Chapter VII: Introduction (3)

The entire population of America, which, as it is for the most part of European extraction, is better known to us than that of many countries more contiguous--the entire population of America at the highest computation of the whole number of inhabitants on the globe, forms but a thirtieth part, and at the lowest computation, not a four-and-twentieth part of the whole. Widely extended as this thinly peopled continent is, the whole number of its inhabitants scarcely exceeds the population of a single great European state, such as either France or Germany, whose population, indeed, it about equals. Vegetation, indeed, is most rich and luxuriant in America; but the two most generous plants reared by human culture, and which are so closely connected with the primitive history of man--corn and the vine--were originally unknown in this quarter of the world. In the animal kingdom, America is far inferior to the other and more ancient continents of the globe. Many of the noblest and most beautiful species of animals did not exist there originally; and others again were found most unseemly in form, and most degenerate in nature. Some species of animals indigenous to that continent form but a feeble compensation for the absence of others, the most useful and most necessary for the purposes of husbandry and the domestic uses of man. We may boldly lay it down as a general proposition not to be taxed with error or exaggeration, that in the new hemisphere, vegetation is predominant, while in the old, animal force preponderates, and is more fully developed. This superiority is apparent not only in the comparative extent of population, but in the organic structure of the human form. Even the African tribes are far superior in bodily strength and agility to the aboriginal natives of America; and in point of longevity and fecundity, the latter are not to be compared with the Malayan race, and the Mongul tribes in the central or North-eastern parts of Asia, and in Southern Tartary, races with whom, in other respects, they seem to bear some analogy.

As the American continent, in other respects so incomplete, is mostly separated from all the others; and its form is more simple and less complex than that of the ancient divisions of the globe, it well deserves our consideration in that point of view; and it may perhaps furnish the general type and true geographical outline of a continent in its natural state. A narrow isthmus connects the upper half, stretching in a widely extended tract towards the North Pole, and the inferior part, with its Southern peak; and thus both form, according to general impression but one and the same continent; and so prove, in fact, how totally the Northern and Southern parts of a continent may differ. That now in the period when the Euxine was still united to the Caspian, when the White sea stretched farther into land, and the Ural mountains formed an island, or were surrounded to the North and South by the sea, Asia and Europe were probably separated towards the North, is a point to which we have already had occasion to allude. But if, on the one hand, Europe were separated from Asia, it might on the other have been easily joined to Africa by an isthmus, where it is now divided from it by a straight, and so have formed with it one connected continent; in the same way as Australia is united with Asia, if at least we consider the long chain of islands between them as one unbroken continuity. Then in truth there would have been but three continents of a form similar to the above-mentioned one of America; except that the two nobler continents closely entangled with one another would not on that account have so well preserved the original conformation. That it is on the whole more correct, and more consonant with nature, as well as with theory, to suppose the existence of only three original portions of the globe, might be shown by much additional evidence.

But, laying aside these geological facts and observations, ideas and conjectures, the philosophic historian can reckon over the whole surface of the globe but fifteen historical and important civilized countries of greater or less extent, which can form the subject, and furnish the geographical outline of his remarks. This historical chain of lands, or this stream of historical nations from the south-east of Asia to the Northern and Western extremities of Europe, forms a tract, through both continents, which though of considerable breadth, is not, in proportion to the extent of these continents, of very great magnitude, and which may be divided into three classes, coinciding chronologically in their several periods of historical glory and development with the great eras or sections of universal history from the primitive ages down to the present times. In the first class of these mighty and celebrated civilized countries, I would place the three great magnificent regions in Eastern and Southern Asia, China, India, between which the ancient Bactriana forms a point of transition and connecting link--and lastly Persia. In a more westerly and somewhat more northerly direction than the three countries just named, the second or middle class is composed of four or five regions remarkable for extent and beauty, and above all for their historical importance and celebrity. First of all, there is that middle country of Western Asia above-mentioned, which is situate near two great streams--the Tigris and the Euphrates, and bounded by four inland seas, the Persian and Arabian gulfs, and the Caspian and Mediterranean seas. Upon this midland country of ancient history, in every respect so worthy of notice, I have but one observation to add, that in this great series of civilized countries it occupies nearly the middle place; for the Southern extremity of India is about as far removed from it as, in the opposite direction, the North of Scotland. And the Eastern part of China is not much more distant from this region than in the opposite quarter the Western coast of the Hesperian Peninsula. Next must be included in this class the circumjacent countries, Arabia, Egypt, and Asia Minor, together with the Caucasian regions.

