180 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



litical system of morals, without religion ; for the 

 superstitions of Fo were imported among them 

 from India. Their yellow skin, their prominent 

 cheeks, their narrow and oblique eyes, and their 

 scanty beard, render them so different from us, 

 that one is tempted to believe that their ancestors 

 and ours had escaped the great catastrophe on two 

 different sides. But however this may be, the 

 epoch which they assign to their deluge is nearly 

 the same as ours. 



The Chou-king is the most ancient of the 

 Chinese books * ; it is said to have been compiled 

 by Confucius, about 2255 years ago, from frag- 

 ments of more ancient works. Two hundred 

 years afterwards, a general persecution of the men 

 of letters, and destruction of the books, is said to 

 have taken place under the emperor Chi-Hoang- 

 ti, whose object in this was to destroy the traces 

 of the feudal government established under the 

 dynasty which preceded his. Forty years after, 

 under the dynasty which had overturned that to 

 which Chi-Hoang-ti belonged, a portion of the 

 Chou-king was restored from memory by an old 

 literatus, and another was discovered in a tomb ; 

 but nearly the half of it was for ever lost. Now, 

 this book, the most authentic which the Chinese 



* See the preface to the edition of Chou-king, by M. de 

 Guignes. 



