China and the Chinese

CHINA AND ANCIENT GREECE

The study of Chinese presents at least one advantage over the study of the Greek and Roman classics; I might add, of Hebrew, of Syriac, and even of Sanskrit. It may be pursued for two distinct objects. The first, and most important object to many, is to acquire a practical acquaintance with a living language, spoken and written by about one-third of the existing population of the earth, with a view to the extension of commercial enterprise, and to the profits and benefits which may legitimately accrue therefrom. The second is precisely that object in pursuit of which we apply ourselves so steadily to the literatures and civilisations of Greece and Rome.

Sir Richard Jebb, in his essay on "Humanism in Education," points out that even less than a hundred years ago the classics still held a virtual monopoly, so far as literary studies were concerned, in the public schools and universities of England. "The culture which they supplied," he argues, "while limited in the sphere of its operation, had long been an efficient and vital influence, not only in forming men of letters and learning, but in training men who afterwards gained distinction in public life and in various active careers."

Long centuries had fixed so firmly in the minds of our forefathers a belief, and no doubt to some extent a justifiable belief, in the perfect character of the languages, the literatures, the arts, and some of the social and political institutions of ancient Greece and Rome, that a century or so ago there seemed to be nothing else worth the attention of an intellectual man. The comparatively recent introduction of Sanskrit was received in the classical world, not merely with coldness, but with strenuous opposition; and all the genius of its pioneer scholars was needed to secure the meed of recognition which it now enjoys as an important field of research. The Regius Professorship of Greek in the University of Cambridge, England, was founded in 1540; but it was not until 1867, more than three centuries later, that Sanskrit was admitted into the university curriculum. It is still impossible to gain a degree through the medium of Chinese, but signs are not wanting that the necessity for such a step will be more widely recognised in the near future.

All the material lies ready to hand. There is a written language, which for difficulty is unrivalled, polished and perfected by centuries of the minutest scholarship, until it is impossible to conceive anything more subtly artistic as a vehicle of human thought. Those mental gymnastics, of such importance in the training of youth, which were once claimed exclusively for the languages of Greece and Rome, may be performed equally well in the Chinese language. The educated classes in China would be recognised anywhere as men of trained minds, able to carry on sustained and complex arguments without violating any of the Aristotelian canons, although as a matter of fact they never heard of Aristotle and possess no such work in all their extensive literature as a treatise on logic. The affairs of their huge empire are carried on, and in my opinion very successfully carried on—with some reservations, of course—by men who have had to get their mental gymnastics wholly and solely out of Chinese.

I am not aware that their diplomatists suffer by comparison with ours. The Marquis Tsêng and Li Hung-chang, for instance, representing opposite schools, were admitted masters of their craft, and made not a few of our own diplomatists look rather small beside them.

Speaking further of the study of the Greek and Roman classics, Sir Richard Jebb says: "There can be no better proof that such a discipline has penetrated the mind, and has been assimilated, than if, in the crises of life, a man recurs to the great thoughts and images of the literature in which he has been trained, and finds there what braces and fortifies him, a comfort, an inspiration, an utterance for his deeper feelings."

Sir Richard Jebb then quotes a touching story of Lord Granville, who was President of the Council in 1762, and whose last hours were rapidly approaching. In reply to a suggestion that, considering his state of health, some important work should be postponed, he uttered the following impassioned words from the Iliad, spoken by Sarpedon to Glaucus: "Ah, friend, if, once escaped from this battle, we were for ever to be ageless and immortal, I would not myself fight in the foremost ranks, nor would I send thee into the war that giveth men renown; but now,—since ten thousand fates of death beset us every day, and these no mortal may escape or avoid,—now let us go forward."

Such was the discipline of the Greek and Roman classics upon the mind of Lord Granville at a great crisis in his life.

Let us now turn to the story of a Chinese statesman, nourished only upon what has been too hastily stigmatised as "the dry bones of Chinese literature."

Wên T'ien-hsiang was born in A. D. 1236. At the age of twenty-one he came out first on the list of successful candidates for the highest literary degree. Upon the draft-list submitted to the Emperor he had been placed seventh; but his Majesty, after looking over the essays, drew the grand examiner's attention to the originality and excellence of that of Wên T'ien-hsiang, and the examiner—himself a great scholar and no sycophant—saw that the Emperor was right, and altered the places accordingly.

Four or five years later Wên T'ien-hsiang attracted attention by demanding the execution of a statesman who had advised that the Court should quit the capital and flee before the advance of the victorious Mongols. Then followed many years of hard fighting, in the course of which his raw levies were several times severely defeated, and he himself was once taken prisoner by the Mongol general, Bayan, mentioned by Marco Polo. He managed to escape on that occasion; but in 1278 the plague broke out in his camp, and he was again defeated and taken prisoner. He was sent to Peking, and every effort was made to induce him to own allegiance to the Mongol conqueror, but without success. He was kept several years in prison. Here is a well-known poem which he wrote while in captivity:—

"There is in the universe an Aura, an influence which permeates all things, and makes them what they are. Below, it shapes forth land and water; above, the sun and the stars. In man it is called spirit; and there is nowhere where it is not.

"In times of national tranquillity, this spirit lies hidden in the harmony which prevails. Only at some great epoch is it manifested widely abroad."

Here Wên T'ien-hsiang recalls, and dwells lovingly upon, a number of historical examples of loyalty and devotion. He then proceeds:—

"Such is this grand and glorious spirit which endureth for all generations; and which, linked with the sun and moon, knows neither beginning nor end. The foundation of all that is great and good in heaven and earth, it is itself born from the everlasting obligations which are due by man to man.

"Alas! the fates were against me; I was without resource. Bound with fetters, hurried away toward the north, death would have been sweet indeed; but that boon was refused.

"My dungeon is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp alone: no breath of spring cheers the murky solitude in which I dwell. The ox and the barb herd together in one stall: the rooster and the phoenix feed together from one dish. Exposed to mist and dew, I had many times thought to die; and yet, through the seasons of two revolving years, disease hovered around me in vain. The dark, unhealthy soil to me became Paradise itself. For there was that within me which misfortune could not steal away. And so I remained firm, gazing at the white clouds floating over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrow boundless as the sky.

"The sun of those dead heroes has long since set, but their record is before me still. And, while the wind whistles under the eaves, I open my books and read; and lo! in their presence my heart glows with a borrowed fire."

At length, Wên T'ien-hsiang was summoned into the presence of Kublai Khan, who said to him, "What is it you want?" "By the grace of his late Majesty of the Sung dynasty," he replied, "I became his Majesty's minister. I cannot serve two masters. I only ask to die." Accordingly he was executed, meeting his death with composure, and making a final obeisance toward the south, as though his own sovereign was still reigning in his capital.

May we not then plead that this Chinese statesman, equally with Lord Granville, at a crisis of his life, recurred to the great thoughts and images of the literature in which he had been trained, and found there what braced and fortified him, a comfort, an inspiration, an utterance for his deeper feelings?

Chinese history teems with the names of men who, with no higher source of inspiration than the Confucian Canon, have yet shown that they can nobly live and bravely die.

Han Yü of the eighth and ninth centuries was one of China's most brilliant statesmen and writers, and rose rapidly to the highest offices of State. When once in power, he began to attack abuses, and was degraded and banished. Later on, when the Court, led by a weak Emperor, was going crazy over Buddhism, he presented a scathing Memorial to the Throne, from the effect of which it may well be said that Buddhism has not yet recovered. The Emperor was furious, and Han Yü narrowly escaped with his life. He was banished to the extreme wilds of Kuangtung, not far from the now flourishing Treaty Port of Swatow, where he did so much useful work in civilising the aborigines, that he was finally recalled.

Those wilds have long since disappeared as such, but the memory of Han Yü remains, a treasure for ever. In a temple which contains his portrait, and which is dedicated to him, a grateful posterity has put up a tablet bearing the following legend, "Wherever he passed, he purified."

The last Emperor of the Ming dynasty, which was overthrown by rebels and then supplanted by the Manchus in 1644, was also a man who in the Elysian fields might well hold up his head among monarchs. He seems to have inherited with the throne a legacy of national disorder similar to that which eventually brought about the ruin of Louis XVI of France. With all the best intentions possible, he was unable to stem the tide. Over-taxation brought in its train, as it always does in China, first resistance and then rebellion. The Emperor was besieged in Peking by a rebel army; the Treasury was empty; there were too few soldiers to man the walls; and the capital fell.

On the previous night, the Emperor, who had refused to flee, slew the eldest Princess, commanded the Empress to commit suicide, and sent his three sons into hiding. At dawn the bell was struck for the Court to assemble; but no one came. His Majesty then ascended the well-known hill in the Palace grounds, and wrote a last decree on the lapel of his robe:—

"Poor in virtue, and of contemptible personality, I have incurred the wrath of high Heaven. My ministers have deceived me. I am ashamed to meet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my cap of State, and with my hair covering my face, await dismemberment at the hands of you rebels."

Instead of the usual formula, "Respect this!" the Emperor added, "Spare my people!"

He then hanged himself, and the great Ming dynasty was no more.

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Chinese studies have always laboured under this disadvantage,—that the ludicrous side of China and her civilisation was the one which first attracted the attention of foreigners; and to a great extent it does so still. There was a time when China was regarded as a Land of Opposites, i.e. diametrically opposed to us in every imaginable direction. For instance, in China the left hand is the place of honour; men keep their hats on in company; use fans; mount their horses on the off side; begin dinner with fruit and end it with soup; shake their own instead of their friends' hands when meeting; begin at what we call the wrong end of a book and read from right to left down vertical columns; wear white for mourning; have huge visiting-cards instead of small ones; prevent criminals from having their hair cut; regard the south as the standard point of the compass; begin to build a house by putting on the roof first; besides many other nicer distinctions, the mere enumeration of which would occupy much of the time at my disposal.

The other side of the medal, showing the similarities, and even the identities, has been unduly neglected; and yet it is precisely from a study of these similarities and identities that the best results can be expected.

A glance at any good dictionary of classical antiquities will at once reveal the minute and painstaking care with which even the small details of life in ancient Greece have been examined into and discussed. The Chinese have done like work for themselves; and many of their beautifully illustrated dictionaries of archæology would compare not unfavourably with anything we have to show.

There are also many details of modern everyday existence in China which may fairly be quoted to show that Chinese civilisation is not, after all, that comic condition of topsy-turvey-dom which the term usually seems to connote.

The Chinese house may not be a facsimile of a Greek house,—far from it. Still, we may note its position, facing south, in order to have as much sun in winter and as little in summer as possible; its division into men's and women's apartments; the fact that the doors are in two leaves and open inward; the rings or handles on the doors; the portable braziers used in the rooms in cold weather; and the shrines of the household gods;—all of which characteristics are to be found equally in the Greek house.

There are also points of resemblance between the lives led by Chinese and Athenian ladies, beyond the fact that the former occupy a secluded portion of the house. The Chinese do not admit their women to social entertainments, and prefer, as we are told was the case with Athenian husbands, to dine by themselves rather than expose their wives to the gaze of their friends. If the Athenian dame "went out at all, it was to see some religious procession, or to a funeral; and if sufficiently advanced in years she might occasionally visit a female friend, and take breakfast with her."

And so in China, it is religion which breaks the monotony of female life, and collects within the temples, on the various festivals, an array of painted faces and embroidered skirts that present, even to the European eye, a not unpleasing spectacle.

That painting the face was universal among the women of Greece, much after the fashion which we now see in China, has been placed beyond all doubt, the pigments used in both cases being white lead and some kind of vegetable red, with lampblack for the eyebrows.

In marriage, we find the Chinese aiming, like the Greeks, at equality of rank and fortune between the contracting parties, or, as the Chinese put it, in the guise of a household word, at a due correspondence between the doorways of the betrothed couple. As in Greece, so in China, we find the marriage arranged by the parents; the veiled bride; the ceremony of fetching her from her father's house; the equality of man and wife; the toleration of subordinate wives, and many other points of contact.

The same sights and scenes which are daily enacted at any of the great Chinese centres of population seem also to have been enacted in the Athenian market-place, with its simmering kettles of boiled peas and other vegetables, and its chapmen and retailers of all kinds of miscellaneous goods. In both we have the public story-teller, surrounded by a well-packed group of fascinated and eager listeners.

The puppet-shows, ἀγάλματα νευρόσπαστα, which Herodotus tells us were introduced into Greece from Egypt, are constantly to be seen in Chinese cities, and date from the second century B. C. ,—a suggestive period, as I shall hope to show later on.

The Chinese say that these puppets originated in China as follows:—

The first Emperor of the Han dynasty was besieged, about 200 B. C. , in a northern city, by a vast army of Hsiung-nu, the ancestors of the Huns, under the command of the famous chieftain, Mao-tun. One of the Chinese generals with the besieged Emperor discovered that Mao-tun's wife, who was in command on one side of the city, was an extremely jealous woman; and he forthwith caused a number of wooden puppets, representing beautiful girls and worked by strings, to be exhibited on the wall overlooking the chieftain's camp. At this, we are told, the lady's fears for her husband's fidelity were aroused, and she drew off her forces.

The above account may be dismissed as a tale, in which case we are left with Punch and Judy on our hands.

To return to city sights. The tricks of street-jugglers as witnessed in China seem to be very much those of ancient Greece. In both countries we have such feats as jumping about amongst naked swords, spitting fire from the mouth, and passing a sword down the throat.

Then there are the advertisements on the walls; the mule-carts and mule-litters; the sunshades, or umbrellas, carried by women in Greece, by both sexes in China.

The Japanese language is said to contain no terms of abuse, so refined are the inhabitants of that earthly paradise. The Chinese language more than makes up for this deficiency; and it is certainly curious that, as in ancient Greece, the names of animals are not frequently used in this connection, with the sole exception of the dog. No Chinaman will stand being called a dog, although he really has a great regard for the animal, as a friend whose fidelity is proof even against poverty.

