Part V consists of biographies of the most eminent men who came to the

front during the whole period covered.

These biographies are by no means confined to virtuous statesmen or

heroic generals, as we might very reasonably have expected. The Chinese

historian took a much broader view of his responsibilities to future

ages, and along with the above virtuous statesmen and heroic generals

he included lives of famous assassins, of tyrannical officials, of

courtiers, of flatterers, of men with nothing beyond the gift of the

gab, of politicians, of fortune-tellers, and the like.

This principle seems now to be widely recognised in the compilation of

biographical collections. It was initiated by a Chinese historian one

hundred years B.C.

His great work has come down to us as near as possible intact. To the

Chinese it is, and always has been, a priceless treasure; so much so

that every succeeding Dynastic History has been modelled pretty much

upon the same lines.

The custom has always been for the incoming dynasty to issue the history

of the dynasty it has overthrown, based upon materials which have been

gathered daily during the latter's lease of power. At this moment the

Historiographer's Department in Peking should be noting down current

events for the use of posterity, in the established belief that all

dynasties, even the most powerful, come to an end some day.

In addition to the Dynastic History proper, a custom has grown up of

compiling what is called the "Veritable Record" of the life of the

reigning Emperor. This is supposed to be written up every day, and with

an absolute fidelity which it is unnecessary to suspect, since the

Emperors are never allowed under any circumstances to cast an eye over

their own records.

When the Hanlin College was burnt down, in 1900, some said that the

"Veritable Records" of the present dynasty were destroyed. Others

alleged that they had been carted away several days previously. However

this may be, the "Veritable Records" of the great Ming dynasty, which

came to a close in 1644, after three hundred years of power, are safe in

Division B of the Cambridge Library, filling eighty-four large volumes

of manuscript.

The next historical epoch is that of Ssu-ma Kuang, a leading statesman

and scholar of the eleventh century A.D., who, after nineteen years of

continuous labour, produced a general history of China, in the form of

a chronological narrative, beginning with the fourth century B.C. and

ending with the middle of the tenth century A.D. This work, which is

popularly known as _The Mirror of History_, and is quite independent

of the dynastic histories, fills thirty-three of our large bound-up

volumes.

There is a quaint passage in the old man's Preface, dated 1084, and

addressed to the Emperor:--

"Your servant's physical strength is now relaxed; his eyes are

short-sighted and dim; of his teeth but a few remain. His memory is so

impaired that the events of the moment are forgotten as he turns away

from them, his energies having been wholly exhausted in the production

of this book. He therefore hopes that your Majesty will pardon his vain

attempt for the sake of his loyal intention, and in moments of leisure

will deign to cast the Sacred Glance over this work, so as to learn from

the rise and fall of former dynasties the secret of the successes and

failures of the present hour. Then, if such knowledge shall be applied

for the advantage of the Empire, even though your servant may lay his

bones in the Yellow Springs, the aim and ambition of his life will be

fulfilled."

Biography, as we have already seen, is to some extent provided for under

the dynastic histories. Its scope, however, has been limited in later

times, so far as the Historiographer's Department is concerned, to such

officials as have been named by Imperial edict for inclusion in the

national records. Consequently, there has always been a vast output of

private biographical literature, dealing with the lives of poets,

painters, priests, hermits, villains, and others, whose good and evil

deeds would have been long since forgotten, like those of the heroes

before Agamemnon, but for the care of some enthusiastic biographer.

Among our eight or ten collections of this kind, there is one which

deserves a special notice. This work is entitled _Biographies of

Eminent Women_, and it fills four extra-large volumes, containing 310

lives in all. The idea of thus immortalising the most deserving of his

countrywomen first occurred to a writer named Liu Hsiang, who flourished

just before the Christian era. I am not aware that his original work is

still procurable; the present work was based upon one by another writer,

of the third century A.D., and is brought down to modern times, being

published in 1779. Each biography is accompanied by a full-page

illustration of some scene in which the lady distinguished herself,--all

from the pencil of a well-known artist.

Three good-sized encyclopaedias, uniformly bound up in ninety-eight large

volumes, may fairly claim a moment's notice, not only as evidencing the

persistent literary industry of the Chinese, but because they are all

three perfect mines of information on subjects of interest to the

foreign student.

The first dates from the very beginning of the ninth century, and deals

chiefly with the Administration of Government, Political Economy, and

National Defences, besides Rites, Music, and subordinate questions.

The second dates from the twelfth century, and deals with the same

subjects, having additional sections on History and Chronology, Writing,

Pronunciation, Astronomy, Bibliography, Prodigies, Fauna and Flora,

Foreign Nations, etc.

The third, and best known to foreign scholars, is the encyclopaedia of

Ma Tuan-lin of the fourteenth century. It is on much the same lines as

the other two, being actually based upon the first, but has of course

the advantage of being some centuries later.

The above three works are in a uniform edition, published in the middle

of the eighteenth century under orders from the Emperor Ch'ien Lung.

There are also several other encyclopaedias of information on general

topics, extending to a good many volumes in each case.

One of these contains interesting extracts on all manner of subjects

taken from the lighter literature of China, such as Dreams, Palmistry,

Reminiscences of a Previous State of Existence, and even Resurrection

after Death. It was cut on blocks for printing in A.D. 981, only fifty

years after the first edition of the Confucian Canon was printed. The

Cambridge copy cannot claim to date from 981, but it does date from

1566.

Another work of the same kind was the _San Ts'ai T'u Hui_, issued in

1609, which is bound up in seventeen thick volumes. It is especially

interesting for the variety of topics on which information is given, and

also because it is profusely illustrated with full-page woodcuts. It has

chapters on Geography, with maps; on Ethnology, Language, the Arts and

Sciences, and even on various forms of Athletics, including the feats of

rope-dancers and acrobats, sword-play, boxing, wrestling, and foot-ball.

Under Tricks and Magic we see a man swallowing a sword, or walking

through fire, while hard by an acrobat is bending backward and drinking

from cups arranged upon the ground.

The chapters on Drawing are exceptionally good; they contain some

specimen landscapes of almost faultless perspective, and also clever

examples of free-hand drawing. Portrait-painting is dealt with, and ten

illustrations are given of the ten angles at which a face may be drawn.

The first shows one-tenth of the face from the right side, the second

two-tenths, and so on, waxing to full-face five-tenths; then waning sets

in on the left side, four, three, and two-tenths, until ten-tenths shows

nothing more than the back of the sitter's head.

There is a well-known Chinese story which tells how a very stingy man

took a paltry sum of money to an artist--payment is always exacted in

advance--and asked him to paint his portrait. The artist at once complied

with his request, but in an hour or so, when the portrait was finished,

nothing was visible save the back of the sitter's head. "What does this

mean?" cried the latter, indignantly. "Oh," replied the artist, "I

thought a man who paid so little as you wouldn't care to show his face!"

* * * * *

Perhaps some one may wonder how it is possible to arrange an

encyclopaedia for reference when the language in which it is written

happens to possess no alphabet.

Arrangement under Categories is the favourite method, and it is employed

in the following way:--

A number of such words as Heaven, Earth, Time, Man, Plants, Beasts,

Birds, Fishes, Minerals, and others are chosen, and the subjects are

grouped under these headings. Thus, Eclipses would come under Heaven,

Geomancy under Earth, the Passions under Man, though all classification

is not quite so simple as these specimens, and search is often prolonged

by failing to hit upon the right Category. Even when the Category is the

right one, many pages of Index have frequently to be turned over; but

once fix the reference in the Index, and the rest is easy, the

catch-word in each case being printed on the margin of each page, just

where the finger comes when turning the pages rapidly over.

The Chinese are very fond of collections of reprints, published in

uniform editions and often extending to several hundred volumes. My

earliest acquaintance with literature is associated with such a

collection in English. It was called _The Family Library_, and ran to

over a hundred volumes, if I recollect rightly, and included the works

of Washington Irving and the immortal story of _Rip Van Winkle_. There

is also a Chinese Rip Van Winkle, a tale of a man who, wandering one day

in the mountains, came upon two boys playing checkers; and after

watching them for some time, and eating some dates they gave him, he

discovered that the handle of an axe he was carrying had mouldered into

dust. Returning home, he found, as the Chinese poet puts it,

"City and suburb as of old,

But hearts that loved him long since cold."

Seven generations had passed away in the interim.

The Cambridge Library possesses several of these collections of

reprints. One of them is perhaps extra valuable because the wooden

blocks from which it was printed were destroyed during the T'ai-p'ing

Rebellion, some forty years ago.

I may mention here, though not properly belonging to this section, that

we possess a good collection of the curious pamphlets issued by the

T'ai-p'ing rebels.

Other interesting works to be found in Division B are the Statutes of

the present dynasty, which began in 1644, and even those of the previous

dynasty, the latter being an edition of 1576.

Then there is the Penal Code of this dynasty, in several editions;

various collections of precedents; handbooks for magistrates, with

recorded decisions and illustrative cases.

A magistrate or judge in China is not expected to know anything about

law.

Attached to the office of every official who may be called upon to try

criminal cases is a law expert, to whom the judge or magistrate may

refer, when he has any doubt, in private, just as our unpaid justices of

the peace in England refer for guidance to the qualified official

attached to the court.

Before passing on to the next section, one last volume, taken at

haphazard, bears the weird title, _A Record in Dark Blood_. This work

contains notices of eminent statesmen and others, who met violent

deaths, each accompanied by a telling illustration of the tragic scene.

Some of the incidents go far to dispose of the belief that patriotism is

quite unknown to the Chinese.

* * * * *

Division C is devoted to Geography and to Topography. Here stands the

Imperial Geography of the Empire, in twenty-four large volumes, with

maps, in the edition of 1745. Here, too, stand many of the Topographies

for which China is justly celebrated. Every Prefecture and every

District, or Department,--and the latter number about fifteen

hundred,--has its Topography, a kind of local history, with all the

noticeable features of the District, its bridges, temples, and like

buildings, duly described, together with biographies of all natives of

the District who have risen to distinction in any way. Each Topography

would occupy about two feet of shelf; consequently a complete collection

of all the Topographies of China, piled one upon the other, would form a

vertical column as high as the Eiffel Tower. Yet Topography is only an

outlying branch of Chinese literature.

Division C further contains the oldest printed book in the Cambridge

University Library, and a very interesting one to boot. It is entitled

_An Account of Strange Nations_, and was published between 1368 and

1398. Its contents consist of short notices of about 150 nationalities

known more or less to the Chinese, and the value of these is much

enhanced by the woodcuts which accompany each notice.

Among the rest we find Koreans, Japanese, Hsiung-nu (the forefathers of

the Huns), Kitan Tartars, tribes of Central Asia, Arabs, Persians, and

even Portuguese, Jean de Montecorvino, who had been appointed archbishop

of Peking in 1308, having died there in 1330. Of course there are a few

pictures of legendary peoples, such as the Long-armed Nation, the

One-eyed Nation, the Dog-headed Nation, the Anthropophagi,

"and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders."

There is also an account of Fusang, the country where grew the famous

plant which some have tried to identify with the Mexican aloe, thus

securing the discovery of America for the Chinese.

The existence of many of these nations is duly recorded by Pliny in his

_Natural History_, in words curiously identical with those we find in

the Chinese records.

Some strange birds and animals are given at the end of this book, the

most interesting of all being an accurate picture of the zebra, here

called the _Fu-lu_, which means "Deer of Happiness," but which is

undoubtedly a rough attempt at _fara_, an old Arabic term for the wild

ass. Now, the zebra being quite unknown in Asia, the puzzle is, how the

Chinese came to be so well acquainted with it at that early date.

