A CHINESE DICTIONARY. 413 



been given to it ; but the important point is, that the unwary- 

 scholar frequently endeavours to give separate translations to 

 each element of compound words. These are given in the best 

 dictionaries ; but there may be some difficulty in making a list 

 of them complete and easy of reference. In printing it would 

 be well, I think, to connect the elementary characters by a 

 hyphen. 



The matter is so peculiar that you will not object to my 

 giving you an instance of the errors it is apt to produce. In 

 Kemusat's version of one of the 'Four Books,' as they are 

 called, of Confucius, it is said that Confucius lived in accordance 

 with the seasons and with the earth and water. The meaning 

 of this is certainly not clear; but 'water-earth' simply means 

 ' climate.' The habits of Confucius were not in accordance with 

 the earth, whatever that may mean, nor with the water, but 

 simply, which is quite intelligible, with the climate. 



The instances which in the Notes to Humboldt's letter to 

 him Eemusat quotes from other languages ('horseman' is his 

 English instance), are not quite parallel, for though no gram- 

 matical form indicates the relation between their parts, yet 

 ideally one of them is a substantive, and the other a modifying 

 adjective: whereas in Chinese the compound word is a new 

 formation, of which the meaning is suggested only by those of 

 its parts. 'Elementa quodammodo manent in composite*,' we 

 cannot define the matter more precisely. We see here, as in 

 the formation of the Chinese characters, and in the structure of 

 the language, the tendency to merely external union. There 

 is contact and combination, but no interpenetrating compound 

 growth, and the whole resembles not a picture but a mosaic. 



The same remark might be made as to Chinese style, which 

 is all compact of set phrases and antitheses. 1 cannot enter on 

 all the matters of detail connected with the Index, of which I 

 have endeavoured to give you an outline. My ideas of them 

 are of course very imperfect. Gallery's merits, with respect to 

 Chinese lexicography, are doubtless great, both in his exposition 

 of the ultimate dissection of the characters, and in showing, 

 more clearly and fully than had been done before, the presence 

 of a phonetic element in the great majority of characters. His 

 assumption, that a set of phonetic elements were deliberately 



* S. Thomas Aquinas de Prineipiis. 