In the ivory shops in China will be found many specimens of the carver's craft which will bear comparison, for the patience and skill required, with the greatest triumphs of Greek workmen. Both nations have reproduced the human hand in ivory; the Greeks used it as an ornament for a hairpin; the Chinese attach it to a slender rod about a foot and a half in length, and use it as a back-scratcher.

The Chinese drama, which we can only trace vaguely to Central Asian sources, and no farther back than the twelfth century of our era, has some points of contact with the Greek drama. In Greece the plays began at sunrise and continued all day, as they do still on the open-air stages of rural districts in China, in both cases performed entirely by men, without interval between the pieces, without curtain, without prompter, and without any attempt at realism.

As formerly in Greece, so now in China, the words of the play are partly spoken and partly sung, the voice of the actor being, in both countries, of the highest importance. Like the Greek actor before masks were invented, the Chinese actor paints his face, and the thick-soled boot which raises the Chinese tragedian from the ground is very much the counterpart of the cothurnus.

The arrangement by which the Greek gods appeared in a kind of balcony, looking out as it were from the heights of Olympus, is well known to the Chinese stage; while the methodical character of Greek tragic dancing, with the chorus moving right and left, is strangely paralleled in the dances performed at the worship of Confucius in the Confucian temples, details of which may be seen in any illustrated Chinese encyclopædia.

Games with dice are of a high antiquity in Greece; they date in China only from the second century A. D. , having been introduced from the West under the name of shu p'u, a term which has so far defied identification.

The custom of fighting quails was once a political institution in Athens, and under early dynasties it was a favourite amusement at the Imperial Court of China.

The game of "guess-fingers" is another form of amusement common to both countries. So also is the custom of drinking by rule, under the guidance of a toast-master, with fines of deep draughts of wine to be swallowed by those who fail in capping verses, answering conundrums, recognising quotations; to which may be added the custom of introducing singing-girls toward the close of the entertainment.

At Athens, too, it was customary to begin a drinking-bout with small cups, and resort to larger ones later on, a process which must be familiar to all readers of Chinese novels, wherein, toward the close of the revel, the half-drunken hero invariably calls for more capacious goblets. Neither does the ordinary Chinaman approve of a short allowance of wine at his banquets, as witness the following story, translated from a Chinese book of anecdotes.

A stingy man, who had invited some guests to dinner, told his servant not to fill up their wine-cups to the brim, as is usual. During the meal, one of the guests said to his host, "These cups of yours are too deep; you should have them cut down." "Why so?" inquired the host. "Well," replied the guest, "you don't seem to use the top part for anything."

There is another story of a man who went to dine at a house where the wine-cups were very small, and who, on taking his seat at table, suddenly burst out into groans and lamentations. "What is the matter with you?" cried the host, in alarm. "Ah," replied his guest, "my feelings overcame me. My poor father, when dining with a friend who had cups like yours, lost his life, by accidentally swallowing one."

The water-clock, or clepsydra, has been known to the Chinese for centuries. Where did it come from? Is it a mere coincidence that the ancient Greeks used water-clocks?

Is it a coincidence that the Greeks used an abacus, or counting-board, on which the beads slid up and down in vertical grooves, while on the Chinese counting-board the only difference is that the beads slide up and down on vertical rods?

Is it a mere coincidence that the olive should be associated in China, as in Greece, with propitiation? To this day, a Chinaman who wishes to make up a quarrel will send a piece of red paper containing an olive, in token of friendly feeling; and the acceptance of this means that the quarrel is at an end.

The olive was supposed by the Greeks to have been brought by Hercules from the land of the Hyperboreans; the Chinese say it was introduced into China in the second century B. C.

The extraordinary similarities between the Chinese and Pythagorean systems of music place it beyond a doubt that one must have been derived from the other. The early Jesuit fathers declared that the ancient Greeks borrowed their music from the Chinese; but we know now that the music in question did not exist in China until two centuries after its appearance in Greece.

The music of the Confucian age perished, books and instruments together, at the Burning of the Books, in B. C. 212; and we read that in the first part of the second century B. C. the hereditary music-master was altogether ignorant of his art. Where did the new art come from? And how are its Greek characteristics to be accounted for?

There are also equally extraordinary similarities between the Chinese and Greek calendars.

For instance, in B. C. 104 the Chinese adopted a cycle of nineteen years, a period which was found to bring together the solar and the lunar years.

But this is precisely the cycle, ἐννεακαιδεκαετηρίς, said to have been introduced by Meton in the fifth century B. C. , and adopted at Athens about B. C. 330.

Have we here another coincidence of no particular importance?

The above list might be very much extended. Meanwhile, the question arises: Are there any records of any kind in China which might lead us to suppose that the Chinese ever came into contact in any way with the civilisation of ancient Greece?

We know from Chinese history that, so far back as the second century B. C. , victorious Chinese generals carried their arms far into Central Asia, and succeeded in annexing such distant regions as Khoten, Kokand, and the Pamirs. About B. C. 138 a statesman named Chang Ch'ien was sent on a mission to Bactria, but was taken prisoner by the Hsiung-nu, the forebears of the Huns, and detained in captivity for over ten years. He finally managed to escape, and proceeded to Fergana, and thence on to Bactria, returning home in B. C. 126, after having been once more captured by the Hsiung-nu and again detained for about a year.

Now Bactria was then a Greek kingdom, which had been founded by Diodotus in B. C. 256; and it would appear to have had, already for some time, commercial relations with China, for Chang Ch'ien reported that he had seen Chinese merchandise exposed there in the markets for sale. We farther learn that Chang Ch'ien brought back with him the walnut and the grape, previously unknown in China, and taught his countrymen the art of making wine.

The wine of the Confucian period was like the wine of to-day in China, an ardent spirit distilled from rice. There is no grape-wine in China now, although grapes are plentiful and good. But we know from the poetry which has been preserved to us, as well as from the researches of Chinese archæologists, that grape-wine was largely used in China for many centuries subsequent to the date of Chang Ch'ien; in fact, down to the beginning of the fifteenth century, if not later.

One writer says it was brought, together with the "heavenly horse," from Persia, when the extreme West was opened up, a century or so before the Christian era, as already mentioned.

I must now make what may well appear to be an uncalled-for digression; but it will only be a temporary digression, and will bring us back in a few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse, and to Persia.

Mirrors seem to have been known to the Chinese from the earliest ages. One authority places them so far back as 2500 B. C. They are at any rate mentioned in the Odes, say 800 B. C. , and were made of polished copper, being in shape, according to the earliest dictionary, like a large basin.

About one hundred years B. C. , a new kind of mirror comes into vogue, called by an entirely new name, not before used. In common with the word previously employed, its indicator is "metal," showing under which kingdom it falls,—i.e. a mirror of metal. These new mirrors were small disks of melted metal, highly polished on one side and profusely decorated with carvings on the other,—a description which exactly tallies with that of the ancient Greek mirror. Specimens survived to comparatively recent times, and it is even alleged that many of these old mirrors are in existence still. A large number of illustrations of them are given in the great encyclopædia of the eighteenth century, and the fifth of these, in chronological order, second century B. C. , is remarkable as being ornamented with the well-known "key," or Greek pattern, so common in Chinese decoration.

Another is covered with birds flying about among branches of pomegranate laden with fruit cut in halves to show the seeds.

Shortly afterward we come to a mirror so lavishly decorated with bunches of grapes and vine-leaves that the eye is arrested at once. Interspersed with these are several animals, among others the lion, which is unknown in China. The Chinese word for "lion," as I stated in my first lecture, is shih, an imitation of the Persian shír. There is also a lion's head with a bar in its mouth, recalling the door-handles to temples in ancient Greece. Besides the snake, the tortoise, and the sea-otter, there is what is far more remarkable than any of these, namely, a horse with wings.

On comparing the latter with Pegasus as he appears in sculpture, it is quite impossible to doubt that the Chinese is a copy of the Greek animal. The former is said to have come down from heaven, and was caught, according to tradition, on the banks of a river in B. C. 120.

The name for pomegranate in China is "the Parthian fruit," showing that it was introduced from Parthia, the Chinese equivalent for Parthia being 安息 Ansik, which is an easy corruption of the Greek Ἀρσάκης, the first king of Parthia.

The term for grape is admittedly of foreign origin, like the fruit itself. It is 葡萄 pu t'ou. Here it is easy to recognise the Greek word Βότρυς, a cluster, or bunch, of grapes.

Similarly, the Chinese word for "radish," 蘿蔔 lo po, also of foreign origin, is no doubt a corruption of ῥάφη, it being of course well known that the Chinese cannot pronounce an initial r.

There is one term, especially, in Chinese which at once carries conviction as to its Greek origin. This is the term for watermelon. The two Chinese characters chosen to represent the sound mean "Western gourd," i.e. the gourd which came from the West. Some Chinese say, on no authority in particular, that it was introduced by the Kitan Tartars; others say that it was introduced by the first Emperor of the so-called Golden Tartars. But the Chinese term is still pronounced si kua, which is absolutely identical with the Greek word σικύα, of which Liddell and Scott say, "perhaps the melon." For these three words it would now scarcely be rash to substitute "the watermelon."

We are not on quite such firm ground when we compare the Chinese kalends and ides with similar divisions of the Roman month.

Still it is interesting to note that in ancient China, the first day of every month was publicly proclaimed, a sheep being sacrificed on each occasion; also, that the Latin word kalendae meant the day when the order of days was proclaimed.

Further, that the term in Chinese for ides means to look at, to see, because on that day we can see the moon; and also that the Latin word idus, the etymology of which has not been absolutely established, may possibly come from the Greek ἰδεῖν "to see," just as kalendae comes from καλεῖν "to proclaim."

As to many of the analogies, more or less interesting, to be found in the literatures of China and of Western nations, it is not difficult to say how they got into their Chinese setting.

For instance, we read in the History of the Ming Dynasty, A. D. 1368-1644, a full account of the method by which the Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, managed to obtain first a footing in, and then the sovereignty over, some islands which have now passed under the American flag. The following words, not quite without interest at the present day, are translated from the above-mentioned account of the Philippines:—

"The Fulanghis (i.e. the Franks), who at that time had succeeded by violence in establishing trade relations with Luzon (the old name of the Philippines), saw that the nation was weak, and might easily be conquered. Accordingly, they sent rich presents to the king of the country, begging him to grant them a piece of land as big as a bull's hide, for building houses to live in. The king, not suspecting guile, conceded their request, whereupon the Fulanghis cut the hide into strips and joined them together, making many hundreds of ten-foot measures in length; and then, having surrounded with these a piece of ground, called upon the king to stand by his promise. The king was much alarmed; but his word had been pledged, and there was no alternative but to submit. So he allowed them to have the ground, charging a small ground-rent as was the custom. But no sooner had the Fulanghis got the ground than they put up houses and ramparts and arranged their fire-weapons (cannon) and engines of attack. Then, seizing their opportunity, they killed the king, drove out the people, and took possession of the country."

It is scarcely credible that Chinese historians would have recorded such an incident unless some trick of the kind had actually been carried out by the Spaniards, in imitation of the famous classical story of the foundation of Carthage.

A professional writer of marvellous tales who flourished in the seventeenth century tells a similar story of the early Dutch settlers:—

"Formerly, when the Dutch were permitted to trade with China, the officer in command of the coast defences would not allow them, on account of their great numbers, to come ashore. The Dutch begged very hard for the grant of a piece of land such as a carpet would cover; and the officer above mentioned, thinking that this could not be very large, acceded to their request. A carpet was accordingly laid down, big enough for about two people to stand on; but by dint of stretching, it was soon able to accommodate four or five; and so the foreigners went on, stretching and stretching, until at last it covered about an acre, and by and by, with the help of their knives, they had filched a piece of ground several miles in extent."

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These two stories must have sprung from one and the same source. It is not, however, always so simple a matter to see how other Western incidents found their way into Chinese literature. For instance, there is a popular anecdote to be found in a Chinese jest-book, which is almost word for word with another anecdote in Greek literature:—

A soldier, who was escorting a Buddhist priest, charged with some crime, to a prison at a distance, being very anxious not to forget anything, kept saying over and over the four things he had to think about, viz. : himself, his bundle, his umbrella, and the priest. At night he got drunk, and the Buddhist priest, after first shaving the soldier's head, ran away. When the soldier awaked, he began his formula, "Myself, bundle, umbrella—O dear!" cried he, putting his hands to his head, "the priest has gone. Stop a moment," he added, finding his hands in contact with a bald head, "here's the priest; it is I who have run away."

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As found in Greek literature, the story, attributed to Hierocles, but probably much later, says that the prisoner was a bald-headed man, a condition which is suggested to the Chinese reader by the introduction of a Buddhist priest.

Whether the Chinese got this story from the Greeks, or the Greeks got it from the Chinese, I do not pretend to know. The fact is that we students of Chinese at the present day know very little beyond the vague outlines of what there is to be known. Students of Greek have long since divided up their subject under such heads as pure scholarship, history, philosophy, archæology, and then again have made subdivisions of these. In the Chinese field nothing of the kind has yet been done. The consequence is that the labourers in that field, compelled to work over a large superficies, are only able to turn out more or less superficial work. The cry is for more students, practical students of the written and colloquial languages, for the purposes of diplomatic intercourse and the development of commerce; and also students of the history, philosophy, archæology, and religions of China, men whose contributions to our present stock of knowledge may throw light upon many important points, which, for lack of workmen, have hitherto remained neglected and unexplored.

LECTURE V

TAOISM

 

TAOISM

China is popularly supposed to have three religions,—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

The first is not, and never has been, a religion, being nothing more than a system of social and political morality; the second is indeed a religion, but an alien religion; only the last, and the least known, is of native growth.

The Chinese themselves get over the verbal difficulty by calling these the Three Doctrines.

There have been, at various epochs, other religions in China, and some still remain; the above, however, is the classification commonly in use, all other religions having been regarded up to recent times as devoid of spiritual importance.

