270 



NA TURE 



\yan. 19, I 



Simon ascribes the amazing intelligence and precocity of 

 Chinese children. With regard to higher education, it is 

 open to all. The Government give barely the necessary 

 expenses ; the rest is contributed by private donors and by 

 the students themselves, of whom there is always an 

 abundance. The directing staff is paid by Government, 

 the teaching staff by the students. Those who wish to 

 enter the public service are trained and examined at the 

 Hanlin College or University of Pekin. All appoint- 

 ments are given to the graduates according to their 

 degrees ; the higher the degree the more honourable and 

 lucrative the post. The graduate takes precedence of all 

 minor officials, and ranks with a minister or viceroy, 

 whose post he frequently fills when he has had a little 

 experience in public life. He has rooms allotted to him 

 in the palatial universities. For these degrees the com- 

 petition is very severe. All the professions stand on an 

 equal footing, except those of teaching and letters. In 

 no country is the man of letters of such influence as in 

 China. Old age alone makes others as worthy of respect 

 as he. Whenever M. Simon found the Chinese distrustful 

 or indifferent to him, he always humoured this opinion of 

 their value of learned men, by seeking out the most 

 learned man in the place and paying his respects to him. 

 The tutor retains a life-long power over his pupil, and 

 frequently the people, when they have had some cause of 

 complaint against an official, have sent long distances to 

 bring his tutor to expostulate with him. The great goal of 

 the literary man is to obtain a public post, such posts being 

 held in high esteem in China. There are few vacancies, 

 however, and the vast majority of candidates being un- 

 successful become tutors, public writers, &c. ; others 

 turn their talents to commerce and agriculture, and so 

 elevate the educational standard of the industrial classes. 

 Labour is so honourable that handicraftsmen rank as 

 high in public estimation as lawyers and doctors. 



M. Simon sums up his views of Chinese civilization, of 

 which a few examples have been given here, by stating that 

 the fact which always seemed to him the most wonderful 

 " was the progressive substitution of individual for col- 

 lective action in all the works of civilizaion, from the 

 simplest to the most complex, from mental to material. 

 The individual freed from the slavery of collectivity, 

 independent, and free in unity, thanks to that unity, is 

 the salient fact apparent from the study of the relations 

 between the people and the Government in China, and 

 appears to me to justify the theories prevalent there.'' 

 Very few readers who possess a personal acquaintance 

 with China and the Chinese will be found to agree with 

 all of M. Simon's statements of fact, or with all of his 

 conclusions from them. But he has nevertheless pro- 

 duced a book which deserves to be carefully studied, and 

 which will strike the mind by the originality of its pro- 

 positions and the skill and ingenuity with which they are 

 defended. In these days, when the Chinese are treated 

 amongst many highly civilized communities in different 

 parts of the globe with loathing and scorn, and when 

 elective Legislatures do not hesitate to speak of members 

 of the Chinese race as hosteshttutani generis, it is perhaps 

 well to be reminded, as M. Simon forcibly reminds us, 

 that this race has solved, apparently with success, some of 

 the social and political problems before which Western 

 statesmen and philosophers stand helpless. 



THE METHOD OF CREATION. 



The Creator, and what ive may know of the Method of 

 Creation. The Fernley Lecture of 1887. By W. H. 

 Dallinger, LL.D., F.R.S. (London : T. Woolmer, 

 1887.) 



T T is not the province of this journal to deal with theo- 

 logical questions ; at the same time, the one dis- 

 cussed in this volume is in such close relation with 

 science, and of such universal interest, that a brief sketch 

 of Dr. Dallinger's argument may be permitted. He deals 

 with a question which takes precedence of those sunder- 

 ing Churches, — one which may briefly be stated thus ; 

 Have the recent advances in physical and biological 

 science placed the Theist in an unreasonable position ? 

 Obviously this is a fundamental question. If the answer 

 be in the affirmative, all investigations into the minutiae 

 of theology are less than the shadows of a shade. 



Dr. Dallinger commences by pointing out the necessary 

 limits of scientific inquiry. On this he insists, not in any 

 hostile spirit, but only because it is so often forgotten. 

 " The researches of science are physical. The observable 

 finite contents of space and time are the subjects of its 

 analysis. Existence, not the cause of existence ; suc- 

 cession, not the reason of succession ; method, not the 

 origin of method, are the subjects of physical research. A 

 primordial cause cannot be the subject of experiment nor 

 the object of demonstration. It must for ever transcend 

 the most delicate physical reaction, the profoundest 

 analysis, and the last link in the keenest logic. Absolute 

 knowledge concerning it can only be the prerogative of 

 itself." 



This, of course, is a position which many so called 

 Agnostics would frankly accept. But in working out the 

 argument the author indicates that a more definite creed 

 is attainable. Commencing with the physical universe, 

 he shows that whatever discoveries have been made, 

 whatever simplifications introduced into the so-called 

 laws of which it is the result, the physicist is at last 

 arrested by two mysteries — matter and force. But what 

 are these, " the alpha and omega of existence " as some 

 would call them ? They are two names, and nothing 

 more. We deal with the properties or qualities of matter, 

 with the consequences of force, but we are no nearer to 

 knowing the one or the other. In addition to these, how- 

 ever, many bard-headed thinkers assert " the existence 

 of a third thing in the universe — to wit, consciousness." 

 Now we may juggle as we please with these terms, we 

 may construct on them elaborate systems explanatory o^ 

 the universe ; but beyond laws either mechanical or vital 

 there lies inevitably, however we may try to smother it 

 by words, the idea of causation ; and from this idea that 

 of "volition" cannot be separated. We are, as the 

 author shows in an elaborate argument, reduced at last to 

 this alternative : "either chance or mental purpose gave 

 primal origin to all that is." The former he shows is 

 almost inexpressibly improbable : most men will not 

 hesitate to accept the latter. 



Considerable space is next devoted to a discussion of 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer's view that "from matter in motion, 

 and nothing else, the whole universe is supposed to arise ; 

 life emerges ; and mind in its most transcendent forms 

 comes forth." In this discussion we are again confronted 



