Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/35

Rh We have, apparently, no means of learning at what time the Chinese first began to use writing for literary purposes. We know, however, that in matters of government it was employed from a very early period. One of the first occurrences in literature of the word shu (書) in the sense of "writing," so far as I know, is in a passage of the historical classic, "Shu-ching." The Emperor Shun (B.C. 2255 to 2205) is there represented as giving the following instructions with reference to the reprobates about his court. "Use archery to show what they are, flogging to make them remember their faults, and writing (shu) to serve as a record." In the reign of the same sovereign the Baron I (伯夷) seems to have drawn up a code of ceremonies, and also to have set forth the Penal Statutes of the realm for the information of the people. Another early mention of writing occurs in the historical record of the king Tai-chia (太甲), and it also is found in the "Shu-ching." In the passage referred to, we are told that in the year B.C. 1753 the high minister I-yin (伊尹) "made a writing" (作書 tso-shu) in which he gave excellent counsel to the new king. And about two years afterwards the same minister again makes a writing to congratulate the above king on his tardy return to virtue. The next mention, perhaps, is that which occurs in the "Charge to Yue" of the same treatise. It is there recorded of the king Wu Ting (武丁)—B.C. 1324 to 1265— that on a certain occasion he made a writing to convey his instructions to his ministers. But it is to be noted that the passages in the "Shu-ching," just referred to, have been condemned as spurious by some critics, and there is some doubt as to their geniuneness. We know, however, that the ceremonial codes of the Hsia and Yin dynasties were committed to writing, and that parts of them survived the fall of the latter. But records concerning the history and institutions of the country before the rise of the Chou dynasty (B.C. 1122 to 250) were even in Confucius' time very