As in the flourishing period of her ancient history, Greece was in every way far more closely connected with Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, than with the countries of Europe, she also must be comprised in this division of Central Asia. On the other hand, there is no country in Europe which, considered in itself, bears so strongly the distinctive geographical configuration peculiar to the European continent. This peculiar configuration of Europe, so well adapted to the purposes of settlement, and to the progress of civilization, consists in this--that in no other continent does the same given space of territory present to the sea so extensive and diversified a line of coast, and furnish it with so many streams, great and small, as Europe shut in, as it is, between two inland seas, and the great ocean, and which runs out into so many great and commodiously situated Peninsulas, and possesses large, magnificent, and, in part, very anciently and highly civilized islands, like Sicily and the British Isles. What Europe is in a large way, Greece is in a small--a region of coasts, islands and peninsulas. Belonging more to one continent in its natural conformation, and to the other by its historical connexion, Greece forms the point of transition and the intermediate link between Asia and Europe.

The other six or seven principal countries in Europe, taken according to a strict geographical classification, and without paying attention to the political variations of territory, whether in antiquity, the middle ages, or modern times, form the members of the third class. These are first the two beautiful peninsulas, Italy and Spain; next France on the North and South washed by two different seas, and towards the North, jutting out into a by no means inconsiderable peninsula--further on, the British isles, the ancient Germany with its Northern coast stretching along two seas, to which must be annexed from the ancient consanguinity of their inhabitants, the Cimbric and Scandinavian islands and peninsulas; lastly, the vast Sarmatia, towards the North and East extending far into Asia, in the wide tract from the Euxine to the Frozen sea. From Sarmatia, however, must be separated, on account of their natural situation, the great Danubian countries, extending from the South of the Carpathian mountains, down to the other mountainous chain northward of Greece--such as the ancient Illyricum, Pannonia and Dacia--regions which, in a strict geographical point of view, must be regarded as forming a distinct class. In an historical point of view, the whole Northern coast of Africa, stretching along the Mediterranean, should be included in this division of European countries, not only from that early commercial and colonial connexion, established in the time of the Carthaginian republic, and in the first period of the Roman wars and conquests; but from the prevalence in that country, down to the fourth and fifth centuries, of European manners, language and refinement. Even during the existence of the Saracenic empire, a very close intercourse subsisted for many centuries between this coast and Spain.

Such, according to a general geographical survey of the globe, would be the historical land-chart of civilization, if I may so express myself, which forms the grand outline I must steadily keep in view, in the following sketch of nations, in which I will endeavour to explain with the utmost clearness and precision, and point out closely in all its particular bearings, the principle laid down in this work respecting the internal Word, as the essential characteristic of man.

END OF LECTURE II.

LECTURE III.

Of the constitution of the Chinese Empire--the moral and political
condition of China--the character of Chinese intellect and Chinese
science.

"Man and the earth,"--this has been the subject of our previous disquisitions, and might serve as the superscription to this first portion of the work. In the second part, comprised in the four or five following lectures, the subject discussed is sacred Tradition, according to the peculiar form which it assumed among each of the great and most remarkable nations in primitive antiquity, and as it is known from the visible and universally scattered traces of a divine Revelation. It will be our duty to trace, with a discriminating eye, the various course which, in the lapse of ages, this sacred tradition followed among each of those nations; and at the same time to point out, as far as the subject will admit of historical proof, the one common source whence, as from a centre, issued those different streams of tradition to diffuse throughout all the regions of the earth fertility and life, or to be lost and dried up in the sterile sands of human error. It will be also our task more accurately to define the share allotted to each of those leading nations in divine truth, or the heritage of higher knowledge which had been imparted to them. Closely connected with this subject, is the designation of the internal Word, constituting as it does the distinguishing mark and intellectual being of man and mankind; and which, as it has been variously manifested and developed in the language, writings, Sagas, history, art and science--in the faith, the life and modes of thinking of each of those nations, will be described in its most essential traits.

I shall commence with the Chinese Empire, because, among the fifteen historical countries included in the line of civilization we have drawn above, it occupies the extreme point of Eastern Asia. The names of East and West are indeed purely relative; and have not the same permanent and definite signification as the North or South pole in every portion of the globe. China lies to the west of Peru; and to North America, or Brazil, Europe forms the east or north-east point. We still however adhere to common speech, purely relative as it is, and take our point of view from this Asiatic and European hemisphere, in which we dwell. If we would extend in a westerly direction and to the great continent of America, which is more and more assuming an important place in the history of the world, that series of great and civilized states, stretching from the south-east to the north-west in our mightier, more celebrated, and earlier civilized hemisphere, we might add to the before-mentioned fifteen ancient and modern countries three young or rising states in the new world, which, springing in a three-fold division from British, Spanish, and Portuguese extraction, would constitute the most recent, or last historical links in this chain of communities.

