CHINESE REPOSITORY.

VOL. VII.-MAY, 1838.- No. 1.

ART. 1. Intellectual character of the Chinese, with remarks on the course to be pursued in the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge for its improvement.

WHETHER the Chinese are to come within the range of modern improvement soon, or not till after the lapse of ages, depends in no small degree on the course pursued by foreigners. The people of this country believe, that the highest attainments, of which the human mind is capable, have been made by their own ancient kings. To the past, therefore, they look for whatever is excellent, both in precept and in practice. Some broken rays of pure light no doubt were communicated to the eastern patriarchs, having been transmitted from the great progenitors of our race through their immediate descendants. But all traditionary light was soon extinct; all correct ideas of Deity, and of man's origin and destiny, were soon lost; and the human mind groped in darkness. Thus alienated from their Maker, the source of all good, it may be the Chinese have advanced as far in improvement as the human intellect can go in its own light and by its own strength. Were the subject thoroughly investigated it might appear, that the people of this empire have been estimated too low by foreigners. Here, as everywhere else, there is a great diversity in both physical and mental structure. The proportions of the body, the form of the eye, and the length of the arm, may differ widely, while the muscular strength and the power of action are equal. Taking them all in all, we suspect the Chinese will not, in natural endowments, suffer in comparison with the inhabitants of any other equal 1

VOL. VII. NO. I.

portion of the globe. The impress of the Creator's hand is as clearly seen in the east as in the west-in the structure of the mind as in that of the body. And until further information is afforded us, we are disposed to admit and to maintain, that the Chinese are not naturally deficient in mental capacities, and that in useful attaintments they have advanced as far as any people ever have gone or can go without the aids of divine revelation.

On this last point, perhaps some reserve should be made. Yet how far and in what the Chinese are inferior to the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, is a question we would rather propound, than discuss, at present. This country and its inhabitants are not, and never have been, well known by foreigners. Most of the works which have been written in European languages, about China and the Chinese, are full of erroneous statements. In geography, history, government, morals, religion, and indeed in almost every department of knowledge, they are woefully deficient or egregiously erroneous, or both. This ignorance has resulted from a variety of causes. Foreigners have seldom enjoyed the means of acquiring an accurate acquaintance with the Chinese. And when opportunities have occurred, they have too frequently been neglected. Some of the Jesuits made extensive geographical surveys. These, if not the principal, are the most valuable records we have of this country. But in modern times, who has traveled over these provinces? Who has had extensive intercourse with their inhabitants? Who has read their books? That the empire is of vast extent, its boundary stretching for thousands of miles, along the Russian frontier, round through Bokhara, Tibet, Tungking, to the Chinese sea; that throughout all this wide domain the emperor is sole monarch, with his courts at the capital and his vicegerents in all the provinces; that literary examinations are often held, and honors conferred for the encouragement of learning; that intercourse with foreign nations is grievously restricted by the government, while the people are passionately fond of commerce; these, and many other facts of a general nature, are easily ascertained. But, if it be asked, Who defines the lines of demarkation on all these wide-spreading frontiers? By what tenure are the lands held by those who cultivate them? What are the qualities of the soil, and the modes of cultivation? What mineral treaCures does the earth contain? What is the condition of the peasantry? How far is infanticide practiced? To what extent, and on what conditions, are human beings bought and sold? What is the extent, and the process, of education? What rank shall be given to the various

writings of the Chinese? By what considerations, and in what way, are their minds most easily influenced? What are the prominent features of their intellectual character? If these, and a thousand other similar questions are asked and pressed, the proper answers cannot readily be obtained-if obtained at all-without reference to native authorities.

Anxious as we are, and ever have been, that friendly intercourse be opened and maintained with the Chinese, and that to all the inhabitants of the empire the glad tidings' be speedily proclaimed, we would not have the work undertaken without due preparation — such preparation as will lead to success; nor, when undertaken, would we have it prosecuted in a manner or by means, sure to end only in disappointment, disgrace, and ruin. One of the chief causes of failure in gaining access to the Chinese, in holding intercourse with them, and in exercising any good influence over them, has consisted hitherto in our ignorance of their character. They are not made up entirely of peculiarities. When they see a thing to be good and useful to themselves, they know how to appreciate it, and are eager enough to obtain it. 'In modern times,' say they, there have come in from foreign countries three good things — vaccination, fire-engines, and a constant flow of rice.'* Many approaches to the Chinese have failed for want of proper regard to circumstances of time, place, and persons. There has been here, sometimes, not only a failure in 'suiting the action to the word, and the word to the action,' but both word and action have been wrong. And sometimes what was de facto good and well-intentioned on the part of the foreigner, has, through his own ignorance, proved nugatory nay even worse; kindness has been regarded as hostility, and friendly attention deemed an outrage. There are a great many influences acting on the minds of this people, which lie almost beyond our observation, and of which we know little more than their mere existence. Hence it frequently happens that prejudices are excited, and are to be encountered, where we least intended or expected them.

