ETHNOLOGY, ETC., OF CHINA. 207 
Butin the Shi King we have two short memorials “in writing ” by 
the premier of the founder of the Shang dynasty to his son, probably 
in B.C. 1753. The written characters were not invented then; they 
were then in use. They were framed before the time of the Great 
Yu, for we find him using four of the cyclical characters, all of 
which are among the primitives, or the earliest formations. The 
written characters are a great fact, which have always stood in the 
way of my accepting many speculations as to where the original 
Chinese came from, and how long ago they found their way to what 
has been the home of their descendants so long. The state of society 
indicated by the primitive characters cannot have arisen in less than 
a thousand years from the time of the knotted cords. 
Dr. Gordon has much to say about the earlier tribes whom the 
Chinese found in the country, and representatives of which still 
continue to subsist in parts of it, and in the regions west and north 
of it. The names of more than twenty of such tribes may be col- 
lected from the classical literature, as still subsisting under the Chow 
dynasty, but in B.C. 559, the chief of one of them, at hostilities with 
one of the great feudal states, addresses its commander in these 
words :—‘ Our food, our drink, and our clothes are all different from 
those of the Flowery States. We do not exehange silks or other 
articles of introduction with their courts: their language and ours 
do not admit of intercourse between us and them.” 
So itis; until our own times the Chinese have dwelt as a race 
alone ; and it has not been possible to trace satisfactorily the affini- 
ties between them and other races, in respect of their origin, dura- 
tion, and language. I must with this conclude the remarks sug- 
gested by Dr. Gordon’s paper. I have read it with the greatest 
pleasure, and thank him for it. I only wish I had been better pre- 
pared by recent studies to review it, and more truly to do justice to 
it. May I end what I have found to say with the following excellent 
critical canon of Confucius ?—‘‘ Hear much. Put aside the points 
of which you stand in doubt, and speak cautiously of the others.” 
[Some remarks, sent in by another student of Chinese history, 
coincide to a certain extent with Professor Legge’s. They were 
placed in Dr. Gordon’s hands, but the author having asked for their 
return they cannot appear here. | 
