694 m a n k i n d ’s c h r o n o l og r.
an intolerable pitch, that the pions Emperor Mou-wang, about b . c. 950, records how Yao
in b . c. 2337, in'order to suppress false prophecies, miracles, magic, and revelations,__
fi “ Commanded the two Ministers of Astronomy and Religion to cut asunder all communication
between ‘ sky’ and earth; and thus (says Mou-wang) there was no more of
what is called this lif'ting-up and coming-down.”
And, so inveterate, in sporadic instances of the Chinese mind, was this childish reliance
upon invisible powers, that fifteen centuries after the burning of the books, the Minister
Tchang-kouei, about a . d. 1321, during a period of great physical calamities, pestilence
inundations, &c., felt it incumbent upon his office to include the subjoined remarks in a
long and manly expostulation : -r-
“ A prince must not think to govern his country save as the father of his subjects ; and
it is not through Bonzes [Budhist priests] that he must seek felicity. Ever since the Bonzes,
the Lamas, and the Tao-ssé, make so many prayers and sacrifices to their idol, ‘Heaven’
has given constant signs of its indignation; and until such time as one sees the worship of
Fo [Budha] abolished, and all these priests driven away, one must expect to be unhappy.”
Such political necessities may palliate some of Chi-Hoang-ti’s deeds ; which obliterated
so much of -earlier literature extant down to the Chinese “ era of the martyrs” for
science, b . c. 213;
Upon accession of the famous Han dynasty, b . c . 202, a reaction in favor of letters immediately
commenced ; and from this period of “ renaissance ” downwards no nation upon
earth possessed, till recently, annals comparable to the Chinese. About b. c . 176, the
Chou-king of Khoung-tseu was recovered,- partly, by taking down the recitations of a
nonogenarian savant, Fou-cheng, who had been president of literature prior to the conflagration
of libraries. Through this venerable scholar (who is to the Chinese what Ezra
was to thè Jews) and the fortuitous discovery, b . c . 140, of a copy of the Chou-king with
pther books in the ruined house of Confucius, the more important documents of Chinese
antiquarian lore were restored.
European authors, who claim that we possess the plenary words if not the autograph of
Moses, have doubted this account. We accept it, notwithstanding, in good faith; because
neither the books themselves nor their transcribers pretend to supernaturalism in any
shape ; whilst the nature of the local researches subsequently undertaken renders nugatory
such unwarrantable European objection!?.
“ But the man who has thrown the grandest éclat over the reign of the Emperor Wou-ti,
is Sse-ma-thsian, whom M. Abel Rémusat has called the Herodotus of China.” (515) His
portrait is given under our Fig. 331 [supra, p. 34Q], About b . c. 104 he commenced his
Historical Memoirs; which, in 130 books (extant in European libraries, and consulted by
the Sinologists we quote), furnish a vast encyclopaedia of Chinese annals, of every kind,
from the reign of the old Hoang-ti, 2697 years before c., down to b . c. 140.
“ Sse-ma-thsian made good use of all that remained of the Classical Books; of those of
the Ancestral Temple of the Tcheou-dynasty ; the Secret Memoirs of the House of Stone, and
of the Golden Coffer; and of the registers called Plates of Jasper. It is added that he
stript the Liu-ling, for what concerns the laws ; the Tactics of Hdn-sin, for what regards
military affairs ; the .Tchang-tching, for what relatés to general literature ; and the Li-yi for
every thing that is relative to usages and ceremonies.”
There are no further breaks in Chinese archaeological labors down to our time ; which
researches, for care and magnitude, may challenge the universe. We mention, however,
only the Researches profound of the Monuments left by Savans, published at royal expense, in
348 books, by Matouan-lin, in a . d. 1321 ; which covers history from the twenty-fourth
century b . c. down to the twelfth after c. Copies exist'.in European libraries. After the
death of Chi-Hoang-ti : —
“ The tombs, the ruins . of cities, the canals and rivers, saved some moneys, some
bronze vases, some urns and other objects of his proscription. A certain number of
these has been found since the fall of the Thsin-dynasty. They have been carefully
collected and preserved in museums or in private cabinets ; descriptions have been made
(515) Chine; pp. 246-248.