We will not, at present, attempt to draw even an outline of the intellectual character of the Chinese. The task is too difficult, and our researches have hitherto been far too limited, to allow us to do the subject justice. The mind of the Chinese the manner in which it is disciplined, its habits of operation, and its results-need and ought to be carefully investigated. It is not, we are most fully

The practice of the healing art, if present operations are continued and extended, will erelong be added to this catalogue.

persuaded, so much in intellectual power, or constancy of application, that the Chinese are deficient, as it is in their objects and their modes of study. For years the young student aims at nothing but mere words; and he acquires nothing else. And many of the studies which he has to pursue in riper years, neither yield him any fruit, nor direct him to any ends worthy of his attention.

What an able pen recently wrote of England previous to Bacon's time, is apposite here. "The ancient philosophy disdained to be useful, and was content to be stationary It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection, which were so sublime that they never could be more than theories; in attempts to solve insoluble enigmas; in exhortations to the attainment of unattainable frames of mind."- Just so it has been in China. "The wise man lives according to nature. Instead of attempting to add to the physical comforts of his species, he regrets that his lot was not cast in that golden age, when the human race had no protection against the cold but the skins of wild beasts no screen from the sun but a cavern."- Perfectly Chinese. "In my own time," says Seneca, "there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows,-tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building,-short hand, which has been carried to such perfection that the writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach inen how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul-Non est, inquam, instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex." Allowing to Seneca something for his more accurate notions of the soul, than can be ceded to the Chinese philosophers, he will find here his equals in vehement declamation against all kinds of useful inventions. Wisdom with the Greek, and propriety with the Chinese, were all in all; while gross folly and improprieties were equally characteristic of both. Neither with the one nor the other were useful improvements encouraged. Instead of marching, they merely marked time. There was no want of ingenuity, of zeal, of industry. There was every trace of intellectual cultivation except a harvest. There was plenty of ploughing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing. But the granaries contained only smut and stubble.'

Had the writer undertaken to describe the intellectual character and labors of the Chinese philosophers, he would not have drawn a picture very different from that we have quoted above. Some of the points of resemblance between Europeans and Chinese, prior to the reign of Elizabeth, are remarkable. That disposition to admire

whatever has been done, and to expect that nothing more will be done," is as strongly characteristic of this nation, nay even much more so, than it ever was of pagan Greece and Rome, or of Europe during the dark ages. "In the fifth century, Christianity had conquered paganism, and paganism had infected Christianity. The church was now victorious and corrupt. The rites of the Pantheon had passed into her worship; the subtleties of the academy into her creed. In an evil day, (says Bacon,) though with great pomp and solemnity, was the ill-starred alliance stricken between the old philosophy and the new faith. Questions widely different from those which had employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and Carneades, but just as subtle, just as interminable, and just as unprofitable, exercised the minds of the lively and voluble Greeks. When learning began to revive in the west, similar trifles occupied the sharp and vigorous intellects of the schoolmen. There was another sowing of the wind, and another reaping of the whirlwind. The great work of improving the condition of the human race was still considered as unworthy of a man of learning. Those who undertook that task, if what they effected could be readily comprehended, were despised as mechanics; if not, they were in danger of being burned as conjurers."

All this, when applied to the farthest east, is perfectly true, even to this hour. The darkness which was broken up in the sixteenth century, when that bright galaxy of reformers rose in the western hemisphere, remains here thick and portentous as ever. 'Words, mere words, and nothing but words, have been all the fruit of all the toil, of all the most renowned sages,' not of sixty generations only, but of time immemorial. The days of this steril fertility,' long ago numbered in the west, roll on here, and will continue until some light breaks in from a foreign source. Not even the emperor is able to make his great ministers understand the word truth: so he has declared by imperial edict; and the declaration is true-and to a far greater extent than he intended or imagined it to be. The longlived dynasty of error holds an iron sceptre over all the many millions of this numerous people; while in themselves the power of resuscitation, and the disposition to break from thralldom, are wanting.

In Europe a variety of causes combined to hasten a change. Much was produced even by collisions of adverse servitude.' But, says the writer above quoted, "it is chiefly to the great reformation of religion that we owe the great reformation of philosophy," and he might have added- the great improvements in all our civil and social

institutions. So we are sure it will be in China. Thousands of causes