The condition of the book is as good as could be expected, after six

hundred years of wear and tear. Each leaf, here and there defective, is

carefully mounted on sheets of stiff paper, and all together very few

characters are really illegible, though sometimes the paper has slipped

upon the printing-block, and has thus given, in several cases, a double

outline.

Alongside of this stands the modern work of the kind, published in 1761,

with an introductory poem from the pen of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung. It

contains a much longer list of nations, including the British, French,

Spanish, Dutch, Russians, Swedes, and others, and the illustrations--a

man and woman of each country--are perfect triumphs of the block-cutter's

art, the lines being inconceivably fine.

* * * * *

Division D contains Poetry, Novels, and Plays. Under Poetry, in addition

to collections of the works of this or that writer, there are numerous

anthologies, to which the Chinese are very partial. The mass of Chinese

poetry is so vast, that it is hopeless for the general reader to do much

more than familiarise himself with the best specimens of the greatest

poets. It is interesting to note that all the more extensive anthologies

include a considerable number of poems by women, some of quite a high

order.

Two years ago, an eminent scientist at Cambridge said to me, "Have the

Chinese anything in the nature of poetry in their language?" In reply to

this, I told him of a question once put to me by a friendly Mandarin in

China: "Have you foreigners got books in your honourable country?" We

are apt to smile at Chinese ignorance of Western institutions; but if we

were Chinamen, the smile perhaps would sometimes be the other way about.

Such novels as we have in our library belong entirely to what may be

called the classical school, and may from many points of view be

regarded as genuine works of art. Besides these, there is in the market

a huge quantity of fiction which appeals to the less highly educated

classes, and even to those who are absolutely unable to read. For the

latter, there are professional readers and story-tellers, who may often

be seen at some convenient point in a Chinese town, delighting large

audiences of coolies with tales of love, and war, and heroism, and

self-sacrifice. These readers do not read the actual words of the book,

which no coolie would understand, but transpose the book-language into

the colloquial as they go along.

_A propos_ of novels, I should like just to mention one, a romantic

novel of war and adventure, based upon the _History of the Three

Kingdoms_, third century A.D., an epoch when China was split up under

three separate sovereigns, who fought one another very much after the

style of the Wars of the Roses in English history. This novel, a very

long one, occupies perhaps the warmest corner in the hearts of the

Chinese people. They never tire of listening to its stirring episodes,

its hair-breadth escapes, its successful ruses, and its appalling

combats.

Some twelve years ago, a friend of mine undertook to translate it into

English. After writing out a complete translation,--a gigantic task,--he

rewrote the whole from beginning to end, revising every page thoroughly.

In the spring of 1900, after ten years of toil, it was ready for the

press; three months later it had been reduced to ashes by the Boxers at

Peking.

"Sunt lacrymae rerum ..."

Chinese plays in the acting editions may be bought singly at

street-stalls for less than a cent apiece. For the library, many good

collections have been made, and published in handsome editions.

This class of literature, however, does not stand upon a high level, but

corresponds with the low social status of the actor; and it is a curious

fact--true also of novels--that many of the best efforts are anonymous.

Plays by women are also to be found; but I have never yet come across,

either on the stage or in literature, any of those remarkable dramas

which are supposed to run on month after month, even into years.

* * * * *

Division E is a very important one for students of the Chinese language.

Here we find a number of works of reference, most of which may be

characterised as indispensable, and the great majority of which are

easily procurable at the present day.

Beginning with dictionaries, we have the famous work of Hsue Shen, who

died about A.D. 120. There was at that date no such thing as a Chinese

dictionary, although the language had already been for some centuries

ripe for such a production, and accordingly Hsue Shen set to work to fill

the void. He collected 9353 written characters,--presumably all that

were in existence at the time,--to which he added 1163 duplicates,

_i.e._ various forms of writing the same character, and then arranged

them in groups under those parts which, as we have already seen in the

preceding Lecture, are indicators of the direction in which the sense of

a character is to be looked for. Thus, all characters containing the

element [CJK:72AD] "dog" were brought together; all those containing

[CJK:8279] "vegetation," [chuang] "disease," etc.

So far as we know, this system originated with him; and we are therefore

not surprised to find that in his hands it was on a clumsier scale than

that in vogue to-day. Hsue Shen uses no fewer than 540 of these

indicators, and even when the indicator to a character is satisfactorily

ascertained, it still remains to search through all the characters under

that particular group. Printing from movable types would have been

impossible under such a system.

In the modern standard dictionary, published in 1716, under the

direction of the Emperor K'ang Hsi, there are only 214 indicators

employed, and there is a further sub-arrangement of these groups

according to the number of strokes in the other, the phonetic portion of

the character. Thus, the indicators "hand," "wood," "fire," "water," or

whatever it may be, settle the group in which a given character will be

found, and the number of strokes in the remaining portion will refer it

to a comparatively small sub-group, from which it can be readily picked

out. For instance, [song] "a fir tree" will be found under the indicator

[mu] "tree," sub-group No. 4, because the remaining portion [gong]

consists of four strokes in writing.

Good copies of this dictionary are not too easily obtained nowadays. The

"Palace" edition, as it is called, is on beautifully white paper, and is

a splendid specimen of typography.

A most wonderful literary feat was achieved under the direction of

the before-mentioned Emperor K'ang Hsi, when a general Concordance

to the phraseology of all literature was compiled and published for

general use. Word-concordances to the Bible and to Shakespeare are

generally looked upon as no small undertakings, but what about

a phrase-concordance to all literature? Well, in 1711 this was

successfully carried out, and remains to-day as a monument of the

literary enterprise of the great Manchu-Tartar monarch with whose name

it is inseparably associated.

The term "literature" here means serious literature, the classics,

histories, poetry, and the works of philosophers, of recognised

authorities, and of brilliant writers generally.

It was not possible, for obvious reasons, to arrange this collection of

phrases according to the 214 indicators, as in a dictionary of words. It

is arranged according to the Tones and Rhymes.

Let me try to express all this in terms of English literature. Reading

a famous poem, I come across the lines

"And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale."

Now suppose that I do not know the meaning of "tells his tale." [I

recollect perfectly that as a boy I thought it meant "whispered the old

story into the ear of a shepherdess."] I determine to hunt it up in the

Concordance. First of all, I find out from the Dictionary, if I do not

know, to what Tone _tale_, always the last word of the phrase, belongs.

Under that tone will be found various groups of words, each with a

key-word which is called the Rhyme, that is to say, a key-word with

which all the words in this group rhyme. There are only 106 of these

key-words all together distributed over the Tones, and every word in the

Chinese language must rhyme with one of them.

The question of rhyme in Chinese is a curious one, and before going any

farther it may be as well to try to clear it up a little. All Chinese

poetry is in rhyme; there is no such thing as blank verse. The _Odes_,

collected and edited by Confucius, provide the standard of rhyme. Any

words which are found to rhyme there may be used as rhymes anywhere

else, and no others. The result is, that the number of rhyme-groups is

restricted to 106; and not only that, but of course words which rhymed

to the ear five hundred years B.C. do so no longer in 1902. Yet such are

the only authorised rhymes to be used in poetry, and any attempt to

ignore the rule would insure disastrous failure at the public

examinations.

This point may to some extent be illustrated in English. The first two

lines of the _Canterbury Tales_, which I will take to represent the

_Odes_, run thus in modern speech:--

"When that Aprilis with his showers sweet,

The drought of March hath pierced to the root."

No one nowadays rhymes _sweet_ with _root_. Neither did Chaucer; the two

words, _sote_ and _rote_, were in his days perfect rhymes. But if we

were Chinese, we should now rhyme _sweet_ with _root_, because, so to

speak, Chaucer did so.

When the Tone of a word is known, it is also known in which quarter of

the whole work to look; and when the Rhyme is known, it is also known

in which part of that quarter the key-word, or rhyme, will be found.

Suppose the key-word to be _gale_, it might be necessary to turn over

a good many pages before finding, neatly printed in the margin, the

required word, _tale_. Under _tale_ I should first of all find phrases

of two words, _e.g._ "traveller's tale," "fairy-tale"; and I should have

to look on until I came to groups of three characters, _e.g._ "old

wife's tale," "tells his tale," and so forth. Finally, under "tells his

tale" I should still not find, what all students would like so much, a

plain explanation of what the phrase means, but only a collection of the

chief passages in literature in which "tells his tale" occurs. In one

of these there would probably be some allusion to sheep, and in another

to counting, and so it would become pretty plain that when a shepherd

"tells his tale," he does not whisper soft nothings into the ear of a

shepherdess, but is much more prosaically engaged in counting the number

of his sheep.

Our Cambridge copy of the Concordance is bound up in 44 thick volumes.

Each volume contains on an average 840 pages, and each page about 400

characters. This gives a sum total of about 37,000 pages, and about

15,000,000 characters. Translated into English, this work would be

one-third as large again, 100 pages of Chinese text being equal to about

130 of English.

In the year 1772 the enlightened Emperor Ch'ien Lung, who then sat upon

the throne, gave orders that a descriptive Catalogue should be prepared

of the books in the Imperial Library. And in order to enhance its

literary value, his Majesty issued invitations to the leading provincial

officials to take part in the enterprise by securing and forwarding to

Peking any rare books they might be able to come across.

The scheme proved in every way successful. Many old works were rescued

from oblivion and ultimate destruction, and in 1795 a very wonderful

Catalogue was laid before the world in print. It fills twenty-six octavo

volumes of about five hundred pages to each, the works enumerated being

divided into four classes,--the Confucian Canon, History, Philosophy, and

General Literature. Under each work we have first of all an historical

sketch of its origin, with date of publication, etc., when known; and

secondly, a careful critique dealing with its merits and defects. All

together, some eight thousand to ten thousand works are entered and

examined as above, and the names of those officials who responded to the

Imperial call are always scrupulously recorded in connection with the

books they supplied.

Among many illustrated books, there is a curious volume in the Library

published about twenty-five years ago, which contains short notices of

all the Senior Classics of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368-1644. They number

only seventy-six in all, because the triennial examination had not then

come into force; whereas during the present dynasty, between 1644 and

twenty-five years ago, a shorter period, there have been no fewer than

one hundred Senior Classics, whose names are all duly recorded in a

Supplement.

The pictures which accompany the letterpress are sometimes of quite

pathetic interest.

In one instance, the candidate, after his journey to Peking, where the

examination is held, has gone home to await the result, and is sitting

at dinner with his friends, when suddenly the much-longed-for messenger

bursts in with the astounding news. In the old days this news was

carried to all parts of the country by trained runners; nowadays the

telegraph wires do the business at a great saving of time and muscle,

with the usual sacrifice of romance.

Another student has gone home, and settled down to work again, not

daring even to hope for success; but overcome with fatigue and anxiety,

he falls asleep over his books. In the accompanying picture we see his

dream,--a thin curl, as it were of vapour, coming forth from the top of

his head and broadening out as it goes, until wide enough to contain the

representation of a man, in feature like himself, surrounded by an

admiring crowd, who acclaim him Senior Classic. With a start the

illusion is dispelled, and the dreamer awakes to find himself famous.

To those who have followed me so far, it must, I hope, be clear that,

whatever else the Chinese may be, they are above all a literary people.

They have cultivated literature as no other people ever has done, and

they cultivate it still.

Literary merit leads to an official career, the only career worth

anything in the eyes of the Chinese nation.

From his earliest school days the Chinese boy is taught that men without

education are but horses or cows in coats and trousers, and that success

at the public examinations is the greatest prize this world has to

offer.

To be among the fortunate three hundred out of about twelve thousand

candidates, who contend once every three years for the highest degree,

is to be enrolled among the Immortals for ever; while the Senior Classic

at a final competition before the Emperor not only covers himself, but

even his remote ancestors, his native village, his district, his

prefecture, and even his province, with a glory almost of celestial

splendour.

