alone have administered the
enormous empire; and he showed great interest in Chinese culture,
himself delved deeply into it, and had many works compiled, especially
works of an encyclopaedic character. The encyclopaedias enabled
information to be rapidly gained on all sorts of subjects, and thus were
just what an interested ruler needed, especially when, as a foreigner,
he was not in a position to gain really thorough instruction in things
Chinese. The Chinese encyclopaedias of the seventeenth and especially of
the eighteenth century were thus the outcome of the initiative of the
Manchurian emperor, and were compiled for his information; they were not
due, like the French encyclopaedias of the eighteenth century, to a
movement for the spread of knowledge among the people. For this latter
purpose the gigantic encyclopaedias of the Manchus, each of which fills
several bookcases, were much too expensive and were printed in much too
limited editions. The compilations began with the great geographical
encyclopaedia of Ku Yen-wu (1613-1682), and attained their climax in the
gigantic eighteenth-century encyclopaedia _T'u-shu chi-ch'eng,_
scientifically impeccable in the accuracy of its references to sources.
Here were already the beginnings of the "Archaeological School", built
up in the course of the eighteenth century. This school was usually
called "Han school" because the adherents went back to the commentaries
of the classical texts written in Han time and discarded the orthodox
explanations of Chu Hsi's school of Sung time. Later, its most prominent
leader was Tai Chen (1723-1777). Tai was greatly interested in
technology and science; he can be regarded as the first philosopher who
exhibited an empirical, scientific way of thinking. Late nineteenth and
early twentieth century Chinese scholarship is greatly obliged to him.

The most famous literary works of the Manchu epoch belong once more to
the field which Chinese do not regard as that of true literature--the
novel, the short story, and the drama. Poetry did exist, but it kept to
the old paths and had few fresh ideas. All the various forms of the Sung
period were made use of. The essayists, too, offered nothing new, though
their number was legion. One of the best known is Yuean Mei (1716-1797),
who was also the author of the collection of short stories _Tse-pu-yue_
("The Master did not tell"), which is regarded very highly by the
Chinese. The volume of short stories ent