Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/183

Rh Hsi-chnng, a recent editor of the Nan-hua King—"in reading a book, it is necessary to understand first the meaning of each single word: then only can you construe the sentences, then only can you perceive the arrangement of the paragraphs; and then, last of all, can you get at the central proposition of the whole chapter." NewNow [sic] every page of Mr. Balfour's translation bears marks that he has not understood the meaning of many single words, that he has not construed the sentences correctly, and that he has missed the arrangement of the paragraphs. If these propositions which we have assumed can be proved to be true, as they can easily be done, being merely points regarding rules of grammar and syntax, it then follows very clearly that Mr. Balfour has missed the meaning and central proposition of whole chapters.

But of all the ChineeChinese [sic] scholars of the present day we are inclined to place the Reverend Mr. Faber of Canton at the head. We do not think that Mr. Faber's labours are of more scholastic value or a higher degree of literary merit than the works of others, but we find that almost every sentence he has written shows a grasp of literary and philosophic principles such as we do not find in any other scholar of the prenentpresent [sic] time. What we conceive these principles to be we must reserve for the next portion of the present paper, when we hope to be able to state the methods, aims, and objects of Chinese scholarship.