h works as those of Thucydides or Herodotus. The
Chinese historical works have the advantage that the section of annals
gives at once the events of a particular year, the monographs describe
the development of a particular field of knowledge, and the biographical
section offers information concerning particular personalities. The
mental attitude is that of the gentry: shortly after the time of
Ss[)u]-ma Ch'ien an historical department was founded, in which members
of the gentry worked as historians upon the documents prepared by
representatives of the gentry in the various government offices.

In addition to encyclopaedias and historical works, many books of
philosophy were written in the Han period, but most of them offer no
fundamentally new ideas. They were the product of the leisure of rich
members of the gentry, and only three of them are of importance. One is
the work of Tung Chung-shu, already mentioned. The second is a book by
Liu An called _Huai-nan Tz[)u]_. Prince Liu An occupied himself with
Taoism and allied problems, gathered around him scholars of different
schools, and carried on discussions with them. Many of his writings are
lost, but enough is extant to show that he was one of the earliest
Chinese alchemists. The question has not yet been settled, but it is
probable that alchemy first appeared in China, together with the cult of
the "art" of prolonging life, and was later carried to the West, where
it flourished among the Arabs and in medieval Europe.

The third important book of the Han period was the _Lun Heng_ (Critique
of Opinions) of Wang Ch'ung, which appeared in the first century of the
Christian era. Wang Ch'ung advocated rational thinking and tried to pave
the way for a free natural science, in continuation of the beginnings
which the natural philosophers of the later Chou period had made. The
book analyses reports in ancient literature and customs of daily life,
and shows how much they were influenced by superstition and by ignorance
of the facts of nature. From this attitude a modern science might have
developed, as in Europe towards the end of the Middle Ages; but the
gentry had every reason to play down this tendency which, with its
criticism of all that was traditional, might have proceeded to an attack
on the dominance of the gentry and their oppression especially of the
merchants and artisans. It is fascinating to observe how it was the
needs of the merchants and seafarers of Asia Minor