RECENT BOOKS BY A CHINESE SCHOLAR 123 



with training sufficient to enable them to tabulate their work 

 according to modern methods. Along with this Encyclopaedia 

 have been published a new dictionary, Hsin Tzu-tien, 1 and a 

 new Chinese -English dictionary, 2 both of which are useful 

 and valuable. The former contains in a small space the 

 gist of Kang Hsi's large dictionary and the latter provides in 

 a succinct form the latest usages of Chinese characters. 

 Other publishing houses such as the Chung Hwa 3 have 

 contributed their share to the enrichment of modern Chinese 

 literature for which they deserve credit. 



In one branch of scholarship a new impetus has been 

 given by the impact of Western civilization. This is the 

 investigation of antiquarian subjects. Stein's "Expedition 

 into Central Asia," the "Archaeological Mission to China" 

 of Chavannes, have not only brought to light many interest- 

 ing facts which explain existing literary records, but also have 

 helped to call attention to a method which has been too often 

 overlooked by Chinese writers, viz., the confirmation of 

 literary records by extant monuments. This method has 

 been followed by a few students from the time of the Liang- 

 Dynasty downwards, but as a general rule, it was entirely 

 superceded by the methods of higher and lower textual 

 criticism, which fattened upon the original investigation of 

 others but added nothing new to the stock of human know- 

 ledge. 



Chinese scholarship had followed easily the line of least 

 resistance through long generations by devoting itself to a 

 class of studies which were purely linguistic. The great 

 scholar of the Second Century, A.D., Hsu Shen, 4 prepared 

 the Shuo Wen 5 on an etymological basis, attempting to show 

 the development of the Chinese Chuan characters from their 

 earliest use. He was followed by a long list of writers whose 

 works were written from the same point of view. In the 

 preparation of the Yii Pien, 6 Ku Yeh-wang 7 of the Liang 

 Dynasty devoted his profound scholarship to the historical 

 development of the Li characters and his researches were 

 carried still further by such men as Sun Ch'iang 8 of the Tang 

 Dvnastv and Ch'en P'eng-nien 9 of the Sung Dynasty. With 

 the writers of Buddhistic influence in the Wei and Sui 

 Dynasties, and its cleverly devised Taoist imitation, there 

 emerged the type of scholarship which concerned itself en- 

 tirely with philosophic discussions. These works were de- 

 voted largelv at first to religious philosophy, but soon branch- 

 ed off into the broader and more indefinite fields of politics 



!^ ^ J& 2g| 3£ §f & & 3 Publishers of the t£ ^ ^C ^ M 



