The Spirit of the Chinese People 精彩片段：
chapter 33
That the work of translating the Chinese Classics had to be done, was also a necessity of the time, and Dr. Legge has accomplished it, and the result is a dozen huge, ponderous tomes. The quantity of work done is certainly stupendous, whatever may be thought of the quality. In presence of these huge volumes we feel almost afraid to speak. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that the work does not altogether satisfy us. Mr. Balfour justly remarks that in translating these classics a great deal depends upon the terminology employed by the translator. Now we feel that the terminology employed by Dr. Legge is harsh, crude, inadequate, and in some places, almost unidiomatic. So far for the form. As to the matter, we will not hazard our own opinion, but will let the Rev. Mr. Faber of Canton speak for us. "Dr. Legges own notes on Mencius, "he says, "show that Dr. Legge has not a philosophic understanding of his author." We are certain that Dr. Legge could not have read and translated these works without having in some way tried to conceive and shape to his own mind the teaching of Confucius and his school as a connected whole; yet it is extraordinary that neither in his notes nor in his dissertations has Dr. Legge let slip a single phrase or sentence to show what he conceived the teaching of Confucius really to be, as a philosophic whole. Altogether, therefore, Dr. Legge s judgment on the value of these works cannot by any means be accepted as final, and the translator of the Chinese Classics is yet to come. Since the appearance of the two works above mentioned, many books have been written on China: a few, it is true, of really great scholastic importance; but none, we believe showing that Chinese scholarship has reached an important turning point.
First, there is Mr. Wylie s "Notes on Chinese Literature. " It is, however, a mere catalogue, and not a book with any literary pretension at all. Another is the late Mr. Mayerss "Chinese Readers Manual . " It is certainly not a work that can lay claim to any degree of perfection. Nevertheless, it is a very great work, the most honest conscientious and unpretending of all the books that have been written on China. Its usefulness, moreover, is inferior only to the Tzu-Erh-Chi of Sir Thomas Wade.
Another Chinese scholar of note is Mr. Herbert A. Giles of the British Consular Service. Like the early French sinologues, Mr. Giles possesses the enviable advantage of a clear, vigorous, and beautiful
style. Every object he touches upon becomes at once clear and luminous. But with one or two exceptions, he has not been quite fortunate in the choice of subjects worthy of his pen. One exception is the "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," which may be taken as a model of what translation from the Chinese should be. But the Liao-chai-chih-i, a remarkably beautiful literary work of art though it be, belongs yet not to the highest specimens of Chinese literature.
Next to Dr.Legges labours, Mr.Balfours recent translation of the Nan-hua King of Chuang-tzu is a work of certainly the highest ambition. We confess to have experienced, when we first heard the work announced, a degree of expectation and delight which the announcement of an Englishman entering the Hanlin College would scarcely have raised in us. The Nan-hua King is acknowledged by the Chinese to be one of the most perfect of the highest specimens of their national literature. Since its appearance two centuries before the Christian era, the influence of the book upon the literature of China is scarcely inferior to the works of Confucius and his schools; while its effect upon the language and spirit of the poetical and imaginative literature of succeeding dynasties is almost as exclusive as that of the Four Books and Five Chinese upon the philosophical works of China. But Mr.Balfours work is not a translation at all; it is simply a mistranslation. This, we acknowledge, is a heavy, and for us, daring judgment to pass upon a work upon which Mr. Balfour must have spent many years. But we have ventured it, and it will be expected of us to make good our judgment. We believe Mr. Balfour would hardly condesend to join issue with us if we were to raise the question of the true interpretation of the philosophy of Chuang-tzu. "But,"_we quote from the Chinese preface of Lin Hsi-chung, a recent editor of the Nan-hua King_"in reading a book, it is necessary to understand first the meaning of each single word: then only can you construe the sentences, then only can you perceive the arrangement of the para-graphs; and then, last of all, can you get at the central proposition of the whole chapter." Now every page of Mr. Balfour s translation bears marks that he has not understood the meaning of many single words, that he has not construed the sentences correctly, and that he has missed the arrangement of the paragraphs. If these propositions which we have assumed can be proved to be true, as they can easily be done, being merely points regarding rules of grammar and syntax, it then follows very clearly that Mr. Balfour has missed the meaning and central proposition of whole chapters.
But of all the Chinese scholars of the present day we are inclined to place the Reverend Mr. Faber of Canton at the head. We do not think that Mr. Fabers labours are of more scholastic value or a higher degree of literary merit than the works of others, but we find that almost every sentence he has written shows a grasp of literary and philosophic principles such as we do not find in any other scholar of the present time. What we conceive these principles to be we must reserve for the next portion of the present paper, when we hope to be able to state the methods, aims, and objects of Chinese scholarship.