MORE THAN ONE ADAM?

Revelation and Philology in Nineteenth-Century

BENJAMIN PENNY

From Marco Polo to Richard Nixon, narrat- as a response to a condition where recog- ives of the encounter between Chinese and nition and bafflement are mixed in equal Westerners have been defining texts of parts, where things are close enough to be European cultures and their descendants. familiar but far enough away to be bizarre. Successive but sporadic reports from This is psychically exciting but it is also travellers, , diplomats, traders discomforting and unstable, and one of and others have provided a model of an the effects of this has been to move the alternative way of arranging people, of Chinese to the discursive comfort of one organizing their lives, of thinking about extreme or the other; to find a way of the state of being ; one that de- welcoming them into the fold or to define scribed a government that was, or at least the conditions of their exclusion. Neither was represented as being, as authoritative move is unproblematic: if, fundamentally, as anything at home, with military power the Chinese are like us then their very that could challenge any other, and with obvious differences must be accounted for cultural achievements as profound. Tradi- or, less satisfactorily, elided; if they are tionally labelled “inscrutable”, China basically not like us, the reverse is the nonetheless possessed a written literature, case. What these two moves have in com- an esteemed bureaucracy, technological mon, however, is that they have sought achievements, complex financial systems, the fundamental similarity — or difference codes and courts of law, and that — between China and the West in features had texts, buildings and hierarchies of deemed to lie at the core of what it means, priests. In other words, though not like or meant, to be Chinese and whatever it us at all, they were exactly like us. is, or was, that we conceived ourselves to be at that moment in : early on it The voluminous literature of the en- was ; later, language came onto counter with China is above all, and con- centre stage; now perhaps it is in concep- sistently, a literature of comparison. From tions of the rights of individuals. eating manners, to the rigging on boats, from city design to imperial customs, re- This paper focuses on a largely forgot- ports of the Chinese exotic have been ten chapter in this history in the form of seized on by centuries of eager western a book that attempts to show, in the words readers and, latterly, viewers. But the of its subtitle, that the Languages of Europe thrill these stories generate is possible only and Asia have a Common Origin, and in

31 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 doing so that the people of China and illed as it was, and to a certain extent still Europe, too, share a common descent. The is, by people for whom conversion was book is China’s Place in Philology, written not just a phenomenon to be studied but by the Reverend Joseph Edkins, Doctor a goal to be prayed for. However, in of Divinity, who lived from 1823 until Chinese Studies at least, to ignore mission- 1905 and was resident in China from 1848 ary writings is to ignore a vast and valu- until his death.1 Edkins left an enormous able archive. And to understand the legacy of work across the whole range of nature of these writings, the particularities topics in the history, religions, literature, and specific contexts of each author have geography, philosophy, and economy of to be understood: to regard them all as China (as well as its language) in English, having the same ideologies, the same atti- apart from his copious translations into tudes to Chinese people, the same project, Chinese — not least of the — and is much mistaken. From the 1950s to the original works in that language. Published 1980s, a standard textbook on modern in 1871, China’s Place in Philology did not Chinese history was Teng and Fairbanks’s meet with universal acclaim; indeed, in China’s Response to the West.3 This title some quarters it was derided, but his work reflected the commonly accepted totalizing in this field remained, in Edkins’s own binary of the time. Fortunately, however, opinion, his most valuable and far-reach- in more recent years a pluralizing tend- ing. ency has gained ground, with both of the Edkins was sent to China by the Lon- categories “China” and “the West” don Society or LMS, an evan- gradually becoming disaggregated in the gelical Protestant society based in London scholarly literature. In Edkins’s time, un- established in 1795 as The Missionary So- der the category “the West” there existed ciety, changing its name in 1818. This was a web of heterogenous possibilities of in- by no means the only mission society act- volvement with all sorts of different ive in China through the nineteenth cen- Chinese people. Europeans of many kinds, tury: there were representatives of most Americans, Australasians; missionaries as of the Christian denominations, Roman well as traders, customs officials, military Catholic and Orthodox as well as Protest- personnel and diplomats; and bureaucrats ant. Among the Protestants were mission- and scholars who worked on China based aries from across the English-speaking in western capitals — to aggregate all world, usually attached to their own na- these into a single entity that had a unified tional and denominational groups, and also project is to grant, perhaps, more credence from many European countries, each with to justifications emanating from the metro- their own goals and emphases. Even politan capitals for foreign adventurism amongst the British evangelical societies, of various kinds than the complex situ- there were clear demarcations: not only in ation on the ground might warrant. the region, or mission field, but in strategy Thus, it is important to place Joseph and theology as well.2 Edkins in his place and time, to grant him For many years, mission history was his individuality and idiosyncrasy, and to an unfashionable field of research, bedev- allow him his disputes with colleagues, fellow nationals and co-religionists.

32 More Than One Adam?

Edkins, along with most of his colleagues rivation, so Boerschmann’s case is complic- — with the major exception of James ated. The first clear case of a work by an Legge — has received only passing schol- English native speaker is Maurice Price’s arly attention.4 One of the goals of this Christian Missions and Oriental Civiliza- paper, and the larger project of which it tions, a Study in Culture Contact; the Reac- is a part, is to rescue Edkins and his tions of Non-Christian Peoples to Protestant scholarly colleagues from the academic Missions from the Standpoint of Individual obscurity into which they have fallen. It and Group Behaviour: Outline, Materials, is my contention that this notable group Problems, and Tentative Interpretations, of scholar-missionaries — not that they privately printed in Shanghai in 1924.6 would have seen themselves as a group — What word — what category — did laid down the analytical categories for Edkins and his colleagues use instead of understanding aspects of Chinese society “culture”? Or did they simply get by that stood for decades in the West and in without one? One candidate for this task various Chinese societies across the world, was “civilization”, but if culture is com- including the People’s Republic, and in- plicated, civilization is perhaps even more deed to some extent still stand. Before so, in this context at least. Raymond Wil- moving on to a detailed discussion of liams' Keywords proves a useful starting Edkins, his work and its reception, and point. Starting life as a term that described Edkins’s conception of his own position a process, originally “to make a criminal in relation to the Chinese people amongst matter into a civil matter, and thence, by whom he lived most of his adult life, it extension, to bring within a form of social may be useful to review and discuss some organization”, by the latter part of the of the vocabulary of encounter. eighteenth century “civilization” had ac- quired the sense of “a state of social order CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION and refinement, especially in conscious historical or cultural contrast with barbar- While we may judge that what Edkins was ism”.7 This sense of civilization places it doing in China’s Place in Philology — at one end of a unilinear scale against which was completed in 1870, the year which all societies, and activities, can be Tylor’s Primitive Culture appeared in placed and compared. The fact that this London — was what we would call “cross- unilinear scale was generally accepted at cultural research”, the word “culture” in the time did not mean that there was gen- its common usage does not appear in his eral acceptance of what societies occupied book. Indeed it was not until 1912 that the what positions on the scale. In the case of title of a book in English about China used China, it managed to occupy positions the word “culture” in this sense — in corresponding to both barbarism and to Ernst Boerschmann’s pamphlet Chinese civilization according to different people Architecture and its Relation to Chinese 5 at different times. Thus, while its criminal Culture. Boerschmann was a German justice system with its public executions, photographer resident in China who is not torture and physical punishments like the generally recognized as a writer in English cangue was deemed barbaric in the ex- and this sense of culture is of German de- treme by some outraged expatriates, its

