The latter's programme of state socialism was particularly objectionable to Ssu-ma Kuang, who accordingly devoted himself to discrediting Wang An-shih's policies on historical grounds. Wang An-shih, in his system of state socialism actually Introduces under the favour of the Sung Em-error, was as bitterly opposed os his nineteenth century successor Carl 'Manx has been; and it was the historian So-ma Kuang who led the, al lack. A hundred years later the victory of the conservatives was confirmed and perpetuated when Chu Hisi, turning for the moment, from his' epochal commentaries on the Classics made St-ma Kuang's "Mir. ror of History" more accessible and intelligible. Six hundred years tater. the Jesuit sinologue de Mailla translated this work from a Manchu version into French; ahd for the first time disclosed to Europe the impressive panorama of China's political development throughout the centuries. 'Once again, a little over a decade yo, Henri' Cordier published his Historic Generale de ta Chine which for early dynasties and reigns largely borrows from Chu Hsi's recension of SsQ-ma Kuang's "General Mirror for Help in Government." It is now the effort of China's historians to get away from the subjective interpreta-Hons of Sstema Kuang and Chu Hei, and to work independently upon the texts relating to special periods, 1! is hoped that Western historians of China will abandon the custom of dealing with the entire three millenlums of China's ascertained history. Rather let them make investigations confined to limited epochs or periods og has been done in historical studies of Occidental lands.
'The authenticated history of China. does not reach very far back and the! alue of texts relating to antiquity'
not very great. Actually we have merely skeelies of certain epochs, se-atated by periods scarcely known, rather than a continuous historical account of Ancient China.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.