#
CHINESE. 695
of them, accompanied by figured designs that faithfully reproduce them with their ancient
inscriptions. The emperor Kien-loung, who reigned from a . d . 1736 to 1796, caused to be
published, in 42 Chinese folio volumes, a description and engraving of all the antique vases
deposited at the Imperial Museum. An exemplar of this magnificent work, which has no
rival in Europe, being at the Bibliothèque Royale of Paris.”
Pauthier has selected, out of 1444 vases of different species contained in these “ Memoirs
of the Antiquities of Occidental Purity,” those beautiful specimens we behold, reduced
in size, in his work. (516)
The earliest originals, now extant in China, go back in date to the C%awy-dynasty, b . c .
1766: — an epoch when Abraham, according to Lepsius’s computation of biblical chronology,
was yet unborn. One more ancient inscription, upon a rock of Mount Heng-chan,
yet remains to vindicate the engineering ability of Yu. It dates about the year b . c . 2278 ; (517)
and is therefore parallel in age with the thousand records we possess of Egypt’s Xllth
dynasty. Its translation, given by Pauthier, disconnects it from any diluvial hypotheses •
with which, moreover, no geologist or archaeologist need distress himself further.
We trust the reader has now attained to our point of view, and perhaps perceives three
things g 1st, the historical meritoriousness of. Chinese literature; 2d,. the nature of the
materials examined by Jesuits whose evangelical prepossessions were essentially hostile to
the literature they laud ; and 3d, that there are Sinologists living in the world competent
to liberate historical truth from chances of error. We pow proceed to lay before him a
brief summary of Chinese time-registry ; commending to his perusal the “ Researches upon
times anterior to those of which the Chou-king speaks, and upon Chinose mythology,” by
Father de,Prémare, together with an old rule of Vico’s.(518)
“ We have heard Diodorus Siculus declare, in respect to th % pride of nations, that these,
‘ whether they may have been Greek or barbarian, have pretended, each one, to have been
the first to discover all the comforts of life, and to have preserved their own history since
the commencement of the world.’ ” (519)
Greece, Rome, and Judæa, possess first their fabulous and then their semi-historical
periods. Tradition alone pierces through the gloom of the latter, in the ratio of approximation
to the several epochas at which given nations first began to chronicle their events.
In later days, progressive science invests such fables and faintly-shadowed incidents of a
nation’s childhood with the garb of mythico-astronomical sanctity. Thus does the founder
of chronology, Manetho, preface his historical dynasties with cycles of Gods, Demigods, and
Manes; thus do the compilers of Genesis antecede Abraham with symbolical names of
mythic patriarchs gifted with impossible longevity ; and so do the Chinese place mythology
before history.. The sole difference being that neither did Manetho nor the Chinese arché-s-
ologues ever believe their respective mythologies to be otherwise than unhistorical : at the
same time that the whole of these antique systems represent that instinctive consciousness
of nations who feel that an unrecorded national infancy must have preceded a recorded
national adolescence.
Ch in e s e A n t e -h i s t o e ic a i P e r io d s . (520)
P an -k o u — first symbolical man — followed by the three H o ang, viz. : —
1st.—Reign of the Sky.
2d.— “ <• Earth.
8d.— « “ Man. '
They are comprehended in a grand cyclic period of 129,600 years ; composed of twelve
parts called conjunctions, each of 10,800 years.
(516) Chine; p. 201; Plates 38-44.
(517) Ibid.; pp. 53-54.
(518) Liv. Sac. de VOrient; pp. 1&-42.
(519) V ig o : Scienza Nuova ; Principles, axiom iii.
(520) Chine; pp. 22-24; — Livres Sacrés, pp. 16,19.