should scarcely be employed in a work purposely philosophical, much less applied to the most venerated name in China. Mr. Balfour was probably led astray by his admiration of the Prophet of Nan-hua, and, in his eagerness to emphasise the superiority of the Taoist over the orthodox school, he has been betrayed into the use of expressions which, we are sure, his calmer judgment must condemn.
But to return from our digression. We have said that the Chinese literature must be studied as a connected whole. Moreover we have noted that the people of Europe are accustomed to conceive and form their judgment of the literature of China solely from those writings with which the name of Confucius is associated; but, in fact, the literary activity of the Chinese had only just begun with the labours of Confucius, and has since continued through eighteen dynasties, including more than two thousand years. At the time of Confucius, the literary form of writing was still very imperfectly understood.
Here let us remark that, in the study of a literature, there is one important point to be attended to, but which has hitherto been completely lost sight of by foreign students of Chinese; namely, the form of the literary writings. "To be sure," said the poet Wordsworth, "it was the matter, but then you know the matter always comes out of the manner." Now it is true that the early writings with which the name of Confucius is associated do not pretend to any degree of perfection, as far as the literary form