The Chinese empire is the largest of all the Monarchies now existing on the earth, and even in this respect may well challenge the attention of the historical enquirer. This empire is not absolutely the greatest in territorial extent, though even in this respect it is scarcely inferior to the greatest; but in point of population it is in all probability the first. Spain, if we could now include in the number of her possessions her American colonies, would exceed all empires in extent. The same may be said of Russia, with her annexed colonies, and boundless provinces in the north of Asia. But, great as the population of this Empire may be, when considered in itself and relatively to the other European states, it can sustain no comparison with that of China. England with the East Indies and her colonial possessions in the three divisions of the globe, Polynesia, Africa, and America, has indeed a very wide extent, and, perhaps, when we include the hundred and ten millions that own her sway in India, comes the nearest in point of population to China. Of the amount of the Chinese population, which is not with certainty known, that of India may furnish a criterion for a conjectural and probable estimate. The British ambassador, Lord Macartney received an official document, in which the whole population of China was computed at the monstrous amount of 330 millions. Even if the Chinese possessed those exact statistical estimates we have in Europe, it would still be a matter of doubt how far in such cases we could confide in their veracity, especially in their relations with foreigners and Europeans. In another and somewhat earlier statistical work, composed towards the close of the 18th century, the population of this empire is estimated at 147 millions; and the very incredible statement is added, that a hundred and fifty years before, or about the middle of the 17th century, the Chinese population amounted only to 27 millions and a half. This rapid rise, or rather this prodigious stride in the numbers of a people, would be in utter opposition to all principles and observations on the growth and progressive increase of population, even in the most civilized countries. Thus even the statistical estimates of the Chinese furnish us with no certain information on this subject. However as this vast region is every where intersected by navigable rivers and canals, every where studded with large and highly populous cities, and enjoys a climate as genial, or even still more genial, and certainly far more salubrious than that of India; as, like the latter country, it every where presents to the eye the richest culture, and is in all appearance as much peopled, or over-peopled, we may take India, whose total population is not near included in the 110 millions under British rule, as furnishing a pretty accurate standard for the computation of the Chinese population. Now, when we reflect that even the proper China is larger than the whole western peninsula of India, and that the vast countries dependent on China, such as Thibet and southern Tartary are very populous, the conjectural calculation of the English writer, from whom I have taken these critical remarks on the early estimates of Chinese population, and who reckons it at 150 millions, may be regarded as a very moderate computation, and may with perfect safety, be considerably raised. Thus then the Chinese population is nearly as large as the whole population of Europe, and constitutes, if not a fourth, at least a fifth, of the total population of the globe.

I permit myself to indulge in cursory comparisons of this kind, and for the reason that the history of civilization, which forms the basis, and as it were the outward body, of the philosophy of history, which should be the inner and higher sense of the whole, is deeply interested in all that refers to the general condition of humanity. And such an interest, which does not of itself lie in mere statistical calculations, but in the outward condition of mankind, as the symbol of its inward state, may very well attach to comparisons of this nature.

The interest, however, which the philosophic historian should take in all that relates to humanity in general, and to the various nations of the earth, ought not to be regulated by the false standard of an indiscriminate equality, that would consider all nations of equal importance, and pay equal attention to all without distinction. This would indeed betray an indifference to, or at least ignorance of, the higher principle implanted in the human breast. But this interest should be measured not merely by the degree of population in a state, or by geographical extent of territory, or by external power, but by population, territory and power combined--by moral worth and intellectual pre-eminence, by the scale of civilization to which the nation has attained. The Tongoosses, though a very widely diffused race, the Calmucks, though, compared with the other nations of central Asia, they have much to claim our attention, cannot certainly excite equal interest, or hold as high a place in the history of human civilization, as the Greeks or the Egyptians; though the territory of Egypt itself is certainly not particularly large, nor according to our customary standard of population, were its inhabitants in all probability ever very numerous. In the same way, the Empire of the Moguls, which embraced China itself, has not the same high interest and importance in our eyes as the Roman Empire either in its rise or in its fall. Writers on universal history have not however always avoided this fault, and have been too much disposed to place all nations on the same historical footing,--on the false level of an indiscriminate equality; and to regard humanity in a mere physical point of view, and according to the natural classification of tribes and races. In these sketches of history, the high and the noble is often ranked with the low and the vulgar, and neither what is truly great, nor what is of lesser importance, (for this, too, should not be overlooked) has its due place in these portraits of mankind.

A numerous, or even excessive population is undoubtedly an essential element of political power in a state; but it is not the only, nor in any respect, the principal symptom or indication of the civilization of a country. It is only in regard to civilization that the population of China deserves our consideration. Although in these latter times, when Europe by her political ascendency over the other parts of the world has proved the high pre-eminence of her arts and civilization; England and Russia have become the immediate neighbours of China towards the north and west; still these territorial relations affect not the rest of Europe; and China, when we leave out of consideration its very important commerce, cannot certainly be accounted a political power in the general system. Even in ancient, as well as in modern times, China never figured in the history of Western Asia or Europe, and had no connection whatever with their inhabitants; but this great country has ever stood apart, like a world within itself, in the remote, unknown Eastern Asia. Hence the earlier writers on universal history have taken little or no notice of this great Empire, shut out as it was from the confined horizon of their views. And this was natural, when we consider that the conquests and expeditions of the Asiatic nations were considered by these writers as subjects of the greatest weight and importance. No conquerors have ever marched from China into Western Asia, like Xerxes, for instance, who passed from the interior of Persia to Athens; or Alexander the Great, who extended his victorious march from his small paternal province of Macedon, to beyond the Indus, and almost to the borders of the Ganges, though the latter river, he was in despite of all his efforts, unable to reach. But the great victorious expeditions have proceeded not from China, but from central Asia, and the nations of Tartary, who have invaded China itself; though in these invasions the manners, mind, and civilization of the Chinese have evinced their power, as their Tartar conquerors, in the earliest as in the latest times, have after a few generations, invariably conformed to the manners and civilization of the conquered nation, and become more or less Chinese.

