There is some difference in these versions, though perhaps it is not greatly important as bearing on the present subject. That of Dr. Legge makes the emperor to command the astronomers by intercalating a month to fix the four seasons, and complete the determination of the year, saying that the round year consists of 366 days. The other version represents the work of adjustment as already made. The two points of interest apparently contained in it are a knowledge of the year as consisting of 366 days, and of the principle of intercalation to bring the seasons into their proper places. As to the first, the French missionaries all assume that it means only that each fourth year has 366 days, the three intervening ones having but 365. But the passage itself, in either version, has not a word to warrant this assumption. As to the second, the intercalation was not to be of one day each fourth year, but of one month. Whether this was to be done at stated intervals, in order to retain the seasons in their proper places, or once for all, does not appear. What were the principles of intercalation observed at that early period, if any, Dr. Legge says we cannot tell." He adds, "Previous to the Han dynasty, Chinese. history does not furnish us with the details on the subject of intercalation. In the time of that dy

*

nasty (B. C. 202-A. D. 221), we find what is called the Metonic cycle, well known. It is not mentioned as any discovery of that age.

No doubt it came down to the Han from the Chan, and was probably known in China long before Meton reformed the Athenian calendar according to its principles, B. C. 432."

Dr. Legge also quotes from a native commentator of the Shu-king this remark: "When it is said that the year consists of 366 days, we are to understand that Yaou was speaking only in round numbers."

While, therefore, we must concede no small praise to the ancient Chinese, on account of their calendar, we can not admit that there is any evidence of the accuracy that is claimed for it. The inference, that in the 24th century before Christ they were acquainted with the Julian year of 365 days, is an unwarrantable straining of the

text.

2. The other chronological element embraced in the Chinese system, according to Pauthier, is the cycle of sixty years. We have seen that this

claims to have been introduced into use in the year B. C. 2637. If it could be proved that it was actually so employed from that early date, it

*Note, p. 134.

ee

*

would be a fact of great importance. Williams says of it, "The uniform adherence to this peculiar mode of reckoning time, certainly since the days of Confucius, and the high probability that it was generally adopted long before his time, the remembrance of the individual Nau the Great, who invented it, and the odd date of its adoption. in the middle of a reign, are all strong testimonies in favor of the date and antiquity ascribed to it." This very claim, however, in its qualifying phrase, certainly since the days of Confucius," is a virtual admission that there is no proof of its use prior to that time. But the claim itself is not borne out by facts. Other authorities of equal credit assert that the sexagenary cycle was not used to chronicle years till within about a century of the Christian era; some say till even after that era. Dr. Legge, in his Prolegomena to the translation of the Shu-king, has inserted an essay by the Rev. John Chalmers, "On the Astronomy of the ancient Chinese,” in which this point, among others relevant to our subject, is ably discussed. I quote a few paragraphs:

"The invention of the cycle of sixty is ascribed to Hoang-ti (B. C. 2637), and in particular its application to years is affirmed to have commenced in his

*Mid. Kingdom, ii. p. 201.

reign; but this is a mere fiction. It was not applied to years even in the time of Confucius." The writer then describes the structure of the cycle, showing that its original application was to days, for which purpose he admits it was "of very ancient practice." The first instance of its use in this manner, so far as known, dates back to B. C. 1752, in the commonly received chronology, which, however, he pronounces worthless. He then continues:

"The state of confusion in which Chinese chronology is found to be, down to the time of the Eastern Chan,* and the fact that not a single instance of the application of the cycle to years can be found till after the classical period, are sufficient to satisfy us that this invaluable method of dating years was never used in ancient times. The first attempt to arrange the years in cycles of 60 is found in Szema-Ts'een's Historical Records, in a table constructed for the purpose of intercalation, and extending over a period of seventy-six years, the first year being B. C. 103. But instead of using the Chinese cyclical characters, he employs words of two and three syllables, which, considered from a Chinese stand-point, must be pronounced barbarous."

Mr. Chalmers closes his discussion of this point

* The Chan dynasty began to reign B. C. 1121.
†The Tsin dynasty began B. C. 249; the Han B. C. 202.

in these words: "So, then, the cycle of sixty years can not have commenced earlier than the Han, and owes its present form to the scholars of the Tsin, although the Chinese, for the most part, still glory in the delusion that it was invented by Hoang-ti (60 × 75 =) 4500 years ago."

Dr. Legge's own testimony is to the same effect. Having advanced the opinion that Hoang-ti, to whom the invention of the cycle is ascribed, is a fabulous person, he adds,

"What is of more importance to observe is, that the cycle, as it is now universally recited and written, was not employed before the end of the former Han dynasty, i. e., until after the commencement of the Christian era, to chronicle years at all; its exclusive use was to chronicle days. Koo-yen-woo, one of the ablest scholars of the present dynasty, says expressly on this point, The twenty-two cycle characters (i. e., the ten stem characters from këā to kwei, and the twelve branch characters from tsze to hae) were used by the ancients to chronicle days, not years. For recording years, there were the ten names of oh-fung, etc., down to twan-mung, and the twelve branch names, she-te-kih, etc., down to juy-han. The way of later times, to say that a year was këā-tsze, and so on, was not the ancient way.' Yen-woo then quotes from the preface of the Wae-ke, or 'Additional Records,' a supplement to the General Survey' of history by Sze-ma-kwang, with whom Lew-shu, its author, was