Page:Columbia University Lectures on Literature (1911).djvu/100

 cally from the earliest time will not be set aside for generations to come.

Works on medicine, of which subject the Chinese have a very extensive Literature, and those on divination will be studied as long as the "Book of Changes" is considered the source of all wisdom; and foreign science with all its superior methods will find it hard to drive them out of the field. Works on Art, like Art itself, are always sure to have their eternal value; and Chinese Literature, unlike the literatures of Western Asia, is quite rich in such works throwing light on the development of pictorial art, calligraphy, music, archery, etc. Archæology, too, has its literature in a long series of special works, and there are few varieties among the celebrated objects of vertu coming from China which are not described from the historical and technical point of view in some general work, or some monograph. Such monographs we have on ancient swords, tripods, and other sacrificial bronzes, bricks and tiles, ink-stones, ink cakes, coins; and not only the chinoiseries of our museums have been described in special notices, but almost every important phase of cultural life has its monograph. Thus we have special books on tea, on wine, on bamboo trees, oranges, chrysanthemums, mushrooms, on soups, on diet, etc.

The class of writers that seems to justify the name of the "Treasury" are the "Philosophers." We have scarcely time to mention their names. One of the best known is Mo Ti, also known by his Latinized name Micius, the philosopher of mutual love, who presented an almost Christian altruism, as opposed to Yang Chu, whose pessimism was of the most ignoble kind; to call him "the philosopher of egotism" would sound like an apology.

Among the most useful classes of books are the several cyclopedias containing under certain classified heads extracts about almost any subject treated upon in the recognized standard Literature. The most extensive work of this kind is