Not only the great population and flourishing agriculture of this fruitful country, but the cultivation of silk, for which it has been celebrated from all antiquity; the culture of the tea-plant, which forms such an important article of European trade; as well as the knowledge of several most useful medicinal productions of nature; and unique and, in their way, excellent products of industry and manufacture; prove the very high degree of civilization which this people has attained to. And how should not that people be entitled to a high or one of the highest places among civilized nations, which had known, many centuries before Europe, the art of printing, gun-powder, and the magnet--those three so highly celebrated and valuable discoveries of European skill? Instead of the regular art of printing with transposeable letters, which would not suit the Chinese system of writing, this people make use of a species of lithography, which, to all essential purposes is the same, and attended with the same effects. Gunpowder serves in China, as it did in Europe in the infancy of the discovery, rather for amusement and for fire-works, than for the more serious purpose of warlike fortification and conquest: and though this people are acquainted with the magnetic needle, they have never made a like extended application of its powers, and never employ it either in a confined river and coasting navigation, or on the wide ocean, on which they never venture.

The Chinese are remarkable too for the utmost polish and refinement of manners, and even for a fastidious urbanity and a love of stately ceremonial. In many respects indeed their politeness and refinement almost equal those of European nations, or at least are very superior to what we usually designate by the term of oriental manners--a term which in our sense can apply only to the more contiguous Mahometan countries of the Levant. Of this assertion we may find a sufficient proof in any single tale that pourtrays the present Chinese life and manners, in the novel, for instance, translated by M. Remusat.[43] In their present manners and fashions, however, there are many things utterly at variance with European taste and feelings; I need only mention the custom of the dignitaries, functionaries, and men of letters, letting their nails grow to the length of birds' claws, and that other custom in women of rank, of compressing their feet to a most artificial diminutiveness. Both customs, according to the recent account of a very intelligent Englishman, serve to mark and distinguish the upper class; for the former renders the men totally incapable of hard or manual labour, and the latter impedes the women of rank in walking, or at least gives them a mincing gait, and a languid, delicate and interesting air. These minute traits of manners should not be overlooked in the general sketch of this nation, for they perfectly correspond to many other characteristic marks and indications of unnatural stiffness, childish vanity, and exaggerated refinement, which we meet with in the more important province of its intellectual exertions. Even in the basis of all intellectual culture, the language, or rather the writing of the Chinese, this character of refinement pushed beyond all bounds and all conception is visible, while on the other hand it is coupled with great intellectual poverty and jejuneness. In a language where there are not much more than three hundred, not near four hundred, and (according to the most recent critical investigation,) only 272 monosyllabic primitive roots without any kind of grammar; where the not merely various but utterly unconnected significations of one and the same word are marked in the first place by a varying modulation of the voice, according to a fourfold method of accentuation; in the next place, and chiefly by the written characters, which amount to the prodigious number of eighty thousand; while the Egyptian hieroglyphs do not exceed the number, of eight hundred; and this Chinese system of writing is the most artificial in the whole world. An inference which is not invalidated by the fact that, out of that great number of all actual or possible written characters, but a fourth part perhaps is really in use, and a still less portion is necessary to be learned. As the meaning, especially of more complex notions and abstract ideas can be fully fixed and accurately determined only by such artificial ciphers; the language is far more dependent on these written characters than on living sound; for one and the same sound may often be designated by 160 different characters, and have as many significations. It not rarely occurs that Chinese, when they do not very well understand each other in conversation, have recourse to writing, and by copying down these ciphers are enabled to divine each other's meaning, and become mutually intelligible. To comprehend rightly this immeasurable chaos of originally symbolic, but now merely conventional signs--in other words, to be able to read and write, though this science involves great and difficult problems even for the most practised, constitutes the real subject and purport of the scientific education of a Chinese. Indeed it furnishes labour sufficient to fill up the life of man, for even the European scholars, who have engaged in this study, find it a matter of no small difficulty to devise a system whereby a dictionary, or rather a systematic catalogue of all these written characters may be composed, to serve as a fit guide on this ocean of Chinese signs.--But we shall have again occasion to recur to this subject; and indeed it is only in connexion with the peculiar bearings of the Chinese mind this writing system can be properly explained and understood in its true meaning, or rather its meaningless construction and elaborateness.