LECTURE III

DEMOCRATIC CHINA

DEMOCRATIC CHINA

Theoretically speaking, the Empire of China is ruled by an autocratic

monarch, responsible only to God, whose representative he is on earth.

Once every year the Emperor prays at the Temple of Heaven, and

sacrifices in solemn state upon its altar. He puts himself, as it were,

into communication with the Supreme Being, and reports upon the fidelity

with which he has carried out his Imperial trust.

If the Emperor rules wisely and well, with only the happiness of his

people at heart, there will be no sign from above, beyond peace and

plenty in the Empire, and now and then a double ear of corn in the

fields--a phenomenon which will be duly recorded in the _Peking Gazette_.

But should there be anything like laxness or incapacity, or still worse,

degradation and vice, then a comet may perhaps appear, a pestilence may

rage, or a famine, to warn the erring ruler to give up his evil ways.

And just as the Emperor is responsible to Heaven, so are the viceroys

and governors of the eighteen provinces--to speak only of China

proper--nominally responsible to him, in reality to the six departments

of state at Peking, which constitute the central government, and to

which a seventh has recently been added--a department for foreign

affairs.

So long as all goes well--and in ordinary times that "all" is confined

to a regular and sufficient supply of revenue paid into the Imperial

Treasury--viceroys and governors of provinces are, as nearly as can be,

independent rulers, each in his own domain.

For purposes of government, in the ordinary sense of the term, the 18

provinces are subdivided into 80 areas known as "circuits," and over

each of these is set a high official, who is called an intendant of

circuit, or in Chinese a _Tao-t'ai_. His circuit consists of 2 or more

prefectures, of which there are in all 282 distributed among the 80

circuits, or about an average of 3 prefectures to each.

Every prefecture is in turn subdivided into several magistracies, of

which there are 1477 in all, distributed among the 282 prefectures,

or about an average of 5 magistracies to each.

Immediately below the magistrates may be said to come the people; though

naturally an official who rules over an area as big as an average

English county can scarcely be brought into personal touch with all

those under his jurisdiction. This difficulty is bridged over by the

appointment of a number of head men, or headboroughs, who are furnished

with wooden seals, and who are held responsible for the peace and good

order of the wards or boroughs over which they are set. The post is

considered an honourable one, involving as it does a quasi-official

status. It is also more or less lucrative, as it is necessary that all

petitions to the magistrate, all conveyances of land, and other legal

instruments, should bear the seal of the head man, as a guarantee of

good faith, a small fee being payable on each notarial act.

On the other hand, the post is occasionally burdensome and trying in the

extreme. For instance, if a head man fails to produce any criminals or

accused persons, either belonging to, or known to be, in his district,

he is liable to be bambooed or otherwise severely punished.

In ordinary life the head man is not distinguishable from the masses of

his fellow-countrymen. He may often be seen working like the rest, and

even walking about with bare legs and bare feet.

Thus in a descending scale we have the Emperor, the viceroys and

governors of the 18 provinces, the intendants, or _Tao-t'ais_, of the 80

circuits, the prefects of the 282 prefectures, the magistrates of the

1477 magistracies, the myriad headboroughs, and the people.

The district magistrates, so far as officials are concerned, are the

real rulers of China, and in conjunction with the prefects are popularly

called "father-and-mother" officials, as though they stood _in loco

parentium_ to the people, whom, by the way, they in turn often speak of,

even in official documents, as "the babies."

The ranks of these magistrates are replenished by drafts of those

_literati_ who have succeeded in taking the third, or highest, degree.

Thus, the first step on the ladder is open to all who can win their way

by successful competition at certain literary examinations, so long as

each candidate can show that none of his ancestors for three generations

have been either actors, barbers and chiropodists, priests,

executioners, or official servants.

Want of means may be said to offer no obstacle in China to ambition and

desire for advancement. The slightest aptitude in a boy for learning

would be carefully noted, and if found to be the genuine article, would

be still more carefully fostered. Not only are there plenty of free

schools in China, but there are plenty of persons ready to help in so

good a cause. Many a high official has risen from the furrowed fields,

his educational expenses as a student, and his travelling expenses as a

candidate, being paid by subscription in his native place. Once

successful, he can easily find a professional money-lender who will

provide the comparatively large sums required for his outfit and journey

to his post, whither this worthy actually accompanies him, to remain

until he is repaid in full, with interest.

A successful candidate, however, is not usually sent straight from

the examination-hall to occupy the important position of district

magistrate. He is attached to some magistracy as an expectant official,

and from time to time his capacity is tested by a case, more or less

important, which is entrusted to his management as deputy.

The duties of a district magistrate are so numerous and so varied that

one man could not possibly cope with them all. At the same time he is

fully responsible. In addition to presiding over a court of first

instance for all criminal trials in his district, he has to act as

coroner (without a jury) at all inquests, collect and remit the

land-tax, register all conveyances of land and house-property, act as

preliminary examiner of candidates for literary degrees, and perform a

host of miscellaneous offices, even to praying for rain or fine weather

in cases of drought or inundation. He is up, if anything, before the

lark; and at night, often late at night, he is listening to the

protestations of prisoners or bambooing recalcitrant witnesses.

But inasmuch as the district may often be a large one, and two inquests

may be going on in two different directions on the same day, or there

may be other conflicting claims upon his time, he has constantly to

depute his duties to a subordinate, whose usual duties, if he has any,

have to be taken by some one else, and so on. Thus it is that the

expectant official every now and then gets his chance.

This scheme leaves out of consideration a number of provincial

officials, who preside over departments which branch, as it were, from

the main trunk, and of whom a few words only need now be said.

There are several "commissioners," as they are sometimes called; for

instance, the commissioner of finance, otherwise known as the provincial

treasurer, who is charged with the fiscal administration of his

particular province, and who controls the nomination of nearly all the

minor appointments in the civil service, subject to the approval of the

governor.

Then there is the commissioner of justice, or provincial judge,

responsible for the due administration of justice in his province.

There is also the salt commissioner, who collects the revenue derived

from the government monopoly of the salt trade; and the grain

commissioner, who looks after the grain-tax, and sees that the tribute

rice is annually forwarded to Peking, for the use of the Imperial Court.

There are also military officials, belonging to two separate and

distinct army organisations.

The Manchus, when they conquered the Empire, placed garrisons of their

own troops, under the command of Manchu generals, at various important

strategic points; and the Tartar generals, as they are called, still

remain, ranking nominally just above the viceroy of the province, over

whose actions they are supposed to keep a careful watch.

Then there is a provincial army, with a provincial commander-in-chief,

etc.

Now let us return to the main trunk, working upward by way of

recapitulation.

We have reached the people and their head men, or headboroughs, over

whom is set the magistrate, with a nominal salary which would be quite

insufficient for his needs, even if he were ever to draw it. For he has

a large staff to keep up; some few of whom, no doubt, keep themselves by

fees and _douceurs_ of various kinds obtained from litigants and others

who have business to transact.

The income on which the magistrate lives, and from which, after a life

of incessant toil, he saves a moderate competence for the requirements

of his family, is deducted from the gross revenues of his magistracy,

leaving a net amount to be forwarded to the Imperial Treasury. So long

as his superiors are satisfied with what he remits, no questions are

asked as to original totals. It is recognised that he must live, and the

value of every magistracy is known within a few hundred ounces of silver

one way or the other.

Above the magistrate, and in control of several magistracies, comes the

prefect, who has to satisfy his superiors in the same way. He has the

general supervision of all civil business in his prefecture, and to him

must be referred every appeal case from the magistracies under his

jurisdiction, before it can be filed in a higher court.

Above him comes the intendant of circuit, or _Tao-t'ai_, in control of

several prefectures, to whom the same rule applies as to satisfying

demands of superiors; and above him come the governor and viceroy, who

must also satisfy the demands of the state departments in Peking.

It would now appear, from what has been already stated, that all a

viceroy or governor has to do is to exact sufficient revenue from

immediate subordinates, and leave them to exact the amounts necessary

from _their_ subordinates, and so on down the scale until we reach the

people. The whole question therefore resolves itself into this, What can

the people be made to pay?

The answer to that question will be somewhat of a staggerer to those who

from distance, or from want of close observation, regard the Chinese as

a down-trodden people, on a level with the Fellahin of Egypt in past

times. For the answer, so far as my own experience goes, is that only so

much can be got out of the Chinese people as the people themselves are

ready and willing to pay. In other words, with all their show of an

autocratic ruler and a paternal government, the people of China tax

themselves.

I am now about to do more than state this opinion; I am going to try to

prove it.

The philosopher Mencius, who flourished about one hundred years after

Confucius, and who is mainly responsible for the final triumph of the

Confucian doctrine, was himself not so much a teacher of ethics as

a teacher of political science. He spent a great part of his life

wandering from feudal state to feudal state, advising the various vassal

nobles how to order their dominions with the maximum of peace and

prosperity and the minimum of misery and bloodshed.

One of these nobles, Duke Wen, asked Mencius concerning the proper way

to govern a state.

"The affairs of the people," replied the philosopher, "must not be

neglected. For the way of the people is thus: If they have a fixed

livelihood, their hearts will also be fixed; but if they have not a

fixed livelihood, neither will their hearts be fixed. And if they have

not fixed hearts, there is nothing in the way of crime which they will

not commit. Then, when they have involved themselves in guilt, to follow

up and punish them,--this is but to ensnare them."

In another passage Mencius says: "The tyrants of the last two dynasties,

Chieh and Chou, lost the Empire because they lost the people, by which I

mean that they lost the hearts of the people. There is a way to get the

Empire;--get the people, and you have the Empire. There is a way to get

the people;--get their hearts, and you have them. There is a way to get

their hearts;--do for them what they wish, and avoid doing what they do

not wish."

Those are strong words, especially when we consider that they come from

one of China's most sacred books, regarded by the Chinese with as much

veneration as the Bible by us,--a portion of that Confucian Canon, the

principles of which it is the object of every student to master, and

should be the object of every Chinese official to carry into practice.

But those words are mild compared with another utterance by Mencius in

the same direction.

"The people are the most important element in a nation; the gods come

next; the sovereign is the least important of all."

We have here, in Chinese dress, wherein indeed much of Western wisdom

will be found, if students will only look for it, very much the same

sentiment as in the familiar lines by Oliver Goldsmith:--

"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,--

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride

When once destroyed, can never be supplied."

The question now arises, Are all these solemn sayings of Mencius to be

regarded as nothing more than mere literary rodomontade, wherewith to

beguile an enslaved people? Do the mandarins keep the word of promise to

the ear and break it to the hope? Or do the Chinese people enjoy in real

life the recognition which should be accorded to them by the terms of

the Confucian Canon?

Every one who has lived in China, and has kept his eyes open, must have

noticed what a large measure of personal freedom is enjoyed by even the

meanest subject of the Son of Heaven. Any Chinaman may travel all over

China without asking any one's leave to start, and without having to

report himself, or be reported by his innkeeper, at any place at which

he may choose to stop. He requires no passport. He may set up any

legitimate business at any place. He is not even obliged to be educated,

or to follow any particular calling. He is not obliged to serve as a

soldier or sailor. There are no sumptuary laws, nor even any municipal

laws. Outside the penal code, which has been pronounced by competent

Western lawyers to be a very ably constructed instrument of government,

there is nothing at all in the way of law, civil law being altogether

absent as a state institution. Even the penal code is not too rigidly

enforced. So long as a man keeps clear of secret societies and remains a

decent and respectable member of his family and of his clan, he has very

little to fear from the officials. The old ballad of the husbandman,

which has come down to us from a very early date indeed, already hints

at some such satisfactory state of things. It runs thus:--

"Work, work,--from the rising sun

Till sunset comes and the day is done

I plough the sod,

And harrow the clod,

And meat and drink both come to me,--

Ah, what care I for the powers that be?"

