and nobleness of heart, or comprehensive vigour of understanding? These qualities do not belong to the Chinese as a people, and the reason is obvious. They do not cultivate the material, as a condition, in the present life, of the existence of the spiritual, element of civilization; but, in their system of education, morals, worship, and government, they just allow sufficient scope to the operation of the spiritual, to give its utmost development to the material, element. The value of the mind is estimated by its capacity to serve the body. That this is the character and object of all their institutions is frankly admitted by the two Chinese, who had been educated in Paris, in a curious memoir,* preserved in the voluminous collection of the Jesuits. The admirers of political centralization will find their principles worked out to perfection in the organisation of Chinese society. The individual has no existence and no activity, apart from the sphere assigned, and the impulse given, to him by the state. His will, as a moral agent, is resolved into that of the state. Of course, there are limits beyond which human nature, even in China, will not permit itself to be wronged; and we learn from Mr. Davis, that, at the present day, when abuses have proceeded to a great pitch, public meetings are sometimes held, by advertisement, for the purpose of remonstrating with unjust or obnoxious magistrates. Yet even in this case, what calls forth the demonstration of public spirit is not the impulse of improvement and reform, but annoyance at any deviation from established usage. The civil code of the Chinese is said to be distinguished for its simplicity, clearness, and brevity; the people are made acquainted with its provisions in the discourses periodically addressed to them by the magistrates; and a summary of the penal law is printed in a cheap form for general distribution.+ It But these regulations, excellent in themselves, only give increased effect to the despotic spirit of the code itself. fixes and orders and meddles with everything, penetrates even into the sanctuary of the human bosom, and subjects to its control those higher relations and responsibilities of humanity, which ought to be resigned entirely to the invisible sanctions of conscience. Chinese civilization is based on the universal application of the principle of paternal authority, ascending from the primary elements of domestic relationship, through all the * Memoires concernant les Chinois, vol. i. p. 10, 11. See an instructive passage quoted by Schlosser (Univer. Hist. p. 94, vol. i.), which concludes with the following words; "Le savoir et le talent ne sont que des mots pour notre ministère, quan l'état n'en retire aucune utilité réelle." Davis, The Chinese, ch. vi. intermediate grades of social dependence, up to that general obedience which is due from all to the supreme head of the state. Thus the most purely human and natural of all our duties, those duties which a parent owes to his child, and which only the inward spirit of religion and moral feeling can enable him to discharge with efficiency, are classed by the artificial institutions of China with the prescribed functions of a citizen, and parents are actually rewarded or punished by the state for the conduct of their children. Extraordinary merit is due to Confucius, as the civilizer of a semi-barbarous race. Nevertheless, it may be conjectured, that the peculiar deficiencies, which we have noticed in the institutions of the Chinese, and which appear the more striking, when we compare their institutions with those of Europe, may have arisen from the fact of the legislation of Confucius being too powerful, as it were, for his age, and of his having aimed prematurely to realize a merely relative perfection of manners and society. He has permanently embodied his own conceptions of the true purpose of society in the institutions and through them in the national character of the Chinese, but having by his commanding genius, and the deep sagacity of his arrangements, arrested and fixed the form of society at a particular period of its growth, he has made no provision for a principle of internal development and indefinite progression. We learn from an ancient Chinese work, ascribed to Meng-tsee, or, as the name is latinized by the Jesuits, Mencius,* who was a follower of Confucius and flourished about a hundred years later than his master, that the early state of society in China corresponded very nearly to that which existed in Europe under the feudal system. Five ranks or orders were recognized in the state, mutually dependent, subordinate the one to the other, and with authority and jurisdiction corresponding. Grants of land were made by the crown to the great officers of state, resembling the feifs and benefices of the middle ages. It is curious to remark that the organic movements of society, in the process of formation, should, in ages and countries so remote, have been distinguished by features so nearly similar. Out of this state of things in Europe, a number of corporate interests have evolved themselves, municipal, ecclesiastic, and legislative, which, wherever they have been able to retain their vitality, have presented a check to the all-absorbing centralization of the crown, and, whatever may have been their collateral evils and frequent abuses, and however much they may need the hand of * Referred to by Davis, vol. i. p. 179, 180. reform with the progress of time, must be admitted by all who have candidly traced the course of European History, even amidst the conflicts of party and selfishness, to have kept alive a sense of human rights, and nursed a spirit of energetic and manly freedom. From causes which it is now perhaps impossible to detect, such a development of independent interests never took place in China. The principle of paternal authority triumphed over every other influence. The institutions of Confucius, universally established, and carried systematically into practice, reduced the whole mass of citizens to one uniform level, and admitted no moving force into any part of the social system, but that which emanated from its recognised head. The Emperor of China, who is worshipped with religious honours, and considered as the supreme proprietor of all the lands in his dominions, may strictly apply to himself the words which Louis the Fourteenth, even in Old France, could not with perfect truth appropriate,-L'Etat c'est moi. It should make no