Note 37 — Chapter VI · HOLY BOOKS, OR BIBLES.

In treating of the Sacred Books of the Confucian School in China, I rely entirely upon the admirable and (so far as it has yet gone) complete work of the Rev. Dr. James Legge. Although I have consulted other publications, I have not drawn my information from them, because it was at once evident that Dr. Legge's "Chinese Classics" was immeasurably superior to all that had preceded it on the same subject. Unfortunately, the very thoroughness of the work renders it voluminous; and it thus happens that the author has not fulfilled more than a portion of the promise held out at its commencement. It must be the earnest hope of all who are interested in these studies that the learned missionary will live to complete his design; meantime, we are obliged to confine ourselves to a notice of that portion of the Classics which he has translated. For Pauthier's French translation of the Chinese Classics (in the Panthéon Littéraire: "Les Livres Sacrés de l'Orient") embraces only that portion of the King which is to be found in the hitherto-published volumes of Dr. Legge.