Of the external civilization of China, we have a striking proof and a standing monument in the construction of so many canals that intersect the whole country, and in every thing connected therewith. As the extraordinary fertility of the soil is produced by the many rivers of greater or less magnitude that intersect the country, but which at the same time threaten the flat plains with inundation, it is the first object and most important care of government, to avert the danger of such inundations, to distribute the fertilizing waters in equal abundance over the whole country, and thus by means of canals, to maintain in all parts the communication by water which is at the same time of equal benefit and importance to industry and internal commerce. In no civilized state are establishments of this kind so extensively diffused and brought to so high a state of perfection as in China. The great imperial canal which extends to the length of 120 geographical leagues, has, it is said, no parallel on the earth. Although the construction of canals, and all the regulations on water-carriage could have attained by degrees only to their present state of perfection, still this alone would prove the very early attention which this people had bestowed on the arts of civilized life. Mention is often made of them in the old Chinese histories and imperial annals; and the canals of China, like the Nile in Egypt, were ever the objects of most anxious solicitude to the government. These annals, whenever they have occasion to speak of those great inundations and destructive floods, which are of such frequent occurrence in Chinese history, invariably represent the attention bestowed on water-courses and water-regulations, as the most certain mark of a wise, benevolent, and provident administration. On the other hand the neglect of this most important of administrative concerns is ever regarded as the proof of a wicked, reckless and unfortunate reign; and in these histories some great calamity, or even violent catastrophe, is sure to follow, like a stroke of divine vengeance, on this unpardonable neglect of duty. Together with the imperial canal, the great Chinese wall, which extends on the Northern frontier of China proper, to the length of 150 geographical leagues, is another no less important, and still standing monument of the comparatively high civilization which this country had very early attained. Such is the height and thickness of this wall, that it has been calculated that its cubic contents exceed all the mass of stone employed in all the buildings in England and Scotland; or again that the same materials would serve to construct a wall of ordinary height and moderate thickness round the whole earth. This great wall of China may be considered as a characteristic, and as it were a symbol of the seclusive spirit and aversion to every thing foreign in person, manners and modes of thinking which distinguish the Chinese state. This spirit, however has been as little able as the great wall itself, to defend China against foreign conquests, or even against the introduction of foreign sects. This wall, which was built about two centuries before the Christian era, is a historical monument, which furnishes far stronger proof than all the dubious accounts of the old annals that even in ancient times, and long before the conquest of the Monguls, and the establishment of the present dynasty of Mantchou Tartars, the empire had been often conquered, or at least was constantly exposed to the invasions of the Tartar tribes of the North.

The long succession of the different native dynasties of China, Tchin, Han, Tang, and Sung, down to the Monguls, which fills the diffuse annals of the empire, furnishes few important data on the intellectual progress of the Chinese; and every thing of importance to the object of our present inquiries, that can be gathered out of the mass of political history, may be reduced to a very few plain facts. The English writer, whom we have already cited, though otherwise inclined to a certain degree of scepticism in his views, fixes the commencement of the historical ages of authentic history in the ancient dynasty of Chow, eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The first fact of importance, as regards the moral and intellectual civilization of China, is that this country was originally divided into many small principalities, and, under petty sovereigns, whose power was more limited, enjoyed a greater share of liberty; and that it was formed into a great and absolute monarchy only two hundred years before Christ. The general burning of the books, of which more particular mention will be presently made, as well as the erection of the great wall, are attributed to the first general Emperor of all China, Chi-ho-angti; in whose reign, too, Japan became a Chinese colony, or received from China a political establishment. At a still later period, as in the fifth century of our era, and again at the time of the Mogul conquest under Zingis Khan, China was divided into two kingdoms, a northern and a southern. But there is another fact already mentioned that throws still stronger light on the high civilization of China--it is that at every period, when this empire has been conquered by the Moguls and Tartars, the conquerors, overcome in their turn by the ascendancy of Chinese civilization, have, within a short time, invariably adopted the manners, laws, and even language of China, and thus its institutions have remained, on the whole, unaltered. But here is a circumstance in Chinese history particularly worthy of our attention. In no state in the world do we see such an entire, absolute, and rigid monarchical unity as in that of China, especially under its ancient form; although this government is more limited by laws and manners, and is by no means of that arbitrary and despotic character which we are wont to attribute to the more modern oriental states. In China, before the introduction of the Indian religion of Buddha, there was not even a distinct sacerdotal class--there is no nobility, no hereditary class with hereditary rights--education, and employment in the service of the state, form the only marks of distinction; and the men of letters and government functionaries are blended together in the single class of Mandarins; but the state is all in all. However, this absolute monarchical system has not conduced to the peace, stability, and permanent prosperity of the state, for the whole history of China, from beginning to end, displays one continued series of seditions, usurpations, anarchy, changes of dynasty, and other violent revolutions and catastrophes. This is proved by the bare statement of facts, though the official language of the Imperial annals ever concedes the final triumph to the monarchical principle.

