- fo4 CHINA. 



ernment ; and, among others, the Tekunt ficou, a work of Confucius, 

 which contains the annals of twelve kings of Low, the native country 

 of that illustrious sage. The second class is that of the Su, or Che ; 

 that is, of history and the historians. The third class, called Tsu, or 

 Tse ; comprehends philosophy and the philosophers : and contains all 

 the works of the Chinese literati; the productions also of foreign sects 

 and religions, which the Chinese consider only in the light of philo- 

 sophical opinions ; and all books relative to mathematics, astronomy, 

 physic, military science, the art of divination, agriculture, and the arts 

 and sciences in general. The fourth is called Tcie, or miscellanies ; 

 and contains all the poetical books of the Chinese, their pieces of 

 eloquence, their songs, romances, tragedies, and comedies. The Chi- 

 nese literati, in all the periods of their monarchy, have applied them- 

 selves less to the study of nature, and to the researches of natural phi- 

 losophy, than to moral inquiries, the practical science of life, and in- 

 ternal polity and manners. It is said that it was not before the dynasty 

 of the Song, in the tenth and eleventh centuries after Christ, that the 

 Chinese philosophers formed hypotheses concerning the system of 

 the universe, and entered into discussions of a scholastic kind ; in 

 consequence, perhaps, of the intercourse they had long maintained 

 with the Arabians, who studied with ardour the works of Aristotle. 

 And since the Chinese have begun to pay some attention to natural 

 philosophy, their progress in it has been much inferior to that of the 

 Europeans. 



The invention of gunpowder appears to be justly claimed by the 

 Chinese, who made use of it against Zingis Khan and Tamerlane. 

 They seem to have known nothing of small fire arms, and to have 

 been acquainted only with cannon, which they call the fire-pan. Their 

 industry in their manufactures of stuffs, procelain, japanning, and 

 the like sedentary trades, is amazing ; and can be equalled only by 

 their labours in the field, in making canals, levelling mountains, 

 raising gardens, and navigating their junks and boats. 



Language.. ..The Chinese language contains only three hundred 

 and thirty words, all of one syllable ; but then each word is pro- 

 nounced with such various modulations, and each with a different 

 meaning, that it becomes more copious than could be easily imagined. 

 The missionaries, who adapt the European characters as welfas they 

 can to the expression of Chinese words, have devised eleven different* 

 and some of them very compounded, marks and aspirations, to signify 

 the various modulations, elevations, and depressions of the Voice, 

 which distinguish the several meanings of the same monosyllable. 

 The Chinese oral language, being thus barren and contracted, is 

 unfit for literature ; and therefore their learning is all comprised in 

 arbitrary characters, which are amazingly complicated and numerous, 

 amounting to about eighty thousand. This language being wholly 

 addressed to the eye, and having scarcely any oral affinity with the 

 latter, has still continued in its original rude uncultivated state, while 

 the former has received all possible improvement. 



The Chinese characters, Mr. Astle observes, which are by length 

 of time become symbolic, were originally imitative ; they still retain 

 so much of their original hieroglyphic nature, that they do not com- 

 bine into words, like letters or marks for sounds, but we find one mark 

 for a man, another for a horse, a third for a dog, and, in short, a sepa- 

 rate and distinct mark for each thing which has a corporeal form. The 

 Chinese use a great number of marks entirely of a symbolic nature^ 



