The Philosophy of History. Friedrich von Schlegel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ be overlooked in the general sketch of this nation, for they perfectly correspond to many other characteristic marks and indications of unnatural stiffness, childish vanity, and exaggerated refinement, which we meet with in the more important province of its intellectual exertions. Even in the basis of all intellectual culture, the language, or rather the writing of the Chinese, this character of refinement pushed beyond all bounds and all conception is visible, while on the other hand it is coupled with great intellectual poverty and jejuneness. In a language where there are not much more than three hundred, not near four hundred, and (according to the most recent critical investigation,) only 272 monosyllabic primitive roots without any kind of grammar; where the not merely various but utterly unconnected significations of one and the same word are marked in the first place by a varying modulation of the voice, according to a fourfold method of accentuation; in the next place, and chiefly by the written characters, which amount to the prodigious number of eighty thousand; while the Egyptian hieroglyphs do not exceed the number, of eight hundred; and this Chinese system of writing is the most artificial in the whole world. An inference which is not invalidated by the fact that, out of that great number of all actual or possible written characters, but a fourth part perhaps is really in use, and a still less portion is necessary to be learned. As the meaning, especially of more complex notions and abstract ideas can be fully fixed and accurately determined only by such artificial ciphers; the language is far more dependent on these written characters than on living sound; for one and the same sound may often be designated by 160 different characters, and have as many significations. It not rarely occurs that Chinese, when they do not very well understand each other in conversation, have recourse to writing, and by copying down these ciphers are enabled to divine each other's meaning, and become mutually intelligible. To comprehend rightly this immeasurable chaos of originally symbolic, but now merely conventional signs—in other words, to be able to read and write, though this science involves great and difficult problems even for the most practised, constitutes the real subject and purport of the scientific education of a Chinese. Indeed it furnishes labour sufficient to fill up the life of man, for even the European scholars, who have engaged in this study, find it a matter of no small difficulty to devise a system whereby a dictionary, or rather a systematic catalogue of all these written characters may be composed, to serve as a fit guide on this ocean of Chinese signs.—But we shall have again occasion to recur to this subject; and indeed it is only in connexion with the peculiar bearings of the Chinese mind this writing system can be properly explained and understood in its true meaning, or rather its meaningless construction and elaborateness.

      Of the external civilization of China, we have a striking proof and a standing monument in the construction of so many canals that intersect the whole country, and in every thing connected therewith. As the extraordinary fertility of the soil is produced by the many rivers of greater or less magnitude that intersect the country, but which at the same time threaten the flat plains with inundation, it is the first object and most important care of government, to avert the danger of such inundations, to distribute the fertilizing waters in equal abundance over the whole country, and thus by means of canals, to maintain in all parts the communication by water which is at the same time of equal benefit and importance to industry and internal commerce. In no civilized state are establishments of this kind so extensively diffused and brought to so high a state of perfection as in China. The great imperial canal which extends to the length of 120 geographical leagues, has, it is said, no parallel on the earth. Although the construction of canals, and all the regulations on water-carriage could have attained by degrees only to their present state of perfection, still this alone would prove the very early attention which this people had bestowed on the arts of civilized life. Mention is often made of them in the old Chinese histories and imperial annals; and the canals of China, like the Nile in Egypt, were ever the objects of most anxious solicitude to the government. These annals, whenever they have occasion to speak of those great inundations and destructive floods, which are of such frequent occurrence in Chinese history, invariably represent the attention bestowed on water-courses and water-regulations, as the most certain mark of a wise, benevolent, and provident administration. On the other hand the neglect of this most important of administrative concerns is ever regarded as the proof of a wicked, reckless and unfortunate reign; and in these histories some great calamity, or even violent catastrophe, is sure to follow, like a stroke of divine vengeance, on this unpardonable neglect of duty. Together with the imperial canal, the great Chinese wall, which extends on the Northern frontier of China proper, to the length of 150 geographical leagues, is another no less important, and still standing monument of the comparatively high civilization which this country had very early attained. Such is the height and thickness of this wall, that it has been calculated that its cubic contents exceed all the mass of stone employed in all the buildings in England and Scotland; or again that the same materials would serve to construct a wall of ordinary height and moderate thickness round the whole earth. This great wall of China may be considered as a characteristic, and as it were a symbol of the seclusive spirit and aversion to every thing foreign in person, manners and modes of thinking which distinguish the Chinese state. This spirit, however has been as little able as the great wall itself, to defend China against foreign conquests, or even against the introduction of foreign sects. This wall, which was built about two centuries before the Christian era, is a historical monument, which furnishes far stronger proof than all the dubious accounts of the old annals that even in ancient times, and long before the conquest of the Monguls, and the establishment of the present dynasty of Mantchou Tartars, the empire had been often conquered, or at least was constantly exposed to the invasions of the Tartar tribes of the North.

      The long succession of the different native dynasties of China, Tchin, Han, Tang, and Sung, down to the Monguls, which fills the diffuse annals of the empire, furnishes few important data on the intellectual progress of the Chinese; and every thing of importance to the object of our present inquiries, that can be gathered out of the mass of political history, may be reduced to a very few plain facts. The English writer, whom we have already cited, though otherwise inclined to a certain degree of scepticism in his views, fixes the commencement of the historical ages of authentic history in the ancient dynasty of Chow, eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The first fact of importance, as regards the moral and intellectual civilization of China, is that this country was originally divided into many small principalities, and, under petty sovereigns, whose power was more limited, enjoyed a greater share of liberty; and that it was formed into a great and absolute monarchy only two hundred years before Christ. The general burning of the books, of which more particular mention will be presently made, as well as the erection of the great wall, are attributed to the first general Emperor of all China, Chi-ho-angti; in whose reign, too, Japan became a Chinese colony, or received from China a political establishment. At a still later period, as in the fifth century of our era, and again at the time of the Mogul conquest under Zingis Khan, China was divided into two kingdoms, a northern and a southern. But there is another fact already mentioned that throws still stronger light on the high civilization of China—it is that at every period, when this empire has been conquered by the Moguls and Tartars, the conquerors, overcome in their turn by the ascendancy of Chinese civilization, have, within a short time, invariably adopted the manners, laws, and even language of China, and thus its institutions have remained, on the whole, unaltered. But here is a circumstance in Chinese history particularly worthy of our attention. In no state in the world do we see such an entire, absolute, and rigid monarchical unity as in that of China, especially under its ancient form; although this government is more limited by laws and manners, and is by no means of that arbitrary and despotic character which we are wont to attribute to the more modern oriental states. In China, before the introduction of the Indian religion of Buddha, there was not even a distinct sacerdotal class—there is no nobility, no hereditary class with hereditary rights—education, and employment in the service of the state, form the only marks of distinction; and the men of letters and government functionaries are blended together in the single class of Mandarins; but the state is all in all. However, this absolute monarchical system has not conduced to the peace, stability, and permanent prosperity of the state, for the whole history of China, from beginning to end, displays one continued series of seditions, usurpations, anarchy, changes of dynasty, and other violent revolutions and catastrophes. This is proved by the bare statement of facts, though the official language of the Imperial annals ever concedes the final triumph to the monarchical СКАЧАТЬ