The same violent revolutions occurred in the department of science and of public doctrines, as in the instance already cited of the general burning of the books by order of the first general Emperor; when the men of letters, or at least a party of them, were persecuted, and four hundred and sixty followers of Confucius burnt. This act of tyranny undoubtedly supposes a very violent contest between factions--an important political struggle between hostile sects, and a mighty revolution in the intellectual world. At the same time, too, a favourite of this tyrannical prince introduced a new system of writing, which has led to the greatest confusion, even in subsequent ages. Such an intellectual revolution is doubtless evident on the introduction of the Indian religion of Buddha, or Fo (according to the Chinese appellation), which took place precisely three-and-thirty years after the foundation of Christianity. The conquest of China by the Moguls, under Zingis Khan, occurred at the same time that their expeditions towards the opposite quarter of Europe spread terror and desolation over Russia and Poland, as far as the confines of Silesia. This conquest produced a re-action, and a popular revolution, conducted by a common citizen of China, by name Chow, restored the Empire; this citizen afterwards ascended the throne, and became the founder of a new Chinese dynasty. The Emperors of the present dynasty of Mantchou Tartars, that has now governed China since the middle of the 17th century, are distinguished for their attachment to the old customs and institutions of China, and even to its language and science; and their elevation to the throne has given rise to many great scientific enterprises, and has been singularly favourable to the investigations of those European scholars whose object it is to make us better acquainted with China. But at the moment I am speaking, a great rebellion has broken out in the northern part of the kingdom, and in the opposite extremity the Christians are exposed to a more than ordinary persecution.

These few leading incidents in Chinese history may suffice to make known the principal epochs in the intellectual progress and civilization of this people. As the constitution and development of the human mind are in each of those ancient nations closely connected with the nature of their language, and even sometimes (as in the case of the Chinese) with their system of writing, the language of the latter people, being on account of its amazing copiousness less fit for conversation than for writing, I shall now make a few remarks on the very artificial mode of Chinese writing, which is perfectly unique in its kind; but I shall confine my observations to its general character, and shall forbear entering into the vast labyrinth of the 80,000 cipher-signs of speech, and all the problems and difficulties which they involve. The Chinese writing was undoubtedly in its origin symbolical; though the rude marks of those primitive symbols can now scarcely be discerned in the enigmatical abbreviations, and in the complex combinations of the characters at present in use. It is no slight problem even for the learned of China to reduce with any degree of certainty the boundless quantity of their written characters to their simple elements and primitive roots; in this, however, they have succeeded, and have shown that all these elements are to be found in the 214 symbols, or keys of writing as they call them. The Chinese characters of the primitive ages comprise only such representations indicated by a few rude strokes, of those first simple objects which surround man while living in the most simple state of society--such as the sun and moon, the most familiar animals, the common plants, the instruments of human labour, weapons, and the different parts of human dwellings. This is the same rude symbolical writing which we find among other uncivilized nations, the Americans for example, and among these, the Mexicans in particular.

The celebrated French orientalist, Abel Remusat, who in our times has infused a new life into the study of Chinese literature, and especially thrown on the whole subject a much greater degree of clearness than originally belonged to it, has, in his examination of this first very meagre outline of the infant civilization of China, wherein he discovers the then very contracted circle of Chinese ideas, passed many intellectual observations, and drawn many historical deductions. And if, as he conjectures, the discovery of Chinese writing must date its origin from four thousand years back, this would bring it within three or four generations from the Deluge, according to the vulgar era--an estimate which certainly is not exaggerated. If this European scholar, intimately conversant as he is with Chinese antiquities and science, is at a loss adequately to describe his astonishment at the extreme poverty of these first symbols of Chinese writing, so no one, doubtless, possesses in a higher degree than himself all the necessary attainments to enable him to appreciate the immeasurable distance between this first extreme jejuneness of ideas and the boundless wealth displayed in the later, artificial and complex writing of the Chinese.

But when, among other things, he calls our attention to the fact that, in this primitive writing, even the sign or symbol of a priest is wanting,--a symbol which together with the class itself must exist among the very rudest nations--I cannot concur in the truth of the remark; for he himself adduces, among other characters, one which must represent a magician. Now among the heathen nations of the primitive age, the one personage was certainly identical with the other, as even among the Cainites was very probably the case. Even the combination of several of those simple characters, which generally serves to denote the more abstract ideas, seems often, or at least originally not to have been regulated by any profound principle of symbolism, but to have arisen merely out of the vulgar perceptions or impressions of every-day life. For instance, the character denoting happiness is composed of two signs, of which one represents an open mouth, and the other a hand full of rice, or rice by itself. Here we see no allusion is made to any very lofty or chimerical idea of happiness, or to any mystic or spiritual conception of the same subject; but, as this written-character well evinces, the Chinese notion of happiness is simply represented by a mouth filled and saturated with good rice. Another example of nearly the same kind is given by Remusat with something of shyness and reserve;--the character designating woman, when doubled, signifies strife and contention, and when tripled, immoral and disorderly conduct. How widely removed are all these coarse and trivial combinations of ideas from an exquisite sense--a deep symbolism of Nature--from those spiritual emblems in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, so far as they have been deciphered; although these emblems may have been, and were in fact applied to the purpose of alphabetic usage. In the hieroglyphics there is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbolical inspiration, like a soul of life--like the breathing of a high in-dwelling spirit,--a deeply felt significancy--a lofty and beautiful design apparent through the dead character denoting any particular name or fact.[44]

