Читать книгу Burmah and the Burmese онлайн

20 страница из 59

The ethnology of the Burman empire is neither so intricate or so unsatisfactory as some others. There does not seem to have been a similar extent of change of race, and probably to that very circumstance do they owe the feebleness of character, which, however willingly we would omit seeing, does not fail to make itself conspicuous in a consideration of their prowess, social institutions, and advancement. The very fact of their quiescent state has debarred from progress, as the most mixed race is ever the most energetic. Witness our own, where so many various bloods have commingled, and formed a nation, which, emphatically speaking, is a progressive one, and now more than ever.

The Burmans have not made the advancement they might have made. There has been sluggish, age-lasting improvement in their empire, and it has been the want of a stimulating and decisive energy alone that has kept them back. Simplicity forms, too, no inconsiderable part of the national character, and this, by leading them to accept various doctrines without examination—a quality usually observable in semi-civilised races—has not given them any reason to think and to look around. Like the American races, they proceeded to a certain point, and then improved but little.