Note 743 — Chapter XI · THE STATE (B) STATE AND HISTORY (continued 2)

Even if the Chinese authors themselves misunderstood the expression in the same, or anything like the same, way as their Western translators, the fact would only prove that the appreciation of political problems vanished as rapidly in the Chinese Imperial Age as in fact it did in the Roman—because they were no longer personally and livingly experienced. The much-admired Sze-ma-tsien is after all a compiler of the same rank as Plutarch (with whom he corresponds in date also). The high point of historical comprehension, which presumes an equivalent experience in life, must for China have lain in the period of the Contending States, as it lies for us in the nineteenth century and after.