r neighbor as
yourself. With this principle, you cannot refuse commercial
intercourse with your neighbor, because, commerce consisting of a
voluntary exchange of property mutually beneficial to both parties,
excites in both the selfish and the social propensities, and enables
each of the parties to promote the happiness of his neighbors by the
same act whereby he provides for his own. But, China not being a
Christian nation, its inhabitants do not consider themselves bound
by the Christian precept to love their neighbors as themselves. The
right of commercial intercourse with them reverts not to the
execrable principle of Hobbes, that the state of nature is a state
of war, where every one has a right to buy, but no one is obliged to
sell. Commerce becomes altogether a matter of convention. The right
of each party is only to propose; that of the other is to accept or
refuse, and to his result he may be guided exclusively by the
consideration of his own interest, without regard to the interests,
the wishes, or other wants, of his neighbor.

"This is a churlish and unsocial system; and I take occasion here to
say that whoever examines the Christian system of morals with a
philosophical spirit, setting aside all the external and historical
evidences of its truth, will find all its precepts tending to exalt
the nature of the animal man; all its purpose to be peace on earth
and good will towards men. Ask the atheist, the deist, the Chinese,
and they will tell you that the foundation of their system of morals
is selfish enjoyment. Ask the philosophers of the Grecian
schools,--Epicurus, Socrates, Zeno, Plato, Lucretius, Cicero,
Seneca,--and you will find them discoursing upon the Supreme Good.
They will tell you it is pleasure, ease, temperance, prudence,
fortitude, justice: not one of them will whisper the name of love,
unless in its gross and physical sense, as an instrument of
pleasure; not one of them will tell you that the source of all moral
relation between you and the rest of mankind is to love your
neighbor as yourself--to do unto him as you would that he should do
unto you.

"The Chinese recognize no such law. Their internal government is a
hereditary patriarchical despotism, and their own exclusive interest
is the measure of all their relations with the rest of mankind.