33 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 court and ritual code could equally be held Barrow’s discussions of China’s position up at the same time as the epitome of civil in this scale of civilization begin by assert- human relations.8 The sense of civilization ing that “civilization” depends to a large as “an achieved condition of refinement extent on material progress: science, arts, and order” finds its way into discussion manufactures, the conveniences and lux- of China by at least the early-nineteenth uries of life, to use his measures. On this century. In 1804 Sir John Barrow, Secret- scale he judges China “greatly superior” ary to the Admiralty and founder of the to Europe “from the middle to the end of Royal Geographical Society, published his the sixteenth century”. Indeed, “when the account of Britain’s first embassy to China King of France introduced the luxury of of 1793, on which he accompanied Earl silk stockings, which, about eighteen years Macartney, the appointed envoy. This afterwards, was adopted by Elizabeth of book is called Travels in China: Containing England, the peasantry of China were Descriptions, Observations and Comparisons clothed in silks from head to foot.” Made and Collected in the Course of a Short However, “the Chinese were, at that Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen- period, pretty much in the same state in min-yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey from which they still are; and in which they are Pekin to Canton. In which it is Attempted likely to continue”; that is, they had not to Appreciate the Rank that this Extraordin- developed further in the previous two ary Empire may be Considered to Hold in centuries and had been overtaken by the Scale of Civilized Nations. In this book, Europe during that time.10 Barrow claims to show the Chinese as they really were, as opposed to the view of For Barrow, this civilization is a matter them commonly held on the basis of re- of social attainment rather than being ports from the Jesuit missionaries which defined or limited by descent. Thus, he had held sway for decades. Thus, he asserts that while the Chinese and those writes: he calls “Malays” were both “unquestion- ably descended from the ancient inhabit- The voluminous communications ants of Scythia or Tartary,” the Malays’ of the missionaries are by no conversion to Islam “first inspired, then means satisfactory; and some of rendered habitual, that cruel and sanguin- their defects will be noticed and ary disposition for which they are remark- accounted for in the course of this able”.11 Thus while the Chinese have work; the chief aim of which is to bettered themselves on the scale of civiliz- show this extraordinary people in ation, people of the same ancestry, the their proper colours, not as their Malays, have regressed.12 For Barrow, own moral maxims would repres- then, civilization is a state that societies ent them, but as they really achieve or lose, and on the basis of which are…and to endeavour to draw societies can be compared, like to like, fa- from such a sketch…as may enable vourably or unfavourably on a single the reader to settle, in his own scale, taking into account attributes such mind, the point of rank which as material progress or the propensity to China may be considered to hold spill blood.13 in the scale of civilized nations.9

34 More Than One Adam?

In 1840, some 36 years after Barrow’s well-defined civil rights, which are in book had appeared and, importantly, after great measure the effects of Christian- the first wave of British Protestant mission- ity.”15 aries had made their way to China, the With Medhurst, then, the categories Reverend W.H. Medhurst, who had ar- “civilization” and “barbarism” are over- rived in Malacca in 1817 to work on the layed with another set, namely “heathen” mission to the Chinese — moving to and “Christian”. That these categories do Shanghai after the — and not necessarily map onto each other is who was, like Edkins, employed by the clear from the evaluation of China as both London Missionary Society, published his civilized and heathen — distinguishing it China: its State and Prospects, with Especial from much of the mission field where Reference to the Spread of the Gospel, Con- “heathen” and “barbarism” collocated taining Allusions to the Antiquity, Extent, comfortably. Indeed, China stood as the Population, Civilization, Literature, and 14 exemplum, if not the only case, of a civil- Religion of the Chinese. ized and heathen nation of the present Medhurst begins his chapter on “The though it had precursors in the ancient Civilization of China” in this way: world in pre-Christian Greece and Rome. “Christian” and “barbarism”, needless to In seeking to evangelize the hea- say, is not a possible combination. then world, two descriptions of people claim our attention: Williams notes, in his article on “civil- namely, the barbarous and the ization”, that “there was a critical moment civilized. China belongs to the lat- when civilization was used in the plural”, ter class. Instead of a savage and noting that the English use is later than 16 untutored people — without a the French. This use of “civilizations” settled government, or written approaches the contemporary meaning of laws, — roaming the desert, and “cultures”, at least insofar as it implies that living in caves, — dressed in different places have distinctive ways of skins, and sitting on the ground, life and thought that are organically — knowing nothing of fashion, whole. What distinguishes this meaning nor tasting luxuries; we behold in of “civilization” from the comparable the Chinese a quiet, orderly, well- meaning of “culture” — as in “Chinese behaved nation, exhibiting many civilization” and “Chinese culture” — is traces of civilization, and display- a question of register: discussions of ing them at a period when the rest “Chinese civilization” usually begin with of mankind were for the most part the ancient philosophical systems and in- sunk in barbarism. clude examples of artistic and technologic- al achievements arranged in historical se- We see here the same evaluation of China quence. “Chinese culture” on the other as a civilized nation, familiar from Barrow hand tends to be less historical and more but, unlike him, Medhurst tempers his concerned with the lives of ordinary enthusiasm with an explicit appeal to reli- people. Of course, there are no firm lines gion: “Of course we must not look for that of demarcation between civilization and high degree of improvement, and those

