CHINESE HISTORY AND CH’ING INSTITUTIONS
17
of social action representatives Ofhouseholds from villages throughout the
system, and in so doing facilitated the homogenization of culture within the
intervillage community.”4’ Thus the rural sector of Chinese society, like
Chinese society as a whole, was much more highly integrated than is com-
monly believed.
This survey of Ch’ing institutions has been essentially а-historical. Yel
it is obvious that significant changes took place in China from the mid-
seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries in virtually every area we have
discussed: the imperial institution, the structure of government (includ-
ing (he Manchu-Chinese dyarchy), the character and quality of the
bureaucracy, the composition of the gentry, the effectiveness of govern-
ment control and registration systems, relations between gentry and of-
ficialdom, the land tenure system, and even the “open-ness” of Chinese
villages within the cellular market structure. Yet in all, one is most struck by
the capacity of the Chinese traditional state and society, in Ch’ing times as
in earlier periods, to accommodate change without fundamental disruption,
to restore homeostatic balance. This capacity reflects, 1 believe, a deeply
ingrained cultural outlook based on the idea of yin-yang alternation and
accommodation. Whether expressed in the trivial comments of the K’ang-
hsi emperor regarding eunuchs, or in the Mongol scholar Wo-jen’s deep
reflections on the dynastic cycle, we see evidence of yin-yang thinking as a
means of explaining Chinese political and social behavior. The remaining
chapters of this book will suggest in some detail the pervasiveness of this
cultural outlook in other key areas of traditional Chinese life and indicate
the relationship of each area to the others.
NOTES
I. See K. C. Chang, “The Origin of Chinese Civilization: A Review," Journal of the
American Oriental SocietyM. no. ɪ (Januan-March 1978): 85-91.
2. K. C. Chang, “The Continuing Quest for China's Origins," Archaeology 30, nos. 1-2
(March-May 1977): ɪ 16-123, 187-193.
3. David Keightly, "The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of
Chinese Political Culture," History of Religions 17, nos. 3-4 (February-May 1978): 211-224.
4. Significantly, Chou “feudalism” depended more on blood ties or pseudo-kinship
relations than on Western-style feudal legal principles.
5. Hsll Cho-yiin, Ancient China in Transition (Stanford, 1965).
6. Fung Yu-Ian, A History of Chinese Philosophy, translated by Derk Bodde (Princeton,
1952), vol. ɪ,pp. 1-336.