China Review seems to be an apology against his critics rather than the enunciation of, any new theories; still there are so many arguments put forward on what must be considered as insufficient premises, that the paper deserves much consideration. Those who have followed the controversy regarding Mr. Edkins' views will notice that his critics have charged him with an insufficient knowledge of what had been accomplished by the modern school of philologists in the comparison of the Aryan languages, and a want of sound critical judgment when comparing Chinese with other languages that chance resemblances were mistaken for proved relationship, and that his theory with regard to surds and sonants was opposed to the conclusions of scientific men, or at least was not borne out by any investi gations made in other quarters. More particular complaints were that Mr. Edkins, who was desirous to upset the European school of comparative philology, was yet willing enough to be led by Chinese authorities, whose enforced ignorance of the structure or history of any language except their own, might have led him to exercise caution in the acceptance of their views; and that, in following out such views, he had attempted to put forward a scheme of ancient Chinese sounds which was against evidence and was calculated to mislead. To cover such views, it was necessary to assume for the Chinese language an antiquity of which there was no proof, and this assertion of the extreme age of the language naturally led to the mistake of putting Chinese forward as a representative of the primitive speech of mankind, instead of what modern research goes more and more to prove it really'is, a young and corrupt form of the ancient language of Central Asia, overlying more primitive form of the Himalayic group. We stated above that Mr. Edkins' paper was in great measure apology, and this apologetic form may be noticed from its very beginning. We are told that nothing is more important for the explanation of Chinesehistory and Chinese philology, than "to interfere as little as possible with the chronology as settled in the Han dynasty." Now this is a mere begging of the question. If the chronology of the Han be right, by all means we are prepared to stick it, but if the chronology of the Han be little more than myth and legend, our assumption of its truth, though it may make it apparently easier to support a theory, will only land us in the quagmire of uncertainty. Our edifice will, in fact, be like the house founded on the sand, bound to go down in the first tumult of the elements, if it do not previously totter of its own accord. Dr. Legge has by no means an unknown name in the realms of Chinese philology. His evidence may perhaps be the stronger that he has no special theory of the evolution of words to support. His last book, the C'hun 'T'sew, though perhaps scarcely likely to be so generally read as the previous volumes of the Chinese Classics, gives us the clearest insight into the state of China from the eighth to the fifth century B.C., of any work yet published. Dr. Legge, so far as his pub lished views seemed to show, (for on this point he has hitherto exercised much reserve) was ready to acknowledge the claims of the Han comment tators to a high antiquity for the Chinese Empire. Yet Dr. Legge, in the Prolegomena to the C'hun 'I'sew, after reviewing the condition of the empire during the period treated of in that Classic, adds "the strongest impression which I receive from the review, is one of great doubt as to most of what we are told about the previous dynasties of Shang and Hia."
We have seen that the China of Chow was a small affair; that of Shang and Hia must have been still smaller."
"The first stage in the formation of the Chinese nation terminated with the ascendency of the State of Ts'in and the establishment of its short-lived dynasty. It would so happen that the languages of the people, who were not of a Chinese origin, and of their chief, would differ for a time; but in the end the culture and force of the superior race prevailed to bring the language and other characteristics into conformity with it." The deliberate conclusion of Dr. Legge, formed after thirty-two years' study of the older writings, which agrees in the main with what has been put forward in this journal, will, we opine, carry more weight than the unsupported chronology of the Han authors. Mr. Edkins asks "why is there no such being as Bel, Jupiter, Mithras, Brahma or Indra in the primtive Chinese traditions The answer is fortunately an easy one, but one not agreeable to Mr. Edkins' views. Mr. Edkins claims to be a sinologue, and to have studied Chinese history; it therefore seems surprising that he has been unable, in every page of the older Chinese authors, to recognize Indra in the Chinese Tien, a word both philologically and mythologically its equivalent. Of the stories of Jupiter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.