35 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 culture, as there equally are not between opment and in full activity, and is the senses of civilization in the singular being brought day by day into and the plural. It is worth stressing that closer contact with the West. This such changes in meaning are gradual and civilization, in so many respects uneven and single authors may shift al- so much misunderstood, is that of most imperceptibly from one sense to an- China.17 other; indeed, we should acknowledge In these lectures, Laffitte treats “Chinese that the use of the singular form “civiliza- civilization” as a discrete entity that pos- tion” and the plural “civilizations” some- sesses certain distinctive features, has times overlaps. specific traits and manifests a particular In writings on China in English the pattern of development. A civilization, for plural sense of civilization seems to appear Laffitte, is a kind of entity made up of se- in the latter part of the 1880s, well after lected elements of a nation’s lifeways, Edkins’s cogitations on the nature and rather than an attribute a nation has more origins of the , and his or less of, as it was for Barrow and understanding of the meaning of civiliza- Medhurst. Civilizations, so conceived, can tion seems close to Medhurst’s. It is inter- still be judged against each other in terms esting, though, given Williams’s observa- of their attainments or levels, but Laffitte’s tion on the earlier French use of the plural approach also pointed to the possibility of form “civilizations”, that perhaps its first a model of human development that clear use in relation to China is in a trans- moved away, potentially at least, from an lation from that language: Pierre Laffitte’s uncompromising unilinearity. With this A General View of Chinese Civilization and model, the possibility is raised of the ways of the Relations of the West with China, of life and systems of thought of different published in French in 1861, and in Eng- places developing along their own tracks lish translation not until 1887. Laffitte, to equally civilized points but remaining who revelled in the wonderful title “Dir- thoroughly distinct. That such a possibil- ector of Positivism”, was Auguste Comte’s ity was conceived in the middle of the direct disciple but was no specialist on nineteenth century is, of course, no acci- China. This did not stop him in his ambi- dent, parallel as it is to the rise of national- tious undertaking, in three lectures: ist movements across Europe with their Gentlemen, We are to enter to-day conceptions of specific national essences upon a survey of the whole field and peculiarities. Aligned to this distinc- of Chinese civilization. In view of tion, though different from it, are discus- the importance of such a study, sions related to whether humankind — or both in itself and in its bearings particular features of people’s lives — had on the problems of the science of a single origin or multiple origins. Argu- society, we shall devote to it three ments about monogenetic and polygenetic lectures…At the base of the theories, as they are called, featured cru- farthest East is a noteworthy cially in the study of the origins of lan- civilization, which, say what we guage and the history of specific lan- may about it, is in constant devel- guages, as will be discussed below.

36 More Than One Adam?

Along with the two models of develop- ies and languages in the nineteenth cen- ment, leading respectively to “civilization” tury — Egyptian, Accadian, Sanskrit, and to “civilizations”, a third story should Chinese — was to try to recover those be considered. Specifically Christian, and, remnant parts of the original revelation in relation to studies of China, usually preserved in non-Semitic textual tradi- Protestant, this story is found most expli- tions. As Max Müller, Professor of Sanskrit citly in works of those highly educated at Oxford, editor of the Sacred Books of and thoroughly modern scholar-missionar- the East series and doyen of comparative ies (including Edkins) who we would now philology, wrote in 1878: “The more I see also refer to as scriptural literalists; that of the so-called heathen religions, the more is, people who took the words of the Bible I feel convinced that they contain germs as literally true. So with the book of Gen- of the highest truth.”19 esis in one hand and a knowledge of recent Yet the fact remained that European scientific advances in the other, these civilization was only made possible, in scholars set about to demonstrate as well some versions of this theory at least, by as they could that the ultimate monogenet- its Christian character. The revelation of ic hypothesis, namely that we all derive Jesus reversed the degenerative process from , was not only compat- and not only granted salvation to human- ible with the state of knowledge of the ity but also a civilized character to society. time but could be proved with academic As Medhurst wrote: “Of course we must rigour. In Edkins’s words — about lan- not look for that high degree of improve- guage but it could equally apply in many ment, and those well-defined civil rights, other fields — this work was “for the which are in great measure the effects of vindication of Scripture and the progress Christianity.” of knowledge”.18 It was on this theoretical terrain that Positing Adam and Eve at the root of Edkins produced his work that attempted the tree of humanity, as this position did, to demonstrate that “the Languages of the process of change that produced hu- Europe and Asia have a Common Origin”. man diversity often became understood To understand this work — its motiva- as one of degeneration, as moving away, tions and its methodologies — we must step-by-step from the point of our common walk this ideological landscape with him, origin and ’s first revelation, both lit- following the same scholarly maps, ob- erally in geography and metaphorically in serving what lay at his horizon. Setting culture. From this point of view, however aside the arrogance of hindsight, we can savage or barbaric the people you might approach an understanding of how Edkins meet in your travels, their origins were and his colleagues saw themselves and the same as yours and, though subject to their work among Chinese people only by different conditions since the original allowing argument from a literal reading revelation, you and they were all part of of Genesis to stand as the unassailable a common brotherhood and their forebears foundation of theory. had, therefore, received the same revela- tion from God as had yours. One attrac- tion, then, for the study of ancient societ-

37 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007

JOSEPH EDKINS Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of North China. In 1858 he left for England Edkins’s death at 81, in 1905, produced in order to marry his wife, Jane (nee four obituaries, one in each of the major Stobbs, 1838–61), a Presbyterian minister’s Chinese Studies journals of his day.20 The daughter from Orkney. Returning the fol- overriding impression from them is of an lowing year, in 1860 he made several old campaigner who had died in harness, famous visits to the leaders of the Taiping a figure notable a generation or two before Rebellion in and , not far who continued to plough his furrow with up the Yangtse from Shanghai. energy but whose best work had been After the opening of more treaty ports produced some time earlier. There is, in after the , in 1860 one at least, the snide tone of a younger Edkins moved to in Shandong, then competitor keen to prick the bubble of to in 1861 and finally in May 1863 what he evidently saw as an overblown to live permanently in Beijing, where he reputation. spent nearly 30 years. Jane Edkins had Edkins was born in Nailsworth, near died of dysentery in 1861 at the age of 23 Stroud, in Gloucestershire, on December but some of her letters home were pub- 19, 1823. The son of a Congregational lished posthumously under the title minister who also ran the school where Chinese Scenes and People, with Notices of Edkins was first educated, he later entered Christian Missions and Missionary Life in Coward College for theological training. a Series of Letters from Various Parts of He graduated in arts from the University China. In one of her letters to Edkins’s of London and was ordained in 1847 at the brother she wrote endearingly: age of 24 in the Stepney Meeting House, You ask me to tell you about your London, a Congregational institution. On brother. He is very well indeed, gaining ordination, he left England for and is busy as a bee. We breakfast China under the auspices of the London every morning at eight, and have Missionary Society, arriving in Hong Kong prayers before. He spends the in July 1848 and proceeding to Shanghai morning at home studying, and in soon after. In his first correspondence with the after part of the day he is in the LMS in London in 1848 Edkins started the city preaching, and otherwise to plead for a Miss Phillips to join him in attending to the work of the Mis- China. These pleas continued for almost sion. I have got his study all in two years, and were evidently never ac- nice order, and there he is in his ceded to, as he finally had to let the Lon- glory. From nine till one each day don office know that his engagement had you might take a peep in and find terminated.21 His colleagues at Shanghai him excogitating, diving deeper included Medhurst, William Lockhart, a and deeper into the mysteries of notable medical missionary with whom he Buddhism and Confucianism. would later travel to Beijing, and Alexan- Seated thus by his study table he der Wylie. With Wylie, in 1857, he formed puts me in mind of that picture, the Shanghai Literary and Debating Soci- "As Happy as a King," for he looks ety that later became the North China

