In this manner, we conceive it may be shewn, that even his local situation and the circumstances that attend it have some influence in moulding the mind of man. If this be true, then, there can be little doubt that here we have at least one of the causes of that extraordinary contrast between the mind of Asia and Europe. How different is the local situation of Greece from that of India and Persia! and, again, as there is a general similarity between the vast plains of India, China, and Mongolia, so is there also a general similarity between the narrow peninsulas and islands of Europe, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Scandinavia and Britain. In the one case we have regions of excessive heat and excessive cold, in the other a climate rendered more or less temperate by the breezes of the ocean, and as there is a general similarity in the climates of Greece, Italy, &c. and in those of India, China and Mongolia, so is there also, as we have before stated, a reigning individuality, so to speak, in the mental manifestations of the two classes of countries, otherwise so strangely contrasted with each other.

Another, and a no less striking difference between the two, existed in the periods at which civilization reached them, and in the form of that civilization. Assuming, what indeed is almost an ascertained fact, that the great religious sects of Asia, took their rise somewhere in the North of India, or in Persia, we may speak of Indian civilization, as being in its great elements, identical with Asiatic civilization generally. Now, history assures us, that Europe received the elements of its philosophy, its religion, and its civilization from the East. In the East, then, these elements first existed, and it is therefore to be expected that they would exist in a different form from that which they assumed in the West. They were rudimental, and unformed, a rudis indigestaque moles, a vast and ill-understood synthesis, which although of practically little influence on the mass, was yet stamped with the brand of religion and orthodoxy, and thereby prevented from being examined or analysed. But into Greece and Europe they came in a very different form. The quarry was too large to be introduced in all its original bulkiness, and thus it came to be imported piecemeal. One philosopher and another got possession of this portion and of that, moulded it as suited his fancy or his inclination, and then threw it in, as another element of change on the stormy sea of Grecian institutions. In this way was it broken up into detached fragments, and much of the bad was rejected, whilst a great proportion of the good was introduced. Had the spirit of the East invaded Greece, at the outset of its career, in all its original entirety, Europe, like

Asia, would have settled down under a yoke of religious domination and tyranny which perhaps it might have taken ages to break, if even ages could break it. Here, then, we have another great distinction between the influences ruling the Indian and the European mind. The one was confined in a dungeon, vast indeed and almost boundless, but yet by an adamantine chain from which there was no escaping-the other had a field of vision and enquiry, vast as the universe, and over which man might range as he pleased. The modes of thinking, the objects of thought, the sciences he should cultivate, the way in which he should cultivate them, were all laid down for the Asiatic by what he believed to be the very finger of the Almighty-the Grecian took these modes of thinking, these objects of thought, these sciences and methods, and added to them or diminished them as he pleased. Once indeed in Europe that very chain of which we spoke -the chain of religious dogmatism-was implanted on the human mind, and what was the result? the darkness of the middle ages, a darkness as impenetrable as that of Asia, without its vastness and sublimity. Once again, that chain was broken,-Wickliffe tried its strength, but it was beyond his power to rend-it was reserved for the great German to snap it in two, and what has been the result? the civilization, the science, the gradual advancement of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The East then received the elements of its civilization and social institutions in a different form from that in which they were introduced into Europe, and to this reason, probably, we may ascribe a great part of the subsequent contrast in the development of the two.

Nor, perhaps, is there any point of contrast more striking in the ruling influences of Asia and Europe, than that which has been hinted at above,-the stamping of all philosophy, all science, all art, and all the social relations, as proceeding at once from God. Every thing was, therefore, true or false, to the Asiatic according as it accorded with or differed from the standard of all truth-his religious works. Now, as has been already hinted, unless oriental philosophy had been introduced into Europe in the boundless mass of religion in which it was enveloped in the East, it could not receive the same form. But it was absolutely impossible that it could be so introduced-it was not so introduced; and hence, in a great measure, may be traced the analysed and investigated form which it so soon received in Greece.

Perhaps in no other country in the world was the Govern

ment and social order so strictly combined with religion as in China. From the earliest dawn of the history of that remarkable people, exhibited in their ancient religious systems, we find the Government and institutions of social life, the philosophical and scientific dogmas, incorporated in such a way with the religious system as to have rendered it impossible for a discoverer to found a new system of philosophy without first repudiating the received system of religion. From a similar principle pervading the other nations of Asia, particularly those of India, arose the vastness of the Oriental systems, when compared with the moderate range and limited extent of those of Europe. Each of the former was a whole body of metaphysics, physics, divinity and jurisprudence; an entire erection embracing every variety of science or speculation: whereas those of the latter were generally systems confined to one particular subject,-philosophers there contenting themselves with rearing a monument by the side of some others of less or greater extent, the whole being scarcely sufficient to form one of those pyramids of all knowledge, of which Eastern philosophers were so fond.

