believed, had mingled themselves with religious notions, and the emperor was very justly apprehensive, that this fervor shown by the Spaniards and Portuguese for the conversion of his subjects was but a preparative to their designs against the empire itself: he found it necessary, in the year 1586, to forbid the exercise of the Christian religion by a public edict, reserving still to the Spaniards and the Portuguese the liberty of a free trade in his dominions The Spaniards were not satisfied. Some cordeliers were sent from the Philippine Islands on an embassy to the emperor, and they began to build a Christian church in his capital city of Meaco. The consequence was they were driven out by force of arms. Still, however, the indulgence of the emperor allowed these foreigners a free trade till the year 1637, when a Spanish ship happened to be taken by the Dutch, near the Cape of Good Hope, on board of which were found letters from a Portuguese officer to the court of Spain, containing the project of a conspiracy, for dethroning and putting to death the emperor of Japan and seizing the government. The Dutch were jealous of the lucrative trade carried on by the Spaniards in this country, and immediately conveyed intelligence of this conspiracy to the court of Japan. The Portuguese officer was seized, and confessed the whole design. He was immediately put to death, and the emperor, in a solemn assembly of his nobles, pronounced an edict, forbidding, on pain of death, any of his subjects leaving the kingdom; and commanding that all the Spaniards and Portuguese should be instantly expelled from Japan; that all Christian converts should be imprisoned, and offering a very high reward for the discovery of any priest or missionary who should remain in his dominions. The Christians actually rose in arms, and were mad enough to attempt resistance, but they were overpowered and expelled to a man. The Dutch themselves, who had done the empire this essential service, shared the same fate with all other foreigners. They were even compelled to assist in carrying the emperor's edict into execution, and to employ the cannon of their own ships in bombarding a fortress, where some of the Spaniards had betaken themselves for shelter. The only favor the Dutch received was a permission to land upon one of the smallest islands of the empire, provided they would agree to take an oath that they were not of the Portuguese religion, and to trample upon the cross in testimony of it. They were then permitted to exchange their commodities with the natives, but were not allowed to fix their own prices, for this must be done by the Japanese. Such, at this day, is all the intercourse the Europeans have with he empire of Japan; with which, till the middle of the last century, they carried on a most lucrative and beneficial commerce.

CHAPTER XXV.

M. Bailly's Theory of the Origin of the Sciences among the Nations of Asia.

FROM a consideration of the manners, customs, and laws of the Chinese, and a comparison between them and the Egyptians, of whom we formerly treated at large under the period of ancient history, some learned men among the moderns have formed a conjecture that the Chinese were originally a colony of the Egyptians, and they have thus endeavored to account for the striking similarity between them in many particulars of their manners, laws, and attainments in the sciences. But this similarity is not confined to the Egyptians and Chinese. These nations, together with the Indians, the Persians, and the Babylonians, all exhibit some of the most wonderful features of coincidence; and this circumstance would, therefore, equally conclude for the common origin of all those different nations. This subject opens views of a very curious and interesting nature.

In the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, we find an account of a dissertation read by M. de Mairan, in which that ingenious writer draws a parallel between the Egyptians and Chinese, from which he concludes, as the only means of accounting for their resemblance, that there must formerly have been a communication between these distant nations, and thinks it probable that a band of Egyptians had at some period penetrated into China.

M. de Mairan's parallel consists of the following remarkable instances of similarity, which may be classed under seven distinct heads.

First, the Egyptians and Chinese had the same fixed attachment to their ancient customs and abhorrence of innovations. Secondly, these nations were alike remarkable for the high measure of respect entertained by children to their parents, for the reverence bestowed on old age, and for the veneration they had for the bodies of their deceased ancestors. Thirdly, the Chinese and Egyptians were alike remarkable for their aversion to war, and deficiency in military genius; and both, in consequence, were frequently subdued by neighboring nations. Fourthly, both were remarkable for the same general knowledge of the arts and sciences, which they carried to a certain point of advancement, but were unable to go farther. Fifthly, the Egyp

tians had a hieroglyphical language not representative of the language they spoke, but of ideas only. The ancient Chinese had, in like manner, a hieroglyphical language distinct from the characters they used in ordinary writing. The Japanese and the Coreans derived the use of hieroglyphics from them, and employ them at this day. Sixthly, the Egyptians had a solemn festival called the Feast of the Lights. The most solemn festival of the Chinese is the Feast of the Lantern.* And in the seventh and last place, M. de Mairan remarks, that there is a similarity between the features of the Chinese and the ancient Egyptian statues.

A modern hypothesis, of a very ingenious nature, accounts not only for those remarkable circumstances of similiarity between these two nations, but for many wonderful coincidences both in manners and in opinions of the Indians, the Persians, the Chaldeans, and, in short, of almost all the great nations of antiquity. The hypothesis alluded to is that of M. Bailly, author of the "History of the Ancient and Modern Astronomy," and is contained in a series of letters addressed by him to M. de Voltaire, and published under the title of "Lettres sur l'Origine des Sciences et sur celles des Peuples de l'Asie." This theory is not only in itself a beautiful effort of philosophic ingenuity, but the facts by which it is supported tend to throw considerable light on the early state of the arts and sciences among the Asiatic nations.

It is the idea of M. Bailly, that there has been a very ancient people of whom every trace is now extinct; a polished people who had attained to a great degree of perfection in the arts and sciences, and to whom the Chinese, the Persians, the Chaldeans or Babylonians, the Indians, and the Egyptians, in short, all of the most ancient nations to whom historical record extends, were indebted for that measure of knowledge they possessed in those arts and sciences. "If you see," says M. Bailly, "the house of a peasant chiefly composed of the rudest materials, but here and there interspersed with fragments of sculptured stones, or pieces of elegant columns, you must, of necessity, conclude, that these fragments are the remains of a palace, or elegant edifice constructed by an ancient architect of much greater skill and ability than the builder of that cottage." This principle is the foundation of M Bailly's hypothesis.

