46 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



organised government, an army, a written language, historians and other literati, 

 in a period so remote as to be coeval with the immediate successors of the inspired 

 historian of Creation, and the lawgiver of the ancient people of God."* They 

 have a copious literature, both ancient and modern ; they have possessed the art 

 of printing for eight hundred years ; and their written language, with the same 

 characters that they use at the present day, is of extreme antiquity, not less, 

 according to Remusat and others, than four thousand years. A solitary fact will 

 prove this position. Vessels of porcelain, of Chinese manufacture, have of late 

 been repeatedly found in the catacombs of Thebes, in Egypt. Some of these are 

 as old as the Pharaonic period ; or, in other words, they must have been made at 

 least fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. The inscriptions on these 

 vessels have been read with ease by Chinese scholars, and in three instances 

 record the following legend : — The flower opens, and lo ! another year.f 



The civilisation of China is nearly as old as that of Egypt, and has probably 

 remained stationary for thirty centuries ; and, although it is based on a heartless 

 religion, no doubt embraces as many both of the comforts and luxuries of life as 

 the social institutions of Europe ; at the same time that similar wants and indul- 

 gences, in these widely separated communities, are often gratified by very different 

 yet equally adequate means. European civilisation has borrowed largely from 

 China, the Chinese nothing from Europe. When the king of France introduced 

 the luxury of silk stockings, says Mr. Barrow, the peasantry of the middle 

 provinces of China were clothed in silks from head to foot ; and when the 

 nobility of England were sleeping on straw, a peasant of China had his mat and 

 his pillow, and the man in office enjoyed his silken mattress. 



These were equally the luxuries of their ancestors, and they have not chosen 

 to improve upon them. To prevent innovations, the laws prescribe for every 

 thing, and a man must dress, and build, and regulate all his actions according to 

 a certain form. Hence it has been observed that unmovableness is the character- 

 istic of the nation; every implement retains its original shape; every invention 

 has stopped at the first step. The plough is still drawn by men ; the written 

 characters of their monosyllabic language stand for ideas, not for simple sounds ; 

 and the laborious task of merely learning to read, occupies the time that might 

 be employed in the acquisition of many branches of useful knowledge^ 



The religions of China are three— -that of Confucius, Laou-tse and Budha. 



* Ellis, Introd. to Gutzlaff's Voy. p. 13. t Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt, III, p. 108. 



t Outlines of Univ. Hist. p. 17. 



