from

T.R. Reid, "The World According to Rome," National Geographic, vol. 192, no. 2 (August 1997), 64.

The rule of law is so central to Western civilization that most of us take it for granted.Of course, we are governed by laws, we say -- it's natural. In fact, though, the rule of law is not a necessary fact of the human condition. Another great ancient empire, China arranged things precisely the opposite of the Roman way. Confucius and his disciples down through the centuries distrusted written laws. A dusty statute book was too inflexible to handle the infinite variety of human experience, the Chinese sages felt. They chose to trust people, not laws -- to rely on innate human goodness as the best guarantee of a civil society. Even today the concept of written law and written contract is fairly weak in China and other East Asian nations within its cultural ambit.