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14 Q
and balloon respectively.
EAST ASIA.
These compounds, so alien to the genius
of the national
speech, are already current not only in the spoken language, but even in popular
writings. The changes that have taken place
in the Aryan linguistic family during
the historic period
are now going on under our very eyes
in the Chinese language.
The natives of the various provinces would have long ceased to be able to communicate
together but for the common ideographic writing system, which can be read
not only in China, but also in Korea, Japan, Annam, and Siam. The most marked
dialectic varieties are the " Mandarin," or Court language, current throughout the
northern and many of the central provinces, the Kwangtong, Fokien, and Chekiang
in the south-eastern provinces, which are quite unintelligible
to the inhabitants of
the rest of the empire. The Nanking dialect is a form of the Mandarin, approach-
ing nearest to the Chekiang, which, according to Edkins, best preserves the primi-
tive elements of the common national speech.
RELIGION.
In religion there are no such marked differences as in language between the
natives of the northern and southern provinces. In the various districts divers
rites are practised, which, however, merge so imperceptibly together,
that it seems
impossible to draw any sharp line between them. The same individuals may even
be at once Buddhists, Taoists, or disciples of Confucius. In virtue of his position
the Emperor himself belongs to all three religions, and scrupulously fulfils their
observances. There is, in fact, more fundamental resemblance between them than
might be supposed from the ceremonies and religious treatises. The ju kino,
commonly referred to Confucius and conformed to by the lettered classes, is bused
on the old national worship. The tan kiao, or Taoism, completely forgetful
of its
founder's elevated teaching, has returned to the ancient superstitions, and is now
little more than a system of magic. Lastly, the foreign origin of the fit kiao, or
Buddhism, has not prevented it from having also become thoroughly imbued with
the national ideas, or from accepting the outward national observances.
At the dawn of history, some four thousand years ago, the national cult consisted
in the worship of natural objects. All the phenomena of the outer world were
supposed to be the work of good or evil spirits, to be propitiated by prayer and
sacrifice. Trees, rocks, running waters, the whole land, the seas, and the world
itself, were all equally animated by some special deity, while above this lower
nature, thus peopled by invisible beings, the boundless regions of the heavens were
themselves full of angels or demons. Man, product of all the natural forces, was
himself a god, although one of the feeblest ; hence obliged by supplications and
conjurings to guard himself against so many other beings in league against him.
In this multiplicity of spirits a certain hierarchy was gradually established. First
came Tien, or " Heaven," enveloping the earth, encompassing all nature, illumining
it with its rays, and thus merging in the Shanyti, or " Supreme Lord," the active
principle of universal nature, as opposed to Ti, or the " Earth," which receives and
matures the germs. For three hundred years European scholars have been