But independently of this boundless chaos of written-characters, the Chinese undoubtedly possess a system of scientific symbols, and symbolical signs, which constitute the purport of the most ancient of their sacred books--the I--King--which signifies the book of unity, or, as others explain it, the book of changes; and either name will agree with the meaning of those symbols which, when rightly understood, and conceived in the spirit of early antiquity, will appear to be of a very remarkable and scientific nature. There are only two primary figures or lines, from which proceed originally the four symbols and the eight koua or combinations representing nature, which form the basis of the high Chinese philosophy. These first two primary principles are a straight, unbroken line, and a line broken or divided into two. If these first simple elements are doubled: namely--two straight lines put under each other like our arithmetical sign of equation, and two broken or divided lines also put together, the different lines are formed. According as one broken line occupies the upper or the lower place, there are two possible variations--when put together, there are four possible variations; and these constitute the four symbols. But if three lines of these two kinds, the straight and the broken, are united or placed under each other, so, according to the number or the upper, middle or lower place of either species of line, there are eight possible combinations, and these are the eight koua, which, together with the four symbols, refer to the natural elements, and to the primary principles of all things, and serve as the symbolical expression, or scientific designation, of these.

What is now the real sense and the proper signification of those scientific primary lines among the Chinese, which exert an influence over the whole of their ancient literature, and upon which they themselves have written an incredible number of learned commentaries? Leibnitz supposed them to contain a reference to the modern algebraical discoveries, and especially to the binary calculation. Other writers, especially among the English, drawing their observations more from real life, remark on the other hand, that this ancient system of mystical lines serves at present the purpose of a sort of oracular play of questions, like the turning up of cards among Europeans, and is converted to many superstitious uses, especially for making pretended discoveries in alchymy, to which the Chinese are very much addicted. But this is only an abuse of modern times, which no longer understand this primitive system of symbolical signs and lines. The high antiquity of these lines and of the eight koua can be the less a matter of doubt as even mythology has ascribed them to the primitive Patriarch of the Chinese--Fohi, who is represented as having espied these lines on the back of a tortoise, and having thence deduced the written characters; which many of the learned Chinese wish to derive from these eight koua or combinations of the first symbolical lines. But the French scholar, whom I have more than once had occasion to name, and who is well able to form a competent opinion on the subject, is most decidedly opposed to this Chinese derivation of all the written characters from the eight koua; and it would appear, indeed, that the latter differ totally from the common system of Chinese writing, and must be looked upon as of a distinct scientific nature.

Perhaps we may find a natural explanation of the true, and not very hidden sense of these signs, by comparing the fundamental doctrines in the elder Greek philosophy and science of nature. Thus, in the writings of Plato, mention is often made of the one and of the other, or of unity and duality, as the original elements of nature and first principles of all existence. By this is meant the doctrine of the first opposition and of the many oppositions derived from the first; and also of the possible, and conceivable, or required adjustment and compromise between the two, and of the restoration of the first unity and eternal equality anterior to all opposition, and which terminates and absorbs in itself all discord. Thus these eight koua, and mathematical signs or symbolical lines of ancient China, would comprise nothing more than a dry outline of all dynamical speculation and science. And it is therefore quite consistent that the old sacred book which contains these principles of Chinese science should be termed either the book of unity, or the book of changes; for doubtless this title refers to the doctrine of an absolute unity, as the fundamental principle of all things, and to the doctrine of differences, or oppositions or changes springing out of that first unity. This doctrine of an opposition in all things, in thought as in nature--will become more apparent if we reflect on the new and brilliant discoveries in natural philosophy. For as in this science, the oxygen and hydrogen parts in the chemistry of metals, or the positive and negative end of electrical phenomena, in the attracting and repelling pole of magnetism, reveal such an opposition and dynamic play of living powers in nature; so in this philosophy of China, the abstract doctrine of this opposition and dynamical change of existence seems to be laid down with a sort of mathematical generality, as the basis of all future science. In our higher natural philosophy, indeed, all this has been proved from facts and experience; and, besides, this dynamic life forms but the one element, and the one branch of the science to be acquired; and a philosophy founded entirely on this dynamical law of existence, without any regard to the other and higher principle of internal experience and moral life, intellectual intuition and divine revelation, would be at best a very partial system, and by no means of general application; or if a general application of such a system were made, it must lead to endless mistakes, errors and contradictions. That such a system of dynamical speculation and science, if extended to objects where it cannot be corroborated by facts--to all things divine and human, real, possible, or impossible, will undoubtedly lead to such a chaotic confusion of ideas; we have had a memorable experience in the German "Philosophy of Nature" of the last generation;[45] a philosophy which consisted in a fanciful play of thought with _Polarities, and oppositions, and points of indifference between them_, but which has been long appreciated in its true worth and real nature, and consigned to its proper limits.

