CHlNA^S PLACE IN ANCIENT HISTORY : A FRAGMENT. Ill 



partook of meals served on tables, made use of bath tubs ; 

 as parts of their costume wore shoes and stockings, and as a 

 beverage di-ank the infusion of a leaf supposed to have been 

 tea. 



Literature had made great advances, universities were 

 established ; the Peking Gazette pubHshed for the first time 

 B.C. 911. A system of land division and tenure was promul- 

 gated* ; a legal code, extreme in its severity, laid down. 

 Rules were drawn up relating to composition and rhythm in 

 poetry ; the Sheking, a book of Odes, published. A mode of 

 writing designated " The Great Seal Characters," was in- 

 vented, the object being to establish a recognised centre of 

 unity between feudatory tribes whose language or dialects 

 differed widely among themselves. 



Astronomical science was zealously cultivated, and had 

 made considerable advances ; an observatory was established, 

 and a work on mathematics published. Time was measured 

 by means of the sun-dial, the science of navigation under- 

 stood, an instrumeut of the nature of the mariner's compass 

 used at sea, as it had already been on journeys on land.f 



Agriculture and horticulture were progressing towards 

 the conditions in which through many centuries they have 

 continued to be sources of wonder, admiration, and often of 

 imitation throughout the western world. 



Many works, believed by their authors systematic, had 

 already been written on curative medicine; a college Avas 

 established at Peking for its cultivation. As examples of 

 " science " pertaining to the healing art which had come 

 down from distant times previous to this dynasty, and was 

 then gravely taught, the two following must here suffice ; 

 '' There are two natural principles of life, the ^ang or vital 

 heat, the i/in or radical moisture, of which the spirits and the 

 blood are the vehicles. As out of these two names they 

 have made that of man, called jm, so by joining together 

 the strokes which compose these two words they have 

 formed the character or figure which stands for the name of 

 man, so the separation of these two strokes destroys the 

 figure of the iiame of man, so the division of tliese two prin- 

 ciples destroys the life of man."t 



* B.C. 544-519. 



t See China, by H. Murray, 1836, vol. iii. 



X Du Halde, vol. ii, p. 183. 



I 2 



