CHINESE CHRONOLOGY. 71 
speculated about the beginning of historical time, and traced 
the evolution, development, or “ becoming” of things through 
four stages, down to the state of Chaos. One name for this 
Chaos was P’an-ki, and by and by P’an-kti was personified, 
and became the first man, or rather the first King, for he 
found himself among other men who had come into being as 
mysteriously as himself, and were multiplying without the 
sanctities of marriage, and living without the knowledge of 
fire to cook their food or defend themselves from cold. 
After P’an-kii they place the three Hwang, or rather the 
three Hwang: lines, consisting of 12 Celestial Augustuses, 
11 Terrestrial, and 9 Human, to each individual of which they 
assign a length of 18,000 years. After these there come a 
number of Chi or Periods, something like the Indian Kalpas 
and Yugas, the last of which is still running its course ; and 
which all have strange names that do not look or sound like 
Chinese. The lengths of the several Chi are different; but 
from the beginning or the separation in Chaos of heaven and 
earth, down to B.c. 481, two years or thereabouts before the 
death of Confucius, there had elapsed 2,276,000 and odd 
years, or, according to Sze-ma Chang, 3,276,000 years. Other 
calculations are much more extravagant. The lowest surely 
gives an extent of time which should satisfy all the demands 
of evolutionists. My only excuse for troubling you with 
such representations is, that I wished to give you a sketch, 
at least, of all that is to be found in Chinese literature on the 
chronology of the nation. 
But no writer of any character pays attention to those 
wild speculations. Back to B.c. 842, as I have repeatedly said, 
the chronology of China is as surely established as we could 
desire. For about 1500 years more, to the time of Ydo, we 
seem to have some historical guidance, though the mile- 
stones or time-stones of the course become more difficult to 
decipher the farther back we go. Various considerations con- 
nected with the origin of the written characters, and the 
social condition which the earliest of them indicate in the 
condition of the then existing people, make me not unwilling 
to admit earlier centuries not a few for the commencement of 
Chinese civilisation, but I dare not venture to specify how 
long or how short that formative pericd may have been. 
The Chinese Cycle of Siaty. 
15. There is just one other topic on which I must touch to 
complete my lecture, and then I will conclude by adverting 
to a new phase of speculation which has recently been 
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