Chinese Thought
Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times. Edited and Translated by E. R. Hughes. (Everyman's Library. 3s.) CHINESE philosophy sounds too recondite and remote to have meaning for us, whatever it may mean to the Chinese. Actually, it has been influencing us for at least a hundred and fifty years. The facts are so little known that they must be stated.
The optimism which characterised our outlook in the nineteenth century derived, of course, from a variety of sources—the mechanical revolution ; the advances in science which gave us our sense of triumph over nature ; the long periods of peace and prosperity ; and the popular interpretation of evolution as meaning that progress is inevitable, at least on the whole and in the long run. But on the theological side it derived largely from China.
Not that the concept of progress was known to the Chinese ; it was alien to them, as indeed it was to ourselves until about ma But they were convinced of man's essential goodness: to Confucian thinkers the idea of original sin would have been revolting if not unintelligible. And their views were eagerly devoured by the pro- gressive coteries of eighteenth century Europe. For it was not only Chinese bric-i-brac that became the rage just then. Chinese philosophy was available in the great Jesuit series of translations, and the encyclopaedists quoted it unceasingly. Even Rousseau, who stood alone and apart, Augustinian in his sense of sin and the frailty of human nature, was infected. The fundamental dogma of natural goodness is not explicitly mentioned in the Social Contract, but it underlies his whole theory. And Rousseau's writings, which began as the bible of the unorthodox, ended by capturing popular theology.
Everyman's Library renders us a service in presenting this collec- tion of Chinese documents from the seventh century B.C. to the first century A.D. The translation and the introductory essay are alike admirable. Chinese is not really more difficult to translate than, say, Hebrew. In a sense, of course, it is impossible to translate mere words without the physical and cultural background which gives them their connotations ; and whereas the Hebrew scriptures, which are equally alien, have become our own by use and wont, the Chinese scriptures, with their whole environment, are so un- familiar that they necessarily strike us as alien. Mr. Hughes is Reader in Chinese at Oxford, now seconded for service under Chiang Kai-shek at Chungking. Luckily, unlike some missionaries—he was zo years a missionary—he has an intense sympathy for Chinese thought ; and unlike some oriental translators, who are simply linguists, he is acquainted with the history of European thought. Very few of his pages are obscure or without at least one luminous passage. All who are interested in the deeper things of life should
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