10 ON THE CHINESE SYSTEM OF WRITING. 



2. Letter from Mr. Duponceau to the same, ordered ly the Socieftj to he published 

 with the preceding one, to which it is an ansrver. Read September 20, 1839. 



My Dea.e, Sir, 



I have read, with great pleasure, the letter addressed to you by the Rev. 

 Mr. GutzlafF, dated Macao, the 2d of January, in the present year. I regret 

 that that writer's excessive modesty has induced him to confine himself to a 

 statement of facts which, interesting as they are, do not afford the solution of 

 the important questions which are the object of my " Dissertation on the Nature 

 and Character of the Chinese System of Writing." Possessed as he is, not only 

 of the Chinese language, in which he has written a universal history, but of 

 those of Cochinchina and Japan, he appears to me to overstep the bounds of 

 Christian humility in disclaiming all pretensions to learning; I wish, therefore, 

 that your respectable correspondent had entered into more details on the sub- 

 ject of which he treats, and not confined himself to generalities, as he appears 

 to have done. I would have been happy to learn from him from what causes, 

 in what manner, and to what extent the Chinese characters have become a 

 kind of pasigraphy among those nations whom philologists distinguish by the 

 name of Indo-Chinese. It is an object of curious inquiry, and which, when 

 fully understood in all its bearings, will, in my humble opinion, throw consi- 

 derable light on the history of the human mind. 



I am particularly struck with the spirit of candour and the love of truth 

 which pervades the whole of Mr. Gutzlaff 's letter, therefore I am not disposed 

 to controvert any thing that he asserts of his own knowledge; which, indeed, 

 I should do with a very ill grace, as I cannot pretend to any thing like that 

 knowledge he possesses of the Indo-Chinese languages, and their various sys- 

 tems of writing; I therefore must be considered, in the observations I am going 

 to make, as the disciple asking questions of his master. It is in that sense only 

 that I desire to be understood. 



I fear that your learned correspondent has formed a higher opinion of the 

 Chinese system of writing than I can bring my mind to acquiesce in. He 



