CHINESE CHRONOLOGY AND CYCLES.

Mairan. Fréret, too, in the first part of the 13th volume of his works, exposes the unreliability of Chinese chronology, although in a later dissertation, he takes a more favorable view of it. His statements and arguments will be examined in a later chapter of this research.

Today, Dr. Legge in the "prolegomena" original: "prolegomena," meaning introductory remarks or a formal preface to his English translation of the Chinese Classics, Dr. Chalmers in his Origin of the Chinese, and W. F. Mayers in his Chinese Reader's Manual have not hesitated to declare their conviction, after careful study of the question, that Chinese chronology is entirely unreliable. However, Dr. Legge, in his introduction to the 3rd volume of The Sacred Books of the East (Oxford, 1879), somewhat revised his previously published opinions about Chinese history. Canon M'Clatchie has also contributed some valuable papers in the North China Herald of 1872 on the antiquity of the Chinese, in which he also contests the accuracy of their chronology.

to the pre-condition the more correct?

Therefore, since the time Chinese chronology first came to the attention of scholars, there have been two opposing opinions on the subject. Now, since the discovery of undisputed ancient monuments in Egypt and Assyria has justified the attribution of great historical antiquity to those countries and has overcome previous doubts about them, a similarly favorable feeling has been revived in the minds of some people: that Chinese chronology should also be considered and maintained as equally—