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SINOLOGY.
NOTHING perhaps points more directly to a high
degree of civilization in China than the almost in
credible density of its population, now rated, according
to Giitzlaff, at 367 millions of inhabitants. 1 For whether
we compare countries or ages, we find on the whole that
civilization keeps pace with population.
The pertinacious zeal with which the Jesuit missionaries
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries strove to in
culcate their own relatively new doctrines into the minds
of this very ancient nation, and their futile endeavours to
discover early traces of their own faith in that country,
left them no time for a profound study of the belief which
prevails there. Therefore Europe has only lately obtained
some slight knowledge of the religious state of the Chinese.
We now know, that is to say, that in China there exists
first of all a worship of Nature, which is universally
professed, and dates from the earliest times, even, it
is alleged, from before the discovery of fire, wherefore
1
According to a Chinese official Report on the census, printed in
Pekin, and found by the English in the Chinese Governor s palace on
entering Canton, China had 396 millions of inhabitants in 1852, and
allowing for a constant increase, may now have 400 millions. (" Moniteur
de la Flotte," end of May, 1857.)
The Reports of the Russian Clerical Mission in Pekin give the returns
of 1842 as 414,687,000.
According to the tables published by the Russian Embassy at Pekin,
the population, in 1849, amounted to 415 millions. (" Post-Zeitung,"
1858.) [Add. to 3rd ed.]