Mahommedanism appeared in China in 628 A. D. , and is there to this day, having more than once threatened the stability of the Empire.

In 631 the Nestorian Christians arrived, to become later on a flourishing sect, though all trace of them, beyond their famous Tablet, has long since vanished.

It has also been established in recent years that the Zoroastrians, and subsequently the Manichæans, were in China in these early centuries, but nothing now remains of them except the name, a specially invented character, which was equally applied to both.

In the twelfth century the Jews had a synagogue at K'ai-fêng Fu, in Central China, but it is not absolutely certain when they first reached the country. Some say, immediately after the Captivity; others put it much later. In 1850 several Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch, in the square character, with vowel-points, were obtained from the above city. There were then no professing Jews to be found, but in recent years a movement has been set on foot to revive the old faith.

Roman Catholicism may be said to have existed in China since the close of the sixteenth century, though there was actually an Archbishop of Peking, Jean de Montecorvino, who died there in 1330.

In the last year of the eighteenth century the first Protestant missionary arrived. The first American missionaries followed in 1830. They found China, as it is now, nominally under the sway of the Three Doctrines.

So much has been written on Confucianism, and so much more on Buddhism, that I propose to confine myself entirely to Taoism, which seems to have attracted too little the attention of the general public. In fact, a quite recent work, which professes to deal among other things with the history of China, omits all discussion of this particular religion.

Taoism is the religion of Tao; as to what Tao is, or what it means, we are told upon the highest authority that it is quite impossible to say. This does not seem a very hopeful beginning; but

and I shall therefore make an effort to set before you a clue, which, I trust, will lead toward at any rate a partial elucidation of the mystery.

At some unknown period in remote antiquity, there appears to have lived a philosopher, known to posterity as Lao Tzŭ, who taught men, among other things, to return good for evil. His parentage, birth, and life have been overloaded in the course of centuries with legend. Finally, he is said to have foreseen a national cataclysm, and to have disappeared into the West, leaving behind him a book, now called the Tao-Tê-Ching, which, for many reasons, he could not possibly have written.

The little we really know of Lao Tzŭ is gathered from traditional utterances of his, scattered here and there in the works of later disciples of his school. Many of these sayings, though by no means all of them, with much other matter of a totally different character, have been brought together in the form of a treatise, and the heterogeneous whole has been ascribed to Lao Tzŭ himself.

Before proceeding with our examination of Tao, it is desirable to show why this work may safely be regarded as a forgery of a later age.

Attempts have been made, by the simple process of interpolation in classical texts, to prove that Lao Tzŭ lived in the same century as that in which Confucius was born; and also that, when the former was a very old man, the two sages met; and further that the interviews ended very much to the astonishment of Confucius. All this, however, has been set aside by the best native scholarship ever produced in China, as the work of later hands.

Further, there was another philosopher of the same name, who really was contemporary with Confucius, and it is held by many Chinese critics that the two have been confused, perhaps with malice aforethought.

We can only say for certain that after Lao Tzŭ came Confucius—at what interval we do not know. Now, in all the works of Confucius, whether as writer or as editor, and throughout all his posthumously published Discourses, there is not a single word of allusion either to Lao Tzŭ or to this treatise. The alleged interviews have been left altogether unnoticed.

One hundred years after Confucius came Mencius, China's second sage. In all his pages of political advice to feudal nobles, and all his conversations with his disciples, much more voluminous than the Discourses of Confucius, there is equally no allusion to Lao Tzŭ, nor to the treatise.

It has been pointed out by an eminent Chinese critic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that Mencius spent his life chiefly in attacking the various heterodox systems which then prevailed, such as the extreme altruistic system of Mo Ti and the extreme egoistic system of Yang Chu; and it is urged—in my opinion with overwhelming force—that if the Tao-Tê-Ching had existed in the days of Mencius, it must necessarily have been recognised and treated as a mischievous work, likely to alienate men's minds from the one perfect and orthodox teaching—Confucianism.

Chuang Tzŭ, a philosopher of the fourth century B. C. , devoted himself to elucidating and illuminating the teaching of Lao Tzŭ. His work, which has survived to the present day, will shortly occupy our attention. For the moment it is only necessary to say that it contains many of the Master's traditional sayings, but never once mentions a treatise.

In the third century B. C. there lived another famous Taoist writer, Han Fei Tzŭ, who devotes the best part of two whole sections of his work to explaining and illustrating the sayings of Lao Tzŭ. Yet he never mentions the treatise. He deals with many sayings of Lao Tzŭ now to be found in the treatise, but he does not take them in the order in which they now stand, and he introduces several others which do not occur at all in the treatise, having apparently been overlooked by the compiler.

In the second century B. C. there lived another famous Taoist writer, Huai-nan Tzŭ, who devotes a long chapter to illustrating the doctrines of Lao Tzŭ. He never mentions a book.

One hundred years B. C. comes the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien, whose brilliant work, the first of the Dynastic Histories, I have already had occasion to bring to your notice. In his brief memoir of Lao Tzŭ, he does mention a book in five thousand and more characters; but he mentions it in such a way as to make it clear beyond all doubt that he himself could never have seen it; and moreover, in addition to the fact that no date is given, either of the birth or death of Lao Tzŭ, the account is so tinged with the supernatural as to raise a strong suspicion that some part of it did not really come from the pen of the great historian.

About two hundred years later appeared the first Chinese dictionary, already alluded to in a previous lecture. This work was intended as a collection of all the written characters known at date of publication; and we can well imagine that, with Lao Tzŭ's short treatise before him, there would be no difficulty in including all the words found therein. Such, however, is not the case. There are many characters in the treatise which are not to be found in the dictionary, and in one particular instance the omission is very remarkable.

Much other internal evidence against the genuineness of this work might here be adduced. I will content myself with a single, and a ludicrous, item, which shows how carelessly it was pieced together.

Sentences occur in the Tao-Tê-Ching which positively contain, in addition to some actual words by Lao Tzŭ, words from a commentator's explanation, which have been mistaken by the forger for a part of Lao Tzŭ's own utterance.

Add to this the striking fact that the great mass of Chinese critical scholarship is entirely adverse to the claims put forward on behalf of the treatise,—a man who believes in it as the genuine work of Lao Tzŭ being generally regarded among educated Chinese as an amiable crank, much as many people now regard any one who credits the plays of Shakespeare to Lord Bacon,—and I think we may safely dismiss the question without further ado.

It will be more interesting to turn to any sayings of Lao Tzŭ which we can confidently regard as genuine; and those are such as occur in the writings of some of the philosophers above-mentioned, from which they were evidently collected by a pious impostor, and, with the aid of unmistakable padding, were woven into the treatise, of which we may now take a long leave.

Lao Tzŭ imagined the universe to be informed by an omnipresent, omnipotent Principle, which he called Tao. Now this word Tao means primarily "a road," "a way"; and Lao Tzŭ's Principle may therefore be conveniently translated by "the Way."

Fearing, however, some confusion from the use of this term, the philosopher was careful to explain that "the way which can be walked upon is not the eternal Way." But he never tells us definitely what the Way is. In one place he says it cannot find expression in words; in another he says, "Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know."

The latter saying was used by a famous poet as a weapon of ridicule against the treatise. "If those who know," he argued, "do not tell, how comes it that Lao Tzŭ put his own knowledge into a book of five thousand and more words?"

We are assured, however, by Lao Tzŭ that "just as without going out of doors we can know the whole world, so without looking out of window we can know the Way."

Again we have, "Without moving, you shall know; without looking, you shall see; without doing, you shall achieve."

Meanwhile, we are left to gather from isolated maxims some shadowy idea of what Lao Tzŭ meant by the Way.

It seems to have been a perpetual accommodation of self to one's surroundings, with the minimum of effort, all progress being spontaneous and in the line of least resistance.

From this it is a mere step to doing nothing at all, the famous doctrine of Inaction, with all its paradoxes, which is really the criterion of Lao Tzŭ's philosophy and will be always associated with Lao Tzŭ's name.

Thus he says, "Perfect virtue does nothing, and consequently there is nothing which it does not do."

Again, "The softest things in the world overcome the hardest; that which has no substance enters where there is no crevice."

"Leave all things to take their natural courses, and do not interfere."

"Only he who does nothing for his life's sake can be truly said to value his life."

"Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish,"—do not overdo it. Do not try to force results. The well-known Greek injunction, "not to go beyond one's destiny," οὐκ ὑπὲρ μόρον, might well have fallen from Lao Tzŭ's lips.

All this is the Way, which Lao Tzŭ tells us is "like the drawing of a bow,—it brings down the high and exalts the low," reducing all things to a uniform plane.

He also says that if the Way prevails on earth, horses will be used for agricultural purposes; if the Way does not prevail, they will be used for war.

Many of Lao Tzŭ's sayings are mere moral maxims for use in everyday life.

"Put yourself behind, and the world will put you in front; put yourself in front, and the world will put you behind."

"To the good I would be good; to the not-good I would also be good, in order to make them good."

All together, with the comparatively few scraps of Lao Tzŭ's wisdom to be found in the treatise, we should be hard put to understand the value of Tao, and still more to find sufficient basis for a philosophical system, were it not for his disciple, Chuang Tzŭ, of the fourth century B. C. , who produced a work expanding and illustrating the Way of his great Master, so rich in thought and so brilliant from a literary point of view that, although branded since the triumph of Confucianism with the brand of heterodoxy, it still remains a storehouse of current quotation and a model of composition for all time.

Let us go back to Tao, in which, Chuang Tzŭ tells us, man is born, as fishes are born in water; for, as he says in another place, there is nowhere where Tao is not. But Tao cannot be heard; heard, it is not Tao. It cannot be seen; seen, it is not Tao. It cannot be spoken; spoken, it is not Tao. Although it imparts form, it is itself formless, and cannot therefore have a name, since form precedes name.

The unsubstantiality of Tao is further dwelt upon as follows:—

"Were Tao something which could be presented, there is no man but would present it to his sovereign or to his parents. Could it be imparted or given, there is no man but would impart it to his brother or give it to his child. But this is impossible. For unless there is a suitable endowment within, Tao will not abide; and unless there is outward correctness, Tao will not operate."

It would seem therefore that Tao is something which altogether transcends the physical senses of man and is correspondingly difficult of attainment. Chuang Tzŭ comes thus to the rescue:—

"By absence of thought, by absence of cogitation, Tao may be known. By resting in nothing, by according in nothing, Tao may be approached. By following nothing, by pursuing nothing, Tao may be attained."

What there was before the universe, was Tao. Tao makes things what they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce Tao; yet everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.

"Rest in Inaction," says Chuang Tzŭ, "and the world will be good of itself. Cast your slough. Spit forth intelligence. Ignore all differences. Become one with the Infinite. Release your mind. Free your soul. Be vacuous. Be nothing!"

Chuang Tzŭ lays especial emphasis on the cultivation of the natural as opposed to the artificial.

"Horses and oxen have four feet; that is the natural. Put a halter on a horse's head, a string through a bullock's nose; that is the artificial."

"A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to be got from Tao?"

The doctrine of Relativity in space and time, which Chuang Tzŭ deduces from Lao Tzŭ's teachings, is largely introduced by the disciple.

"There is nothing under the canopy of Heaven greater than an autumn spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. The universe and I came into being together; and all things therein are One.

"In the light of Tao, affirmative is reconciled with negative; objective is identified with subjective. And when subjective and objective are both without their correlates, that is the very axis of Tao. And when that axis passes through the centre at which all infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite One."

Thus, morally speaking, we can escape from the world and self, and can reverse and look down upon the world's judgments; while in the speculative region we get behind and beyond the contradictions of ordinary thought and speech. A perfect man is the result. He becomes, as it were, a spiritual being. As Chuang Tzŭ puts it:—

"Were the ocean itself scorched up, he would not feel hot. Were the Milky Way frozen hard, he would not feel cold. Were the mountains to be riven with thunder, and the great deep to be thrown up by storm, he would not tremble. In such case, he would mount upon the clouds of Heaven, and driving the sun and moon before him, would pass beyond the limits of this external world, where death and life have no more victory over man."

We have now an all-embracing One, beyond the limits of this world, and we have man perfected and refined until he is no longer a prey to objective existences. Lao Tzŭ has already hinted at "the Whence, and oh, Heavens, the Whither." He said that to emerge was life, and to return was death. Chuang Tzŭ makes it clear that what man emerges from is some transcendental state in the Infinite; and that to the Infinite he may ultimately return.

"How," he asks, "do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is not like a child who has lost the way, and cannot find his home?

"Those who dream of the banquet wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both mere dreams; and I, who say you are dreams,—I am but a dream myself.

"Take no heed," he adds, "of time, nor of right and wrong; but passing into the realm of the Infinite, find your final rest therein."

An abstract Infinite, however, soon ceased to satisfy the natural cravings of the great body of Taoist followers. Chuang Tzŭ had already placed the source of human life beyond the limits of our visible universe; and in order to secure a return thither, it was only necessary to refine away the grossness of our material selves according to the doctrine of the Way. It thus came about that the One, in whose obliterating unity all seemingly opposed conditions were to be indistinguishably blended, began to be regarded as a fixed point of dazzling intellectual luminosity, in remote ether, around which circled for ever and ever, in the supremest glory of motion, the souls of those who had successfully passed through the ordeal of life, and who had left the slough of humanity behind them.

Let me quote some lines from a great Taoist poet, Ssŭ-k'ung T'u, written to support this view. His poem consists of twenty-four stanzas, each twelve lines in length, and each dealing with some well-known phase of Taoist doctrine.

In this, the first, stanza we are warned against taxing, or even using, our physical powers, instead of aiming, as we should, at a purely spiritual existence, by virtue of which we shall ultimately be wafted away to the distant Centre in the Infinite.

These four lines from stanza v give us a glimpse of the liberated mortal on his upward journey. The lotus-flower, which the poet has placed in his hand, is one of those loans from Buddhism to which I shall recur by and by.

