And the history of China provides many instances of government attempts to enforce so perfect an order that innovation became impossible (Needham, 1954). This country, technologically and scientifically developed so far ahead of Europe that, to give only one illustration, it had ten oil wells operating on one stretch of the river Po already in the twelfth century, certainly owed its later stagnation, but not its early progress, to the manipulatory power of its governments. What led the greatly advanced civilisation of China to fall behind Europe was its governments’ clamping down so tightly as
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