472 On Learning and the Arts. 
tacters infinite combinations are formed, be 4 
necessary instrument to the progress of science, 
the Chinese can have no pietensions to the 
character of a learned nation, although for no 
other reasons this attribute should be refused to 
them. For as language is the vehicle of ideas, 
how slow must be the progress of literary im- 
provement, where only to know the language 
itself requires the application of a whole life. 
Yet onthe first visit of the Europeans the Chinese 
were found to be possessed of the elements of 
almost all the arts, those very elements, which 
under the culture of the more ardent European 
have so exalted him amongst men. The same 
may be observed of the Mexicans and Peruvians, 
who had no form of written language whatever. 
The date of their empires was indeed compa- 
ratively of yesterday, but at the period of their 
highest improvement they could support no 
claim to the character of learned nations. Yet 
many of their productions of art, magnificence 
and taste were objects of admiration to the more 
improved European. The practical principles 
of chemistry have been known, and successively 
acted on, by many of the rudest and most ig- 
norant nations of the earth, and the communica- 
tion of some of their processes would be a valuable 
acquisition to the European artist of the present 
day. Indeed without disparagement to the present 
