IT HAS often been said that the vast difference now
existing between Western civilization and the civiliza-
zations of the East is a new thing, dating back only
to the seventeenth century. Before 1600, before the rise of
the new science and the Industrial Revolution, it has been
pointed out, there was no real difference between the East
and the West. In certain aspects, it may even be said that
the East, in particular the East as represented by the
civilization of China, was superior to the West. Professor
R. H. Tawney says:

China had mastered certain fundamental arts of life at a time when
the West was still ignorant of them. Like her peasants, who ploughed
with iron when Europe used wood, and continued to use it when Europe
used steel, she carried one type of economic system and social organiza-
tion to a high level of achievement, and was not conscious of the need
to improve or supersede it." "The phenomenon which disturbed the
balance was the rise of the great industry, first in England, and then, a
generation later, on the continent of Europe and in the United States. ¹

I myself made practically the same remark a few years ago
when I said:

The difference between the Eastern and Western civilizations is
primarily a difference in the tools used. The West has during the last
two hundred years moved far ahead of the East merely because certain
Western nations have been able to devise new tools for the conquest
of nature and for the multiplication of the power to do work. The East,
whence have come a number of the epoch-making tools of ancient civili-
zation, has failed to carry on that great tradition and is left behind in
the stage of manual labor while the Western world has long entered the
age of steam and electricity. ²

-63-