These eight lines from stanza vii, which might be entitled "Smelting," show us the refining process by which spirituality is to be attained.

Seclusion and abandonment of the artificial are also extolled in stanza xv:—

Utterances of this kind are responsible for the lives of many Taoist hermits who from time to time have withdrawn from the world, devoting themselves to the pursuit of true happiness, on the mountains.

This stanza means that man should become like the contour of waves, like the glory of spring,—something which to a beholder is a mental image, without constant physical form or substance. Then motion supervenes; not motion as we know it, but a transcendental state of revolution in the Infinite. This is the subject of stanza xxiv:—

All that might be dignified by the name of pure Taoism ends here. From this point the descent to lower regions is both easy and rapid.

I am not speaking now in a chronological sense, but of the highest intellectual point reached by the doctrines of Taoism, which began to decline long before the writer of this poem, himself a pure Taoist of the tenth century, was born.

The idea mentioned above, that the grosser elements of man's nature might be refined away and immortality attained, seems to have suggested an immortality, not merely in an unseen world, but even in this one, to be secured by an imaginary elixir of life. Certain at any rate it is, that so far back as a century or so before the Christian era, the desire to discover this elixir had become a national craze.

The following story is historical, and dates from about 200 B. C. :—

"A certain person having forwarded some elixir of immortality to the Prince of Ching, it was received as usual by the doorkeeper. 'Is this to be swallowed?' enquired the Chief Warden of the palace. 'It is,' replied the doorkeeper. Thereupon, the Chief Warden purloined and swallowed it. At this, the Prince was exceedingly angry and ordered his immediate execution; but the Chief Warden sent a friend to plead for him, saying, 'Your Highness's servant asked the doorkeeper if the drug was to be swallowed, and as he replied in the affirmative, your servant accordingly swallowed it. The blame rests entirely with the doorkeeper. Besides, if the elixir of life is presented to your Highness, and because your servant swallows it, your Highness slays him, that elixir is clearly the elixir of death; and for your Highness thus to put to death an innocent official is simply for your Highness to be made the sport of men.' The Prince spared his life."

The later Taoist was not content with attempts to compound an elixir. He invented a whole series of physical exercises, consisting mostly of positions, or postures, in which it was necessary to sit or stand, sometimes for an hour or so at a time, in the hope of prolonging life. Such absurdities as swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours were also held to be conducive to long life.

There is perhaps more to be said for a system of deep breathing, especially of morning air, which was added on the strength of the following passage in Chuang Tzŭ:—

"The pure men of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety. They ate without discrimination, breathing deep breaths. For pure men draw breath from their uttermost depths; the vulgar only from their throats."

A Chinese official with whom I became acquainted in the island of Formosa was outwardly a Confucianist, but inwardly a Taoist of the deepest dye. He used to practise the above exercises and deep breathing in his spare moments, and strongly urged me to try them. Apparently they were no safeguard against malarial fever, of which he died about a year or so afterward.

Associated closely with the elixir of immortality is the practice of alchemy, which beyond all doubt was an importation from Greece by way of Bactria.

We read in the Historical Record, under date 133 B. C. , of a man who appeared at court and persuaded the Emperor that gold could be made out of cinnabar or red sulphide of mercury; and that if dishes made of the gold thus produced were used for food, the result would be prolongation of life, even to immortality. He pretended to be immortal himself; and when he died, as he did within the year, the infatuated Emperor believed, in the words of the historian, "that he was only transfigured and not really dead," and accordingly gave orders to continue the experiments.

For many centuries the attempt to turn base metal into gold occupied a leading place in the researches of Chinese philosophers. Volumes have been written on the subject, and are still studied by a few.

The best-known of these has been attributed to a Taoist hermit who flourished in the second century A. D. , and was summoned to court, but refused the invitation, being, as he described himself, a lowly man, living simply, and with no love for power and glory. The work in question was actually mistaken for a commentary on the Book of Changes, mentioned in a former lecture, though it is in reality a treatise upon alchemy, and also upon the concoction of pills of immortality. It was forwarded to me some years ago by a gentleman in America, with a request that I would translate it as a labour of love; but I was obliged to decline what seemed to me a useless task, especially as the book was really written by another man, of the same name as the hermit, who lived more than twelve hundred years later.

The author is said to have ultimately succeeded in compounding these pills of immortality, and to have administered one by way of experiment to a dog, which at once fell down dead. He then swallowed one himself, with the same result; whereupon his elder brother, with firm faith, and undismayed by what he saw before him, swallowed a third pill. The same fate overtook him, and this shook the confidence of a remaining younger brother, who went off to make arrangements for burying the bodies. But by the time he had returned the trio had recovered, and were straightway enrolled among the ranks of the immortals.

As another instance of the rubbish in which the modern Taoist delights to believe, I may quote the story of the Prince of Huai-nan, second century B. C. , who is said, after years of patient experiment, to have finally discovered the elixir of life. Immediately on tasting the drug, his body became imponderable, and he began to rise heavenward. Startled probably by this new sensation, he dropped the cup out of which he had been drinking, into the courtyard; whereupon his dogs and poultry finished up the dregs, and were soon sailing up to heaven after him.

It was an easy transition from alchemy and the elixir of life to magic and the black art in general. Those Taoists who, by their manner of life, or their reputed successes in the above two fields of research, attracted public attention, came to be regarded as magicians or wizards, in communication with, and in control of, the unseen powers of darkness. The accounts of their combats with evil spirits, to be found in many of the lower-class novels, are eagerly devoured by the Chinese, who even now frequently call in Taoist priests to exorcise some demon which is supposed to be exerting an evil influence on the family.

As a specimen, there is a story of a young man who had fallen under the influence of a beautiful young girl, when he met a Taoist priest in the street, who started on seeing him, and said that his face showed signs that he had been bewitched. Hurrying home, the young man found his door locked; and on creeping softly up to the window and looking in, he saw a hideous devil, with a green face and jagged teeth like a saw, spreading a human skin on the bed, and painting it with a paint-brush. The devil then threw aside the brush, and giving the skin a shake-out, just as you would a coat, cast it over its shoulders, when lo! there stood the girl.

The story goes on to say that the devil-girl killed the young man, ripping him open and tearing out his heart; after which the priest engaged in terrible conflict with her. Finally—and here we seem to be suddenly transported to the story of the fisherman in the Arabian Nights—she became a dense column of smoke curling up from the ground, and then the priest took from his vest an uncorked gourd, and threw it right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard, and the whole column was drawn into the gourd; after which the priest corked it up closely, and carried it away with him.

The search for the elixir of life was too fascinating to be readily given up. It was carried on with more or less vigour for centuries, as we learn from the following Memorial to the Throne, dating from the ninth century A. D. , presented by an aggrieved Confucianist:—

"Of late years the court has been overrun by a host of 'professors,' who pretend to have the secret of immortality.

"Now supposing that such beings as immortals really did exist—would they not be likely to hide themselves in deep mountain recesses, far from the ken of man? On the other hand, persons who hang about the vestibules of the rich and great, and brag of their wonderful powers in big words,—what are they more than common adventurers in search of pelf? How should their nonsense be credited, and their drugs devoured? Besides, even medicines to cure bodily ailments are not to be swallowed casually, morning, noon, and night. How much less, then, this poisonous, fiery gold-stone, which the viscera of man must be utterly unable to digest?"

Thus gradually Taoism lost its early simple characteristics associated with the name of Lao Tzŭ. The Tao developed by Chuang Tzŭ, in the light of which all things became one, paved the way for One Concrete Ruler of the universe; and the dazzling centre, far away in space, became the heaven which was to be the resting-place of virtuous mortals after death. Then came Buddhism, with its attractive ritual and its manifold consolations, and put an end once for all to the ancient glories of the teachings of Lao Tzŭ.

The older text-books date the first appearance of Buddhism in China from 67 A. D. , when in consequence of a dream the reigning Emperor sent a mission to the West, and was rewarded by obtaining copies of parts of the Canon, brought to China by Kashiapmadunga, an Indian priest, who, after translating a portion into Chinese, fell ill and died.

But we know now that Buddhist monks had already appeared in China so early as 230 B. C. The monks were thrown into prison, but were said to have been released in the night by an angel.

Still, it was not until the third or fourth century of our era that the new religion began to make itself appreciably felt. "When this came about, there ensued a long and fierce struggle between the Buddhists and the Taoists, resulting, after alternating triumphs and defeats on both sides, in that mutual toleration which obtains at the present day.

Each religion began early to borrow from the other. In the words of the philosopher Chu Hsi, of the eleventh century, "Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism. It is as though one took a jewel from the other, and the loser recouped the loss with a stone."

From Buddhism the Taoists borrowed their whole scheme of temples, priests, nuns, and ritual. They drew up liturgies to resemble the Buddhist sûtras; and also prayers for the dead. They adopted the idea of a Trinity, consisting of Lao Tzŭ, the mythological Adam of China, and the Ruler of the Universe, before mentioned; and they further appropriated the Buddhist Purgatory with all its frightful terrors and tortures after death.

Nowadays it takes an expert to distinguish between the temples and priests of the two religions, and members of both hierarchies are often simultaneously summoned by persons needing religious consolation or ceremonial of any kind.

The pure and artless Tao of Lao Tzŭ, etherealised by the lofty speculations of Chuang Tzŭ, has long since become the vehicle of base and worthless superstition.

 

LECTURE VI

SOME CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

 

SOME CHINESE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

A foreigner arriving for the first time in China will be especially struck by three points to which he is not accustomed at home.

The people will consist almost entirely of men; they will all wear their hair plaited in queues; and they will all be exactly alike.

The seclusion of women causes the traveller least surprise of the three, being a custom much more rigorously enforced in other Oriental countries; and directly he gets accustomed to the uniform absence of beard and moustache, he soon finds out that the Chinese people are not one whit more alike facially than his own countrymen of the West.

A Chinaman cannot wear a beard before he is forty, unless he happens to have a married son. He also shaves the whole head with the exception of a round patch at the back, from which the much-prized queue is grown.

There are some strange misconceptions as to the origin and meaning of the queue, more perhaps on the other side of the Atlantic, where we are not so accustomed to Chinamen as you are in America. Some associate the queue with religion, and gravely state that without it no Chinaman could be hauled into Paradise. Others know that queues have only been worn by the Chinese for about two hundred and fifty years, and that they were imposed as a badge of conquest by the Manchu-Tartars, the present rulers of China. Previous to 1644 the Chinese clothed their bodies and dressed their hair in the style of the modern Japanese,—of course I mean those Japanese who still wear what is wrongly known as "the beautiful native dress of Japan,"—wrongly, because as a matter of fact the Japanese borrowed their dress, as well as their literature, philosophy, and early lessons in art, from China. The Japanese dress is the dress of the Ming period in China, 1368-1644.

It remains still to be seen whence and wherefore the Manchu-Tartars obtained this strange fashion of the queue.

The Tartars may be said to have depended almost for their very existence upon the horse; and in old pictures the Tartar is often seen lying curled up asleep with his horse, illustrating the mutual affection and dependence between master and beast. Out of sheer gratitude and respect for his noble ally, the man took upon himself the form of the animal, growing a queue in imitation of the horse's tail.

Unsupported by any other evidence, this somewhat grotesque theory would fall to the ground. But there is other evidence, of a rather striking character, which, taken in conjunction with what has been said, seems to me to settle the matter.

Official coats, as seen in China at the present day, are made with very peculiar sleeves, shaped like a horse's leg, and ending in what is an unmistakable hoof, completely covering the hand. These are actually known to the Chinese as "horse-shoe sleeves"; and, encased therein, a Chinaman's arms certainly look very much like a horse's forelegs. The tail completes the picture.

When the Tartars conquered China two hundred and fifty years ago, there was at first a strenuous fight against the queue, and it has been said that the turbans still worn by the Southern Chinese were originally adopted as a means of concealing the hateful Manchu badge. Nowadays every Chinaman looks upon his queue as an integral and honourable part of himself. If he cannot grow one, he must have recourse to art, for he could not appear tailless, either in this world or the next.

False queues are to be seen hanging in the streets for sale. They are usually worn by burglars, and come off in your hand when you think you have caught your man. Prisoners are often led to, and from, gaol by their queues, sometimes three or four being tied together in a gang.

False hair is not confined entirely to the masculine queue. Chinese ladies often use it as a kind of chignon; and it is an historical fact that a famous Empress, who set aside the Emperor and ruled China with an Elizabethan hand from A. D. 684 to 705, used to present herself in the Council Chamber, before her astonished ministers, fortified by an artificial beard.

Dyeing the hair, too, has been practised in China certainly from the Christian era, if not earlier, chiefly by men whose hair and beards begin to grow grey too soon. One of the proudest titles of the Chinese, carrying them back as it does to prehistoric times, is that of the Black-haired People, also a title, perhaps a mere coincidence, of the ancient Accadians. In spite, however, of the universality of black hair in both men and women, there are exceptions to the rule, and I myself have seen a Chinese albino, with the usual light-coloured hair and pink eyes.

---

The Rev. Dr. Arthur Smith, an American missionary, has long been known for his keen insight into the workings of the Chinese mind. In his last book, China in Convulsion, under the head of "Protestant Missions," he makes the following important statement,—important not only to those who intend to take part in missionary work, but also to the official, to the explorer, and to the merchant:—

"It would be unfair," he says, "not to point out that when a large body of Occidentals, imperfectly acquainted with the Chinese language, etiquette, modes of thought, and intellectual presuppositions, begins on a large and universal scale the preaching of an uncompromising system of morals and doctrines like Christianity, there must be much which, unconsciously to themselves, rouses Chinese prejudices."

The following maxim comes from Confucius:—

"If you visit a foreign State, ask what the prohibitions are; if you go into a strange neighbourhood, enquire what the manners and customs are." Certainly it is altogether desirable that a foreigner going to China, whether in an official capacity, or as merchant, missionary, or traveller, should have some acquaintance with the ordinary rules and ceremonial of Chinese social life. Such knowledge will often go far to smooth away Chinese prejudices against the barbarian, and on occasions might conceivably aid in averting a catastrophe.

