REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 203 



same being the case of a later text quoted by Pelliot. This allows to 

 determine the date for the transmission of the legend to China as being 

 before the beginning of the sixth century, this being the period when 

 the name Fu-lin appears for the first time. 



Mr. Laufer finally shows that the original "pinna transformed into 

 a sheep, into a lamb, even into a bird ends by becoming a human being 

 in the Talmud. But Mr. Laufer goes further : considering that Syria 

 when the legend came from there, was christian and further, that the 

 expression yang-hao used by the Chinese follows intentionally the 

 Syrian tradition and consecrates the substitution of the sheep by the 

 lamb, he finally arrives at the supposition that the old Hellenic story 

 of the sea-sheep has become modified under the influence of the 

 christian allegory of the divine lamb. 



It is out of question here to follow the thought of the author in 

 all its developments as this would lead as out of the limits for this 

 review. Let it suffice to say that thanks to the author we are now able 

 to follow the history of the legend of the pinna-agnus which extends 

 over fifteen centuries and which, founded on a natural fact of trifling 

 importance, has developed into a marvellous and intricate story which 

 has interested Europe during centuries and kept the sagacity of in- 

 numerable scholars on the look-out for the lamb producing this wonder- 

 ful golden fleece. It is remarkable that the principal evidence which 

 enables us to follow step by step the development of the legend, is 

 furnished by the Chinese texts which reproduce the data of the western 

 folk-lore. 



II. — Mention will only be made here of that part of the paper 

 which deals with the knowledge which the Chinese have had of 

 burning-lenses, a question on which the current idea is totally wrong. 

 As the French saying goes : one lends only to the rich, so it has indeed 

 been the custom to attribute the invention of the lense to the Chinese. 

 Mr. Laufer mentions a Dr. E. Hill who in 1914 wrote : "it is said that 

 a Chinese Emperor used lenses as long ago as the year 2283 before 

 Christ to observe the stars" ! Even professional sinologues as F. I. G. 

 Schlegel and, quite recently, Forke, have maintained that burning- 

 lenses were known to the Chinese long before they were known to the 

 Greeks and quite a long time before the Christian era. 



Mr. Laufer applies himself to show that the conclusions of these 

 scholars are based on an illusion due to their not having understood 

 the texts. Referring to the remark of Th. W. Kingsmill concerning 

 the modern myths 1 he adds not without irony : "I apprehend that the 



1 "Myths have been not inaptly described by Max Muller as a 

 disease of language ; and to this category we may perhaps relegate the 

 group of modern myths which have grown up in and around our 

 description of China and its arts." Chinese Recorder, Vol. VII. 1876, 

 p. 43. 



