Excerpt from China: And Her Mysteries The present work of Mr. Alfred Stead is eminently successful in this respect; it is compact, yet it indicates with great clearness the main features of the evolution of Chinese history. These I venture to summarise in the following lines. In ancient times the central authority in China was very weak. The hereditary dukes and barons were in reality independent sovereigns in their respective States. Opinion on philosophical and ethical subjects was as much decentralised (if such an expression may be allowed) as was political power. This circumstance causing active competi tion in every department of social life, China had made a wonderful and varied progress in civilisation, which might be compared not unfavourably with that of her contemporaries, the Greeks and Romans. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.