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SINOLOGY. 369
Chinese looked upon these foreigners as restless folk and
drove them away to Macao." It was at any rate through
this word that Europeans could first hope to find the track
of that Analogy of Chinese Metaphysic with their own
and it was
faith, which had been so persistently sought for ;
doubtless owing to investigations of this kind that the
"
results we find communicated in an Essay entitled Chinese
"
Theory of the Creation were attained. 1
As to Choo-footze,
called also Choo-hi, who is mentioned in it, I observe
that he lived in the twelfth century according to our
chronology, and that he is the most celebrated of all the
Chinese men of learning ; because he has collected to
and reduced
gether all the wisdom of his predecessors
it to a system. His work is in our days the basis of
all Chinese instruction, and his authority of the greatest
weight. In the passage I allude to, we find :
" The
word
Teen would seem to denote the highest among the great
or above all what is great on earth : but in practice its
vagueness of signification is beyond all comparison greater,
than that of the term Heaven in European languages. . . .
Choo-foo-tze tells us that to affirm, that heaven has a man
(i.e. a sapient being) there to judge and determine crimes,
should not by any means be said ; nor, on the other hand,
must it be affirmed, that there is nothing at all to exercise
a supreme control over these things.
" The same author being asked about the heart of heaven,
whether it was intelligent or not, answered : it must not be
said that the mind of nature is unintelligent, but it does
not resemble the cogitations of man. . . .
"
According to one of their authorities, Teen is call d
ruler or sovereign (Choo), from the idea of the supreme
control, and another expresses himself thus : Had heaven
(Teen) 110 designing mind, then it must happen, that the
1 To be found in the
and 42.
"
Asiatic Journal," vol. xxii. anno 1826, pp. 41
B B