Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/185

 and those Missionaries who published Confucius lately at Paris. Martinius (z) tells his Reader that he was obliged to learn Sixty Thousand independent Characters before he could read the Chinese Authors with Ease. This is, without all doubt, an excellent Method to propagate Learning, when Eight, or Ten of the best Years of a Man's Life must be spent in learning to read. The most considerable Specimen of Chinese Learning that we have, is in the Writings of Confucius; which if F. Couplet and his Companions had Printed under their own Names, Sir William Temple would have been one of the first (a) that would have called those Rules and Instructions discoursed of with great Compass of Knowledge, Excellence of Sense, Reach of Wit, illustrated with Elegance of Stile, and Aptness of Similitudes and Examples, an incoherent Rhapsody of moral Sayings, which good Sense and tolerable Experience might have furnished any Man with.

If the Chineses think every part of Knowledge, but their own Confucian Ethicks, ignoble and mechanical, why are the European Missionaries so much respected for their Skill in Medicine and ? So much Knowledge in Ma- Errata