Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 238

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Examination of Four Chinese Characters:

Mencius, Book II. page 56, line 2d.*

C

以。

em

Ejin

humanitat.

#tsun

Conservat

APRIL,

AĽA sin.

corde.

That is, humanitatem conservat in corde: "He (the superior man)

preserves humanity in the heart," which exposition three of the four editions of the Four Books which have been compared confirm.

Two of them explain the word e by pa, and the third by

tseäng, as indicating the accusative case, to wit in this manner.

← jin

B. pa

D C. 將 tseäng

存 tsun

No sin.

仁jin

存 tsun

sin.

Compare I., examples A and B, and also Rémusat's Grammar, $346 and 392. Hence it appears that the learned Noel erred egre- giously, when servilely adhering to the usual signification of 》 • like a tyro he interprets the same passage "by the aid of humanity he preserves the heart," as if he had written, "using humanity he preserves the heart."

Respecting the office of e, each of the Tartar interpreters agrees with us.

gosin humanitat

be

em

moutsilen in-corde

de

That is, "he preserves humanity in the heart.

teboumbi. reponit.

}}

For every one knows that in the Tartar language, the particle be, in construction with the direct complimept preceding an active verb, points out the accusative, as if it were a separable termination of the fourth case.

The reader will find it to his advantage if he can have access to the Tartarico-Chinese Grammar entitled

Tsing Wăn Ke Mung, where (Book 3d, page 6) the particle be just quoted, inasmuch as it denotes the accusative case, is explained by the cha- racters pa, tseäng, and e.

* The edition of the Four Books to which all the quotations in this tract are referred is the one styled Sze Shoo Ho Kang. The mode of reference is as follows:

The pages have been numbered as they are in our books, and thus the reference is to each page, and not to the sheet as in the Chinese mode of numbering. The lines are counted from the right to the left, and the space between every two black lines, which run from the top to the bottom of the page, is counted as two lines, whether it is occupied by the large character when only one line of cha- racters is found, or whether it is blank from occurring at the first of a section. Thus counted, every page has eighteen lines, and the reference is easy. This work has been chosen because it is a common one and supposed to be in hands of every student of Chinese; and because all the editions of it are very uniformly printed. Tr.

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