38 More Than One Adam?

quite that, with all his Chinese his life, head office of the LMS appears to books in notable confusion beside have refused Edkins’s request to get mar- him.22 ried — this time to an expatriate German missionary by the name of Miss Johanna In Beijing, Edkins spent much of his time Schmidt.25 After resigning from the LMS, preaching in the hospital Lockhart had Edkins married Miss Schmidt and began established and otherwise going about working for the Inspector-General of Im- mission business in Beijing and surrounds. perial Maritime Customs while still active In 1862 he requested that a Miss White be in the life of the church. About 1890 they sent to marry him and she arrived early moved to Shanghai, where they stayed the following year. They married on May until his death. Little is known about the 9, 1863.23 The second Mrs Edkins sub- third Mrs Edkins, including how long she sequently founded a school for girls and stayed in China, and when and where she gave birth to three daughters. The family died. Box relates Edkins’s passing in a su- went to England in 1873, when Edkins perb description of the “good death”: was honoured in 1875 with a doctorate in divinity from Edinburgh University. They As she [Johanna] sat by his bedside subsequently returned to Beijing in 1876, she saw his eyes fixed upward and his but his wife died the next year from breast face suffused with a strange light. His cancer — two of their children had lips moved, and presently she heard already died and, two years later, the third him murmur, “Wonderful! Wonder- girl was buried next to her mother and ful!” She asked him what he saw, and two sisters.24 he replied, “I cannot tell you, but you Relations between Edkins and some will know what it means tomorrow!” younger missionaries from the LMS sta- It was on the morrow he passed tioned in Beijing became strained by the through the gates of death into “the Glory Land”, of which he evidently late 1870s. In particular, it would appear 26 that Edkins was viewed as being too gen- had a vision. erous to Chinese converts with the mis- Throughout his time as a missionary, sion’s funds. His younger colleagues were Edkins was also writing. His scholarly rather more suspicious than Edkins of the output is extraordinary in its sheer motivations of new converts who were volume, its range and its quality. Henri given to “backsliding” as it was called. Cordier’s obituary is, in reality, a catalogue Ultimately, as Box wrote in his obituary: of Edkins’s works and incomplete though “In 1880 he resigned his connection with it is, it lists more than 140 books and the L.M.S., not through any lack of in- learned articles. His best-known work terest in mission work, for until his death today, though it is by no means as well- he was devoted to the cause of missions, known as it ought to be, is his Chinese but through difference of opinion with his Buddhism: a Volume of Sketches, Historical, colleagues as to methods of mission work.” Descriptive and Critical from 1880.27 There was, however, another side to However, it is clear that, as Bushell wrote this story revealed in his unpublished in his obituary, “China’s Place in Philology correspondence. For the second time in

39 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 was probably the book nearest the au- of the modern languages of thor’s heart”.28 But he continues: Europe, Dr Edkins was perhaps the foremost of his generation. The …the general consensus of opinion vast scope of his language studies is that it hardly suffices to prove made them all more or less superfi- his somewhat daring thesis of the cial, while at the same time it made common origin of the languages of it possible for him to make philolo- Europe and Asia. Dr Edkins was gical comparisons which would always original. His reading of have been impossible to anyone Chinese literature was most extens- else.29 ive, and the words of the other languages cited in the text were In these comments it is possible to see the actually taken down from the emergence of one style of scholarship, and mouths of Tibetans, Koreans, the concomitant decline in another, which Manchus, and Mongols, yet the has ruled much of humanities scholarship theme was almost too discursive to this day. Edkins was one of the last even for his power of concentra- generation, in Chinese Studies at least, of tion. the grand comparativists. Partly as a result of the decline in the kind of broad linguist- Others, too, marvelled at his proficiency ic training he received, and partly because in languages; thus Box: “His knowledge of the growth in university departments of languages was most extensive — Eng- concentrating on a single subject (the lish, German, French, Latin, Greek, Chairs in Chinese Studies at Oxford and Hebrew, Assyrian, Persian, Sanscrit, Cambridge date to 1876 and 1888 respect- Tamil, Chinese (in most of its dialects), the ively), scholars of later generations have Miao dialects (…), Japanese, Manchu, ploughed much narrower, but much Corean, Thibetan, Mongolian and others.” deeper. The anonymous obituarist in the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal CHINA’S PLACE IN PHILOLOGY Asiatic Society was more caustic: It is only fair to say that in his By Edkins’s time, the shared history of the philological theories Dr Edkins Indo-European languages had been stood almost alone, and that very demonstrated and accepted. The great im- little sympathy, sometimes even petus for this study had been the growth very little patience, was shown to of European scholarship on Sanskrit, and them by other scholars whose the major figure in the first half of the study of the Chinese language it- nineteenth century in this field had been self had perhaps been more thor- Franz Bopp (1791–1867). Bopp had shown ough than that of Dr Edkins. the relationship between Sanskrit, Persian, However, it must be said that in Greek, Latin and the Germanic languages combining a knowledge of Eastern (and later Old Slavonian, Lithuanian, and languages — of Hebrew, Persian Zend — the language of the Zoroastrian and Sanskrit — with a knowledge Avesta scriptures) through his comparative study of grammatical forms; thus his first

40 More Than One Adam? work was on verbal inflexions. He is best that all men once spoke a common known for his Comparative Grammar of language. The most revered and the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuani- most ancient of human books, in an, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Lan- making these statements, sheds a guages which appeared in German from bright and steady light on the ob- 1833 and in English translation beginning scurity of history, and at the same in 1845.30 time reveals the imperfection of Edkins’s comments on the Indo- those views held by some modern European project open his book: thinkers and writers who deny that the languages of the world To show that the languages of had one origin and that its races Europe and Asia may be conveni- came from one stock. ently referred to one origin in the Mesopotamian and Armenian re- Edkins was by no means the first to see gion, is the aim of the present links between Chinese and languages of work. Sanscrit philologists, en- peoples far to the west — such discussions tranced with admiration of the go back at least to John Webb’s An Histor- treasure they discovered south of ical Essay Endeavouring a Probability that the Language of the Empire of China is the the Himalayan chain, forgot to 31 look north of that mighty barrier. Primitive Language, published in 1669. Limiting their researches to the Most of these works refer to Biblical regions traversed by Alexander , a detailed discussion of which the Great, they allowed themselves will occur below, as the crucial evidence to assume that there was no access- put forward for the truth of Edkins’s pro- ible path by which the linguistic position comes from the beginning of the investigator could legitimately eleventh chapter of Genesis: “And the reach the vast area existing bey- whole of was of one language, and ond their adopted boundary. The of one speech.” First, however, we should result of this abstinence on the note that Scripture was only the spur to part of Bopp and other scholars of Edkins’s work, and did not relieve the high fame has been that the idea scholar from further research, informed of comparing Chinese, Mongol, by the most advanced studies of his time. and Japanese with our own moth- Indeed, Edkins placed his work in a thor- er-tongue appears to some chimer- oughly modern linguistic context and in ical, hopeless, and uncalled for. this book was launching a serious critique of accepted linguistic wisdom. Thus, rely- “Yet,” he continues: ing on Max Müller’s hypothesis of “dia- …Scripture, speaking with an au- lectal regeneration” — first published in thoritative voice and from an im- Müller’s Lectures on the Science of Language mense antiquity, asserts the unity in 1864 — to bolster his argument, Edkins of the human race, traces the most contended that the Indo-European inflec- general features of the primeval ted languages and agglutinative languages planting of nations, and declares (such as those of Tartary, South India and Japan) were fundamentally related. This

