ART. III. Philofophical Differtations on the Egyptians and Chinefe. Tranflated from the French of M. De Pauw, private Reader to Frederic II. King of Pruffia. In two "Volumes. 8vo. 12s. Chapman. 1795.

ABOUT thirty or forty years ago a doctrine, which originated in the French Academy of Sciences, was attempted to be established in the world of literary antiquaries, which occafioned confiderable debates among that order of scholars. It was affirmed, in confequence of a fuppofed fimilitude exifting in the ancient hieroglyphic character, features, and national habits of the Egyptians and Chinese, that the latter people were a colony of the former, and the ftatues, and even their very mummies, whofe faces, from the removal of the cartilages (conftantly taken away by the embalmers, for the extraction of the brain through the noftrils) became, in fome degree, flattened like thofe of the Chinefe, were compelled to bear evidence to that romantic fiction. The period at which this difpute was at its height, has now been paft fome time, but we well remember to have perufed an elaborate effort, in Latin, of Mr. Turberville Needham, a member of our Royal Society, to demonstrate the reality of this wild chimera, founded on actual obfervation of the features of, and the infcription engraved on, an imagined ftatue of Ifis, of black Egyptian marble, dug up at Turin. A native of Pekin, whom Mr. Needham met with at Rome, recognized the character for ancient Chinese, and tranflated it for that antiquary, who exultingly published the tranflation, with a fac fimile of the original character. The famous Edward Wortley Montague being fhortly after at Turin, attentively examined this ancient ftatue, and, in a letter addreffed to the Earl of Macclesfield, then prefident of the Royal Society, controverted the affertions of Mr. Needham; contended that the ftatue in queftion was not of proper Egyptian marble; was no genuine antique; and that the infcription engraved on it, neither refembled the Chinefe character, nor even Mr. Needham's plate of it +. The opinion of the celebrated Winckelman being decidedly in favour of Mr. Montagu's affertions, and publifhed in that letter, put an end to the conteft, fo far, at leaft, as the buft in question was concerned; though the argument, in regard to the affinity

Tranfactions for 1760.

A caft of this buft is preferved in the British Museum.

afferted,

afferted, was by no means given up by thofe who wished to have it eftablished.

Among the most ftrenuous advocates of this hypothefis, was, the hiftorian M. de Guignes, whofe knowledge of Afiatic affairs fhould have taught him better. This gentleman, in various memoirs, published in the Tranfactions of the Royal Academy of Inferiptions and Belles Lettres, at Paris, has endeavoured to delineate the peculiar features of this affinity, and has urged, as one proof of fuch defcent, the great conformity between the ancient Chinefe fyftem of philofophy, and that of the Egyptians and early Greeks, of whom the latter were the maiters. Another proof he finds in the great antiquity of their aftronomy, the fimilarity of their aftronomical periods, and their early knowledge of the true length of the year; which the three hundred and fixty-five degrees marked on the great golden circle, that encompaffed the tomb of Ofymandes, demonftrates to have been known to the Thebans. Of all these affertions, Mr. de Pauw, in the work now prefented to the public in an English drefs, ftood forth the decided opponent. He forcibly ridiculed the idea of founding any argument on the fuppofed refemblance between the old Egyp tians and the Chinefe, in confequence of an infpection of their mummies, not only from the circumftance of the removal of the cartilage of the nofe, but because more fubftantial existing authority, may be confulted, which entirely fubverts it. The modern Copts, at prefent inhabiting Egypt, are the lineal defcendents of the ancient Egyptians, and thefe Copts have fcarcely one fingle feature refembling thofe of the Chinefe; whofe thin beards, fmall eyes, and flat nofes, prove their original defcent from the ancient Scythian or Tartar hordes, who, in ancient periods, poured down from the high northern regions in the neighbourhood of the Caucafus, and deluged, with their innumerable bands, the finest countries of Afia. The great Sexagenary cycle was fo well known, and fo much. ufed over all the oriental world, that no proof, he is of opinion, can poffibly be deduced from the ufe of that cycle, of the original affinity of any nation; but a moft decided one may be brought, that the Chinese are not defcended from the Egyptians, in confequence of the former being entire strangers, in their calculations, to the ufe of the celebrated Egyptian Sothiacal period, or canicular year, which formed the general basis of the aftronomical computations of the latter. Be

Particularly a long memoir in their 38th volume, published at Paris in 1777.

fides, he infifts that the knowledge of the principles of astro nomy in China, is by no means of an ancient date, notwithftanding all Mr. Bailli's boafted affertions on that head; he particularly infifts that, under the dynafty of Hans, they were ignorant of the true figure of the earth, obftinately maintaining that the earth was fquare, which muft neceffarily be the occafion of endless abfurdities in aftronomical theories; and that, even fo late as in 1505, they had no idea whatever either of the latitude or longitude of their chief towns. P. 5 of the Preliminary Difcourfe.

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Although we believe this latter opinion, like fome others in this publication, not to be quite exact; and conceive that the author has not done entire juftice to the claims of the Chinefe, we are far from acceding to the romantic ftatements of the Jefuits, in favour of the antiquity of fcience in China. Their defcent from the barbarous Scythians, which argument we are inclined decidedly to efpoufe, in oppofition to that which aims to derive them from the Egyptians, forbad them, prior to their connection with the people of the weflern empire of Afia, to enter deeply into the abftract fpeculative fciences; but agriculture, the mechanical arts, and thofe connected with commerce, were, undoubtedly, very early cultivated in China. Of genius and invention they poffefs but a fmall fhare; induftry feems to be the leading feature of the nation. Hence the rich variety of their manufactures in filk and cotton, and the elegance of the cabinet and porcelain, which are thence exported to every nation of the world. The intercourfe which the Arabians, Perfians, and Indians, induced by the valuable. productions of their country, affiduoufly kept up with this reluctant race, on the eastern verge of Afia, tended to improve them in the nobler walks of fcience; but their miferable ideas of the geography of the globe, and of their relative fituation upon it, afford unanswerable proof of the flender progrefs made by them in thofe fciences which are intimately connected with aftronomy. In our opinion, the principal argument against the propofition of De Guignes may be derived from that very circumftance which led Mr. Needham to confider the inhabitants of China, as allied to the Egyptians; we mean that of their language, which, notwithstanding his ftrange miflake, is eflentially different. For the language of the Chinefe is wholly monefyllabic, while that of the Egyptians confifted of many fyllables; the latter had an alphabetic character *, the former had not.

