The Potter's Wheel 177 



production of a true white porcelain. Porcelain is not an invention, 

 and there is no inventor of it. It is not in a category by itself, but is 

 only a variety of pottery; its diversity from common pottery is one of 

 degree, not of principle. 



Finally, the question may be raised as to why Chinese records on all 

 these points are so sparse and unsatisfactory. The same observation 

 holds good for bronze, iron, wood-carving, basketry, and other ancient 

 industries and crafts. The occupation with such themes on the part 

 of Chinese scholars begins as late as the age of the Sung. The ancient 

 professional annalists and chroniclers were not interested in the doings 

 and thoughts of the broad masses of the people. If they recorded with 

 some degree of exactness the invention of rag-paper in a.d. 105, it was 

 for the reason that paper had a direct bearing on the life and work of 

 the scholar. The plain farmer-potter of otd led a secluded existence, 

 far removed from the seats of scholarship. The average type of Con- 

 fucian scholar never took an interest in technical questions, or else 

 looked down upon these without a gleam of understanding. Our hopes 

 for further elucidations of the problems connected with the history of 

 pottery in China must be placed in archaeology, not in sinology, which 

 certainly reflects not on the sinologue, but on the character of the 

 scanty source-material that has fallen to our lot. 