41 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 flew in the face of contemporary ideas ment that worked towards a vindication about language taxonomy and was one of Scripture. He applies the same attitude reason, Edkins claimed, for the exclusion to another lively field in nineteenth-cen- of Asian languages from comparative tury scholarship: “After a careful sifting philology. of recent discoveries by the geologists on Another was the so-called isolating the antiquity of man, it will be the duty nature of some of these languages, Chinese of the Christian theologian to examine being the classic case. In Chinese most afresh the question of early Biblical chro- morphemes are free-floating and rely on nology. All new light brought upon this subject from unexpected quarters must be syntax to acquire grammatical function: 32 words neither inflect, as in most European cheerfully accepted…” languages, nor glue together — the etymo- And, similarly, Edkins adopted a model logical root of “agglutinative” — as in Ja- of linguistic evolution pioneered by Max panese. In the case of Chinese, it was obvi- Müller on the Darwinian model. The Origin ously impossible to compare its verb end- of Species had been published in 1859, and ings with those in, say, Sanskrit, because provided linguistics with the tools capable it didn’t have any. Thus, Edkins proposed of turning the study into a science, as it that the word roots of Chinese and similar was perceived, with linguistic laws being languages should be compared to bring the equivalent of the laws of the natural them into the comparative fold. This did sciences. Müller adopted a model of natur- not find favour with some reviewers but al selection in language with alacrity ar- it did represent an attempt to introduce guing, in the Lectures on the Science of into the discussion an original methodo- Language, that languages formed, changed logy designed to address a question that and died out through a series of processes had previously simply been ignored. corresponding to the biological model, Implicit in Edkins’s arguments is his except that: defence not only of Scripture in general …natural selection, if we could but, more specifically, for the position that but always see it, is invariably ra- the languages of humankind had a single tional selection. It is not any acci- origin. For Edkins, with his scientific cast dental variety that survives and of mind, finding the language of Adam perpetuates itself; it is the individu- himself was never going to be a viable al that comes nearest to the origin- scholarly project, though he did allow al intention of its creator, or what himself some speculations of the nature of is best calculated to accomplish the “the primeval language”. Rather, in ar- ends for which the type or species guing the monogenetic case on purely to which it belongs was called into philological grounds, Edkins, arguably, being, that conquers in the great sought to lay a scientific foundation for struggle for life. So it is in thought faith. In these debates it is worth stressing and language.33 once more that for Edkins, Scripture was not the proof; rather, it was philological Thus, the imperatives of religion and sci- — and other modern scientific — argu- ence were both met: the fundamentals of the faith were safe from being overthrown

42 More Than One Adam? by the discoveries of comparative philo- There is not the space here to give a com- logy and comparative philology would be plete summary of Edkins’s work, and in- able to take its place beside astronomy and deed much of it is complex and needs to geology in the scientific pantheon. be read closely to follow his arguments, This position, was, of course, more than so here I will concentrate on the underpin- acceptable to Edkins, providing him with nings of his research and give a broad a mechanism of linguistic change to apply outline of his views. to his grand model of the development of Edkins’s argument does not, in fact, the world’s languages. It should be noted, begin with language but with a comparis- however, that for Edkins language evolu- on between the civilizations of the ancient tion is not teleological. We are, perhaps, Chinese and the ancient inhabitants of the too accustomed to seeing the process of Middle East: “The resemblance existing biological evolution leading inexorably to between the old [that is, ancient] Chinese us; that is, from lesser to greater complex- civilization and that of the Hamite race ity up a developmental ladder. In fact, [that is, the descendants of Ham, the however, natural selection need not lead second son of Noah] long ago developed to greater complexity, simply to greater on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates suitability to the environment in which is very remarkable."34 the organism finds him or herself. Thus, There follows a catalogue of similarities for Bible-believing linguists, language in customs, agricultural methods, and ar- evolution could simply mean language chitecture, amongst other topics, and the change as the people who spoke each lan- basic proposition is raised: guage found themselves in new environ- ments. This is important from two points So close a similarity in genius of view: firstly, the original language was between the descendants of Cush given by God to Adam and it would be and Mizraim [two of the sons of inconceivable to believe that this first Ham], who founded the first arts language could be improved over time — of the west, and the Chinese, who if anything the reverse should be the case, on the east of the Indo-European as in the model of degeneration; secondly, area have always reigned supreme Edkins and his colleagues were linguistic- in intellect and manual ingenuity, ally very capable and would have appreci- argues a probable connexion of 35 ated that languages do not necessarily in- race. crease in complexity as time passes. An- Importantly, for Edkins, there were also cient languages like Latin, Greek and (as he saw them) close affinities between Hebrew were, after all, no less complex the worship, sacrifices and religious than modern English or modern Chinese. buildings in the ancient Holy Land and To return to the book itself: China’s those in China. For him this pointed to an Place in Philology reads as a linguistic and original monotheism in the Chinese, a cultural history, from prehistory up to the monotheism that derived from their shared development of European languages in ancestry with the Semitic peoples. This comparatively recent historical times. stance echoes throughout the history of

43 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 the Western encounter with China, most condemned, and with some other heathen particularly, of course, in missionary usages found to prevail long after in the circles where the possibility of conversion countries from which they came and was seen to be enhanced if, at the very through which they passed, need not be root of Chinese religion, lay a belief in a wondered at…”36 single all-powerful — especially if Thus, the people we know as Chinese that deity was actually, originally, Je- originated in the Mesopotamian region hovah. It also had direct consequences for and migrated slowly eastward, arriving in perhaps the longest-running and most China at “nearly 3,000 years B.C.”. They bitterly fought controversy amongst the entered that land, “by the usual highway missionary fraternity in nineteenth-cen- from Mohammedan Tartary, into Kansu tury China — the so-called term question. and Shensi, founding colonies along the The essence of the “term question” can be banks of the western tributaries of the easily stated: what is the best translation Yellow River, where we find the ancestors of the word “God” in Chinese? Which, if of the family,”37 then subsequently any, of the words found in Chinese texts spread out into those areas of early Chinese meant what Christians mean by God? Huge settlement we know from the ancient storehouses of human effort were expen- texts. ded on these questions, and acrimony was often not far from the surface, as, for These Chinese were not, however, the Protestants at least, translation of Scripture first to enter the territory of China. In was at the core of their vocation and it was Edkins’s scheme, the “migrations of races obviously imperative to get the word for have been in the direction of radii from a common centre where the first human pair “God” right. So, if the ancient Chinese 38 were truly the descendants of people who were created”. One route was into India had received the original revelation, the through the Punjab and was followed first mystery and nature of ancient Chinese re- by the Dravidians “and after them the ligion could be understood and the right Hindoos”. Another group — “the Eastern words could be identified. and Western Himalaic races” — crossed Tibet and followed the Brahmaputra, Now, as obvious for Edkins that the heading south and east into Indo-China Chinese were originally monotheistic was and north and east into south-western the fact, observable about him in Beijing China. The Chinese, meantime, went north as well as in the most ancient of texts, that and west along what became known, much Chinese religious practice also included later, as the Silk Route. The Himalaic features not found in ancient semitic reli- branch that entered China from the south gion. One of these clearly non-monotheist- constituted, according to Edkins, the ic practices was the role played by heav- “Miau, Lo lo, Nung, [and] Yau” ethnic enly bodies in astrology as well as in star groups known under the current dispens- cults. Edkins uses the term “Sabeanism” ation as “national minorities”. This south- to describe this style of worship, explain- erly branch met with the northerly branch ing: “That the early Chinese should, in in various regions across China. addition to their monotheism, have be- come infected with the Sabeanism that Job

