Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 566

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Iætter to the Editor.

Ост.

ART. II. Letter to the Editor of the Repository upon Dr. Legge's argument of the word for God in Chinese. By A Looker-on. To the Editor of the Chinese Repository,

I

SIR,-I happened to see only yesterday a copy of Dr. Legge's remarks on my letter to you. As to the error in transcribing Locke's words to which he alludes, I do not know whether I am to blame or you in a rough copy which I happen to have by me, I find the expression rightly quoted. Very possibly, however, in writing a second copy, may have made a mistake Would Dr. Legge allow me to ask him, since he is so particular as to the least word, what he means on page 71 of his last pamphlet by " eliminating” the truth? When I was a boy, I remember I was taught that to "eliminate " an unknown quantity from an algebraic equation meant to get rid of it, to banish it : I am not aware now of any other sense in which the word is used: surely, therefore, Dr. Legge would not have us" eliminate" the TRUTH!

I shall not allude to Dr. Legge's remarks upon my former views. I do not myself hold them now, having been convinced (at least very nearly so) by the arguments I have heard since, and as much as any other by Dr. Legge's own pamphlet, that Shin, and Shin alone, is a

proper

translation for the word God. I think it would be difficult to find a piece of reasoning more sophistical than that by which Dr. Legge tries in his first pamphlet to show us that God is a relative term. He does not tell us that "God" satisfies the conditions necessary to be satisfied in order that a word may be considered a relative term; he says, "I have no hesitation" in adding to the list that of "God and creatures," but he does not state that it has the qualifications of the class of relative terms. To do this he must show the nature of the relation that is implied. I presume from his words quoted above, that this is that of creation: is the word God then the same as creator? "Creator and creatures" are correlatives; are "God and creatures" the same idea in other words? If so, does Shángti translate that relation? I would remark that this must be shown. Pater in Latin expresses a particular relation; Father in English expresses the same; we therefore translate the one by the other does Shángti then tran- slate the word God, if it means creator? It will not do to say God is a relative term, and Shangtí is a relative, therefore God will be best translated by Shangti; we must show that the same peculiar relation is implied in both, and Bishop Boone conclusively shows that this is not the case, as far at least as the idea of creation is concerned.

Again; Dr. Legge's reasoning to show that “God' can not be a