The citizen of the world: or, letters from a Chinese philosopher, residing in London, to his friends in the east. ... [pt.2]

LETTER LXXXVI.

From the same.

I AM amused, my dear Fum, with the labours of some of the learned here. One shall write you a whole folio on the diffection of a caterpillar. Another shall swell his works with a description of the plumage on the wing of a butterfly; a third shall see a little world on a peach leaf, and publish a book to describe what his readers might see more clearly in two minutes, only by being furnished with eyes and a microscope.

I have frequently compared the understandings of such men to their own glasses. Their field of vision is too contracted to take in the whole of any but mi|nute objects; they view all nature bit by bit; now the proboscis, now the antennae, now the pinnae of—a flea. Now the polypus comes to breakfast upon a worm; now it is kept up to see how long it will live without eating; now it is turned inside outward; and now it sickens and dies. Thus they proceed, labori|ous in trifles, constant in experiment, without one single abstraction, by which alone knowledge may be proper|ly said to encrease; till, at last, their ideas, ever em|ployed

upon minute things, contract to the size of the diminutive object, and a single mite shall fill their whole mind's capacity.

Yet believe me, my friend, ridiculous as these men are to the world, they are set up as objects of esteem for each other. They have particular places appoint|ed for their meetings; in which one shews his cockle|shell, and is praised by all the society; another pro|duces his powder, makes some experiments that re|sult in nothing, and comes off with admiration and applause; a third comes out with the important dis|covery of some new process in the skeleton of a mole, and is set down as the accurate and sensible; while one still more fortunate than the rest, by pickling, potting, and preserving monsters, rises into unbound|ed reputation.

The labours of such men, instead of being calculated to amuse the public, are laid out only into diverting each other. The world becomes very little the better or the wiser, for knowing what is the peculiar food of an insect that is itself the food of another, which in its turn is eaten by a third; but there are men who have studied themselves into an habit of investigating and admiring such minutiae. To these such subjects are pleasing, as there are some who contentedly spend whole days in endeavouring to solve aenigmas, or dis|entangle the puzzling sticks of children.

But of all the learned, those who pretend to investi|gate remote antiquity, have least to plead in their own defence, when they carry this passion to a faulty ex|cess. They are generally found to supply by conjec|ture the want of record, and then by perseverance are

wrought up into a confidence of the truth of opinions, which even to themselves at first appeared founded only in imagination.

The Europeans have heard much of the kingdom of China: its politeness, arts, commerce, laws, and mo|rals, are, however, but very imperfectly known among them. They have even now in their Indian ware|house numberless utensils, plants, minerals, and ma|chines, of the use of which they are intirely ignorant; nor can any among them even make a probable guess for what they might have been designed. Yet though this people be so ignorant of the present real state of China, the philosophers I am describing have entered into long, learned, laborious disputes about what China was two thousand years ago. China and Eu|ropean happiness are but little connected even at this day; but European happiness and China two thou|sand years ago have certainly no connection at all. However, the learned have written on and pursued the subject thro' all the labyrinths of antiquity; though the early dews and the tainted gale be passed away, though no footsteps remain to direct the doubtful chace, yet still they run forward, open upon the un|certain scent, and though in fact they follow nothing, are earnest in the pursuit. In this chace however they all take different ways. One, for example, confident|ly assures us, that China was peopled by a colony from Egypt. Sesostris, he observes, led his army as far as the Ganges; therefore, if he went so far, he might still have gone as far as China, which is but about a thousand miles from thence; therefore he did go to China; therefore China was not peopled before he went there; therefore it was peopled by

him. Besides, the Egyptians have pyramids; the Chi|nese have in like manner their porcelaine tower; the Egyptians used to light up candles upon every rejoic|ing, the Chinese have lanthorns upon the same occa|sion; the Egyptians had their great river, so have the Chinese; but what serves to put the matter past a doubt is, that the antient Kings of China and those of Egypt were called by the same names. The Emperor Ki is certainly the same with King Atoes; for, if we only change K into A, and i into toes, we shall have the name Atoes; and with equal ease Menes may be proved to be the same with the Emperor Yu; there|fore the Chinese are a colony from Egypt.

But another of the learned is entirely different from the last; and he will have the Chinese to be a colony planted by Noah just after the deluge. First, from the vast similitude there is between the name of Fohi, the founder of the Chinese monarchy, and that of Noah, the preserver of the human race: Noah, Fohi, very like each other truly; they have each but four letters, and only two of the four happen to differ. But to strengthen the argument, Fohi, as the Chinese chro|nicle asserts, had no father. Noah, it is true, had a father, as the European Bible tells us; but then, as this father was probably drowned in the flood, it is just the same as if he had no father at all; therefore Noah and Fohi are the same. Just after the flood, the earth was covered with mud; if it was covered with mud, it must have been incrustated mud; if it was incrus|tated, it was cloathed with verdure; this was a fine, unembarrassed road for Noah to fly from his wicked children; he therefore did fly from them, and took a journey of two thousand miles for his own amuse|ment; therefore Noah and Fohi are the same.

Another sect of literati, for they all pass among the vulgar for very great scholars, assert, that the Chi|nese came neither from the colony of Sesostris, nor from Noah, but are descended from Magog, Meshec and Tubal, and therefore neither Sesostris, nor Noah, nor Fohi are the same.

It is thus, my friend, that indolence assumes the airs of wisdom, and while it tosses the cup and ball with infantine folly, desires the world to look on, and calls the stupid pastime, philosophy and learning.

Adieu.