44 More Than One Adam?

Following this explanation of how the Having established the essential charac- Chinese entered their destined territory, teristics of the primeval language, Edkins Edkins moves back to postulate on the addresses the important issue of combining origins of language itself. He proposes that Biblical chronology with his scheme of some elements and characteristics of “the language development. The downfall of primeval language” are retrievable by the primeval language was, of course, the philological comparison. Thus, “that it was Confusion of Tongues at the Tower of Ba- monosyllabic is deducible from the fact, bel, an event Edkins dates to 400 years that in all the families, from the Indo- after Noah’s Flood, which itself took place European upwards, the roots are monosyl- 2,200 years after Creation.43 However, his lables”39 and “the structure of sentences position on Babel is, perhaps, surprising: in the primeval language, it may be reas- The Scriptural account of the De- onably concluded, was according to the luge and of the Confusion of order of nature. The nominative preceded Tongues I suppose to refer partic- the transitive verb, and the transitive verb ularly to the world according to preceded its object. The Chinese, the its dimensions as then understood, Hebrew, and the English here agree.”40 The other way of determining the nature the [pasa oikou- of the first language, of course, is by re- mene, all inhabited regions of the course to Scripture. The classic statement day]. Colonies that went beyond of language origin in the Bible is from the the limits of the Flood of Noah, if there were such, were lost from second chapter of Genesis: “And out of 44 the ground the Lord God formed every view. beast of the field; and every fowl of the What this enables, for him, is the possibil- air; and brought them unto Adam to see ity that in some specific cases the primeval what he would call them: and whatsoever language may have survived God’s inter- Adam called every living creature, that vention, if the speakers of the primeval 41 was the name thereof.” This, in Edkins’s language, or their descendents, no longer reading, meant that while “divine assist- lived in the world as known by the Baby- ance” was required to make language, it lonians. He cites two cases of this: first, in was not fully developed at that stage. This Genesis 4 it says that when Cain was ex- was so because the initial language act was pelled from the presence of the Lord, he simply the naming of animals — full lan- “dwelt in the land of Nod, to the east of guage competence was a gradual process Eden”.45 With his wife, he subsequently aided by divine assistance but not granted produced the line of succession that ran complete. Edkins quotes a Dr Magee ap- from Enoch to Lamech and beyond. Of provingly in this context: “It is sufficient this, Edkins says: if we suppose the use of language taught him [Adam] with respect to such things as The Cainites went…to the east. were necessary, and that he was left to the Whether any of them and the oth- exercise of his own faculties for further er descendents of Adam passed improvement upon this foundation.”42 into East Asia and America during those 2,000 years now so little

45 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007

known, we cannot tell. If they did, trated with copious linguistic examples they would have there been bey- displaying his remarkable breadth of ond the reach of the Deluge, which knowledge. The point of the whole enter- science has shown did not extend prise, however, remains a proof of the to the more distant parts of the fundamental unity of the world’s lan- continent.46 guages and of the world’s peoples, and especially the original revelation that all The second case is that of the Cushites, the peoples received in the beginning. In his descendants of Cush, the son of Ham, conclusion he writes, inter alia quoting grandson of Noah and father of Nimrod, the seventeenth chapter of Acts and a the mighty hunter. The Cushites were, famous passage from Max Müller’s Lec- then, Nimrod’s people who built the tures on the Science of Religion: Tower at Babel. Edkins proposes, on the basis of the shared culture of the Babyloni- “God hath made of one blood all ans and the Chinese that he observed nations of men for to dwell on all earlier, that the wave of emigration that the face of the earth.” When the produced the ancient Chinese left the European goes into the other con- Cushite region after the Flood — thereby tinents of the world, as traveller, acquiring Babylonian civilization — but colonist, missionary, and civilizer, before the Confusion of Tongues — to he meets everywhere with men of preserve the primeval language. Thus, the same race. “But what have we when these Chinese arrived in China from in common with the Turanians, the north they displaced the people they with Chinese, and Samoyedes? met there, the Eastern and Western Him- Very little it may seem: and yet it alaics who had arrived earlier from the is not very little, for it is our com- south, and who were the result of migra- mon humanity. It is not the yellow tions from before the Flood, and therefore skin, or the high cheek-bones, that less civilized. This accounts for why both make the man. Nay, if we look but groups in China spoke monosyllabic lan- steadily into those black Chinese guages like the primeval tongue as they eyes, we shall find that there, too, were not subjected to God’s punishment there is a soul that responds to a after the Tower of Babel. soul, and that the God whom they I have spent a good deal of space on mean is the same God whom we Edkins’s explanations of the origins of the mean, however hopeless their ut- Chinese people and their language. In the terance, however imperfect their worship.” Language proves them rest of the book, he proceeds to explain in 47 similar terms the Semitic, Himalaic, Tura- to be one with ourselves. nian, Malayo-Polynesian and Indo- Edkins’s radical monogenism is, thus, European language families, though I will buttressed on the one hand by his firm not cover that ground here. Let me add belief in the literal truth of Scripture, and that, while cataloguing those parts of his on the other by an ethic of the common work I have neglected in this paper, each brotherhood of all peoples; the savage, the step of his developmental edifice is illus- barbaric and the civilized. In a kind of