Many petty offences which are often dealt with very harshly in England,

pass in China almost unnoticed. No shopkeeper or farmer would be fool

enough to charge a hungry man with stealing food, for the simple reason

that no magistrate would convict. It is the shopkeeper's or farmer's

business to see that such petty thefts cannot occur. Various other

points might be noticed; but we must get back to taxation, which is

really the _crux_ of the whole position.

All together the Chinese people may be said to be lightly taxed. There

is the land-tax, in money and in kind; a tax on salt; and various

_octroi_ and customs-duties, all of which are more or less fixed

quantities, so that the approximate amount which each province should

contribute to the central government is well known at Peking, just as it

is well known in each province what amounts, approximately speaking,

should be handed up by the various grades of territorial officials.

I have already stated that municipal government is unknown; consequently

there are no municipal rates to be paid, no water-rate, no poor-rate,

and not a cent for either sanitation or education. And so long as the

Imperial taxes are such as the people have grown accustomed to, they are

paid cheerfully, even if sometimes with difficulty, and nothing is said.

A curious instance of this conservative spirit in the Chinese people,

even when operating against their own interests, may be found in the tax

known as _likin_, against which foreign governments have struggled so

long in vain. This tax, originally one-tenth per cent on all sales, was

voluntarily imposed upon themselves by the people, among whom it was at

first very popular, with a view of making up the deficiency in the

land-tax of China caused by the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion and subsequent

troubles. It was to be set apart for military purposes only,--hence its

common name "war-tax,"--and was alleged by the Tsung-li Yamen to be

adopted merely as a temporary measure. Yet, though forty years have

elapsed, it still continues to be collected as if it were one of the

fundamental taxes of the Empire, and the objections to it are raised,

not by the people of China, but by foreign merchants with whose trade

it interferes.

Here we have already one instance of voluntary self-taxation on the part

of the people; what I have yet to show is that all taxation, even though

not initiated as in this case by the people, must still receive the

stamp of popular approval before being put into force. On this point I

took a good many notes during a fairly long residence in China, leading

to conclusions which seem to me irresistible.

Let us suppose that the high authorities of a province have determined,

for pressing reasons, to make certain changes in the incidence of

taxation, or have called upon their subordinates to devise means for

causing larger sums to find their way into the provincial treasury.

The invariable usage, previous to the imposition of a new tax, or

change in the old, is for the magistrate concerned to send for the

leading merchants whose interests may be involved, or for the headboroughs

and village elders, according to the circumstances in each case, and to

discuss the proposition in private. Over an informal entertainment, over

tea and pipes, the magistrate pleads the necessities of the case, and

the peremptory orders of his superiors; the merchants or village elders,

feeling that, as in the case of _likin_ above mentioned, when taxes

come they come to stay, resist on principle the new departure by every

argument at their control. The negotiation ends, in ninety-nine

instances out of a hundred, in a compromise. In the hundredth instance

the people may think it right to give way, or the mandarin may give way,

in which case things remain _in statu quo_, and nothing further is heard

of the matter.

There occur cases, however, happily rare, in which neither will give

way--at first. Then comes the tug of war. A proclamation is issued,

describing the tax, or the change, or whatever it may be, and the

people, if their interests are sufficiently involved, prepare to resist.

Combination has been raised in China to the level of a fine art. Nowhere

on earth can be found such perfect cohesion of units against forces

which would crush each unit, taken individually, beyond recognition.

Every trade, every calling, even the meanest, has its guild, or

association, the members of which are ever ready to protect one another

with perfect unanimity, and often great self-sacrifice. And combination

is the weapon with which the people resist, and successfully resist, any

attempt on the part of the governing classes to lay upon them loads

greater than they can or will bear. The Chinese are withal an

exceptionally law-abiding people, and entertain a deep-seated respect

for authority. But their obedience and their deference have pecuniary

limits.

I will now pass from the abstract to the concrete, and draw upon my

note-book for illustrations of this theory that the Chinese are a

self-taxing and self-governing people.

Under date October 10, 1880, from Chung-king in the province of

Ssuch'uan, the following story will be found in the _North China

Herald_, told by a correspondent:--

"Yesterday the Pah-shien magistrate issued a proclamation, saying that

he was going to raise a tax of 200 _cash_ on each pig killed by the

pork-butchers of this city, and the butchers were to reimburse

themselves by adding 2 _cash_ per _pound_ to the price of pork. The

butchers, who had already refused to pay 100 _cash_ per hog, under the

late magistrate, were not likely to submit to the payment of 200 under

this one, and so resolved not to kill pigs until the grievance was

removed; and this morning a party of them went about the town and seized

all the pork they saw exposed for sale. Then the whole of the butchers,

over five hundred at least, shut themselves up in their guild, where the

magistrate tried to force an entry with two hundred or three hundred of

his runners. The butchers, however, refused to open the door, and the

magistrate had to retire very much excited, threatening to bring them to

terms. People are inclined to think the magistrate acted wrongly in

taking a large force with him, saying he ought to have gone alone."

Three days later, October 13:--

"There is great excitement throughout the city, and I am told that the

troops are under arms. I have heard several volleys of small arms being

fired off, as if in platoon exercise. All the shops are shut, people

being afraid that the authorities may deal severely with the butchers,

and that bad characters will profit by the excitement to rob and plunder

the shops."

Two days later, October 15:--

"The pork-butchers are still holding out in their guild-house, and

refuse to recommence business until the officials have promised that the

tax on pigs will not be enforced now or hereafter. The prefect has been

going the rounds of the city calling on the good people of his

prefecture to open their shops and transact business as usual, saying

that the tax on pigs did not concern other people, but only the

butchers."

One day later, October 16:--

"The Pah-shien magistrate has issued a proclamation apologising to the

people generally, and to the butchers particularly, for his share of the

work in trying to increase the obnoxious tax on pigs. So the officials

have all miserably failed in squeezing a _cash_ out of the 'sovereign

people' of Ssuch'uan."

I have a similar story from Hangchow, in Chehkiang, under date April 10,

1889, which begins as follows:--

"The great city of Hangchow is extremely dry. There are probably seven

hundred thousand people here, but not a drop of tea can be bought in any

of the public tea-houses. There is a strike in tea. The tea-houses are

all closed by common agreement, to resist a tax, imposed in the

beginning of the year, to raise money for the sufferers by famine."

In the next communication from this correspondent, we read, "The strike

of the keepers of tea-shops ended very quietly a few days after it

began, by the officials agreeing to accept the sum of fifteen hundred

dollars once for all, and release tea from taxation."

This is what happened recently in Pakhoi, in the province of

Kuangtung:--

"Without the consent of the dealers, a new local tax was imposed on the

raw opium in preparation for use in the opium shops. The imposition of

this tax brought to light the fact, hitherto kept secret, that of the

opium consumed in Pakhoi and its district, only sixty-two per cent was

imported drug, the remaining third being native opium, which was

smuggled into Pakhoi, and avoided all taxation. The new tax brought this

smuggled opium under contribution, and this was more than the local

opium interest would stand. The opium dealers adopted the usual tactics

of shutting their shops, thus transferring the _onus_ of opposition to

their customers. These last paid a threatening visit to the chief

authority of Pakhoi, and then wrecked the newly established tax-office.

This indication of popular feeling was enough for the local authorities

at Lien-chou, the district city, and the tax was changed so as to fall

on the foreign opium, the illicit native supply being discreetly

ignored, and all rioters forgiven."

So much for taxation. Let us take an instance of interference with

prescriptive rights, in connection with the great incorruptible viceroy,

Chang Chih-tung, to whom we are all so much indebted for his attitude

during the Siege of the Legations in 1900.

Ten years ago, when starting his iron-works at Wuchang, in the province

of Hupeh, he ordered the substitution of a drawbridge over a creek for

the old bridge which had stood there from time immemorial, the object

being to let steamers pass freely up and down. Unfortunately, the old

bridge was destroyed before the new one was ready. What was the result?

"The people rushed to the Yamen, and insisted by deputation and

mass-brawling on the restoration of the bridge.

"Finally, the viceroy thought it worth his while to issue a rhyming

proclamation, assuring the people that what he was doing was for their

good, and justifying his several schemes."

Yet Chang Chih-tung always has been, and is still, one of the strongest

officials who ever sat upon a viceroy's throne.

In November, 1882, there was a very serious military riot in Hankow, on

the opposite side of the Yang-tsze to Wuchang. It arose out of a report

that four soldiers had been arrested and were to be secretly beheaded

the same night. This rising might have assumed very serious dimensions,

but for the prompt submission of the viceroy to the soldiers' demands.

As it was, the whole city was thrown into a state of the utmost alarm.

Few of the inhabitants slept through the night. The streets were filled

with a terror-stricken population, expecting at any moment to hear that

the prison doors had been forced, and the criminals let loose to join

the soldiers in their determination to kill the officials, plunder the

treasury, and sack the city. Many citizens are said to have fled from

the place; and the sudden rush upon the _cash_ shops, to convert paper

notes into silver, brought some of them to the verge of bankruptcy.

I have recorded, under March, 1891, a case in which several Manchus were

sentenced by the magistrate of Chinkiang, at the instance of the local

general, to a bambooing for rowdy behaviour. This is what followed:--

"The friends of the prisoners, to the number of about three hundred,

assembled at the city temple, vowing vengeance on the magistrate and

general. They proceeded to the yamen of the general, wrecked the wall

and part of the premises, and put the city in an uproar. The magistrate

fled with his family to the Tao-t'ai's yamen, where two hundred regular

troops were sent to protect him against the fury of the Manchus, who

threatened his life."

This is what happened to another magistrate in Kiangsu. He had

imprisoned a tax-collector for being in arrears with his money; and the

tax-collector's wife, frantic with rage, rushed to the magistracy and

demanded his release. Unfortunately, she was suffering from severe

asthma; and this, coupled with her anger, caused her death actually in

the magistrate's court. The people then smashed and wrecked the

magistracy, and pummelled and bruised the magistrate himself, who

ultimately effected his escape in disguise and hid himself in a private

dwelling.

Every one who has lived in China knows how dangerous are the periods

when vast numbers of students congregate for the public examinations.

Here is an example.

At Canton, in June, 1880, a student took back a coat he had purchased

for half a dollar at a second-hand clothes shop, and wished to have

it changed. The shopkeeper gave him rather an impatient answer, and

thereupon the student called in a band of his brother B.A.'s to claim

justice for literature. They seized a reckoning-board, or abacus, that

lay on the counter, struck one of the assistants in the shop, and drew

blood. The shopkeeper then beat an alarm on his gong, and summoned

friends and neighbours to the rescue. Word was at once passed to bands

of students in the neighbourhood, who promptly obeyed the call of a

distressed comrade, and blows were delivered right and left. The

shopkeepers summoned the district magistrate to the scene. Upon his

arrival he ordered several of the literary ringleaders, who had been

seized and bound by the shopkeepers, to be carried off and impounded.

In the course of the evening he sentenced them to be beaten. A body

of more than a hundred students then went to his yamen and demanded the

immediate release of the prisoners. The magistrate grew nervous, yielded

to their threats, and sent several of the offending students home in

sedan-chairs. The magistrate then seized the assistants in the shop

where the row began and sentenced them to be beaten on the mouth.

Next morning ten thousand shops were closed in the city and suburbs. The

shopkeepers said they could not do business under such an administration

of law. In the course of the morning a large meeting of the students

was held in a college adjoining the examination hall. The district

magistrate went out to confer with them. The students cracked his gong,

and shattered his sedan-chair with showers of stones, and then prodded

him with their fans and umbrellas, and bespattered him with dirt as his

followers tried to carry him away on their shoulders. He was quite

seriously hurt.

