first, only because it subserved vital needs. Thus, astronomy, or more
properly astrology, was studied in order that the calendar might be
regulated, and so the routine of agriculture correctly followed, for
on that depended the people's daily rice, or rather, in the beginning,
the various fruits and kinds of flesh which constituted their means of
sustentation before their now universal food was known. In philosophy
they have had two periods of great activity, the first beginning with
Lao Tzu and Confucius in the sixth century B.C. and ending with the
Burning of the Books by the First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, in 213 B.C.;
the second beginning with Chou Tzu (A.D. 1017-73) and ending with Chu
Hsi (1130-1200). The department of philosophy in the imperial library
contained in 190 B.C. 2705 volumes by 137 authors. There can be no
doubt that this zeal for the orthodox learning, combined with the
literary test for office, was the reason why scientific knowledge was
prevented from developing; so much so, that after four thousand or more
years of national life we find, during the Manchu Period, which ended
the monarchical _régime_, few of the educated class, giants though they
were in knowledge of all departments of their literature and history
(the continuity of their traditions laid down in their twenty-four
Dynastic Annals has been described as one of the great wonders of the
world), with even the elementary scientific learning of a schoolboy
in the West. 'Crude,' 'primitive,' 'mediocre,' 'vague,' 'inaccurate,'
'want of analysis and generalization,' are terms we find applied to
their knowledge of such leading sciences as geography, mathematics,
chemistry, botany, and geology. Their medicine was much hampered
by superstition, and perhaps more so by such beliefs as that the
seat of the intellect is in the stomach, that thoughts proceed from
the heart, that the pit of the stomach is the seat of the breath,
that the soul resides in the liver, etc.--the result partly of the
idea that dissection of the body would maim it permanently during