46 More Than One Adam? reply essay in The China Review to some Even stranger, perhaps, given that the harsh reviews of China’s Place in Philology, kind of philology Edkins practised Edkins describes the two schools of stressed seeking out the most ancient of thought relating to ancient China. The texts and reconstructing the early pronun- first, he claims, “looks upon its old civiliz- ciation of characters, is his lack of interest ation as self-grown, desiderates no connec- in what the classical Chinese texts said tion with the old Asiatic empires of the themselves about the origins of their lan- , and detracts in many ways guage. They are certainly not silent on from the credit hitherto allowed to the matters of how writing was invented, how ancient Chinese”. “The other party”, of people communicated before writing, and which Edkins was a member, he suggests, how things came to be named. It must be “desires to harmonize the safe conclusions observed, however, that the Chinese liter- of modern geologists and ethnologists with ary tradition always stressed the written regard to the antiquity of man, both with over the oral, and speech itself appears to the historical traditions of Judea and have been taken as a given. With the only Babylon, and with those of the Chinese.” written language in their known world, The choice between them, he says, is the ancient Chinese do not seem to have between the proposition that “religion, been much interested in comparative lan- language and history are one in origin” guage studies and since Edkins’s project and the alternative that, “there was more relied on the twin pillars of spoken lan- than one Adam”.48 In his view, any guage and comparison, it may simply have polygenetic model was, by definition, been that the ancient Chinese texts were against science, against Scripture, and simply answering different questions from against common brotherhood. the ones he was asking. Comparative studies of all kinds on the CONCLUSION scale that Edkins undertook, especially the comparative study of languages, are Edkins’s book was ambitious in its scope, particularly notable for including in their taking in all the world’s peoples and their purview both the language (or mythology, languages. There is, however, a striking or religion, etc.) of the observed people, absence: the living, breathing, speaking or peoples, and the language (or whatever) Chinese he lived among. This is somewhat of the observer. Thus, in Edkins’s study strange as his other writings, on the Chinese language and the European Buddhism, on fengshui, on other aspects languages stand at each end of the scheme of folklore and religion, are full of anec- he sets out of the unrolling of linguistic dotes and the fruits of his day-to-day inter- history. To be sure, the European lan- actions. We also know from various guages are seen to be the last group to sources, including his correspondence, have evolved but they are not, as I ex- that he spent much of each day while at plained earlier, regarded as the most com- home preaching and circulating among the plex or most perfect of linguistic creations. Chinese who attended the mission hospital By including his own language and to which he was attached in Beijing. Chinese in the same scheme, Edkins’s model, and indeed comparative philology

47 Humanities Research Vol XIV. No. 1. 2007 as a discipline, can be seen both as relativ- ENDNOTES izing the language of the analyst and granting the language of study a degree 1 Edkins, Rev. J, China’s Place in Philology: An At- tempt to Show that the Languages of Europe and Asia of respect. On the other hand, with the have a Common Origin (London: Trubner, 1871). move to the study of single languages and 2 For an outline of the multitude of missions, see societies at the end of the nineteenth cen- Latourette, K.S., A History of Christian Missions in tury, and the decline of this kind of com- China (London: Society for Promoting Christian parative study, the scholar became re- Knowledge, 1929). 3 moved from the object of research. The Teng, Ssu-yü and J.K. Fairbank, with E-tu Zen Sun, Chaoying Fang and others, China's Response to Chinese became discursively disconnected, the West; a Documentary Survey, 1839–1923 (Cam- if not from the rest of the world, certainly bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954, re- from Europe and the West. printed until at least 1979). 4 On Legge, see Girardot, N., The Victorian Transla- With this kind of model — us here and tion of China: ’s Oriental Progress them over there — there developed a sense (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), and numerous papers by Laurence Pfister. On Edkins, that we inhabited discrete worlds and see my “Meeting the Celestial Master”, East Asian ways of being. And from this, perhaps, History, 15/16, June/December pp.53–66. developed an anxiety that something 5 Boerschmann, Ernst, Chinese Architecture and its needed to be crossed to get from one to Relation to Chinese Culture (Washington: Govt. Print. Office, 1912). This was an offprint from the Smithso- the other; a psychic metaphor of the vast nian report for 1911. Eurasian steppe. Nineteenth-century mis- 6 Price, Maurice, Christian Missions and Oriental sionary writings on China in English cer- Civilizations, a Study in Culture Contact; the Reactions tainly display anxieties on the part of their of Non-Christian Peoples to Protestant Missions from the Standpoint of Individual and Group Behaviour: authors but those anxieties do not, in my Outline, Materials, Problems, and Tentative Interpret- reading, appear to include the sense that ations (Shanghai: privately printed, 1924). no matter how hard we try we will never 7 Williams, Raymond, Keywords (London: Fontana, truly understand the Chinese mind. “East 1983), pp.57–8, italics in the original. is east and west is west and never the 8 On Chinese punishments, see Mason, G.H., The twain will meet” is a notion surprisingly Punishments of China, illustrated by twenty-two en- gravings: with explanations in English and French absent in this context. It is absent, I would (London :W. Miller, 1801). Although he did not use suggest, because these were people of reli- the word “civilized” or its equivalents it is worth gion, something we must take seriously if noting that Leibniz ranked China in advance of Europe itself in areas of human relations at the very we are to approach an understanding of end of the seventeenth century. See, for instance, in the encounter between Chinese people and his “Preface to the NOVISSIMA SINICA” (trans. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemount, Jr.), in Cook Westerners before our times. Edkins and and Rosemount, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Writings others like him knew exactly what they on China (Chicago: Open Court, 1994), pp.46–7: were doing in China and why they were "…who would have believed that there is on earth a people who, though we are in our view so very there. We may not approve of what they advanced in every branch of behaviour, still surpass were trying to achieve but there is little us in comprehending the precepts of civil doubt that the only meaningful thing that life?…certainly they surpass us (though it is also shameful to confess this) in practical philosophy, that divided Europeans and Chinese was that is, in the precepts of ethics and politics adapted to we were Christian and, by and large, they the present life and use of morals. Indeed it is diffi- were not — yet. cult to describe how beautifully all the laws of the Chinese, in contrast to those of other peoples, are