It is true that Lao Tzŭ said, "Ceremonies are but the veneer of loyalty and good faith." His words, however, have not prevailed against the teaching of Confucius, who was an ardent believer in the value of ceremonial. One of the latter's disciples wished, as a humanitarian, to abolish the sacrifice of a sheep upon the first day of every month; but Confucius rebuked him, saying, "My son, you love the sheep; I love the ceremony."

When, during his last visit to England, Li Hung-chang made remarks about Mr. Chamberlain's eyeglass, he was considered by many to be wanting in common politeness. But from the Chinese point of view it was Mr. Chamberlain who was offending—quite unwittingly, of course—against an important canon of good taste. It is a distinct breach of Chinese etiquette to wear spectacles while speaking to an equal. The Chinese invariably remove their glasses when conversing; for what reason I have never been able to discover. One thing is quite certain: they do not like being looked at through a medium of glass or crystal, and it costs the foreigner nothing to fall in with their harmless prejudice.

Chinese street etiquette is also quite different from our own, a fact usually ignored by blustering foreigners, who march through a Chinese town as if the place belonged to them, and not infrequently complain that coolies and others will not "get out of their way." Now there is a graduated scale of Chinese street rights in this particular respect, to which, as being recognised by the Chinese themselves, it would be advisable for foreigners to pay some attention. In England it has been successfully maintained that the roadway belongs to all equally, foot-passengers, equestrians, and carriage-passengers alike. Not so in China; the ordinary foot-passenger is bound to "get out of the way" of the lowest coolie who is carrying a load; that same coolie must make way, even at great inconvenience to himself, for a sedan-chair; an empty chair yields the way to a chair with somebody inside; a chair, inasmuch as being more manageable, gets out of the way of a horse; and horse, chair, coolie, and foot-passenger, all clear the road for a wedding or other procession, or for the retinue of a mandarin.

At the same time a Chinaman may stop his cart or barrow, or dump down his load, just where-ever he pleases, and other persons have to make the best of what is left of the road. I have even seen a theatrical stage built right across a street, completely blocking it, so that all traffic had to be diverted from its regular course. There are no municipal regulations and no police in China, so that the people have to arrange things among themselves; and, considering the difficulties inherent in such an absence of government, it may fairly be said that they succeed remarkably well.

When two friends meet in the street, either may put up his fan and screen his face; whereupon the other will pass by without a sign of recognition. The meaning is simply, "Too busy to stop for a chat," and the custom, open and above-board as it is, compares favourably perhaps with the "Not at home" of Western civilisation.

I do not know of any Chinese humorist who ever, as in the old story, shouted out to a visitor, "I am not at home." Confucius himself certainly came very near to doing so. It is on record that when an unwelcome visitor came to call, the sage sent out to say that he was too ill to receive guests, at the same time seizing his harpsichord and singing to it from an open window, in order to expose the hollowness of his own plea.

Any one on horseback, or riding in a sedan-chair, who happens to meet a friend walking, must dismount before venturing to salute him. However to obviate the constant inconvenience of so doing, the foot-passenger is in duty bound to screen his face as above; and thus, by a fiction which deceives nobody, much unnecessary trouble is saved.

When two mandarins of equal rank find themselves face to face in their sedan-chairs, those attendants among their retinues who carry the enormous wooden fans rush forward and insert these between the passing chairs, so that their masters may be presumed not to see each other and consequently not be obliged to get out.

No subordinate can ever meet a higher mandarin in this way; the former must turn down some by-street immediately on hearing the approaching gong of his superior officer. A mandarin's rank can be told by the number of consecutive strokes on the gong, ranging from thirteen for a viceroy to seven for a magistrate.

Take the case of a Chinese visitor. He should be received at the front door, and be conducted by the host to a reception-room, the host being careful to see that the visitor is always slightly in advance. The act of sitting down should be simultaneous, so that neither party is standing while the other is seated. If the host wishes to be very attentive, he may take a cup of tea from his servant's hands and himself arrange it for his guest.

Here comes another most important and universal rule: in handing anything to, or receiving anything from, an equal both hands must be used. A servant should hand a cup of tea with both hands, except when serving his master and a guest. Then he takes one cup in each hand, and hands them with the arms crossed. I was told that the crossing was in order to exhibit to each the "heart," i.e. the palm, of the hand, in token of loyalty.

There is a curious custom in connection with the invariable cup of tea served to a visitor on arrival which is often violated by foreigners, to the great amusement of the Chinese. The tea in question, known as guest-tea, is not intended for ordinary drinking purposes, for which wine is usually provided. No sooner does the guest raise the cup of tea to his lips, or even touch it with his hand, than a shout is heard from the servants, which means that the interview is at an end and that the visitor's sedan-chair is to be got ready. Drinking this tea is, in fact, a signal for departure. A host may similarly, without breach of good manners, be the first to drink, and thus delicately notify the guest that he has business engagements elsewhere.

Then again, it is the rule to place the guest at one's left hand, though curiously enough this only dates from the middle of the fourteenth century, previous to which the right hand was the place of honour.

Finally, when the guest takes his leave, it is proper to escort him back to the front door. That, at any rate, is sufficient, though it is not unusual to accompany a guest some part of his return journey. In fact, the Chinese proverb says, "If you escort a man at all, escort him all the way." This, however, is rhetorical rather than practical, somewhat after the style of another well-known Chinese proverb, "If you bow at all, bow low."

A Chinese invitation to dinner differs somewhat from a similar compliment in the West. You will receive a red envelope containing a red card,—red being the colour associated with festivity,—on which it is stated that by noon on a given day the floor will be swept, the wine-cups washed, and your host in waiting to meet your chariot. Later on, a second invitation will arrive, couched in the same terms; and again another on the day of the banquet, asking you to be punctual to the minute. To this you pay no attention, but make preparations to arrive about 4 P. M. , previous to which another and more urgent summons may very possibly have been sent. All this is conventional, and the guests assemble at the same hour, to separate about 9 P. M.

Women take no part in Chinese social entertainments except among their own sex. It is not even permissible to enquire after the wife of one's host. Her very existence is ignored. A man will talk with pleasure about his children, especially if his quiver is well stocked with boys.

In this connection I may say that the position of women in China still seems to be very widely misunderstood. Not only that, but a very frightful crime is alleged against the Chinese people as a common practice in everyday life, which, if not actually approved, meets everywhere with toleration.

I allude to the charge of infanticide, confined of course to girls, for it has not often been suggested that Chinese parents do away with such a valuable asset as a boy.

Miss Gordon Cumming, the traveller, in her Wanderings in China, has the following impassioned paragraph in reference to her visit to Ningpo:—

"The delicate fragrance (of the roses and honeysuckle), alas! cannot overpower the appalling odours which here and there assail us, poisoning the freshness of the evening breezes.

"These are wafted from the Baby Towers, two of which we had to pass. These are square towers, with small windows, about twelve feet from the ground, somewhat resembling pigeon-towers; these strange dove-cotes are built to receive the bodies of such babies as die too young to have fully developed souls, and therefore there is no necessity to waste coffins on them, or even to take the trouble of burying them in the bosom of mother earth. So the insignificant little corpse is handed over to a coolie, who, for the sum of forty cash, equal to about five cents, carries it away, ostensibly to throw it into one of these towers; but if he should not choose to go so far, he gets rid of it somehow,—no questions are asked, and there are plenty of prowling dogs ever on the watch seeking what they may devour. To-day several poor uncoffined mites were lying outside the towers, shrouded only in a morsel of old matting—apparently they had been brought by some one who had failed to throw them in at the window ('about twelve feet from the ground'), in which, by the way, one had stuck fast!

"Some of these poor little creatures are brought here alive and left to die, and some of these have been rescued and carried to foundling hospitals. The neighbourhood was so pestiferous that we could only pause a moment to look at 'an institution' which, although so horrible, is so characteristic of this race, who pay such unbounded reverence to the powerful dead who could harm them. Most of the bodies deposited here are those of girl babies who have been intentionally put to death, but older children are often thrown in."

With regard to this, I will only say that I lived all together for over four years within a mile or so of these Towers, which I frequently passed during the evening walk; and so far from ever seeing "several poor uncoffined mites lying outside the towers, shrouded only in a morsel of old matting," which Miss Gordon Cumming has described, I never even saw one single instance of a tower being put to the purpose for which it was built, viz. : as a burying-place for the dead infants of people too poor to spend money upon a grave. As for living children being thrown in, I think I shall be able to dispose of that statement a little later on. Miss Gordon Cumming did not add that these towers are cleared out at regular intervals by a Chinese charitable society which exists for that purpose, the bodies burnt, and the ashes reverently buried.

Mrs. Bird-Bishop, the traveller, is reported to have stated at a public lecture in 1897, that "one of the most distressing features of Chinese life was the contempt for women. Of eleven Bible-women whom she had seen at a meeting in China, there was not one who had not put an end to at least five girl-babies."

A Jesuit missionary has published a quarto volume, running to more than 270 pages, and containing many illustrations of infanticide, and the judgments of Heaven which always come upon those who commit this crime.

Finally, if you ask of any Chinaman, he will infallibly tell you that infanticide exists to an enormous extent everywhere in China; and as though in corroboration of his words, alongside many a pool in South China may be found a stone tablet bearing an inscription to the effect that "Female children may not be drowned here." This would appear to end the discussion; but it does not.

To begin with, the Chinese are very prone to exaggerate, especially to foreigners, even their vices. They seem to think that some credit may be extracted from anything, provided it is on a sufficiently imposing scale, and I do not at all doubt the fact that eleven Bible-women told Mrs. Bird-Bishop that they had each destroyed five girl-babies. It is just what I should have expected. I remember, when I first went to Amoy, it had been stated in print by a reckless foreigner that crucifixion of a most horrible kind was one of the common punishments of the place. On enquiring from the Chinese writer attached to the Consulate, the man assured me that the story was quite true and that I could easily see for myself. I told him that I was very anxious to do so, and promised him a hundred dollars for the first case he might bring to my notice. Three years later I left Amoy, with the hundred dollars still unclaimed.

Further, those Chinese who have any money to spare are much given to good works, chiefly, I feel bound to add, in view of the recompense their descendants will receive in this world and they themselves in the next; also, because a rich man who does nothing in the way of charity comes to be regarded with disapprobation by his poorer neighbours. Such persons print and circulate gratis all kinds of religious tracts, against gambling, wine-drinking, opium-smoking, infanticide, and so forth; and these are the persons who set up the stone tablets above-mentioned, regardless whether infanticide happens to be practised or not.

Of course infanticide is known in China, just as it is known, too well known, in England and elsewhere. What I hope to be able to show is that infanticide is not more prevalent in China than in the Christian communities of the West.

Let me begin by urging, what no one who has lived in China will deny, that Chinese parents seem to be excessively fond of all their children, male and female. A son is often spoken of playfully as a little dog,—a puppy, in fact; a girl is often spoken of as "a thousand ounces of gold," a jewel, and so forth. Sons are no doubt preferred; but is that feeling peculiar to the Chinese?

A great deal too much has been made of a passage in the Odes, which says that baby-sons should have sceptres to play with, while baby-daughters should have tiles.

The allotment of these toys is not quite so disparaging as it seems. The sceptre is indeed the symbol of rule; but the tile too has an honourable signification, a tile being used in ancient China as a weight for the spindle,—and consequently as a symbol of woman's work in the household.

Then, again, even a girl has a market value. Some will buy and rear them to be servants; others, to be wives for their sons; while native foundling hospitals, endowed by charitable Chinese, will actually pay a small fee for every girl handed over them.

It is also curious to note how recent careful observers have several times stated that they can find no trace of infanticide in their own immediate districts, though they hear that it is extensively practised in some other, generally distant, parts of the country.

After all, it is really a question which can be decided inferentially by statistics.

Every Chinese youth, when he reaches the age of eighteen, has a sacred duty to perform: he must marry. Broadly speaking, every adult Chinaman in the Empire has a wife; well-to-do merchants, mandarins, and others have subordinate wives, two, three, and even four. The Emperor has seventy-two. This being the case, and granting also a widespread destruction of female children, it must follow that girls are born in an overwhelmingly large proportion to boys, utterly unheard-of in any other part of the world.

Are, then, Chinese women the down-trodden, degraded creatures we used to imagine Moslem women to be?

I think this question must be answered in the negative. The young Chinese woman in a well-to-do establishment is indeed secluded, in the sense that her circle is limited to the family and to mends of the same sex.

From time immemorial it has been the rule in China that men and women should not pass things to one another,—for fear their hands might touch. A local Pharisee tried to entangle the great Mencius in his speech, asking him if a man who saw his sister-in-law drowning might venture to pull her out. "A man," replied the philosopher, "who failed to do so, would be no better than a wolf."

The Chinese lady may go out to pay calls, and even visit temples for religious purposes, unveiled, veils for women having been abolished in the first years of the seventh century of our era. Only brides wear them now.

Girls are finally separated from boys at seven or eight years of age, when the latter go to school.

Some say that Chinese girls receive no education. If so, what is the explanation of the large educational literature provided expressly for girls?

One Chinese authoress, who wrote a work on the education of women, complains that women can never expect more than ten years for their education, i.e. the years between childhood and marriage.

The fact is that among the literary classes girls often receive a fair education, as witness the mass of poetry published by Chinese women. One of the Dynastic Histories was partly written by a woman. Her brother, who was engaged on it, died, and she completed his work.

About the year 235 A. D. , women were actually admitted to official life, and some of them rose to important government posts. By the eighth century, however, all trace of this system had disappeared.

The women of the poorer classes are not educated at all; nor indeed are the men. Both sexes have to work as burden-carriers and field labourers; and of course in such cases the restrictions mentioned above cannot be rigorously enforced.

