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C H I give a hort view of thee pretenions, principally extracted from their own writers. But, when any thing is quoted from the Chinee, it is abolutely necessary to attend, 1. To the times purely and ; 2. To the doubtful and uncertain times; and, 3. To the, when the Chinese , upported by indisputable monuments, begins to proceed on ure grounds.

1. Some acribe to Tiene-hoang, a book in eight chapters, which contains the origin of. They add, that the characters ued by the Sane hoang were natural, without any determinate form, that they were nothing but and.

Lieou-jou, author of Ouai-ki, ays, that Tiene-hoang gave names to the ten KANE, and to the twelve TCHI, to determine the place of the : this is meant of the cyclic characters.

Tiene-hoang signifies of. They also call him alo Tiene ling, the ; Tee jun, the on who nourihes and adorns all things; and finally Tchong-tiene-hoang-kune, the  of the middle, &c. This Tiene-hoang ucceeded Pouane-cou.

The Ouai-ki ays, that Ti-hoang (emperor of the earth), the ucceor of Tiene-hoang, divided the and the, and appointed thirty s to make one. The Tong li, quoted in Lopi, adds further, that this  fixed the - to the eleventh. A proof that the Chinee was originally very incorrect, and that the coure of it was regulated only by that of the, is, that for a long time, to expres a , they aid a change of the.

This Ti-hoang, ay they, was father of Tiene-hoang, and of Gine-hoang who follows.

They give Gine-hoang (overeign of men) nine brothers, and pretend, that they divided the among them. They were nine brothers (ays Yuene-leoa-fane) who divided the among them, and built, which they urrounded with. It was under this (ays Lopi), that there firt began to be a ditinction between the  and the ; they drank, they eat, and the two  united.

After thee three s which we have jut now named, they place the period named Ou-long (the five Long or s) compoed of five different families. But they do not tell us their names, nor the duration of their reigns. In thee times (ays an author) men dwelt in the bottom of s, or perched upon s as it were in. This fact contradicts the invention of, and urrounding them with , which they place under the reign of Gine-hoang; but we will meet with many uch contradictions in the equel.

They ay nothing of the third Ki. Of the fourth, named Ho-lo, and compoed of three families, they ay, that the Ho-lo taught men to retire into the hollows of s. This is all they ay of it. Neither do they ay any thing of the fifth Ki, named Liene-tong, and compoed of ix families; of the ixth Ki, named Su-ming, and compoed of four families.

It is a folly to dwell upon the a of thee ix Ki; nothing is more aburd. Lopi cites an author who generouly gives them 1,100,750 s duration; Lopi ays himelf, that the five firt Ki after Gine hoang make in all 90,000 s.

The eventh Ki is named Sune-fei, and comprehends twenty-two families. But they ay nothing under all thee reigns that has any relation to the or. Only under the twenty-econd and lat, named Tee-che-chi, they ay, that it was not until then that men ceaed to dwell in s. Is it not a palpable aburdity that after o many ages, and under s of whom they relate o many wonders, they had not yet found out the art of s to helter them from the s and s!

The eighth Ki, named Yne-ti, contains thirteen families or. Tchine-fang-chi, the firt of this period, reigned after Tee-che-chi, and founded the first family. They ay, that at the beginning men covered their bodies with and s;  and  were very numerous; the s which had  were not yet returned into their channels; and the miery of mankind was extreme. Tchine-fang taught men to, to take off the with rollers of , and ue them againt the s and  which incommoded them very much. He taught them alo to make a kind of web of their, to erve them as a covering to their heads againt the. They obeyed him with joy; he called his ubjects people clothed with kins; he reigned 350 s. To Tchine-fang chi succeeded Chou-chane-chi, then Hai-kouei-chi, of whom they ay nothing which has any relation to our ubject.

The fourth, who also ucceeded Hai-kouei-chi, was named Hoene-tune; he founded the fourth , (for each of thee princes which we have jut now mentioned, was the founder of a family or .) In the of this , Lopi quotes Lao-chene-tee, who peaks thus:

"The ancient s wore their dihevelled, without any ornament upon their heads. They had neither  nor, and they  their people in peace. Being of a beneficial dipoition, they cherihed all things, and put no peron to . Always giving, and never receiving any thing, their , without dreading their power as maters, revered their  in their s. Then  and  oberved a mot beautiful order, and every thing flourihed in a urpriing manner. The s built their  o low, that they might be reached with the hand; all the  tamely ubmitted to the will of man. Then the jut medium was oberved, and harmony reigned over all. They did not reckon the  by the s. There was no ditinction between within and without, between mine and thine. In this manner reigned Hoene-tune. But when mankind had degenerated from this happy tate, s and ,  and , all together, and as it were in concert, made  againt them."

To this of Hoene-tune, ucceeded that of Tong-hou-chi, containing even s which are not named. To this fifth ucceeded the ixth, whoe founder was Hoang-tane-chi.

The 7th, the of Ki-tong-chi *.

The 8th, the of Ki-y-chi *.  The