in a day; but, if founded on reason, they will yield to reason, when it has shown them to be erroneous; and the adoption of new ideas is likely to be permanent in proportion to the slow and gradual nature of the transition.