PROFESSOR OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON: PRINTED FOR TAYLOR & WALTON, BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 1841. PREFACE. THE author feels that, in contributing to augment the number of works on China, some explanation may be required of the principle by which he has been guided. He is aware several valuable treatises exist in the English language on topics purely Chinese; but having attentively considered the object and modes of illustration pursued by their respective writers, the nomenclature of whose subjects may be in some respects similar to his, he frankly avows that the method he prescribed to himself some time ago has not been anticipated by any previous publication. The specific object of the volume is to excite an interest on behalf of the Chinese, in those who are seeking comparatively unexplored fields of research, where they may acquire extended views of man, in his moral and intellectual state, in his social connections, and in relation to the Supreme Power from which he believes himself to have emanated. A 548261 |