Thus this outline of the old Chinese symbols of thought, which have a purely metaphysical import, would lay before us the most recent error clothed in the most antique form--but the Chinese system is in itself very remarkable and important. The fundamental text of the old sacred book on this doctrine of unity and oppositions, and which may now be easily comprehended, runs thus, according to Remusat's literal translation: "The great first Principle has engendered or produced two equations and differences, or primary rules of existence; but the two primary rules or two oppositions, namely Yn and Yang, or repose and motion (the affirmative and negative as we might otherwise call them) have produced four signs or symbols; and the four symbols have produced the eight koua, or further combinations." These eight koua are kien or ether, kui or pure water, li or pure fire, tchin or thunder, siun, the wind, kan, common water, ken, a mountain, and kuen, the earth.

On this ancient basis of Chinese philosophy, proceeding from indifference to differences, was afterwards founded the rationalist system of Lao-tseu, whose name occurs somewhat earlier than that of Confucius. The Taosse, or disciples of Reason, as the followers of this philosopher entitle themselves, have very much degenerated, and have become a complete atheistical sect; though the guilt of this must be attributed, not to the founder, but to his disciples only. It is however acknowledged that the atheistical principles of this dead science of reason, have been very widely diffused throughout the Chinese empire, and for a certain period were almost generally prevalent.

As it is necessary to keep in view a certain chronological order, in our investigations of the progressive development of Chinese intellect, I may here observe that, as far as European research has been able to ascertain, we may distinguish three principal and successive epochs in the history both of the religion and science of China. The first epoch is that of sacred tradition, and of the old constitution of the Chinese empire, and discloses those primitive views, and that primitive system of ethics, on which the empire was founded. The second, which we may fix about six centuries before our era, is the period of scientific philosophy, that pursued two opposite paths of enquiry. Confucius applied his attention entirely to the more practical study of ethics, with which, indeed, the old constitution, history and sacred traditions of the Chinese were very intimately connected; and the pure morality of Confucius which was the first branch of Chinese philosophy known in Europe, excited to a high degree the enthusiasm of many European scholars, who, by their too exclusive admiration, were prevented from forming a right estimate of the general character of Chinese philosophy.

Another system of philosophy, purely speculative and widely different from the practical and ethical doctrine of Confucius, was the system of Lao-tseu and his school, whence issued the above-mentioned rationalist sect of Taosse that has at last fallen into atheism. As to the question whether Lao-tseu travelled into the remote West, or in case he came only as far as Western Asia, whether he derived his system from the Persian or Egyptian doctrines or mediately from the Greek philosophy--this question I shall not here stop to discuss; for the matter is very doubtful in itself, and, were it even proved, still all the doctrines borrowed from the West were invested in a form purely Chinese, and clothed in quite a native garb. Those signs in the I--King, we have already spoken of, evidently comprise the germ of such an absolute, negative, and consequently atheistic rationalism--a mechanical play of idle abstractions. The third epoch in the progress of Chinese opinions is formed by the introduction of the Indian religion of Buddha or of Fo. The great revolution which had previously occurred in the old doctrines and manners of China; and the ruling spirit of that false and absolute rationalism, had already paved the way for the foreign religion of Buddha, which, of all the Pagan imitations of truth, occupies the lowest grade.

The old sacred traditions of the Chinese are not so overlaid, nor disfigured with fictions, as those of most other Asiatic nations; those of the Indians, for example, and of the early nations of Pagan Europe; but their traditions breathe the purer spirit of genuine history. Hence the poetry of the Chinese is not mythological, like that of other nations; but is either lyrical, (as in the Shi--King, a book of sacred songs, composed or compiled by Confucius); or is entirely confined to the representation of real life, and of the social relations (as in the modern tales and novels, several of which have been translated into the European languages).

The old traditions of the Chinese have many traits of a kindred character with, or at least of a strong resemblance to, the Mosaic revelation, and even to the sacred traditions of the nations of Western Asia, particularly the Persians; and in these traditions we find much that either corroborates the testimony of Holy Writ, or at least affords matter for further comparison. We have before mentioned the very peculiar manner in which the Chinese speak of the great Flood, and how their first progenitors struggled against the savage waters, and how this task was afterwards neglected by bad or improvident rulers, who in consequence of this neglect were brought to ruin.