Historical Observations and Conclusions 103 



whether the passage was actually contained in the original edition of 

 the work (a.d. 100), or whether it has been interpolated in the numerous 

 subsequent re-editions. 1 The decision of this question may be left to 

 a competent sinologue. It means little for my purposes, as long as no 

 instances of the word are pointed out in authentic books, which may 

 be regarded as contemporaneous documents of the Han period. This 

 much may be said, that the definition given in the Shuo wen has not 

 been adequately explained. It has been asserted the definition should 

 mean that ts'e is "pottery and nothing more." 2 It means, however, 

 "Ts'e belongs to the category of pottery," or "is a kind of pottery." 

 In the definitions of the Shuo wen, the word to be explained is defined 

 by a more general word denoting the wider category. It cannot there- 

 fore be deduced from that gloss that ts'e in ancient times did not refer 

 to porcelain, for porcelain certainly is a variety of pottery. In regard 

 to the specific character of ts'e, the definition of the Shuo wen is utterly 

 inconclusive. Holding in abeyance the question as to the time when 

 the term ts'e sprang into existence, and leaving aside all subtleties, it 

 remains for plain common sense to say that a new term refers to a new 

 matter, and that ts'e as a new ceramic term must have denoted a novel 

 production achieved in the ceramic field. Such was the porcelanous 

 ware as here described; and if, from the Sui and T'ang periods onward, 

 the word ts'e was applied to true porcelain, it is self-evident that prior 

 to that time it was attached to porcelanous ware, the forerunner of 

 porcelain. The word ts'e did not plainly describe any pottery, but 

 porcelanous pottery specifically. 



It is known that the character ts'e ffii is now employed also in place 

 of ts'e §£. From this change of characters F. Hirth 3 believed he was 

 justified in concluding that the new form, linked with the classifier 

 'stone' 35, indicates a substitute of material; while in the older form, 

 combined with the classifier ' clay ' lL, the nature of earthenware should 

 be accentuated. This argumentation is unwarranted, and, as will be 

 seen, does not answer the facts. Likewise the information given on 

 this point in the "Catalogue of Potteries published by the Japan 

 Society" (p. 56, New York, 1914) is misleading. Here it is asserted 

 that from the fact that the city Ts'e-chou produced porcelain, and that 

 the word ts'e in the name of the city is phonetically identical with that 

 of the word meaning "stoneware" or "porcelain," a certain confusion in 



1 Neither the Erh ya nor the Kuang ya contains the word; but also this proves 

 nothing, as none of the ancient dictionaries is complete, and they surely lack numer- 

 ous words which are found in literature. 



* F. Hirth, Ancient Chinese Porcelain, p. 130. 



8 Ancient Chinese Porcelain, p. 130, note 3. 