The prefect then met a large deputation of the shopkeepers in their

guild-house in the course of the day, and expressed his dissatisfaction

at the way in which the district magistrate had acted. A settlement was

thus reached, which included fireworks for the students, and business

was resumed.

* * * * *

Any individual who is aggrieved by the action, or inaction, of a Chinese

official may have immediate recourse to the following method for

obtaining justice, witnessed by me twice during my residence in China,

and known as "crying one's wrongs."

Dressed in the grey sackcloth garb of a mourner, the injured party,

accompanied by as many friends as he or she can collect together, will

proceed to the public residence of the offending mandarin, and there

howl and be otherwise objectionable, day and night, until some relief is

given. The populace is invariably on the side of the wronged person; and

if the wrong is deep, or the delay in righting it too long, there is

always great risk of an outbreak, with the usual scene of house-wrecking

and general violence.

It may now well be asked, how justice can ever be administered under

such circumstances, which seem enough to paralyse authority in the

presence of any evil-doer who can bring up his friends to the rescue.

To begin with, there is in China, certainly at all great centres, a

large criminal population without friends,--men who have fallen from

their high estate through inveterate gambling, indulgence in

opium-smoking, or more rarely alcohol. No one raises a finger to protect

these from the utmost vengeance of the law.

Then again, the Chinese, just as they tax themselves, so do they

administer justice to themselves. Trade disputes, petty and great alike,

are never carried into court, there being no recognised civil law in

China beyond custom; they are settled by the guilds or trades-unions,

as a rule to the satisfaction of all parties. Many criminal cases are

equally settled out of court, and the offender is punished by agreement

of the clan-elders or heads of families, and nothing is said; for

compounding a felony is not a crime, but a virtue, in the eyes of the

Chinese, who look on all litigation with aversion and contempt.

In the case of murder, however, and some forms of manslaughter, the

ingrained conviction that a life should always be given for a life often

outweighs any money value that could be offered, and the majesty of the

law is upheld at any sacrifice.

It is not uncommon for an accused person to challenge his accuser to a

kind of trial by ordeal, at the local temple.

Kneeling before the altar, at midnight, in the presence of a crowd of

witnesses, the accused man will solemnly burn a sheet of paper, on which

he has written, or caused to be written, an oath, totally denying his

guilt, and calling upon the gods to strike him dead upon the spot, or

his accuser, if either one is deviating in the slightest degree from the

actual truth.

This is indeed a severe ordeal to a superstitious people, whatever it

may seem to us. Even the mandarins avail themselves of similar devices

in cases where they are unable to clear up a mystery in the ordinary

way.

In a well-known case of a murder by a gang of ruffians, the magistrate,

being unable to fix the guilt of the fatal blow upon any one of the

gang, told them that he was going to apply to the gods. He then caused

them all to be dressed in black coats, as is usual with condemned

criminals, and arranged them in a dark shed, with their faces to the

wall, saying that, in response to his prayers, a demon would be sent to

mark the back of the guilty man. When at length the accused were brought

out of the shed, one of them actually had a white mark on his back, and

he at once confessed. In order to outwit the demon he had slily placed

his back against the wall, which by the magistrate's secret orders had

previously received a coat of whitewash.

I will conclude with a case which came under my own personal

observation, and which first set me definitely on the track of

democratic government in China.

In 1882 I was vice-consul at Pagoda Anchorage, a port near the famous

Foochow Arsenal which was bombarded by Admiral Courbet in 1884. My house

and garden were on an eminence overlooking the arsenal, which was about

half a mile distant. One morning, after breakfast, the head official

servant came to tell me there was trouble at the arsenal. A military

mandarin, employed there as superintendent of some department, had that

morning early kicked his cook, a boy of seventeen, in the stomach, and

the boy, a weakly lad, had died within an hour. The boy's widowed mother

was sitting by the body in the mandarin's house, and a large crowd of

workmen had formed a complete ring outside, quietly awaiting the arrival

and decision of the authorities.

By five o'clock in the afternoon, a deputy had arrived from the

magistracy at Foochow, twelve miles distant, empowered to hold the usual

inquest on behalf of the magistrate. The inquest was duly held, and the

verdict was "accidental homicide."

In shorter time than it takes me to tell the story, the deputy's

sedan-chair and paraphernalia of office were smashed to atoms. He

himself was seized, his official hat and robe were torn to shreds, and

he was bundled unceremoniously, not altogether unbruised, through the

back door and through the ring of onlookers, into the paddy-fields

beyond. Then the ring closed up again, and a low, threatening murmur

broke out which I could plainly hear from my garden. There was no

violence, no attempt to lynch the man; the crowd merely waited for

justice. That crowd remained there all night, encircling the murderer,

the victim, and the mother. Bulletins were brought to me every hour,

and no one went to bed.

Meanwhile the news had reached the viceroy, and by half-past nine next

morning the smoke of a steam-launch was seen away up the bends of the

river. This time it bore the district magistrate himself, with

instructions from the viceroy to hold a new inquest.

At about ten o'clock he landed, and was received with respectful

silence. By eleven o'clock the murderer's head was off and the crowd had

dispersed.

LECTURE IV

CHINA AND ANCIENT GREECE

CHINA AND ANCIENT GREECE

The study of Chinese presents at least one advantage over the study of

the Greek and Roman classics; I might add, of Hebrew, of Syriac, and

even of Sanskrit. It may be pursued for two distinct objects. The first,

and most important object to many, is to acquire a practical

acquaintance with a _living_ language, spoken and written by about

one-third of the existing population of the earth, with a view to the

extension of commercial enterprise, and to the profits and benefits

which may legitimately accrue therefrom. The second is precisely that

object in pursuit of which we apply ourselves so steadily to the

literatures and civilisations of Greece and Rome.

Sir Richard Jebb, in his essay on "Humanism in Education," points out

that even less than a hundred years ago the classics still held a

virtual monopoly, so far as literary studies were concerned, in the

public schools and universities of England. "The culture which they

supplied," he argues, "while limited in the sphere of its operation,

had long been an efficient and vital influence, not only in forming

men of letters and learning, but in training men who afterwards gained

distinction in public life and in various active careers."

Long centuries had fixed so firmly in the minds of our forefathers a

belief, and no doubt to some extent a justifiable belief, in the perfect

character of the languages, the literatures, the arts, and some of the

social and political institutions of ancient Greece and Rome, that a

century or so ago there seemed to be nothing else worth the attention of

an intellectual man. The comparatively recent introduction of Sanskrit

was received in the classical world, not merely with coldness, but with

strenuous opposition; and all the genius of its pioneer scholars was

needed to secure the meed of recognition which it now enjoys as an

important field of research. The Regius Professorship of Greek in the

University of Cambridge, England, was founded in 1540; but it was not

until 1867, more than three centuries later, that Sanskrit was admitted

into the university curriculum. It is still impossible to gain a degree

through the medium of Chinese, but signs are not wanting that the

necessity for such a step will be more widely recognised in the near

future.

All the material lies ready to hand. There is a written language, which

for difficulty is unrivalled, polished and perfected by centuries of the

minutest scholarship, until it is impossible to conceive anything more

subtly artistic as a vehicle of human thought. Those mental gymnastics,

of such importance in the training of youth, which were once claimed

exclusively for the languages of Greece and Rome, may be performed

equally well in the Chinese language. The educated classes in China

would be recognised anywhere as men of trained minds, able to carry on

sustained and complex arguments without violating any of the

Aristotelian canons, although as a matter of fact they never heard of

Aristotle and possess no such work in all their extensive literature as

a treatise on logic. The affairs of their huge empire are carried on,

and in my opinion very successfully carried on--with some reservations,

of course--by men who have had to get their mental gymnastics wholly and

solely out of Chinese.

I am not aware that their diplomatists suffer by comparison with ours.

The Marquis Tseng and Li Hung-chang, for instance, representing opposite

schools, were admitted masters of their craft, and made not a few of our

own diplomatists look rather small beside them.

Speaking further of the study of the Greek and Roman classics, Sir

Richard Jebb says: "There can be no better proof that such a discipline

has penetrated the mind, and has been assimilated, than if, in the

crises of life, a man recurs to the great thoughts and images of the

literature in which he has been trained, and finds there what braces and

fortifies him, a comfort, an inspiration, an utterance for his deeper

feelings."

Sir Richard Jebb then quotes a touching story of Lord Granville, who was

President of the Council in 1762, and whose last hours were rapidly

approaching. In reply to a suggestion that, considering his state

of health, some important work should be postponed, he uttered the

following impassioned words from the Iliad, spoken by Sarpedon to

Glaucus: "Ah, friend, if, once escaped from this battle, we were for

ever to be ageless and immortal, I would not myself fight in the

foremost ranks, nor would I send thee into the war that giveth men

renown; but now,--since ten thousand fates of death beset us every day,

and these no mortal may escape or avoid,--now let us go forward."

Such was the discipline of the Greek and Roman classics upon the mind of

Lord Granville at a great crisis in his life.

Let us now turn to the story of a Chinese statesman, nourished only upon

what has been too hastily stigmatised as "the dry bones of Chinese

literature."

Wen T'ien-hsiang was born in A.D. 1236. At the age of twenty-one he came

out first on the list of successful candidates for the highest literary

degree. Upon the draft-list submitted to the Emperor he had been placed

seventh; but his Majesty, after looking over the essays, drew the grand

examiner's attention to the originality and excellence of that of Wen

T'ien-hsiang, and the examiner--himself a great scholar and no

sycophant--saw that the Emperor was right, and altered the places

accordingly.

Four or five years later Wen T'ien-hsiang attracted attention by

demanding the execution of a statesman who had advised that the Court

should quit the capital and flee before the advance of the victorious

Mongols. Then followed many years of hard fighting, in the course of

which his raw levies were several times severely defeated, and he

himself was once taken prisoner by the Mongol general, Bayan, mentioned

by Marco Polo. He managed to escape on that occasion; but in 1278 the

plague broke out in his camp, and he was again defeated and taken

prisoner. He was sent to Peking, and every effort was made to induce him

to own allegiance to the Mongol conqueror, but without success. He was

kept several years in prison. Here is a well-known poem which he wrote

while in captivity:--

"There is in the universe an _Aura_, an influence which permeates all

things, and makes them what they are. Below, it shapes forth land and

water; above, the sun and the stars. In man it is called spirit; and

there is nowhere where it is not.

"In times of national tranquillity, this spirit lies hidden in the

harmony which prevails. Only at some great epoch is it manifested widely

abroad."

Here Wen T'ien-hsiang recalls, and dwells lovingly upon, a number of

historical examples of loyalty and devotion. He then proceeds:--

"Such is this grand and glorious spirit which endureth for all

generations; and which, linked with the sun and moon, knows neither

beginning nor end. The foundation of all that is great and good in

heaven and earth, it is itself born from the everlasting obligations

which are due by man to man.

"Alas! the fates were against me; I was without resource. Bound with

fetters, hurried away toward the north, death would have been sweet

indeed; but that boon was refused.

"My dungeon is lighted by the will-o'-the-wisp alone: no breath of

spring cheers the murky solitude in which I dwell. The ox and the barb

herd together in one stall: the rooster and the phoenix feed together

from one dish. Exposed to mist and dew, I had many times thought to die;

and yet, through the seasons of two revolving years, disease hovered

around me in vain. The dark, unhealthy soil to me became Paradise

itself. For there was that within me which misfortune could not steal

away. And so I remained firm, gazing at the white clouds floating

over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrow boundless as the sky.