material difference in our estimate of the ultimately debasing influences of this form of society, that the people themselves furnish the aristocracy by whose instrumentality it is maintained, and cheerfully bind on themselves the trammels in which they live. China is in fact a great workshop of material industry, in which the Emperor represents the master, and all the subordinate functionaries of the state are the salaried overlookers and superintendents. There can be little doubt, that the peculiar character of the Chinese written language has hindered the free development of the national mind. It is hardly necessary to remark, that the written character of the Chinese does not, like the alphabetical represent the sounds of the human voice, but the immediate expression of ideas by correspondent symbols. Some fatality, like that which has attended all the institutions of the Chinese, seems to have arrested their system of visible signs at this particular stage. When the old knotted cords. which are alluded to in their ancient chronicles, were abandoned, the Chinese proceeded, in the first instance, like all other nations, to draw the image of the idea they wished to convey. These pictures were gradually altered and abbreviated, and at last became merely arbitrary symbols. The numbers of these had increased to such an extent, and created so much confusion, that in the reign of Tsin-chi-hoang, his minister Lisse reduced them all to one form, which was universally established by royal authority. The Chinese system of written signs is admitted by all who have studied it, to be the product of reflection and metaphysical analysis.* The radical signs represent generic ideas, of which the particular modifications are expressed by additions to the sign. For instance, the root of a character would express metal in general, while an appended sign would indicate that the particular metal intended was copper. The peculiar structure of the written character of the Chinese is favourable to scientific classification; so that of the 214 radical characters of the Chinese, it is observed by Mr. Davis,† that 160 serve at once as component parts in the written designations of all known objects in the animal, mineral, and vegetable, kingdom hence a large portion of their literature consists in dictionaries and encyclopædias, mere nomenclatures of classification. The adoption of one written character, as the vehicle of popular instruction, amidst all the varieties of local dialects, has given to the Chinese civilization that unity of tone, by which it is so remarkably distinguished. On the other hand, the total separation of the written and spoken languages of China, has prevented both from attaining the natural perfection of speech. The spoken language has been left in a rude and barbarous state; while the written, cultivated as a science of symbols, exercising the pedantic industry of the learned, and shut out by its very nature from all immediate sympathy, with the free movements of the heart and imagination, exhibits in its most perfect state, a mere juxtaposition of general ideas, incapable of conveying those nice distinctions of thought and shades of sentiment, of which the human voice, and the alphabet which paints it to the eye, are the only adequate expression. Mr. Davist speaks favourably of the Chinese poetry, which he distributes under three heads,-1. Songs and odes; 2. Moral and didactic pieces; 3. Descriptive and sentimental. It is obviously, therefore, confined to the lower departments of the art and in the specimens which have found their way into the languages of Europe, we meet chiefly with a description of outward objects and events, and of the simple emotions which they immediately excite in the mind. * Frerèt, sur la langue Chinoise; also Morrison's Dictionary and Grammar of the Chinese Language. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 326. ART. VI.—TRACTS FOR THE PEOPLE, DESIGNED TO VINDICATE RELIGIOUS AND CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. Vol. I. London: Effingham Wilson. FOR a considerable time past Tracts have been issued at short intervals, by an Association in Oxford, best known as the PUSEYITES, of which an account was given in a former Number of the TEACHER, (Vol. II. p. 1.); and also by a Roman Catholic Association in London, which, employing some of the ablest writers of that body, as well as selecting their most popular treatises, publishes at the low price of a penny or three-halfpence each, (with a reduction on a quantity taken for distribution,) a tract of a size usually sold for sixpence or more. These two sets of Tracts have one object in common, though they are not by any means friendly to each other, namely, the restoration of the Empire of authority in matters of Religion. They both, no doubt with an equal desire of promoting the welfare of souls, by inculcating upon them the danger of falling into damnable errors, urge the readers to place themselves under the direction of the Church,-the infallible Church of the respective parties—and to place their hopes of salvation in the due observance of the ordinances of religion, as prescribed by these churches. Both of these Societies evidently consider themselves as acting members of an infallible Church, though one of them must be, and both may be, involved in gross error. Besides these two series of publications, there are many others in extensive circulation, in a tolerably cheap form for distribution, which, without directly recommending authority in matters of faith, support the doctrines usually termed orthodox, as if thoroughly established, and make no scruple of thundering their anathemas against all who differ from them. These hold out the Scriptures as their rule of faith, denying the authority claimed by the Editors of the two sets of Tracts above referred to, but as they proceed on the supposition of their own interpretation of them being infallibly right, and that all who differ from them of course hold erroneous opinions, opinions injurious to their present welfare as well as contributing to their eternal damnation, they have an equal tendency to prevent freedom of inquiry. The one party refer to a traditionary authority of the Church, and would have its dictates enforced by the civil power; the other relies on its interpretation of Scripture, and would enforce its dictates by synods, presbyteries, church sessions and the like, punishing by exclusion from ordinances, those who |