Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/536

LEFT CHINA 470 CHINA equal to that of the European, though his muscular power is not so great; the women are disproportionately small, and have a broad upper face, low nose, and linear eyes. The Chinese are, as a race, unwarlike, fond of peace and domestic order, capable of a high degree of organ- ization and local self-government, sober, industrious, practical, unimaginative, lit- erary, and deeply imbued with the mer- cantile spirit. The worship of ancestors is a prominent feature in their social life, and is dictated by that principle of filial piety which forms the basis of Chinese society. The rich have in their houses a chamber, a kind of domestic sanctuary, dedicated to their forefathers. Tablets, representing the deceased per- sons, and inscribed with their names, are here carefully preserved; and at stated seasons prostrations and ceremonials are performed before them according to the "Book of Rites." In China, marriage is universal and within the reach of all; but there is a strict separation of the sexes, and betrothal is undertaken by the parents or by professional match- makers. Language and Literature. — The Chi- nese language belongs to those Asiatic languages commonly called monosyllabic, because each word is uttered by a single movement of the organs of speech, and expresses in itself a complete idea or thing. All Chinese words in the Peking tongue end either in a vowel, a diphthong (in which, however, each vowel sound is distinctly pronounced, making the word often to appear of more than one syl- lable), or a nasal. Of such simple words or roots there are about 450. But the accent of many of these words may be varied by the speaker in four or five dif- ferent ways, so as to produce a corre- sponding variety in their meaning, by which means the number of simple words or roots amounts to about 1,200. The relations of words are ascertained by their position in a sentence. Hence Chi- nese grammar is solely syntax. In Chi- nese the written character, generally speaking, does not indicate the sound of the word, but gives^ a hieroglyphic or pictorial representation of the idea or thing to be expressed. Hence, there are required as many of these characters or symbols as there are ideas to be represented. Since many words similar in sound are different in signification, while in writing each idea has its pecu- liar symbol, the number of words repre- sented by writing, without reckoning those peculiar to certain dialects, is per- haps 10 times greater than those dis- tinguished by the ear. The number, in fact, is reckoned at 50,000. In writing and printing the characters are arranged in perpendicular columns, which follow one another from right to left. In its origin Chinese writing is hieroglyphic or picture-writing, with the addition of a limited number of symbolical and con- ventional signs; the larger number of Chinese characters are formed by the combination of such hieroglyphs and 3ig:ns. But as one such character by itself seldom determines the sound, an additional word is conjoined for the pur- pose; so that the great mass of Chinese written words consist of an ideographic and a phonetic element. Native gram- marians divide their characters into six classes. The Chinese literature, from a geographical, ethnographical, and his- torical point of view, is unquestionably the most comprehensive and important of the whole of Asia. The printed cata- logue of the Emperor Kien-lung's library is composed of 122 volumes; and a selec- tion of the Chinese classics, with com- mentaries and scholia, which was begun by the order of the same emperor, is said to comprise 180,000 volumes, of which, in the year 1818, 78,731 volumes had already appeared. In the five canonical or classical books called "King" are contained the oldest monuments of Chi- nese poetry, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence, some portions of which belong, perhaps, to the most ancient writing of the human race. Confucius, in the 6th century B. C, collected them from various sources, and in this col- lection they have been pretty faithfully handed down. Amid all their scientific labors the Chinese have not neglected the art of poetry, in which they possess voluminous collections that have yet to be made known to Europe. In lyrical poetry the most distinguished names are Li-tai-pe and Tu-Fu, both of whom flour- ished at the beginning of the 8th century A. D. The romantic poetry of the Chi- nese, though void of poetic beauty, is valuable for the insight it gives into their domestic life. History. — The legendary history of China would make it the oldest of na- tions. There is good reason to believe that it has an authentic history exceed- ing 4,200 years. The exact age when Fo-Hi, the benefactor of his country, and the founder of the silk industry, flour- ished cannot be told, but it was before 2375 B. c. The name of the country among all the W. nations has been al- ways associated with silk. The Chinese of~"that early time were astronomers; they recorded phenomena which occurred 2375 B. C, and their record proved cor- rect. The Emperor Yu (1991 b. c.) ren- dered the Great Plain habitable by run-