CHINA S PLACE IN ANCIENT HISTORY : A FRAGMENT. 97 



wives, and so set the first example of polygamy. The 

 fourth,* dissohite in habits ; making nse of his anthoiity 

 only to serve his brutal passions; disappointing expectations, 

 the tributary princes (or barons) combining in rebellion, 

 dethroning, then sending him into exile, electing in his place 

 a younger brother, to become knoAvn in history as Yaof 

 the Great. It is related of him^ that he believed in the 

 existence of a definite relation between our globe and the 

 other heavenly bodies ; that he devoted himself to a study 

 of the laws of their respective movements, in order that 

 in accordance therewith human affairs might be regulated 

 throughout his kingdom. The views so expressed were 

 to be resuscitated some forty centuries thereafter as an 

 outcome of advanced science of the present day, namely : — 

 " One chain of causation connects the nebulous original 

 of suns and planetary systems Avith the protoplasmic foun- 

 dation of life and organisation. Pathology is the ana- 

 logue of the theory of perturbation in astronomy."§ The 

 ancieiit Chinese monarchs appointed " tribunals of astro- 

 nomy and religion." The erection of sepulchral monuments 

 dates from this reign.)| Among important events con- 

 nected with it was an overflow of the Hoang-Ho — a river 

 ever since known as "China's Sorrow"; the systematic 

 introduction of engineering methods to remedy the misfor- 

 tune in question, and to guard against a repetition of similar 

 catastrophes. 



IFYao promulgated among his people " The Five Rules of 

 Duty," namely : — 1, Between the king and his subjects; 2, 

 parents and children ; 3, old persons and young ; 4, husbands 

 and wives ; 5, friends. The rules then published continuing 

 (theoretically) in force at the present day, more than four 

 thousand years after the date of their original issue. ]\Iany 

 other rules and orders are assigned in history to this 

 monarch, the general result proceeding from which was that 

 " peace reigned among families, good order among officers, 

 union among principalities, the evil-disposed corrected their 

 own conduct, peace reigned everywhere." 



* Ti Chi, B.C. 2366. 



t B.C. 2356, Medhurst. Died, b.c. 2238. Gutslaff, vol. i, p. 131. 

 X Pauthior, p. 33. 

 § Prof. Huxley, 1S81. 

 II jSamely, from the year 2350. 



IT See paper on " Chinese Ethics " read before the Victoria Institute, 

 p. 2. 