China exhibits the traces of a perfection in the sciences, to which the present Chinese and their ancestors, for many ages, have been most signally inferior. They are possessed of astronomical instruments which they cannot use, and the use of which they have no desire to be taught. Science we find among the

*The authors of the Modern Universal History most whimsically derive the origin of this festival from the number of lamps which Noah was obliged to make use of in the ark, and make this an argument in support of their hypothesis, that Noah himself visited China, and planted there all those arts and sciences which were known to the antediluvian world.-See Mod. Univ. Hist., vol. viii., p. 352 45

VOL. II.

modern nations is progressive; the present age avails itself of the lights of the past. In China, all science is stationary, and has ever been so: The Chinese are at present, with respect to most of the sciences, like the inhabitants of a country recently discovered by a polished people, who have communicated some of their improvements to them, and left their instruments among them. If Captain Cook had left a quadrant and a telescope at Otaheite, the inhabitants of that island would at present know as much of the use of those instruments as the Chinese do, who have been astronomers for two thousand years. Hence it is reasonable to infer, that the Chinese have no natural genius for those sciences; they, therefore, could not have sprung up among themselves, but must have been imported into that country from a nation which cultivated them with intelligence and success. Fohi is said to have been the instructer of the Chinese. He was, therefore, probably, a foreigner, and brought his knowledge from a refined and scientific nation.

The date of the foundation of Persepolis, by Djemschid, is fixed by M. Bailly 3209 years before the Christian era. The city is recorded to have been founded on the day of the sun's entry into the constellation of the Ram. A people in their infant state, uniting themselves into society, cannot be supposed to be astronomers, or to mark the foundation of their city by the stars. Djemschid was certainly the leader of a colony of a polished people who took possession of a new country, and established there the arts and sciences which they had long cultivated at home. Djemschid was a stranger in Persia, as Fohi was in China.

The commencement of the Babylonian empire is involved in obscurity. We know, however, that the king of a people at that time named Chaldeans, took Babylon 2500 years before the Christian era. The Chaldeans were an enlightened people, and incorporating themselves completely with the conquered nation, assumed their name of Babylonians, as the Tartars, after the conquest of China, termed themselves Chinese. The priests, however, the depositaries of the sciences, kept their ancient appellation of Chaldeans, which thence became synonymous with soothsayers, or wise men. It is certain that the Chaldeans understood the revolution of comets, which was unknown to Hipparchus, to Ptolemy, and even to all the modern world down to the days of Tycho Brahé. Nay, Cassini himself in his youth believed comets to be nothing else than meteors. Is it not natural to conclude, that those Chaldeans who brought this high degree of knowledge to Babylon, were the remains of a most ancient and most enlightened people?

The bramins of India believe in the unity of God, and in the immortality of the soul; but along with these sublime tenets, which pre-suppose an enlightened and reflecting period of society, they hold a variety of the most contemptible and childish doc

trines. They derived the former, we must presume, from wise instructers; the latter have been the result of their own ignorance. We discern in all the fables of their theology the remains of an ancient and a pure system of religious opinions, which has been corrupted by a superstitious and degraded people.

M. Bailly then reasons from the circumstance of certain singular customs and extraordinary traditions prevailing in different nations, that they must have derived them from a common source. The custom of libation to the gods was common with the Tartars and Chinese, as well as with the Greeks and Romans. All the ancient nations had feasts of the same nature with the saturnalia. The tradition of the deluge is signally diffused, and is commemorated among many nations by different religious institutions. The Egyptians held that Mercury had engraven the principles of the sciences upon brazen columns, which resisted the effects of the deluge. The Chinese have the history of Peyrun, a peculiar favorite of the gods, who was preserved in a boat from the general inundation. The Indians have a similar tradition. Vishnou, one of their gods, under the form of a fish, conducted the vessel which saved a remnant of the human species. The same tradition is to be found in the Edda of the Scandinavians: only their deluge, instead of water, is formed by the blood of a giant. The tradition of the golden age, M. Bailly, with an elegant stretch of fancy, supposes to have arisen from the natural regrets expressed by the first colonies of this ancient people, when they recalled to remembrance the happy territory of their nativity, and painted it in the most flattering colors to their children. The fable of the giants attacking heaven is extremely general. The Indians and Siamese have it, as well as the Greeks. The tradition of the Atlantis, a lost continent, is current among the Chinese, and among all the Asiatic nations. Plato did not invent the story, but gave it as an old tradition among the Greeks. The doctrine of the metempsychosis was part of the religion of the Egyptians, of the Bramins, and of the Persians and the worship of the grand lama, the priest of the god Fo, in Tartary and in China, is founded upon it. Kæmpfer* shows, that the Amida, or Xaca, of the Japanese, the Fo of the Chinese, the Butta of the Indians, the Badhum of the Isle of Ceylon, the Sommona-kodom of Siam, the Sommona-rhutana of Pegu, are all one and the same personage; a deity, whose sect the same author compares to the plant, termed the Indian fig, which multiplies itself by the ends of the branches becoming roots. But what constitutes the strongest resemblance, and is, indeed, the point of union of all these different religions, is, that they are all founded on one very profound, though erroneous, doctrine, of the two principles, an universal soul pervading all nature, and inert matter upon which this soul

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* Hist. Gen. des Voyages, tom. xl., 265.