Women of the shopkeeper class often display great aptitude for business, and render invaluable assistance to their husbands. As in France, they usually keep the cash-box.

A mandarin's seal of office is his most important possession. If he loses it, he may lose his post. Without the seal, nothing can be done; with it, everything. Extraordinary precautions are taken when transmitting new seals from Peking to the provinces. Every official seal is made with four small feet projecting from the four corners of its face, making it look like a small table. Of these, the maker breaks off one when he hands the seal over to the Board. Before forwarding to the Viceroy of the province, another foot is removed by the Board. A third is similarly disposed of by the Viceroy, and the last by the official for whose use it is intended. This is to prevent its employment by any other than the person authorised. The seal is then handed over to the mandarin's wife, in whose charge it always remains, she alone having the power to produce it, or withhold it, as required.

A Chinese woman shares the titles accorded to her husband. When the latter is promoted, the title of the wife is correspondingly advanced. She also shares all posthumous honours, and her spirit, equally with her husband's, is soothed by the ceremonies of ancestral worship.

"Ancestral worship" is a phrase of ominous import, suggesting as it does the famous dispute which began to rage early in the eighteenth century and is still raging to-day.

In every Chinese house stand small wooden tablets, bearing the names of deceased parents, grandparents, and earlier ancestors. Plates of meat and cups of wine are on certain occasions set before these tablets, in the belief that the spirits of the dead occupy the tablets and enjoy the offerings. The latter are afterward eaten by the family; but pious Chinese assert that the flavour of the food and wine has been abstracted. Similar offerings are made once a year at the tombs where the family ancestors lie buried.

The question now arises, Are these offerings set forth in the same spirit which prompts us to place flowers on graves, adorn statues, and hold memorial services?

If so, a Chinese convert to Christianity may well be permitted to embody these old observances with the ceremonial of his new faith.

Or do these observances really constitute worship? i.e. are the offerings made with a view to propitiate the spirits of the dead, and obtain from them increase of worldly prosperity and happiness?

In the latter case, ministers of the Christian faith would of course be justified in refusing to blend ancestral worship with the teachings of Christianity.

It would no doubt be very desirable to bring about a compromise, and discover some modus vivendi for the Chinese convert, other than that of throwing over Confucianism with all its influence for good, and of severing all family and social ties, and beginning life again as an outcast in his own country; but I feel bound to say that in my opinion these ancestral observances can only be regarded, strictly speaking, as worship and as nothing else.

To return to the Chinese woman. She enjoys some privileges not shared by men. She is exempt from the punishment of the bamboo, and, as a party to a case, is always more or less a source of anxiety to the presiding magistrate. No Chinaman will enter into a dispute with a woman if he can help it,—not from any chivalrous feeling, but from a conviction that he will surely be worsted in the end.

If she becomes a widow, a Chinese woman is not supposed to marry again, though in practice she very often does so. A widow who remains unmarried for thirty years may be recommended to the Throne for some mark of favour, such as an honorary tablet, or an ornamental archway, to be put up near her home. It is essential, however, that her widowhood should have begun before she was thirty years of age.

Remarriage is viewed by many widows with horror. In my own family I once employed a nurse—herself one of seven sisters—who was a widow, and who had also lost half the little finger of her left hand. The connecting link between these two details is not so apparent to us as it might be to the Chinese. After her husband's death the widow decided that she would never marry again, and in order to seal irrevocably her vow, she seized a meat-chopper and lopped off half her finger on the spot. The finger-top was placed in her husband's coffin, and the lid was closed.

This woman, who was a Christian, and the widow of a native preacher, had large, i.e. unbound, feet. Nevertheless, she bound the feet of her only daughter, because, as she explained, it is so difficult to get a girl married unless she has small feet.

Here we have the real obstacle to the abolition of this horrible custom, which vast numbers of intelligent Chinese would be only too glad to get rid of, if fashion did not stand in the way.

There has been in existence now for some years a well-meaning association, known as the Natural Foot Society, supported by both Chinese and foreigners, with the avowed object of putting an end to the practice of foot-binding. We hear favourable accounts of its progress; but until there is something like a national movement, it will not do to be too sanguine.

We must remember that in 1664 one of China's wisest and greatest Emperors, in the plenitude of his power issued an Imperial edict forbidding parents in future to bind the feet of their girls. Four years later the edict was withdrawn.

The Emperor was K'ang Hsi, whose name you have already heard in connection with the standard dictionary of the Chinese language and other works brought out under his patronage. A Tartar himself, unaccustomed to the sight of Tartar women struggling in such fetters, he had no sympathy with the custom; but against the Chinese people, banded together to safeguard their liberty of action in a purely domestic matter, he was quite unable to prevail.

Within the last few weeks another edict has gone forth, directed against the practice of foot-binding. Let us hope it will have a better fate.

Many years ago the prefect of T'ai-wan Fu said to me, in the course of an informal conversation after a friendly dinner, "Do you foreigners fear the inner ones?" —and on my asking what was meant, he told me that a great many Chinese stood in absolute awe of their wives. "He does," added the prefect, pointing to the district magistrate, a rather truculent-looking individual, who was at the dinner-party; and the other guests went into a roar of laughter.

The general statement by the prefect is borne out by the fact that the "henpecked husband" is constantly held up to ridicule in humorous literature, which would be quite impossible if there were no foundation of fact.

I have translated one of these stories, trivial enough in itself, but, like the proverbial straw, well adapted for showing which way the wind blows. Here it is:—

Ten henpecked husbands agreed to form themselves into a society for resisting the oppression of their wives. At the first meeting they were sitting talking over their pipes, when suddenly the ten wives, who had got wind of the movement, appeared on the scene.

There was a general stampede, and nine of the husbands incontinently bolted through another door, only one remaining unmoved to face the music. The ladies merely smiled contemptuously at the success of their raid, and went away.

The nine husbands them all agreed that the bold tenth man, who had not run away, should be at once appointed their president; but on coming to offer him the post, they found that he had died of fright!

To judge by the following story, the Chinese woman's patience is sometimes put to a severe test.

A scholar of old was so absent-minded, that on one occasion, when he was changing houses, he forgot to take his wife. This was reported to Confucius as a most unworthy act. "Nay," replied the Master, "it is indeed bad to forget one's wife; but 'tis worse to forget one's self!"

Points of this kind are, no doubt, trivial, as I have said above, and may be regarded by many even as flippant; but the fact is that a successful study of the Chinese people cannot possibly be confined to their classics and higher literature, and to the problem of their origin and subsequent development where we now find them. It must embrace the lesser, not to say meaner, details of their everyday life, if we are ever to pierce the mystery which still to a great extent surrounds them.

In this sense an Italian student of Chinese, Baron Vitale, has gone so far as to put together and publish a collection of Chinese nursery rhymes, from which it is not difficult to infer that Chinese babies are very much as other babies are in other parts of the world.

And it has always seemed to me that the Chinese baby's father and mother, so far as the ordinary springs of action go, are very much of a pattern with the rest of mankind.

One reason why the Chinaman remains a mystery to so many is due, no doubt, to the vast amount of nonsense which is published about him.

First of all, China is a very large country, and from want of proper means of communication for many centuries, there has been nothing like extensive intercourse between North, South, East, West, and Central. Of course the officials visit all parts of the Empire, as they are transferred from post to post; but the bulk of the people never get far beyond the range of their own district city.

The consequence is that as regards manners and customs, while retaining an indelible national imprint, the Chinese people have drifted apart into separate local communities; so that what is true of one part of the country is by no means necessarily true of another.

The Chinese themselves say that manners, which they think are due to climatic influences, change every thirty miles; customs, which they attribute to local idiosyncrasies, change every three hundred miles.

Now, a globe-trotter goes to Canton, and as one of the sights of that huge collection of human beings, he is taken to shops,—there used to be three,—where the flesh of dogs, fed for the purpose, is sold as food.

He comes home, and writes a book, and says that the Chinese people live on dogs' flesh.

When I was a boy, I thought that every Frenchman had a frog for breakfast. Each statement would be about equally true. In the north of China, dogs' flesh is unknown; and even in the south, during all my years in China I never succeeded in finding any Chinaman who either could, or would, admit that he had actually tasted it.

Take the random statement that any rich man condemned to death can procure a substitute by payment of so much. So long as we believe stuff of that kind, so long will the Chinese remain a mystery for us, it being difficult to deduce true conclusions from false premises.

As a matter of fact, that is, so far as my own observations go, the Chinese people value life every whit as highly as we do, and a substitute of the kind would be quite unprocurable under ordinary circumstances. It is thinkable that some poor wretch, himself under sentence of death, might be substituted with the connivance of the officials, to hoodwink foreigners; but even then the difficulties would be so great as to render the scheme almost impracticable.

For in China everything leaks out. There is none of that secrecy necessary to conceal and carry out such a plot.

At any rate, the uncertainty which gathers around many of these points emphasises the necessity of more and more accurate scholarship in Chinese, and more and more accurate information on the people of China and their ways.

How the latter article is supplied to us in England, you may judge from some extracts which I have recently taken from respectable daily and weekly newspapers.

For instance, "China has only one hundred physicians to a population of four hundred millions."

To me it is inconceivable how such rubbish can be printed, especially when it is quite easy to find out that there is no medical diploma in China, and that any man who chooses is free to set up as a doctor.

By a pleasant fiction, he charges no fees; a fixed sum, however, is paid to him for each visit, as "horse-money,"—I need hardly add, in advance.

There are, as with us, many successful, and consequently fashionable, doctors whose "horse-money" runs well into double figures. Their success must be due more to good luck and strictly innocent prescriptions than to any guidance they can find in the extensive medical literature of China.

All together, medicine is a somewhat risky profession, as failure to cure is occasionally resented by surviving relatives.

There is a story of a doctor who had mismanaged a case, and was seized by the patient's family and tied up. In the night he managed to free himself, and escaped by swimming across a river. When he got home, he found his son, who had just begun to study medicine, and he said to him, "Don't be in a hurry with your books; the first and most important thing is to learn to swim!"

Here is another newspaper gem: "In China, the land of opposites, the dials of the clocks are made to turn round, while the hands stand still."

Personally, I never noticed this arrangement.

Again: "Some of the tops with which the Chinese amuse themselves are as large as barrels. It takes three men to spin one, and it gives off a sound that may be heard several hundred yards away."

"The Chinese National Anthem is so long that it takes half a day to sing it."

"Chinese women devote very little superfluous time to hair-dressing. Their tresses are arranged once a month, and they sleep with their heads in boxes."

What we want in place of all this is a serious and systematic examination of the manners and customs, and modes of thought, of the Chinese people.

Their long line of Dynastic Histories must be explored and their literature ransacked by students who have got through the early years of drudgery inseparable from the peculiar nature of the written language, and who are prepared to devote themselves, not, as we do now, to a general knowledge of the whole, but to a thorough acquaintance with some particular branch.

The immediate advantages of such a course, as I must point out once more, for the last time, to commerce and to diplomatic relations will be incalculable. And they will be shared in by the student of history, philosophy, and religion, who will then for the first time be able to assign to China her proper place in the family of nations.

The founder of this Chinese Chair has placed these advantages within the grasp of Columbia University.

 

INDEX

 