"The sun of those dead heroes has long since set, but their record is

before me still. And, while the wind whistles under the eaves, I open my

books and read; and lo! in their presence my heart glows with a borrowed

fire."

At length, Wen T'ien-hsiang was summoned into the presence of Kublai

Khan, who said to him, "What is it you want?" "By the grace of his late

Majesty of the Sung dynasty," he replied, "I became his Majesty's

minister. I cannot serve two masters. I only ask to die." Accordingly he

was executed, meeting his death with composure, and making a final

obeisance toward the south, as though his own sovereign was still

reigning in his capital.

May we not then plead that this Chinese statesman, equally with Lord

Granville, at a crisis of his life, recurred to the great thoughts and

images of the literature in which he had been trained, and found there

what braced and fortified him, a comfort, an inspiration, an utterance

for his deeper feelings?

Chinese history teems with the names of men who, with no higher source

of inspiration than the Confucian Canon, have yet shown that they can

nobly live and bravely die.

Han Yue of the eighth and ninth centuries was one of China's most

brilliant statesmen and writers, and rose rapidly to the highest offices

of State. When once in power, he began to attack abuses, and was

degraded and banished. Later on, when the Court, led by a weak Emperor,

was going crazy over Buddhism, he presented a scathing Memorial to the

Throne, from the effect of which it may well be said that Buddhism has

not yet recovered. The Emperor was furious, and Han Yue narrowly escaped

with his life. He was banished to the extreme wilds of Kuangtung, not

far from the now flourishing Treaty Port of Swatow, where he did so much

useful work in civilising the aborigines, that he was finally recalled.

Those wilds have long since disappeared as such, but the memory of

Han Yue remains, a treasure for ever. In a temple which contains his

portrait, and which is dedicated to him, a grateful posterity has put

up a tablet bearing the following legend, "Wherever he passed, he

purified."

The last Emperor of the Ming dynasty, which was overthrown by rebels

and then supplanted by the Manchus in 1644, was also a man who in the

Elysian fields might well hold up his head among monarchs. He seems to

have inherited with the throne a legacy of national disorder similar to

that which eventually brought about the ruin of Louis XVI of France.

With all the best intentions possible, he was unable to stem the tide.

Over-taxation brought in its train, as it always does in China, first

resistance and then rebellion. The Emperor was besieged in Peking by a

rebel army; the Treasury was empty; there were too few soldiers to man

the walls; and the capital fell.

On the previous night, the Emperor, who had refused to flee, slew the

eldest Princess, commanded the Empress to commit suicide, and sent his

three sons into hiding. At dawn the bell was struck for the Court to

assemble; but no one came. His Majesty then ascended the well-known hill

in the Palace grounds, and wrote a last decree on the lapel of his

robe:--

"Poor in virtue, and of contemptible personality, I have incurred the

wrath of high Heaven. My ministers have deceived me. I am ashamed to

meet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my cap of State, and

with my hair covering my face, await dismemberment at the hands of you

rebels."

Instead of the usual formula, "Respect this!" the Emperor added, "Spare

my people!"

He then hanged himself, and the great Ming dynasty was no more.

* * * * *

Chinese studies have always laboured under this disadvantage,--that the

ludicrous side of China and her civilisation was the one which first

attracted the attention of foreigners; and to a great extent it does so

still. There was a time when China was regarded as a Land of Opposites,

_i.e._ diametrically opposed to us in every imaginable direction. For

instance, in China the left hand is the place of honour; men keep their

hats on in company; use fans; mount their horses on the off side; begin

dinner with fruit and end it with soup; shake their own instead of their

friends' hands when meeting; begin at what we call the wrong end of a

book and read from right to left down vertical columns; wear white for

mourning; have huge visiting-cards instead of small ones; prevent

criminals from having their hair cut; regard the south as the standard

point of the compass; begin to build a house by putting on the roof

first; besides many other nicer distinctions, the mere enumeration of

which would occupy much of the time at my disposal.

The other side of the medal, showing the similarities, and even the

identities, has been unduly neglected; and yet it is precisely from a

study of these similarities and identities that the best results can be

expected.

A glance at any good dictionary of classical antiquities will at once

reveal the minute and painstaking care with which even the small details

of life in ancient Greece have been examined into and discussed. The

Chinese have done like work for themselves; and many of their

beautifully illustrated dictionaries of archaeology would compare not

unfavourably with anything we have to show.

There are also many details of modern everyday existence in China which

may fairly be quoted to show that Chinese civilisation is not, after

all, that comic condition of topsy-turvey-dom which the term usually

seems to connote.

The Chinese house may not be a facsimile of a Greek house,--far from it.

Still, we may note its position, facing south, in order to have as much

sun in winter and as little in summer as possible; its division into

men's and women's apartments; the fact that the doors are in two leaves

and open inward; the rings or handles on the doors; the portable

braziers used in the rooms in cold weather; and the shrines of the

household gods;--all of which characteristics are to be found equally in

the Greek house.

There are also points of resemblance between the lives led by Chinese

and Athenian ladies, beyond the fact that the former occupy a secluded

portion of the house. The Chinese do not admit their women to social

entertainments, and prefer, as we are told was the case with Athenian

husbands, to dine by themselves rather than expose their wives to the

gaze of their friends. If the Athenian dame "went out at all, it was to

see some religious procession, or to a funeral; and if sufficiently

advanced in years she might occasionally visit a female friend, and take

breakfast with her."

And so in China, it is religion which breaks the monotony of female

life, and collects within the temples, on the various festivals, an

array of painted faces and embroidered skirts that present, even to the

European eye, a not unpleasing spectacle.

That painting the face was universal among the women of Greece, much

after the fashion which we now see in China, has been placed beyond all

doubt, the pigments used in both cases being white lead and some kind of

vegetable red, with lampblack for the eyebrows.

In marriage, we find the Chinese aiming, like the Greeks, at equality of

rank and fortune between the contracting parties, or, as the Chinese put

it, in the guise of a household word, at a due correspondence between

the doorways of the betrothed couple. As in Greece, so in China, we find

the marriage arranged by the parents; the veiled bride; the ceremony of

fetching her from her father's house; the equality of man and wife; the

toleration of subordinate wives, and many other points of contact.

The same sights and scenes which are daily enacted at any of the great

Chinese centres of population seem also to have been enacted in the

Athenian market-place, with its simmering kettles of boiled peas and

other vegetables, and its chapmen and retailers of all kinds of

miscellaneous goods. In both we have the public story-teller, surrounded

by a well-packed group of fascinated and eager listeners.

The puppet-shows, agalmata neurospasta, which Herodotus tells us were

introduced into Greece from Egypt, are constantly to be seen in Chinese

cities, and date from the second century B.C.,--a suggestive period, as

I shall hope to show later on.

The Chinese say that these puppets originated in China as follows:--

The first Emperor of the Han dynasty was besieged, about 200 B.C., in a

northern city, by a vast army of Hsiung-nu, the ancestors of the Huns,

under the command of the famous chieftain, Mao-tun. One of the Chinese

generals with the besieged Emperor discovered that Mao-tun's wife, who

was in command on one side of the city, was an extremely jealous woman;

and he forthwith caused a number of wooden puppets, representing

beautiful girls and worked by strings, to be exhibited on the wall

overlooking the chieftain's camp. At this, we are told, the lady's fears

for her husband's fidelity were aroused, and she drew off her forces.

The above account may be dismissed as a tale, in which case we are left

with Punch and Judy on our hands.

To return to city sights. The tricks of street-jugglers as witnessed in

China seem to be very much those of ancient Greece. In both countries we

have such feats as jumping about amongst naked swords, spitting fire

from the mouth, and passing a sword down the throat.

Then there are the advertisements on the walls; the mule-carts and

mule-litters; the sunshades, or umbrellas, carried by women in Greece,

by both sexes in China.

The Japanese language is said to contain no terms of abuse, so refined

are the inhabitants of that earthly paradise. The Chinese language more

than makes up for this deficiency; and it is certainly curious that, as

in ancient Greece, the names of animals are not frequently used in this

connection, with the sole exception of the dog. No Chinaman will stand

being called a dog, although he really has a great regard for the

animal, as a friend whose fidelity is proof even against poverty.

In the ivory shops in China will be found many specimens of the carver's

craft which will bear comparison, for the patience and skill required,

with the greatest triumphs of Greek workmen. Both nations have

reproduced the human hand in ivory; the Greeks used it as an ornament

for a hairpin; the Chinese attach it to a slender rod about a foot and

a half in length, and use it as a back-scratcher.

The Chinese drama, which we can only trace vaguely to Central Asian

sources, and no farther back than the twelfth century of our era, has

some points of contact with the Greek drama. In Greece the plays began

at sunrise and continued all day, as they do still on the open-air

stages of rural districts in China, in both cases performed entirely

by men, without interval between the pieces, without curtain, without

prompter, and without any attempt at realism.

As formerly in Greece, so now in China, the words of the play are partly

spoken and partly sung, the voice of the actor being, in both countries,

of the highest importance. Like the Greek actor before masks were

invented, the Chinese actor paints his face, and the thick-soled boot

which raises the Chinese tragedian from the ground is very much the

counterpart of the cothurnus.

The arrangement by which the Greek gods appeared in a kind of balcony,

looking out as it were from the heights of Olympus, is well known to the

Chinese stage; while the methodical character of Greek tragic dancing,

with the chorus moving right and left, is strangely paralleled in the

dances performed at the worship of Confucius in the Confucian temples,

details of which may be seen in any illustrated Chinese encyclopaedia.

Games with dice are of a high antiquity in Greece; they date in China

only from the second century A.D., having been introduced from the West

under the name of _shu p'u_, a term which has so far defied

identification.

The custom of fighting quails was once a political institution in

Athens, and under early dynasties it was a favourite amusement at the

Imperial Court of China.

The game of "guess-fingers" is another form of amusement common to both

countries. So also is the custom of drinking by rule, under the guidance

of a toast-master, with fines of deep draughts of wine to be swallowed

by those who fail in capping verses, answering conundrums, recognising

quotations; to which may be added the custom of introducing

singing-girls toward the close of the entertainment.

At Athens, too, it was customary to begin a drinking-bout with small

cups, and resort to larger ones later on, a process which must be

familiar to all readers of Chinese novels, wherein, toward the close of

the revel, the half-drunken hero invariably calls for more capacious

goblets. Neither does the ordinary Chinaman approve of a short allowance

of wine at his banquets, as witness the following story, translated from

a Chinese book of anecdotes.

A stingy man, who had invited some guests to dinner, told his servant

not to fill up their wine-cups to the brim, as is usual. During the

meal, one of the guests said to his host, "These cups of yours are too

deep; you should have them cut down." "Why so?" inquired the host.

"Well," replied the guest, "you don't seem to use the top part for

anything."

There is another story of a man who went to dine at a house where the

wine-cups were very small, and who, on taking his seat at table,

suddenly burst out into groans and lamentations. "What is the matter

with you?" cried the host, in alarm. "Ah," replied his guest, "my

feelings overcame me. My poor father, when dining with a friend who had

cups like yours, lost his life, by accidentally swallowing one."

The water-clock, or _clepsydra_, has been known to the Chinese for

centuries. Where did it come from? Is it a mere coincidence that the

ancient Greeks used water-clocks?

Is it a coincidence that the Greeks used an abacus, or counting-board,

on which the beads slid up and down in vertical grooves, while on the

Chinese counting-board the only difference is that the beads slide up

and down on vertical rods?

Is it a mere coincidence that the olive should be associated in China,

as in Greece, with propitiation? To this day, a Chinaman who wishes to

make up a quarrel will send a piece of red paper containing an olive, in

token of friendly feeling; and the acceptance of this means that the

quarrel is at an end.

