cted
by Ta-yue himself--good ground for suspicion--but it has been
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proved to be a fabrication of a later age, though still very ancient.[*]

[Footnote *: Dr. Haenisch of Berlin has taken great pains to expose
the imposture.]

In the two preceding reigns the sovereign had always consulted
the public good rather than family interest--a form of monarchy
which the Chinese call elective, but which has never been followed,
save that the Emperor exercises the right of choice among his sons
irrespective of primogeniture. The man who bears the odium of having
departed from the unselfish policy of Yao and Shun is this same
Ta-yue. He left the throne to his son and, as the Chinese say, "made
of the empire a family estate."

This narrative comes from the _Shu-King_ or "Book of History,"
the most venerated of the Five Classics edited by Confucius; but
the reader will readily perceive that it is no more historical
than the stories of Codrus or Numa Pompilius.

In the reign of Yao we have an account of astronomical observations
made with a view to fixing the length of the year. The King tells
one man to go to the east and another to the west, to observe the
culmination and transit of certain stars. As a result he says they
will find that the year consists of 366 days, a close approximation
for that epoch. The absurdity of this style, which attributes
omniscience to the prince and leaves to his agents nothing but
the task of verification, should not be allowed to detract from
the credit due to their observations. The result arrived at was
about the same as that reached by the Babylonians at the same date
(2356 B. c.)

Other rulers who are credited with great inventions
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probably made them in the same way. Whether under Fuhi or Hwang-ti,
Ts'ang-kie is recognised as the Cadmus of China, the author of its
written characters; and Tanao, a minister of Hwang-ti, is admitted
to be the author of the cycle of sixty. Both of those emperors
may be imagined as calling up their ministers and saying to one,
"Go and invent the art of writing," and to the other, "Work out
a system of chronology."

In the same way, the inception of the culture of the silkworm and the
discovery of the magnetic needle are attributed to the predecessors
of Yao, probably on the principle that treasure-trove was the property
of the King and that if no claimant for the honour could be found
it must be attributed to some ancient monarch. The prod