INDEX

• Account of Strange Nations, book in Cambridge collection, 58
• Albinos, Chinese, 181
• Alchemy, Taoist practice, 166
• Analects, Confucian Canon, 42
• Ancestral worship, China, 199
• Ancestry of Chinese traced through mother in ancient times, 27
• Ancient Greece, see Greece.
• "And," idea in Chinese written character, 28
• Archæology—
  • Chinese dictionaries and work, 120
  • Confucian Canon, archæological works referring to, 43
  • "Ark," erroneous analysis of Chinese written character, 34
• Athenian and Chinese women, points of resemblance, 121
•  
• Baby Towers, Chinese infanticide, 190
• Bactria—
  • Alchemy, practice imported into China, 166
  • Mission of Chang Ch'ien, 130
• Bamboo tables, style of Chinese writing, 26
• Biographies—
  • Historical Record, 46
  • National and private records, 49
• Biographies of Eminent Women, description, 50
• Bird-Bishop, Mrs., statement as to infanticide, 192, 193
• Black art, Taoism, 168
• Black-haired People, title of Chinese, 181
• Book of Changes, Confucian Canon, 40
• Book of History, Confucian Canon, 41
• Book of Odes, see Odes.
• Book of Music, Confucian Canon, 42
• Books of Rites, Confucian Canon, 42
• Books, Chinese, see Library, Cambridge University.
• Buddhism in China—
  • Borrowing from Tao, 172
  • Buddhist priest anecdote, 138
  • Cambridge collection, Buddhist works, 44
  • Date of appearance, 171, 172
  • Struggle with Taoism, 172
• Burning of the Books, 44, 129
• Butchers, tax on, resisted, 93
•  
• Calendars, Greek and Chinese, similarities, 129
• Cambridge University library, see Library.
• Canon, see Confucian Canon.
• Canton—
  • Dogs' flesh shops, 207
  • Riot, 1880, 99
• Catalogue of books in Imperial Library, China, 69
• Ceremonies, valued by Confucius, 182
• Chamberlain, J. , eyeglass remarked on by Li Hung-chang, 182
• Chang Ch'ien, mission to Bactria, 130
• Chang Chih-tung, viceroy, bridge incident, 97
• Changes, Book of, Confucian Canon, 40
• Charities, Chinese, 193
• Characters of Chinese language, see Language.
• Ch'ien Lung, Emperor, catalogue enterprise, 69
• Children—
  • Fondness of parents for, 194
  • Girls, see that title.
  • Infanticide, see that title.
  • Nursery rhymes published by Baron Vitale, 206
  • Toys, passage in the Odes, 195
• China—
  • Albinos, 181
  • Alchemy, 166
  • Ancestral worship, 199
  • Ancestry traced through mother in ancient times, 27
  • Anecdote, Grecian, in Chinese jest-book, 138
  • Archæology, see that title.
  • Bactria, see that title.
  • Biographies, see that title.
  • Black art, 168
  • Buddhism, see that title.
  • Burning of the Books, 44, 129
  • Calendars, Grecian characteristics, 129
  • Cambridge University library, see Library.
  • Canton, see that title.
  • Chang Ch'ien, mission to Bactria, 130
  • Charities, 193
  • Children, see that title.
  • City sights resembling Grecian, 122
  • Clocks, see that title.
  • Columbia University, endowment of Chinese chair, 4, 37, 211
  • Combination, 92
  • Confucius and Confucian Canon, see those titles.
  • Counting board, likeness to Grecian, 128
  • Crucifixion, alleged punishment, 193
  • "Crying one's wrongs," 101
  • Customs varying with places, 207
  • Dictionaries, see that title.
  • Diplomatists, see Statesmen.
  • Doctors, "horse-money," etc., 209
  • Dogs' flesh, Canton shops, 207
  • Drama, see Plays.
  • Dress, see that title.
  • Dutch settlement, story of, 137
  • Dynasties and Dynastic histories, see those titles.
  • Education, see that title.
  • Elixir of life, 163
  • Emperors, see that title.
  • Encyclopædias, see that title.
  • Entertainments, Grecian points of contact, 126
  • Erroneous ideas of Chinese life, 189
  • Etiquette, see that title.
  • Exaggeration, fault of Chinese, 193
  • Execution substitutes, erroneous idea, 208
  • Eyeglasses, see that title.
  • Facial differences of Chinese, 177
  • First impressions of foreigners, 177
  • Foot-binding, see that title.
  • Games, Grecian similarities, 126
  • Girls, see that title.
  • Government, see that title.
  • Greek influence, see Greece.
  • Guests, see Visitors.
  • Hair, see that title.
  • Han Yü, great works of, 117
  • Hankow military riot, 1882, 97
  • "Heavenly horse", 131
  • "Henpecked husbands", 204
  • History, see that title.
  • Horses, see that title.
  • House, Greek characteristics, 120
  • Huai-nan, Prince of, see that title.
  • Immortality, see that title.
  • Infanticide, see that title.
  • Ivory carvings, Grecian resemblances, 124
  • Jesuits in China, see that title.
  • Jews, 144
  • Jugglers similar to Grecian, 124
  • Justice, see that title.
  • K'ang Hsi, Emperor, see that title.
  • Kiangsu riot, 99
  • Language, see that title.
  • Lao Tzŭ, see Taoism.
  • Library, Cambridge University, see that title.
  • Library, Imperial, catalogue, 69
  • Li Hung-chang, see that title.
  • "Lion," word for, 23, 133
  • Literary qualities of nation, 72
  • Literature, see that title.
  • Magic, see that title.
  • Magistrates, see that title.
  • Mahommedanism, 143
  • Manchus, imprisonment, 1891, people's fury, 98
  • Mandarin language and Mandarins, see those titles.
  • Manichæans, 144
  • Marriage customs, see that title.
  • Mencius, see that title.
  • Mental and moral training, relative values of Greek and Chinese, 109
  • Mirrors, ancient Chinese and Greek, 132
  • Murder, conviction for, illustrations, 103
  • Music, see that title.
  • Mystery—the Chinaman a mystery, 206, 208
  • Nestorian Christians, 143
  • Newspaper extracts, 209
  • Novels, 61
  • Official coats, "horse-shoe sleeves," 179
  • Official positions, see that title.
  • Olive, Greek and Chinese associations, 128
  • Opposites—China regarded as land of opposites, 119, 210
  • Penal code, 56, 87
  • Personal freedom, 87
  • Plays, see that title.
  • Poetry, see that title.
  • Population, vastness of, 3
  • Portrait-painting, see that title.
  • Protestant missionaries, 144
  • Puppet shows, alleged origin, 123
  • Quails, fighting, common custom in Greece and China, 126
  • Queue see that title.
  • Readers, professional, 61
  • Religions, see that title.
  • Rhyme, 67
  • Riots—people's self-government, 97
  • Rip Van Winkle, story of, 55
  • Roman Catholicism, 144
  • Romance of Three Kingdoms, novel, 61
  • Self-government, illustrations, 69
  • Self-taxation, see Taxation.
  • Senior Classics see that title.
  • Social life, knowledge of, 181
  • Spanish seizure of islands, method of, 136
  • Statesmen, see that title.
  • Statutes of present dynasty, 56
  • Story-tellers, 61, 123
  • Street etiquette and rights, 183
  • Study of Chinese affairs—
    • Advantages of study, 140, 211
    • Columbia University endowment, 4, 37, 211
    • Language, see that title.
    • People, study of, 205
    • Recent growth of study, 3
    • Students needed, 139, 208, 211
  • Taoism, see that title.
  • Taxation see that title.
  • Viceroys, 76, 82, 83
  • Visitors, see that title.
  • Water-clocks, Grecian, 128
  • Watermelon, term for, Greek origin, 134
  • Wên T'ien-hsiang, influence of Chinese literature and training on, 113
  • Western incidents in literature, 135
  • Widows, 201
  • Wine, introduction of grape-wine, 131
  • Wine-drinking, see that title.
  • Women, see that title.
  • Wuchang bridge incident, 97
  • Zebra, picture of, in ancient Chinese book, 59
  • Zoroastrians in, 144
• Christians, Nestorian, in China, 143
• Christianity and ancestral worship in China, 109
• Chuang Tzŭ, Taoist writer, 148, 154-160, 165, 171
• Chu Hsi, commentary, 43
• Chung-king, tax on pigs resisted, 93
• Circuits, division of provinces into, 76, 83
• Classics, study of, relative values of Chinese and Greek training, 109
• Clocks, Chinese—
  • Newspaper extract, 210
  • Water-clocks, Grecian and Chinese, 128
• Coats, official, "horse-shoe sleeves," 179
• Colloquial language, see Language.
• Columbia University, endowment of Chinese chair, 4, 37, 211
• Combination against taxation, 92
• Commentaries, Confucian Canon, 43
• Commissioners, provincial government, 81
• Concordance to phraseology of Chinese literature, 65
• Confucian Canon, Cambridge University Library—
  • Analects, 42
  • Archæological works, 43
  • Book of Changes, 40
  • Book of History, 41
  • Book of Music, 42
  • Book of Odes, see Odes.
  • Book of Rites, 42
  • Commentaries, 43
  • Conversations of Mencius with disciples, 42
  • Doctrine of the Mean, 42
  • Five Classics, 40
  • Four Books, 42
  • Great Learning, 42
  • Spring and Autumn, 41
• Confucius—
  • Acquaintance with Lao Tzŭ alleged, 146
  • Confucian Canon, see that title.
  • Maxims and sayings, 182, 205
  • Unwelcome visitor anecdote, 185
  • Value of ceremonial, 182
• Counting-board, Chinese, likeness to Grecian, 128
• Crucifixion, alleged punishment in China, 193
• "Crying one's wrongs," 101
• Cumming, Miss G. —infanticide in China, 189
•  
• Dialects, Chinese language, 6
• Dice games in Greece and China, 126
• Dictionaries, Chinese—
  • Cambridge library collection—
    • Concordance to phraseology, 65
    • Hsü Shên, work of, 63
    • Modern standard dictionary, 64
  • Encyclopædias, see that title.
  • Lao Tzŭ's treatise, characters not found in dictionary, 149
• Dinner, invitation to, 188
• Diplomatists, see Statesmen.
• Doctors, Chinese, "horse-money," etc., 209
• Doctrine of the Mean, Confucian Canon, 42
• Doctrines, see Religions.
• Dogs' flesh, Canton shops, 207
• Drama, see Plays.
• Drawing, chapters on, in Chinese encyclopædia, 53
• Dress, Chinese—
  • Official coats, 179
  • Veils for women, abolition of, 197
• Dress, Japanese, misconception as to, 178
• Dutch settlement in China, story of, 137
• Dyeing the hair, practice of, 180
• Dynastic histories—
  • Cambridge collection—
    • Biographies, see that title.
    • Edition of 1747, 45
    • Encyclopædias, see that title.
    • Historical Record, see that title.
    • Mirror of History, by Tsŭma Kuang.
    • Penal Code, 56
    • Record in Dark Blood, 57
    • Reprints, 55
    • Statutes of present dynasty, 56
    • "Veritable Record", 48
  • Woman's work, 197
• Dynasties of China—
  • Histories, see Dynastic histories.
  • History compilation custom, 47
  • Ming dynasty, see that title.
  • Statutes of present dynasty, 56
•  
• Education—
  • Value of, 72, 79
  • Women, 197
• Elixir of life, Taoist doctrine, 163, 170
• Emperors of China—
  • Ch'ien Lung, catalogue enterprise, 69
  • Government of the Emperor, 75
  • K'ang Hsi, see that title.
  • Ming dynasty, character and end of last Emperor, 117
• Encyclopædias, Cambridge collection, 51
  • Arrangement, 54
  • Drawing, chapters on, 53
  • Portrait-painting topic, 53
  • San T'sai Tu Hui, 52
  • [See also Dictionaries.]
• England, Cambridge University library, see Library.
• English—"pidgin" English, 17
• Entertainments, Chinese and Grecian, 126
• Etiquette—
  • Glasses, removal when conversing, 183
  • Street etiquette, 183
  • Visitors, see that title.
• Exaggeration, Chinese, 193
• Execution substitutes, erroneous idea, 208
• Eyeglasses—
  • Chamberlain's, J. , remarks by Li Hung-chang, 182
  • Chinese etiquette, removal of spectacles, 183
•  
• Family Library, Chinese reprints.
• Fay, Miss, student of Chinese, 6
• Fielde, Miss, student of Chinese, 6
• Finance commissioner, provincial official, 81
• Five Classics, Confucian Canon, 40
• Foot-binding—
  • Edicts prohibiting, 203
  • Fashion, obstacle to abolition, 202
• Fulangbis, seizure of islands from China, 136
• Fusang, account of, in Chinese book, 58
•  
• Games, Chinese, similarity to Grecian, 126
• Geography, Chinese, Cambridge collection, 57
• Girls—
  • Education, 197
  • Foot-binding, see that title.
  • Market value, 195
  • [See also Women]
• Glasses, see Eyeglasses.
• "God," analysis of Chinese written character, 33
• Government—
  • Circuits, 76, 83
  • "Crying one's wrongs," 101
  • Dynasties, see that title.
  • Emperors, see that title.
  • Headboroughs, 77
  • Justice, see that title.
  • Magistrates, see that title.
  • Mandarins, see that title.
  • Mencius, quotations from, 84
  • Ming dynasty, see that title.
  • Official positions, see that title.
  • Penal Code, 56, 87
  • Prefectures, 76, 83
  • Provincial government, see that title.
  • Scale of governors, 78
  • Self-government illustrations, 96
  • Viceroys, 76, 82, 83
• Governors of provinces, 76, 83
• Grain commissioner, provincial official, 81
• Granville, Lord, influence of the classics on, 112
• Grammar, Chinese, absence of, 10
• Grape-wine introduced into China, 131
• Great Learning, Confucian Canon, 42
• Greece, ancient Greece and China—
  • Archæology, Greek and Chinese, 120
  • Bactria, see that title.
  • Buddhist priest anecdote in Chinese jest-book, 188
  • Calendars, 129
  • City sights in China, 123
  • Classics, relative values of Chinese and Greek training, 109
  • Coincidences between Chinese and Greek civilisations, 120
  • Counting-board, 128
  • Entertainments, 126
  • Games, 126
  • "Heavenly horse," 131, 133
  • House, Chinese, Greek characteristics, 120
  • Ivory carvings, 124
  • Language, terms of abuse, 124
  • Literatures of China and western nations, analogies, 135
  • Marriage, similar customs, 122
  • Mirrors, 132
  • Music, 129
  • Olives, 128
  • Plays, 125
  • Quails, fighting, 126
  • Question of Greek influence, 130
  • Water-clock, 128
  • Wine-drinking, 126
  • Women, points of resemblance, 121
  • Words, Chinese, Greek origin, 133
• "Guess-fingers," game of, common to Greece and China, 126
• Guests, see Visitors.
•  
• Hair—
  • Black-haired People, title of Chinese, 181
  • Dyeing, 180
  • False hair, 180
  • Queue, see that title.
• Han Fei Tzŭ, writer on Taoism, 148