See Ludolphi Comment. Copt. p. 73.

Amidft much felf-fufficiency; opinions very haftily, if not falfely, adopted; and great pretenfions to profound knowledge, on fubjects where profound knowledge cannot poffibly, at this remote period, be expected, or acquired, the refearches of Mr. De Pauw have the merit of great ingenuity and acutenefs: but bear the flamp of a mind more replete with the fire of genius, than the coolnefs of deliberate inveftigation and matured judgment. One apology, and that not a trifling or weak one, may be urged for the errors of this work, which is, that the original publication, of which an Englith verfion is here prefented to the reader by Captain Thomfon, was edited, at Paris, in 1773; for fuch is the date of our French edition, fince which period a more immediate connection, in the way of commerce, as well as more extenfive enquiry, have made us better acquainted with the real hiftory of that fecluded empire, than Europeans were before. Though this book has long been known to readers of French, we thall take the opportunity of this tranflation to notice fome curious particulars.

The first volume is divided into two parts, and various fubordinate fections. They treat concerning the condition of the women, and the population of Egypt and China; concerning the dict of thofe two nations, the fate of painting and sculpture among them, and the Orientals in general; and their advance in chemistry. In the first part, after proving that nothing can be more diffimilar than the treatment of women in the two countries, the author introduces the following account of the general practice of infanticide in China, which, we hope, for the honour of human nature, has no foundation in truth.

"The Chinese have been very far from finding the juft bounds of parental authority; and it does not appear, indeed, that they ever made it the object of any researches. Befides the right of felling, they are invested by their legiflators with the power of life and death over their children, to authorise the different modes of committing infanticide.

"Sometimes the new-born children are dispatched by the midwives in a balon of warm water, and fomething is always paid for this execution; at others they are thrown into the river, tied to an empty gourd, which keeps them floating for a confiderable time without expiring. Their cries are then fuficient to make human nature shudder; but fuch fcenes are too frequent in China to occafion the fmallest impreffion. According to a third mode, they are expofed in the ftreets, where, every morning, particularly at Pekin, numbers of dirt-carts are ready to convey them away. They are then thrown on dung-hills, and left uncovered, that the Mahometans, if they think fit, may preferve fome of their lives. But before the arrival of the machines destined for their removal, it frequently happens that many

have been devoured by dogs, and fill more by the numerous herds of fwine, fo common in all the towns of China.

"No example of fuch atrocity is to be found among all the anthropophagi of America. The Jefuits pretend, that, in three years, they counted nine thousand feven hundred and two children, thrown on the lay-falls in this manner. But they did not include fuch as had been trodden to death by horfes and mules, nor thofe drowned in the canals, nor those devoured in the streets, nor thofe ftrangled at their birth, nor thofe faved by the Mahometans, nor those who had no Jefuits prefent to count them." P. 62.

Concerning the population of the Chinefe, he obferves,

"If China were regularly inhabited, without having either fo many thieves, begging monks, eunuchs, or flaves, the human fpecies muft foon increafe afionifhingly, from the fecundity of the women in the fouthern provinces, and the nature of the climate in general. So many inconveniencies, and fome of them far from trifling, have not prevented population from amounting, according to fome calculators, to eighty-two millions. This eftimate mcft probably is exaggerated; but fuppofing it to be juft, China is ftill much lefs peopled, in proportion to its fize, than Germany. It would be abfurd not to pay attention to the difference of extent in the two countries, when the one does not in reality exceed the fixth part of the other. As in China nothing is ufed for fuel but foflil coal, called now-y, it feems natural to fuppofe that fuch a country might admit of more inhabitants than others, where wood alone is employed, and confequently much foil covered with forefts. In Scotland, and round Liège, the fields are tilled above the very coal-pits; but this advantage does not seem to have influenced the population of China, where, in almost all the governments, valt diftricts, of more than fixty miles in length, remain totally uncul tivated; and a fmaller extent might more than fuffice for wood, if nothing befides could be found for fuel." P. 84.

Concerning the extent and population of Egypt, we believe him in the right when he afferts it to have been greatly magnified by the ancients.

"Mr. D'Anville, in his Memoirs on ancient and modern Egypt, affures us, that by a calculation made on his maps, he finds that all the furface of that country capable of tillage, never exceeded two thoufand, or at most twenty-one hundred fquare leagues, of twenty-five to a degree; and thus, in his opinion, Egypt was only equivalent to the twelfth part of France. But every reasonable perfon will allow, that this fuppofition is not at all juft; because it admits only of the fertile part of Egypt, and includes the whole of France in general. The forefts, the heaths, the fand-hills, and barren wilds near Bourdeaux, fhould at least have been excepted, as they are in no refpect preferable to the higher parts of Thebais, where the Bedouin Arabs find fome fcanty palturage for their horfes.

"From all thefe facts we perceive how prodigiously the extent and population of Egypt have been exaggerated; but more particularly