Page images
PDF
EPUB

ber is 243, embracing a period of 4721 years, to A. D. 1869.*

Minute chronological detail does not fall within my present purpose. We are now concerned only with the earliest portion of the system, and in this only with the principal dates.

The author informs us that this chronological record was forwarded from Peking, in 1767, by the Catholic missionary P. Amiot, who says of it, "It is a chronological table of all the sovereigns who have reigned in China, ranged in the order of the cycles, and exactly calculated from authentic monuments, from the sixty-first year of the Emperor Hoang-ti to the present reigning monarch (1769), ... and printed at Peking, in the imperial palace, after having been subjected to the close examination of the different academies or literary tribunals of this capital, in the 32d year of Kienloung, -i. e., in 1767 of our era, - to serve ever after as a rule for the historians and other public writers of the empire." †

[ocr errors]

The inquiry now arises, Is this chronology reliable? It comes to us, with high claims, in a scientific dress, and challenges our confidence. How far is this confidence deserved?

* Williams (Summary, ii. p. 229), whom I have followed in the number of the dynasties, being more definite and complete than Pauthier. + Pauthier's Chine, ii. p. 268.

In answering this inquiry, I will first allude to some of the opinions which have been expressed in its favor, and then adduce what may be said on the other side.

M. Pauthier evidently accepts this chronology. even in its earliest dates. In summing up what he has to say regarding it, he remarks, "This confidence granted to the Chinese historians can not be condemned, for we can boldly affirm that no people ever possessed bodies of history so complete and so authentic as the Chinese. This should not surprise us, when we recollect that through all time, history, or the intelligent registering of human events, has been honored and favored in China; that since the Emperor Hoang-ti, 2637 years before our era, there has existed an historical tribunal in the capital of the empire, the members of which, chosen from the most distinguished of the literati, have, in many respects, the prerogatives and permanency of our magistrates."

He then cites, at length, the opinion of Amiot, one of the most laborious and learned of the French missionaries in China, to the following import :

"The Chinese annals are preferable to the historic monuments of all other nations because they are the most free from fables, the most ancient, the most consecutive, and the most abounding in facts.

They have

[ocr errors]

epochs, demonstrated by astronomical observations, joined to the monuments of every kind, in which the annals abound; they furnish to each other reciprocal proofs, mutually sustain each other, and together concur to show the good faith of the writers who have transmitted them They can aid us to mount up surely, even

to us.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

. the

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

genealo

to the first centuries after the renewal of the world, as they furnish, for that purpose, the necessary guides and assistants, such as the cycle of sixty years, radical epoch of which is B. C. 2637; gies of the first sovereigns which bear the stamp of verity in the lacunæ which are found in them, and which no one has attempted to fill, though it would have been easy to do so had any one wished to add anything of his own; chronological tables which mark with exactitude the uninterrupted succession of all the emperors that have reigned for more than four thousand years.

"And, finally, those annals are in themselves the most authentic literary work there is in the world, because there is not in the world (tout l'univers) a work which has been so elaborated during the space of nearly eighteen hundred years, that has been revised, corrected, and augmented as new material was discovered, by so great a number of learned men united, provided with all possible assistance, etc." And Pauthier indorses all this, as he closes the argument, by saying, "Chinese history, therefore, possesses all the characters of certitude which historical criticism has a right to demand." *

* Pauthier's Chine, vol. ii. pp. 32, 33.

[ocr errors]

This opinion of Amiot, and of his biographer Pauthier, has been very extensively received. Williams, in his "Middle Kingdom" (vol. ii. p. 201), says of it, "The earliest records of the Chinese correspond rather too closely with their present character to receive full belief; but while they may be considered as unworthy of entire confidence, it will be allowed that they present an appearance of probability and naturalness hardly possessed by the early annals of Greece."

Let us now turn to the other side, and see what grounds there are for calling in question the reliableness of that chronology, at least in regard to its earlier dates.

Pauthier gives the following as "the chronological elements that serve as a basis to the certainty of the Chinese history: "

"These elements are very simple and very regular. They are, 1. The civil or equinoctial year, composed of three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter sidereal days, recognized and followed in China from the highest antiquity, as we shall see hereafter, and which corresponds perfectly to our Julian year; 2. The cycle of sixty years, the series of which has been continued, without interruption, from the 61st year of the reign of Hoang-ti (B. C. 2637), and with as much regularity as the centuries

in European computation. Our common year 1834 thus corresponds to the 31st of the 75th sexagenary Chinese cycle. There is no other chronology which offers so much certainty for so long a space of time." (Vol. ii. p. 27.)

1. These assumptions respecting the Chinese calendar, with its alleged Julian year of 3651 days, are based upon a passage occurring in the Shu-king, which Pauthier renders in French, thus:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"L'Empereur dit, Hi et Ho; une periode solaire est de trois cent soixante-six jours; en intercalant une lune et en déterminant ainsi quatre saisons, l'année se trouve exactement complétée. Cela étant parfaitement réglé, chaque functionnaire s'acquittera, selon le temps et la saison de son emploi ; et tout sera dans le bon ordre."" *

Dr. Legge's translation is as follows: "The emperor said, Ah, you! Hi and Ho; a round year consists of three hundred sixty and six days. By means of an intercalary month do you fix the four seasons, and complete the determination of the year. Thereafter, in exact accordance with this, regulating the various officers, all the works of the year will be fully performed." †

* Translation of Le Chou-king in Les Livres Sacrés de l'Orient, p. 47, par. 8.

↑ Chin. Classics, vol. iii. part 1, p. 23. Appendix, I.

« PreviousContinue »