48 More Than One Adam? directed to the achievement of public tranquillity West with China (London: Trübner and Co; Yoko- and the establishment of social order…" hama, Shanghai & Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh; Tokyo 9 Barrow, Sir John, Travels in China: Containing De- & Yokohama: Z.P. Maruya & Co., 1887). scriptions, Observations and Comparisons Made and 18 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.xii. Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Im- 19 Müller, M., Letter to A.P. Stanley, quoted in perial Palace of Yuen-min-yuen, and on a Subsequent Girardot, The Victorian Translation of China, p.245. Journey from Pekin to Canton. In which it is Attempted to Appreciate the Rank that this Extraordinary Empire 20 Bushell, S.W., “Obituary Rev Joseph Edkins, may be Considered to Hold in the Scale of Civilized D.D.”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (January, Nations (London: T. Cadell and W. Davis, 1804), 1906), pp.269–71, Box, Rev. E., “In Memorium, Rev. pp.3–4. Underlining in the original. Joseph Edkins, D.D.”, The Chinese Recorder, 36 (June, 1905), pp.282–9 (see also “Editorial Comment” in the 10 Ibid, pp.28–9. May 1905 issue, pp.261–2), Anon., “In Memorium 11 Ibid, pp.50–1. Rev. Joseph Edkins, D.D.”, Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol 36 (1905), 12 Ibid, p.29. pp.157–9, Cordier, H., “Nécrologie Joseph Edkins”, 13 This is not to say that Barrow does not dabble in T’oung Pao, VI (July, 1905), pp.359–66. See also, racial theory of a more egregious sort. In a bizarre Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese: passage he cites his own Travels into the Interior of giving a list of their publication, and obituary notices South Africa of 1802 (a journey he made after return- of the deceased with copious indexes (Shanghai: ing from China) opining that the structure of the American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867, reprinted upper lid of the eye of “a real Hottentot” was just Taibei: Ch’eng-wen Publishing Company, 1967), like that of a Chinese and, in general, “their physical pp.187–91. characters agree in almost every point”. Recalling “a 21 Edkins, letters to Rev J.J. Freeman (13.10.1848) Hottentot who attended me,” he claims this man was and to Rev. Arthur Tidman (14.1.1849, 13.7.1849, “so very like a Chinese servant I had in Canton, both 11.4.1850, 11.6.1850) in the Archives of the Council in person, features, manners, and tone of voice, that for World Mission: Central China, London Univer- almost always inadvertently I called him by the name sity, SOAS. of the latter”: Ibid, pp.48–9. 22 Edkins, Jane, Chinese Scenes and People, with No- 14 Medhurst, W.H., China: its State and Prospects, tices of Christian Missions and Missionary Life in a with Especial Reference to the Spread of the Gospel, Series of Letters from Various Parts of China, with a Containing Allusions to the Antiquity, Extent, Popula- Narrative of a Visit to Nanking by Her Husband the tion, Civilization, Literature, and Religion of the Rev. J. Edkins, also a Memoir by her Father, the Rev. Chinese (London: J. Snow, 1840). W. Stobbs (London: J. Nisbet, 1863). The excerpt is 15 Medhurst, W.H., China: Its State and Prospects, quoted in Box’s obituary of Joseph, p.284. pp.97–8. It is worth noting in this context that also 23 Edkins, letters to Tidman (6.9.1862, 11.4.1863, like Barrow, Medhurst points out that “China pos- 25.5.1863), Council for World Mission: North China, sesses as much civilization as Turkey now, or Eng- London University, SOAS. land a few centuries ago” and that the Chinese are exaggerated in their self-assessment: “They denom- 24 Edkins, letters to Tidman (12.9.1865) letters to inate China ‘the flowery nation,’ — ‘the region of Mullens (27.2.1866, 14.11.1867, 28.12.1877), Meech eternal summer,’ — ‘the land of the sages,’ — ‘the to Whitehouse (22.9.1879), Council for World Mis- celestial empire,’ — while they unscrupulously term sion: North China. all foreigners ‘barbarians,’ and sometimes load them 25 Edkins, letter to Whitehouse (13.12.1880), letters with epithets still more degrading and contemptuous, to Thompson (21.12.1880, 1.2.1881), Council for such as swine, monkeys, and devils.” (p.98) He con- World Mission: North China. cludes with a discussion of the advantages of attempt- ing evangelization in “civilized nations” rather than 26 Box, Obituary, p.289. See also the editorial com- in those “altogether barbarous”: in the latter case he ment from The Chinese Recorder: “We said it was with notes, “Instances have occurred of savage tribes mingled feelings that we write of his death. While falling upon the messengers of mercy; and, immedi- his place will be vacant here and his presence missed, ately on their arrival, proceeding to plunder, murder, yet when one, like this, is gathered in as a shock of and, even eat them. But this is not likely to occur corn, fully ripe, when the streets of toil are changed among a people, in a great measure, civilized” (p.120). for the streets of gold, when the mortal puts on im- mortality, one cannot refrain from a feeling of sym- 16 Williams, Keywords, p.59. pathy with the joy of one who has gone up higher, 17 Laffitte, Pierre (trans. John Carey Hall), A General who has stepped across the border and sees his View of Chinese Civilization and of the Relations of the Master face to face.”

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27 Edkins, J., Chinese Buddhism: a Volume of 43 Edkins seems generally to follow the chronology Sketches, Historical, Descriptive and Critical (London: of Dr. William Hales (1778–1821) found in his A New Trubner & Co., 1880). Analysis of Chronology; in which an Attempt is Made 28 Bushell, “Obituary,” p.270. to Explain the History and Antiquities of the Primitive Nations of the World, and the Prophecies Relating to 29 Anon, “In Memorium,” pp.158–9. It is probably them, on Principles Tending to Remove the Imperfection scholars such as the one that wrote this obituary that and Discordance of Preceding Systems, 3 vol. (London, Box was referring to when he wrote, “[Edkins’s] two 1809–12). Hales followed the text, unlike pet aversions (and I believe his only aversions) were the more-famous chronology of Archbishop James the Higher Critics and those Philologists who de- Ussher (dating Creation to 4004 B.C) who based his clined to accept his theories on words, their origin work on the . and connection with each other. He rightly, I think, 44 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.67–8. applied the laws of evolution to language, but his methods, I must confess, went beyond the limits of 45 Genesis 4:16. my poor comprehension.” (“Obituary,” p. 288). 46 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.68. 30 Bopp, Franz (trans. Edward B. Eastwick), A Com- 47 Ibid, p.395. parative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic, German, and Sclavonic Languages 48 Edkins, “Chinese Philology”, The China Review (London, Madden & Malcolm; James Malcolm: Lon- 1, 3 (1872), 181–90, 1, 5 (1873), 293–300, pp.181–2. don, 1845–50) 31 See, Rachel Ramsey, “China and the Ideal of Order in John Webb’s 'An Historical Essay…'” Journal of the History of Ideas 62, 3 (July 2001), 483–503. 32 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.xx. 33 Müller, M., Lectures on the Science of Language, quoted in Harris, R. and Taylor, T.J., Landmarks in Linguistic Thought: The Western Tradition from So- crates to Saussure (London: Routledge, 1989), p.166. 34 Edkins, China’s Place in Philology, p.1 35 Ibid, p.2 36 Ibid, p.30. Job’s condemnation can be found at Job 31:26–28: “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.” 37 Ibid, p.31. 38 Ibid, p.34. 39 Ibid, p.51. 40 Ibid, p.55. 41 Genesis 2:19. 42 65, On the Atonement, Dissert. 53. This is likely to be William Magee, successively Bishop of Raphoe and Archbishop of Dublin, Discourses & Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement & Sacrifice: and on the Principal Arguments Advanced, and the Mode of Reasoning Employed, by the Opponents of those Doctrines as Held by the Established Church: with an Appendix Containing some Strictures on Mr. Belsham’s account of the Unitarian Scheme, in his Review of Mr. Wilberforce’s Treatise (London, 1801).

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