VI.] THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS. 2 1/ 



the Babylonian origin of the Chinese writing-system, strenuously 

 advocated by the Rev. C. J. Ball, has not been accepted by those 

 specialists who are most competent to judge. Many of the 

 Chinese and Akkadian "line forms" collated by Mr Ball are so 

 simple and, one might say, obvious, that they seem to prove 

 nothing. They may be compared with such infantile utterances 

 as pa, ma, da, ta, occurring in half the languages of the world, 

 without proving a connection or affinity between any of them. 

 But even were the common origin of the two scripts established, 

 it would prove nothing as to the common origin of the two 

 peoples, but only show cultural influences, which need not be 

 denied. 



But if Chinese origins cannot be clearly traced back to 

 Babylonia, Chinese culture may still, in a sense, 



. . . Chinese 



claim to be the oldest in the world, inasmuch as culture and 

 it has persisted with little change from its rise 

 some 4,500 years ago down to present times. All other early 

 civilisations Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Hel- 

 lenic have perished, or live only in their monuments, traditions, 

 oral or written records. But the Chinese, despite repeated political 

 and social convulsions, is still as deeply rooted in the past as ever, 

 showing no break of continuity from the dim echoes of remote 

 prehistoric ages down to the last Taiping rebellion, or the last 

 disastrous foreign war. These things touch the surface only of 

 the great ocean of Chinese humanity, which is held together, not 

 by any general spirit of national sentiment (all sentiment is alien 

 from the Chinese temperament), nor by any community of speech, 

 for many of the provincial dialects differ profoundly from each 

 other, but by a prodigious power of inertia, which has hitherto 

 resisted all attempts at change either by pressure from without, or 

 by spontaneous impulse from within. 



What they were thousands of years ago, the Chinese still are, 

 a frugal, peace-loving, hard-working people, occupied mainly with 

 tillage and trade, cultivating few arts beyond weaving, porce- 

 lain and metal work, but with a widely diffused 

 knowledge of letters, and a writing system which eaHy^Tcords. 

 still remains at the cumbrous ideographic stage, 

 needing as many different symbols as there are distinct concepts 