The olive was supposed by the Greeks to have been brought by Hercules

from the land of the Hyperboreans; the Chinese say it was introduced

into China in the second century B.C.

The extraordinary similarities between the Chinese and Pythagorean

systems of music place it beyond a doubt that one must have been derived

from the other. The early Jesuit fathers declared that the ancient

Greeks borrowed their music from the Chinese; but we know now that the

music in question did not exist in China until two centuries after its

appearance in Greece.

The music of the Confucian age perished, books and instruments together,

at the Burning of the Books, in B.C. 212; and we read that in the first

part of the second century B.C. the hereditary music-master was

altogether ignorant of his art. Where did the new art come from? And how

are its Greek characteristics to be accounted for?

There are also equally extraordinary similarities between the Chinese

and Greek calendars.

For instance, in B.C. 104 the Chinese adopted a cycle of nineteen years,

a period which was found to bring together the solar and the lunar

years.

But this is precisely the cycle, enneakaidekaeteris, said to have been

introduced by Meton in the fifth century B.C., and adopted at Athens

about B.C. 330.

Have we here another coincidence of no particular importance?

The above list might be very much extended. Meanwhile, the question

arises: Are there any records of any kind in China which might lead us

to suppose that the Chinese ever came into contact in any way with the

civilisation of ancient Greece?

We know from Chinese history that, so far back as the second century

B.C., victorious Chinese generals carried their arms far into Central

Asia, and succeeded in annexing such distant regions as Khoten, Kokand,

and the Pamirs. About B.C. 138 a statesman named Chang Ch'ien was sent

on a mission to Bactria, but was taken prisoner by the Hsiung-nu, the

forebears of the Huns, and detained in captivity for over ten years. He

finally managed to escape, and proceeded to Fergana, and thence on to

Bactria, returning home in B.C. 126, after having been once more

captured by the Hsiung-nu and again detained for about a year.

Now Bactria was then a Greek kingdom, which had been founded by Diodotus

in B.C. 256; and it would appear to have had, already for some time,

commercial relations with China, for Chang Ch'ien reported that he had

seen Chinese merchandise exposed there in the markets for sale. We

farther learn that Chang Ch'ien brought back with him the walnut and the

grape, previously unknown in China, and taught his countrymen the art of

making wine.

The wine of the Confucian period was like the wine of to-day in China,

an ardent spirit distilled from rice. There is no grape-wine in China

now, although grapes are plentiful and good. But we know from the poetry

which has been preserved to us, as well as from the researches of

Chinese archaeologists, that grape-wine was largely used in China for

many centuries subsequent to the date of Chang Ch'ien; in fact, down to

the beginning of the fifteenth century, if not later.

One writer says it was brought, together with the "heavenly horse," from

Persia, when the extreme West was opened up, a century or so before the

Christian era, as already mentioned.

I must now make what may well appear to be an uncalled-for digression;

but it will only be a temporary digression, and will bring us back in a

few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse, and to Persia.

Mirrors seem to have been known to the Chinese from the earliest ages.

One authority places them so far back as 2500 B.C. They are at any rate

mentioned in the _Odes_, say 800 B.C., and were made of polished copper,

being in shape, according to the earliest dictionary, like a large

basin.

About one hundred years B.C., a new kind of mirror comes into vogue,

called by an entirely new name, not before used. In common with the word

previously employed, its indicator is "metal," showing under which

kingdom it falls,--_i.e._ a mirror of metal. These new mirrors were

small disks of melted metal, highly polished on one side and profusely

decorated with carvings on the other,--a description which exactly

tallies with that of the ancient Greek mirror. Specimens survived to

comparatively recent times, and it is even alleged that many of these

old mirrors are in existence still. A large number of illustrations of

them are given in the great encyclopaedia of the eighteenth century, and

the fifth of these, in chronological order, second century B.C., is

remarkable as being ornamented with the well-known "key," or Greek

pattern, so common in Chinese decoration.

Another is covered with birds flying about among branches of pomegranate

laden with fruit cut in halves to show the seeds.

Shortly afterward we come to a mirror so lavishly decorated with bunches

of grapes and vine-leaves that the eye is arrested at once. Interspersed

with these are several animals, among others the lion, which is unknown

in China. The Chinese word for "lion," as I stated in my first lecture,

is _shih_, an imitation of the Persian _shir_. There is also a lion's

head with a bar in its mouth, recalling the door-handles to temples in

ancient Greece. Besides the snake, the tortoise, and the sea-otter,

there is what is far more remarkable than any of these, namely, a horse

with wings.

On comparing the latter with Pegasus as he appears in sculpture, it is

quite impossible to doubt that the Chinese is a copy of the Greek

animal. The former is said to have come down from heaven, and was

caught, according to tradition, on the banks of a river in B.C. 120.

The name for pomegranate in China is "the Parthian fruit," showing that

it was introduced from Parthia, the Chinese equivalent for Parthia being

[an][xi] _Ansik_, which is an easy corruption of the Greek Arsakes, the

first king of Parthia.

The term for grape is admittedly of foreign origin, like the fruit

itself. It is [pu][tao] _pu t'ou_. Here it is easy to recognise the

Greek word Botrus, a cluster, or bunch, of grapes.

Similarly, the Chinese word for "radish," [luo][bo] _lo po_, also of

foreign origin, is no doubt a corruption of raphe, it being of course

well known that the Chinese cannot pronounce an initial _r_.

There is one term, especially, in Chinese which at once carries

conviction as to its Greek origin. This is the term for watermelon.

The two Chinese characters chosen to represent the sound mean "Western

gourd," _i.e._ the gourd which came from the West. Some Chinese say, on

no authority in particular, that it was introduced by the Kitan Tartars;

others say that it was introduced by the first Emperor of the so-called

Golden Tartars. But the Chinese term is still pronounced _si kua_, which

is absolutely identical with the Greek word sikua, of which Liddell and

Scott say, "perhaps the melon." For these three words it would now

scarcely be rash to substitute "the watermelon."

We are not on quite such firm ground when we compare the Chinese kalends

and ides with similar divisions of the Roman month.

Still it is interesting to note that in ancient China, the first day of

every month was publicly proclaimed, a sheep being sacrificed on each

occasion; also, that the Latin word _kalendae_ meant the day when the

order of days was proclaimed.

Further, that the term in Chinese for ides means to look at, to see,

because on that day we can see the moon; and also that the Latin word

_idus_, the etymology of which has not been absolutely established, may

possibly come from the Greek idein "to see," just as _kalendae_ comes

from kalein "to proclaim."

As to many of the analogies, more or less interesting, to be found in

the literatures of China and of Western nations, it is not difficult to

say how they got into their Chinese setting.

For instance, we read in the History of the Ming Dynasty, A.D.

1368-1644, a full account of the method by which the Spaniards, in the

sixteenth century, managed to obtain first a footing in, and then the

sovereignty over, some islands which have now passed under the American

flag. The following words, not quite without interest at the present

day, are translated from the above-mentioned account of the

Philippines:--

"The Fulanghis (_i.e._ the Franks), who at that time had succeeded by

violence in establishing trade relations with Luzon (the old name of

the Philippines), saw that the nation was weak, and might easily be

conquered. Accordingly, they sent rich presents to the king of the

country, begging him to grant them a piece of land as big as a bull's

hide, for building houses to live in. The king, not suspecting guile,

conceded their request, whereupon the Fulanghis cut the hide into strips

and joined them together, making many hundreds of ten-foot measures in

length; and then, having surrounded with these a piece of ground, called

upon the king to stand by his promise. The king was much alarmed; but

his word had been pledged, and there was no alternative but to submit.

So he allowed them to have the ground, charging a small ground-rent as

was the custom. But no sooner had the Fulanghis got the ground than they

put up houses and ramparts and arranged their fire-weapons (cannon) and

engines of attack. Then, seizing their opportunity, they killed the

king, drove out the people, and took possession of the country."

It is scarcely credible that Chinese historians would have recorded such

an incident unless some trick of the kind had actually been carried out

by the Spaniards, in imitation of the famous classical story of the

foundation of Carthage.

A professional writer of marvellous tales who flourished in the

seventeenth century tells a similar story of the early Dutch settlers:--

"Formerly, when the Dutch were permitted to trade with China, the

officer in command of the coast defences would not allow them, on

account of their great numbers, to come ashore. The Dutch begged very

hard for the grant of a piece of land such as a carpet would cover; and

the officer above mentioned, thinking that this could not be very large,

acceded to their request. A carpet was accordingly laid down, big enough

for about two people to stand on; but by dint of stretching, it was

soon able to accommodate four or five; and so the foreigners went on,

stretching and stretching, until at last it covered about an acre, and

by and by, with the help of their knives, they had filched a piece of

ground several miles in extent."

* * * * *

These two stories must have sprung from one and the same source. It is

not, however, always so simple a matter to see how other Western

incidents found their way into Chinese literature. For instance, there

is a popular anecdote to be found in a Chinese jest-book, which is

almost word for word with another anecdote in Greek literature:--

A soldier, who was escorting a Buddhist priest, charged with some crime,

to a prison at a distance, being very anxious not to forget anything,

kept saying over and over the four things he had to think about, viz.:

himself, his bundle, his umbrella, and the priest. At night he got

drunk, and the Buddhist priest, after first shaving the soldier's head,

ran away. When the soldier awaked, he began his formula, "Myself,

bundle, umbrella--O dear!" cried he, putting his hands to his head, "the

priest has gone. Stop a moment," he added, finding his hands in contact

with a bald head, "here's the priest; it is I who have run away."

* * * * *

As found in Greek literature, the story, attributed to Hierocles, but

probably much later, says that the prisoner was a bald-headed man, a

condition which is suggested to the Chinese reader by the introduction

of a Buddhist priest.

Whether the Chinese got this story from the Greeks, or the Greeks got it

from the Chinese, I do not pretend to know. The fact is that we students

of Chinese at the present day know very little beyond the vague outlines

of what there is to be known. Students of Greek have long since divided

up their subject under such heads as pure scholarship, history,

philosophy, archaeology, and then again have made subdivisions of these.

In the Chinese field nothing of the kind has yet been done. The

consequence is that the labourers in that field, compelled to work over

a large superficies, are only able to turn out more or less superficial

work. The cry is for more students, practical students of the written

and colloquial languages, for the purposes of diplomatic intercourse

and the development of commerce; and also students of the history,

philosophy, archaeology, and religions of China, men whose contributions

to our present stock of knowledge may throw light upon many important

points, which, for lack of workmen, have hitherto remained neglected and

unexplored.

LECTURE V

TAOISM

TAOISM

China is popularly supposed to have three religions,--Confucianism,

Buddhism, and Taoism.

The first is not, and never has been, a religion, being nothing more

than a system of social and political morality; the second is indeed a

religion, but an alien religion; only the last, and the least known, is

of native growth.

The Chinese themselves get over the verbal difficulty by calling these

the Three Doctrines.

There have been, at various epochs, other religions in China, and some

still remain; the above, however, is the classification commonly in use,

all other religions having been regarded up to recent times as devoid of

spiritual importance.

Mahommedanism appeared in China in 628 A.D., and is there to this day,

having more than once threatened the stability of the Empire.

In 631 the Nestorian Christians arrived, to become later on a

flourishing sect, though all trace of them, beyond their famous Tablet,

has long since vanished.

It has also been established in recent years that the Zoroastrians, and

subsequently the Manichaeans, were in China in these early centuries,

but nothing now remains of them except the name, a specially invented

character, which was equally applied to both.

