178 REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 



quest. True he touches on Kang Hsi's merits and patronage of litera- 

 ture. But there is very little said of the state of the people : their 

 prosperity and sufferings ; the famines and reliefs ; their moral and 

 spiritual conditions : the coins and finances, meteoric occurrences, 

 etc., etc., of which a full account might have been obtained from the 

 Tung hua luh (^^|^). The further we advance the more glaring 

 does this defect become. Indeed the last part is for the most part 

 made up of rebellions and foreign intercourse. These are necessary, 

 but history of the people must mean something more. And after 

 closing the book we know a good deal of Ch'ien Lung's raids, and 

 much of opium and the kowtow but nothing of the people themselves. 

 Such a history has yet to be written. 



Some of the English sentence are ambiguous and occasionally a 

 w r ord is not used quite correctly as 'the throne fell on his brother' 

 (p. 152). But on the whole the narrative is well done. The romaniza- 

 tion is not consistent throughout the book : Fang Szu which should 

 be Fang Shih (p. 64) : and. there are a few errors besides. Other 

 corrections should have been made in an errata, such as that Lo Yang 

 is 60 miles from Ch'ang An (v. p. 83). K. Giles on p. 131 should be' 

 H. A.; tarry (p. 166) should be tally. Li ssu not Li sen (p. 66) 

 invented the script. On p. 189 Chung San, Tai Yuan, Ho Chien are 

 said to be in modern Chihli. This must be partly incorrect. There 

 are several misprints as Miscow for Moscow (p. 377) and a for the 

 p. 366. Gerlillon p. 380, should be Gerbillon. Also Perewa should be 

 Pereira. 



There are certain things not very clear as the account of the 

 feudal states (p. 23) : and the reasons given for the Boxer rising are 

 totally inadequate and somewhat incorrect. The author is severe on, 

 the Sung philosophers (p. 196) and fails to recognize their great merits. 

 The author's interpretation of Chinese sentences fails to carry weight 

 always : for instance on page 27 he calls Kung Ho, joined 'peace, 

 which is senseless. Kung means all, the public, Ho (participating in ; 

 the discussions of) co-operation. 



We are not competent to criticise the author's judgements on this 

 vast history of China, but we cannot agree to some of his statements 

 on points within our knowledge. On p. 53 he makes the astonishing 

 statement that 'China has no religion in the true sense of word. 

 Now if a country that possessed an elaborate system of ritual for 

 sacrifices, etc., had no religion, it would be difficult to decide who had. 



Again it is stated on p. 54 that Confucius left the state of Luh in 

 a huff because a part of the sacrificial meat was not given him. The- 

 sentence of the author is ambiguous, but the real reason was Confucius- 