• Hangchow tea strike, 95
• Hankow military riot, 1882, 97
• Han Yü, statesman, great works of, 117
• Headboroughs, government of Chinese boroughs, 77
• "Heavenly horse," origin of, 131, 133
• Hebrews in China, 144
• "Henpecked husbands," 204
• Historical Record—
  • Alchemy, 166
  • Sketch of contents, 45
• History—
  • B. C. , 130
  • Book of History, Confucian Canon, 41
  • Dynastic histories, see that title.
  • Mirror of History, 49
• Holland—story of Dutch settlement in China, 137
• "Horse-money," Chinese doctors' fees, 209
• Horses—
  • "Heavenly horse," 131, 133
  • Official coats, "horse-shoe sleeves," 179
  • Respect for, origin of queue, 179
• House, Chinese, Greek characteristics, 120
• Hsü Shên dictionary, 63
• Huai-nan, Prince of—
  • Discovery of elixir of life, 168
  • Taoist writings, 149
• Husbands, "henpecked," 204
•  
• Immortality, Taoist doctrine—
  • Elixir of life, 163
  • Memorial of aggrieved Confucianist, 170
  • Pills of immortality concocted, effect of, 167
• Imperial Library catalogue, 69
• Imperial statutes, present Chinese dynasty, 56
• Inaction, doctrine of, Lao Tzŭ's philosophy, 152, 156
• Infanticide—
  • Baby Towers, 190
  • Bird-Bishop, Mrs., statement of, 192
  • Chinese exaggeration, 192
  • Cumming, Miss G. , writings of, 189
  • Drowning children in pools, 192
  • Jesuit writings, illustrations, 192
  • Market value of girls, 195
  • Negative argument, 193
  • [See also Children.]
• Intendant of circuit, official, 76, 83
• Invitation to dinner, 188
• Ivory carvings, Greek and Chinese, 124
•  
• Japan—
  • Dress, misconception as to, 178
  • Language, absence of terms of abuse, 124
• Jebb, Sir K. , influence of the classics in mental training, case of Lord Granville, 109
• Jesuits in China—
  • Infanticide illustrations in writings, 192
  • Music of Greeks borrowed from Chinese, alleged, 129
  • Translation of Chinese character into "ark," 34
• Jews in China, 144
• Jugglers, Chinese and Grecian, 124
• Justice—
  • Administration of, 102
  • Commissioner of, 81
•  
• K'ang Hsi, Emperor—
  • Dictionary and phrase-concordance ordered, 64, 65
  • Foot-binding prohibited by, 203
• Kiangsu riot, 99
•  
• Language, Chinese—
  • Colloquial—
    • Coupling of words, 20
    • Dialects, number and distinction of, 6
    • Lack of vocables, 17
    • Mandarin, see that title.
    • Monosyllables, incapable of inflection, 10
    • Rhyme, 67
    • Simpleness of study, 4
    • Suffixes, 21
    • Tenses, 13
    • Tones, see that title.
  • Dialects, number and distinction of, 6
  • Dictionaries, see that title.
  • Grammar, absence of, 10
  • Greek words, 133
  • "Lion," word for, 23
  • Mandarin language, see that title.
  • "Pidgin" English, 17
  • Study of—
    • Advantages and objects of study, 107
    • Relative values of Chinese and Greek, 109
    • Students of Chinese wanted, 139
    • Women students—Misses Fay and Fielde, 6
  • Terms of abuse, 124
  • Tones, see that title.
  • Written—
    • Bamboo tablets, 26
    • Conjunction "and," 28
    • Difficulty of study, 5
    • Errors in analysis of words, 33
    • Non-application of rule in cases, 32
    • Number of words, 18, 19
    • Origin and development, 25
    • Paper, invention of, 26
    • Parts of written characters, 22
    • Phonetic basis and indicator, 29
      • Hsü Shên dictionary, 63
      • Modern standard dictionary, 64
    • Pictures of words and ideas, 25
    • Uniformity all over China, 22
• Language, Japanese, absence of terms of abuse, 124
• Lao Tzŭ, see Taoism.
• Library, Cambridge University, collection of Chinese books—
  • Account of strange nations, 58
  • Binding of volumes, etc., 40
  • Biographies, see that title.
  • Buddhist works, 44
  • Catalogue of Imperial Chinese Library, 69
  • Collection of the books, 39
  • Concordance to phraseology of all literature, 65
  • Confucian Canon, see that title.
  • Dictionaries, see that title.
  • Division A, 40
  • Division B, 45
  • Division C, 47
  • Division D, 60
  • Division E, 63
  • Dynastic histories, see that title.
  • Encyclopædias, see that title.
  • Geography of the Empire, 57
  • Historical collection, see Dynastic histories.
  • Illustrated books—notices of Senior Classics of Ming dynasty, 70
  • Novels, 61
  • Number of volumes, 40
  • Oldest printed book in the library, 58
  • Plays, 62
  • Poetry, 60
  • Reference works, 63
  • Reprints, 55
  • T'ai-p'ing rebels, pamphlets, 56
  • Taoist writings, 44
  • Topographies, 57
• Library, Imperial, China, catalogue, 69
• Life, elixir of, Taoist doctrine, 163
• Li Hung-chang—
  • Diplomatic abilities, 112
  • Remark on Mr. Chamberlain's eyeglass, 182
• Likin, self-taxation of Chinese, 89
• "Lion," Chinese word for, 23, 133
• Literary qualities of Chinese nation, 72
• Literature, Chinese—
  • Cambridge University library, see Library.
  • Concordance to phraseology, 65
  • Relative values of Chinese and Greek in mental and moral training, 109
  • Western incidents in, 133
• Liu Hsiang, Biographies of Eminent Women, 50
• Luzon (Philippines), Spanish seizure, 136
•  
• Magic—
  • Jugglers, Chinese and Grecian, 124
  • Taoist black art, 168
• Magistrates—
  • Advancement in ranks, 78
  • Deputy official, test of, 79
  • Division of prefectures into magistracies, 76
  • Duties, 80
  • Expenses of education no obstacle, 79
  • Income, 82
  • Law experts in offices, 56
  • Real rulers of China, 78
• Mahommedanism in China, 143
• Manchus, imprisonment, 1891, people's fury, 98
• Mandarin language—
  • Importance of "official language," 7
  • Sounds for conveyance of speech, lack of, 17
  • Study of, 10
  • [See also Language.]
• Mandarins—
  • Meeting in street, 186
  • Seal of office, 198
• Manichæans in China, 144
• Marriage customs—
  • Grecian customs, similarity of, 122
  • Widows, 201
  • Wives, number of, 196
• Mencius—
  • Attacks on heterodox systems, 147
  • Conversations with disciples, book of Confucian Canon, 42
  • Lao Tzŭ, no allusion to, in writings, 147
  • Quotations from, 84-87, 196
• Ming dynasty—
  • Emperor, character and end of last Emperor, 117
  • History, quotations, 136
  • Overthrow, 118
  • Senior Classics, illustrated books, 70
• Mirror of History, by Ssŭ-ma Kuang, 49
• Mirrors, ancient Chinese and Greek, 132
• Missionaries, Protestant, in China, 144
• Monosyllables, Chinese language, incapable of inflection, 10
• Murder, conviction for, illustrations, 103
• Music—
  • Book of Music, Confucian Canon, 42
  • Burning of the Books, music destroyed, 129
  • Greek characteristics, 129
•  
• Nestorian Christians in China, 143
• Netherlands—story of Dutch settlement in China, 137
• Novels, Chinese, 61
•  
• Odes, Book of, Confucian Canon, 41
  • Mirrors mentioned in, 132
  • Standard of rhyme, 67
  • Toys of boy and girl babies, 195
• Official coats, "horse-shoe sleeves," 179
• Official positions in China—
  • Law experts in offices of judge of criminal cases, 56
  • Senior Classics, see that title.
  • Value of, 72
  • Women once admitted to, 198
  • [See also Government.]
• Olives, Greek and Chinese associations, 128
• Opposites, China regarded as land of, 119, 210
•  
• Painting the face, custom of Chinese and Grecian women, 122
• Pakhoi, opium tax resisted, 95
• Paper, invention of, effect on style of Chinese writing, 26
• Pegasus—Chinese "heavenly horse" compared, 133
• Peking, dialect of, standard Mandarin, 8
• Penal Code, Chinese, 56, 87
• Persia—"heavenly horse" in China, 131
• Philippines, Spanish seizure from China, 136
• Phonetic basis and indicator, see Language—Written.
• Phraseology concordance, Chinese, 65
• "Pidgin" English, 17
• Pigs, tax on, resisted, 93
• Pills of immortality, concoction and effect of, 107
• Plays—
  • Editions of, 62
  • Grecian similarities, 125
• Poetry—
  • Cambridge collection, 60
  • Taoist poet, quotations from, 160
  • Women writers, 60, 197
• Population, Chinese, vastness of, 3
• Portrait-painting, Chinese—
  • Encyclopædia topic, 53
  • Story, 53
• Prefectures, division of circuits, 76, 83
• Priest, Buddhist priest anecdote, 138
• Prince Huai-nan, see Huai-nan.
• Protestant missionaries in China, 144
• Provincial government—
  • Division of provinces, 76, 78
  • Governors, 76, 83
  • Officials, commissioners, etc., 81
  • Viceroys, 76, 82, 83
• Puppet-shows, China, alleged origin of, 123
• Pythagorean and Chinese systems of music, similarity of, 129
•  
• Quails, fighting, Grecian and Chinese custom, 126
• Queue—
  • False hair, 180
  • Tartars, fight against queue, 179
  • Theories as to origin, 178
•  
• Readers, professional, Chinese, 61
• Record in Dark Blood, historical section, Cambridge, 57
• Relativity, doctrine of, Lao Tzŭ's teachings, 156
• Religions—
  • Buddhism, see that title.
  • Classification—Three Doctrines, 143, 145
  • Confucian Canon, see that title.
  • Jews, 144
  • Lao Tzŭ, see Taoism.
  • Mahommedanism, 143
  • Manichæans, 144
  • Nestorian Christians, 143
  • Protestant missionaries, 144
  • Roman Catholicism, 144
  • Taoism, see that title.
  • Zoroastrians, 144
• Reprints, Chinese—
  • Cambridge collection, 55
  • Family Library, 55
• Rhyme, Chinese, 67
• Riots, Chinese, people's self-government, 97
• Rip Van Winkle, Chinese, story of, 55
• Rites, Book of, Confucian Canon, 42
• Roman Catholicism in China, 144
• Roman classics, relative values of Chinese and Greek training, 109
• Romance of Three Kingdoms, novel, 61
•  
• Salt commissioner, provincial official, 81
• Sanskrit, introduction of, 110
• San Ts'ai T'u Hui encyclopædia, 52
• Seal of office of mandarin, 198
• Self-government illustrations, 96
• Self-taxation, see Taxation.
• Senior Classics—
  • Honours of, 72
  • Illustrated book in Cambridge collection, 70
• Shopkeepers, women's business ability, 198
• Smith, Rev. Dr. A. , statement as to prejudice against Christianity, 181
• Social life, knowledge of, necessary to foreigner in China, 181
• Spanish seizure of islands from China, 136
• Spectacles, see Eyeglasses.
• Speech, Chinese, see Language.
• Spring and Autumn, Confucian Canon, 41
• Ssŭ-k'ung T'u, Taoist poet, quotations from, 160
• Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien—
  • Historical Record, 45
  • Memoir of Lao Tzŭ, 149
• Ssŭ-ma Kuang, author of The Mirror of History, 48
• Statesmen—
  • Chang Ch'ien, mission to Bactria, 130
  • Compared with men from other countries, 112
  • Han Yü, great works of, 117
  • Li Hung-chang, see that title.
  • Wên T'ien-hsiang, influence of Chinese literature on, 113
• Statutes, present Chinese dynasty, 56
• Story-tellers in Chinese towns, 61, 123
• Street etiquette and rights, 183
• Strikes—tea strike, Hangchow, 95
• Study of Chinese affairs, see China.
• Suffixes, Chinese language, 21
•  
• T'ai-p'ing rebels, pamphlets of, 56
• Taoism—
  • Alchemy, 166
  • Black art, 186
  • Borrowing from Buddhists, 172
  • Cambridge Library, collection of writings, 44
  • Chuang Tzŭ, writer on Taoism, 148, 154-160, 165, 171
  • Corruption of the Tao, 171
  • Decline, 163
  • Elixir of life, 163
  • Genuineness of Tao-Tê-Ching, evidences against, 146
  • Han Fei Tzŭ, writer on Taoism, 148
  • Huai-nan Tzŭ, writer on Taoism, 149
  • Immortality, see that title.
  • Inaction doctrine, 152, 156
  • Last state, 143
  • Legends of Lao Tzŭ, 145
  • Philosophy of, 151-163, 182
  • Poet, quotations from, 160
  • Relativity doctrine, 156
  • Struggle with Buddhists, 172
• Tao-t'ai, intendant of circuit, 76, 83
• Tao-Té-Ching, evidences against genuineness, 146
• Tartar generals, provincial governors, 82
• Taxation—
  • Combination and resistance, 92
  • Lightness of taxation, 89
  • New imposts, people's approval necessary before enforcement, 90
  • Opium tax resisted, 95
  • Pigs, tax on, resisted, 93
  • Self-taxation, 84
    • Illustrations, 92
    • Likin tax, 89
  • Tea strike, 95
• Tea, serving and drinking, 187
• Tea strike, Hangchow, 95
• Tenses, Chinese language, 13
• "Three Doctrines," 143, 145
• Tones, Chinese language, 20
  • Arrangement of concordance to phraseology, 66
• Topographies, Chinese, Cambridge collection, 57
•  
• University, Columbia, endowment of Chinese chair, 4, 37, 211
• University of Cambridge, Library, see Library.
•  
• Veils for women, abolition of, 197
• "Veritable Record," Cambridge collection, 48
• Viceroys, Chinese, 76, 82, 83
• Visitors, Chinese etiquette, 186
  • Invitation to dinner, 188
  • Left-hand, place of honour, 187
  • Tea, serving and drinking, 187
• Vitale, Baron, publication of Chinese nursery rhymes, 206
•  
• Water-clocks, Chinese and Grecian, 128
• Watermelon, Chinese term for, Greek origin, 134
• Wên Tien-hsiang, influence of Chinese literature and training on, 113
• Western incidents in Chinese literature, 135
• Widows, Chinese, 201
• Wine, introduction of grape-wine into China, 131
• Wine-drinking—
  • Anecdotes, 127
  • Grecian resemblances, 126
  • Guest-tea, 187
• Wives—
  • "Henpecked husbands," 204
  • Status, etc., 196, 198, 199
  • [See also Women.]
• Women—
  • Ancestry of ancient Chinese traced through mother, 27
  • Biographies of Eminent Women, 50
  • Disregard of, 189
  • Education, 197
  • False hair, 180
  • Foot-binding, see that title.
  • Girls, see that title.
  • Greek similarities, 121
  • "Henpecked husbands," 204
  • Official life, 198
  • Painting the face, custom, 122
  • Poems by, 60, 197
  • Privileges not shared by men, 201
  • Seclusion, 177, 196
  • Shopkeepers, business ability, 198
  • Veils, abolition of, 197
  • Widows, 201
  • Wives, see that title.
• Written Chinese language, see Language.
• Wuchang bridge incident, 97
•  
• Yüan Yüan, commentary, Confucian Canon, 43
•  
• Zebra, picture of, in ancient Chinese book, 59
• Zoroastrians in China, 144