In the twelfth century the Jews had a synagogue at K'ai-feng Fu, in

Central China, but it is not absolutely certain when they first reached

the country. Some say, immediately after the Captivity; others put it

much later. In 1850 several Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch, in

the square character, with vowel-points, were obtained from the above

city. There were then no professing Jews to be found, but in recent

years a movement has been set on foot to revive the old faith.

Roman Catholicism may be said to have existed in China since the close

of the sixteenth century, though there was actually an Archbishop of

Peking, Jean de Montecorvino, who died there in 1330.

In the last year of the eighteenth century the first Protestant

missionary arrived. The first American missionaries followed in 1830.

They found China, as it is now, nominally under the sway of the Three

Doctrines.

So much has been written on Confucianism, and so much more on Buddhism,

that I propose to confine myself entirely to Taoism, which seems to have

attracted too little the attention of the general public. In fact, a

quite recent work, which professes to deal among other things with the

history of China, omits all discussion of this particular religion.

Taoism is the religion of Tao; as to what Tao is, or what it means, we

are told upon the highest authority that it is quite impossible to say.

This does not seem a very hopeful beginning; but

"even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea,"

and I shall therefore make an effort to set before you a clue, which, I

trust, will lead toward at any rate a partial elucidation of the

mystery.

At some unknown period in remote antiquity, there appears to have lived

a philosopher, known to posterity as Lao Tzu, who taught men, among

other things, to return good for evil. His parentage, birth, and life

have been overloaded in the course of centuries with legend. Finally, he

is said to have foreseen a national cataclysm, and to have disappeared

into the West, leaving behind him a book, now called the _Tao-Te-Ching_,

which, for many reasons, he could not possibly have written.

The little we really know of Lao Tzu is gathered from traditional

utterances of his, scattered here and there in the works of later

disciples of his school. Many of these sayings, though by no means all

of them, with much other matter of a totally different character, have

been brought together in the form of a treatise, and the heterogeneous

whole has been ascribed to Lao Tzu himself.

Before proceeding with our examination of Tao, it is desirable to show

why this work may safely be regarded as a forgery of a later age.

Attempts have been made, by the simple process of interpolation in

classical texts, to prove that Lao Tzu lived in the same century as that

in which Confucius was born; and also that, when the former was a very

old man, the two sages met; and further that the interviews ended very

much to the astonishment of Confucius. All this, however, has been set

aside by the best native scholarship ever produced in China, as the work

of later hands.

Further, there was another philosopher of the same name, who really was

contemporary with Confucius, and it is held by many Chinese critics that

the two have been confused, perhaps with malice aforethought.

We can only say for certain that after Lao Tzu came Confucius--at what

interval we do not know. Now, in all the works of Confucius, whether as

writer or as editor, and throughout all his posthumously published

Discourses, there is not a single word of allusion either to Lao Tzu or

to this treatise. The alleged interviews have been left altogether

unnoticed.

One hundred years after Confucius came Mencius, China's second sage. In

all his pages of political advice to feudal nobles, and all his

conversations with his disciples, much more voluminous than the

Discourses of Confucius, there is equally no allusion to Lao Tzu, nor to

the treatise.

It has been pointed out by an eminent Chinese critic of the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries, that Mencius spent his life chiefly in

attacking the various heterodox systems which then prevailed, such as

the extreme altruistic system of Mo Ti and the extreme egoistic system

of Yang Chu; and it is urged--in my opinion with overwhelming force--that

if the _Tao-Te-Ching_ had existed in the days of Mencius, it must

necessarily have been recognised and treated as a mischievous work,

likely to alienate men's minds from the one perfect and orthodox

teaching--Confucianism.

Chuang Tzu, a philosopher of the fourth century B.C., devoted himself to

elucidating and illuminating the teaching of Lao Tzu. His work, which

has survived to the present day, will shortly occupy our attention. For

the moment it is only necessary to say that it contains many of the

Master's traditional sayings, but never once mentions a treatise.

In the third century B.C. there lived another famous Taoist writer, Han

Fei Tzu, who devotes the best part of two whole sections of his work to

explaining and illustrating the sayings of Lao Tzu. Yet he never

mentions the treatise. He deals with many sayings of Lao Tzu now to be

found in the treatise, but he does not take them in the order in which

they now stand, and he introduces several others which do not occur at

all in the treatise, having apparently been overlooked by the compiler.

In the second century B.C. there lived another famous Taoist writer,

Huai-nan Tzu, who devotes a long chapter to illustrating the doctrines

of Lao Tzu. He never mentions a book.

One hundred years B.C. comes the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien, whose

brilliant work, the first of the Dynastic Histories, I have already had

occasion to bring to your notice. In his brief memoir of Lao Tzu, he

does mention a book in five thousand and more characters; but he

mentions it in such a way as to make it clear beyond all doubt that he

himself could never have seen it; and moreover, in addition to the fact

that no date is given, either of the birth or death of Lao Tzu, the

account is so tinged with the supernatural as to raise a strong

suspicion that some part of it did not really come from the pen of the

great historian.

About two hundred years later appeared the first Chinese dictionary,

already alluded to in a previous lecture. This work was intended as a

collection of all the written characters known at date of publication;

and we can well imagine that, with Lao Tzu's short treatise before him,

there would be no difficulty in including all the words found therein.

Such, however, is not the case. There are many characters in the

treatise which are not to be found in the dictionary, and in one

particular instance the omission is very remarkable.

Much other internal evidence against the genuineness of this work might

here be adduced. I will content myself with a single, and a ludicrous,

item, which shows how carelessly it was pieced together.

Sentences occur in the _Tao-Te-Ching_ which positively contain, in

addition to some actual words by Lao Tzu, words from a commentator's

explanation, which have been mistaken by the forger for a part of Lao

Tzu's own utterance.

Add to this the striking fact that the great mass of Chinese critical

scholarship is entirely adverse to the claims put forward on behalf of

the treatise,--a man who believes in it as the genuine work of Lao Tzu

being generally regarded among educated Chinese as an amiable crank,

much as many people now regard any one who credits the plays of

Shakespeare to Lord Bacon,--and I think we may safely dismiss the

question without further ado.

It will be more interesting to turn to any sayings of Lao Tzu which we

can confidently regard as genuine; and those are such as occur in the

writings of some of the philosophers above-mentioned, from which they

were evidently collected by a pious impostor, and, with the aid of

unmistakable padding, were woven into the treatise, of which we may now

take a long leave.

Lao Tzu imagined the universe to be informed by an omnipresent,

omnipotent Principle, which he called _Tao_. Now this word _Tao_ means

primarily "a road," "a way"; and Lao Tzu's Principle may therefore be

conveniently translated by "the Way."

Fearing, however, some confusion from the use of this term, the

philosopher was careful to explain that "the way which can be walked

upon is not the eternal Way." But he never tells us definitely what the

Way is. In one place he says it cannot find expression in words; in

another he says, "Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not

know."

The latter saying was used by a famous poet as a weapon of ridicule

against the treatise. "If those who know," he argued, "do not tell, how

comes it that Lao Tzu put his own knowledge into a book of five thousand

and more words?"

We are assured, however, by Lao Tzu that "just as without going out of

doors we can know the whole world, so without looking out of window we

can know the Way."

Again we have, "Without moving, you shall know; without looking, you

shall see; without doing, you shall achieve."

Meanwhile, we are left to gather from isolated maxims some shadowy idea

of what Lao Tzu meant by the Way.

It seems to have been a perpetual accommodation of self to one's

surroundings, with the minimum of effort, all progress being spontaneous

and in the line of least resistance.

From this it is a mere step to doing nothing at all, the famous doctrine

of Inaction, with all its paradoxes, which is really the criterion of

Lao Tzu's philosophy and will be always associated with Lao Tzu's name.

Thus he says, "Perfect virtue does nothing, and consequently there is

nothing which it does not do."

Again, "The softest things in the world overcome the hardest; that which

has no substance enters where there is no crevice."

"Leave all things to take their natural courses, and do not interfere."

"Only he who does nothing for his life's sake can be truly said to value

his life."

"Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish,"--do not overdo

it. Do not try to force results. The well-known Greek injunction, "not

to go beyond one's destiny," ouk huper moron, might well have fallen from

Lao Tzu's lips.

All this is the Way, which Lao Tzu tells us is "like the drawing of a

bow,--it brings down the high and exalts the low," reducing all things

to a uniform plane.

He also says that if the Way prevails on earth, horses will be used for

agricultural purposes; if the Way does not prevail, they will be used

for war.

Many of Lao Tzu's sayings are mere moral maxims for use in everyday

life.

"Put yourself behind, and the world will put you in front; put yourself

in front, and the world will put you behind."

"To the good I would be good; to the not-good I would also be good, in

order to make them good."

All together, with the comparatively few scraps of Lao Tzu's wisdom to

be found in the treatise, we should be hard put to understand the value

of Tao, and still more to find sufficient basis for a philosophical

system, were it not for his disciple, Chuang Tzu, of the fourth century

B.C., who produced a work expanding and illustrating the Way of his

great Master, so rich in thought and so brilliant from a literary point

of view that, although branded since the triumph of Confucianism with

the brand of heterodoxy, it still remains a storehouse of current

quotation and a model of composition for all time.

Let us go back to _Tao_, in which, Chuang Tzu tells us, man is born, as

fishes are born in water; for, as he says in another place, there is

nowhere where _Tao_ is not. But _Tao_ cannot be heard; heard, it is not

_Tao_. It cannot be seen; seen, it is not _Tao_. It cannot be spoken;

spoken, it is not _Tao_. Although it imparts form, it is itself

formless, and cannot therefore have a name, since form precedes name.

The unsubstantiality of _Tao_ is further dwelt upon as follows:--

"Were _Tao_ something which could be presented, there is no man but

would present it to his sovereign or to his parents. Could it be

imparted or given, there is no man but would impart it to his brother

or give it to his child. But this is impossible. For unless there is a

suitable endowment within, _Tao_ will not abide; and unless there is

outward correctness, _Tao_ will not operate."

It would seem therefore that _Tao_ is something which altogether

transcends the physical senses of man and is correspondingly difficult

of attainment. Chuang Tzu comes thus to the rescue:--

"By absence of thought, by absence of cogitation, _Tao_ may be known.

By resting in nothing, by according in nothing, _Tao_ may be approached.

By following nothing, by pursuing nothing, _Tao_ may be attained."

What there was before the universe, was _Tao_. _Tao_ makes things what

they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce _Tao_; yet

everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.

"Rest in Inaction," says Chuang Tzu, "and the world will be good of

itself. Cast your slough. Spit forth intelligence. Ignore all

differences. Become one with the Infinite. Release your mind. Free your

soul. Be vacuous. Be nothing!"

Chuang Tzu lays especial emphasis on the cultivation of the natural as

opposed to the artificial.

"Horses and oxen have four feet; that is the natural. Put a halter on a

horse's head, a string through a bullock's nose; that is the

artificial."

"A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not

die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident

in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not

conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out

of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast;

and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existences. And if

such security is to be got from wine, how much more is it to be got from

_Tao_?"

The doctrine of Relativity in space and time, which Chuang Tzu deduces

from Lao Tzu's teachings, is largely introduced by the disciple.

"There is nothing under the canopy of Heaven greater than an autumn

spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. The universe and I came into

being together; and all things therein are One.

"In the light of _Tao_, affirmative is reconciled with negative;

objective is identified with subjective. And when subjective and

objective are both without their correlates, that is the very axis of

_Tao_. And when that axis passes through the centre at which all

infinities converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite

One."

Thus, morally speaking, we can escape from the world and self, and can

reverse and look down upon the world's judgments; while in the

speculative region we get behind and beyond the contradictions of

ordinary thought and speech. A perfect man is the result. He becomes, as

it were, a spiritual being. As Chuang Tzu puts it:--