In many respects the vast empire of China possesses features of interest peculiar to itself, whilst there are many others in which it closely resembles the other great empire of civilized Asia-India. In common with India, we perceive in the Chinese character, history, and literature, a strange unity which strikingly distinguishes it from everything Western,a common character preserved over an empire of so vast an extent; a similiarity, almost an identity, in the various stages of its history, and the unvarying incorporation of its conquerors with its own domestic habits and institutions; a correspondence, strange in its aspect, between the character of the people themselves, their peculiar situation, and the uniqueness of their literary productions. In all those respects, then, India and China are similar to each other. In their strange jealousy of foreign intercourse, however, their idolatry of their sovereign, their unbounded and ridiculous admiration of themselves, the Chinese resemble no other nation upon earth (for the institutions of the adjacent Island of Japan may justly be considered as of Chinese growth). So exorbitant is this admiration by the Chinese of every thing belonging to their country, that we find no instances of their seeking to extend their power into any other region of the globe, nor do we ever hear of a Chinese leader conducting his followers into western Asia. As being beyond doubt the most populous of existing empires in the world, China possesses an especial

claim upon our consideration, whilst an investigation into the system of philosophy compiled by its great teacher, Confucius, however imperfect that enquiry may be, should not fail to interest us. In the course of it we may find some clue to the mysterious unity of this extraordinary people and to the peculiar opinions which so much excite our astonishment.

A cursory consideration of the universality of the ancient religious systems of the East, and of the incorporation with them of jurisprudence and philosophy, will convince us that it would have been a dangerous task in Confucius to attempt the introduction of a new or different system. Nor did he attempt it. He found a confused mass of facts, reflections and assertions in the ancient sacred works-and from this disordered heap he chose those which best suited his purpose, explained them in accordance with his convictions or his wishes, and on this foundation built his comparatively pure system of ethics, his strange metaphysics, his fanciful physics, and his extraordinary political system-this last being that in which he departed least of all from the ancient dogmas; and although when incorporated with his ethics, it looks imposing and captivating-so much so, in fact, that were it not for the stern monitor, experience, we might consider it admirably adapted to the rule of an extensive empire,-yet the pages of history warn us against putting any faith in such a system of despotism.

The founder of the political philosophy of China-Khoungfeu-tseu, latinized into the form of Confucius-was born about 550 B. C. His father was the chief minister of the petty kingdom in which he was born, China having been then, and for three centuries later, divided into a number of small independent states. This eminent man, according to his disciples, "the greatest teacher of the human race that time has ever produced," was distinguished, we are assured, from his earliest youth by an eager pursuit of knowledge and an intense anxiety to improve himself. From his peculiar position in his native country it is not to be wondered at that he early devoted himself to the study of moral and political science, such as they then existed in the ancient histories of his country. Engaged at first in the politics of his state, he soon became disgusted with the frivolity and affectation of a court which he shortly after left to engage in those literary labours that have produced such an impression on his countrymen. That much good was effected by the inculcation on his disciples of his improved ethical system cannot be doubted, whilst at the same time it is impossible to deny, that much of his writings consists of the inculcation of many vain and frivolous observances.

Let us remember, however, that he commenced his labours with the prejudices of a Chinese,-that the book of knowledge, either of the human race, or of the physical world, was never unfolded to his view,-and that if some parts of his works may be safely condemned by us, yet that the evident tendency of the whole was to elevate his countrymen, to increase their public virtue and private morality, without offering to their view any prospects of a sensual reward hereafter, as in the case of the Arabian pretender, and without his exercising the influence he acquired for his personal aggrandisement or the aggrandisement of his family.

Unlike most other founders of what may be justly called a politico-religious system, Confucius laid no claims to universal knowledge or perfection. On the contrary, he frequently confesses his ignorance, when an ordinary pretender would have given his own ideas as the express ordinances of heaven. "I was not born," said he, "endued with all knowledge, I am merely a man who loves the ancients, and who did all I could to arrive at truth." (Lun-yu,* vii. 19.) On particular points of religion and other subjects he was equally frank in his confession of ignorance: for, having been asked by one of his disciples, how superior spirits should be worshipped, he frankly replied, that he did not know; whilst, on another occasion, when asked what death was, his answer ran thus-" when I know not what is life, how shall I inform you what death is?" (Lun-yu, xi. 11.) The same work,--that which gives us a greater insight into his private character than any other, and which relates many actions of his daily life, the Lun-yu, informs us, that on being asked for some information regarding military science, he replied, "If you had asked me of ceremonies or sacrifices, I might have been able to reply to you, but with regard to the military science, I never studied it." (xv. 1.) The means by which he attained to the practice of virtue he constantly asserts to be reverence for the ancients, and an abhorrence of vice. ciple of his assures us, that he was entirely without self-love, prejudices, obstinacy and egotism, whilst his whole character and teaching would lead us to infer that his disciple did not greatly err. "When he saw any one in mourning," says the same disciple, or any one in the garb of a magistrate, or blind, or older than himself, if seated, he rose at their approach." Some, and unfortunately the class is by no means a small one, will confidently pronounce this conduct to be hypocritical; but before acceding to this gratuitous assumption, let

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* Written Lun-gnee in Marshman's translation.

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