The catalogues of Liang Hsin enumerated more than 13,000 volumes of a larger or smaller size, the productions of nearly 600 different writers, and arranged in thirty-eight subdivisions of subjects [1]. In the third catalogue, the first subdivision contained the orthodox writers [2], to the number of fifty-three, with 836 Works or portions of their Works. Between Mencius and 1 凡書六略, 三十八種, 五百九十六家, 萬三千二百六九卷. 2 儒家者流. K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius, eight different authors have place. The second subdivision contained the Works of the Taoist school [1], amounting to 993 collections, from thirty-seven different authors. The sixth subdivision contained the Mohist writers [2], to the number of six, with their productions in 86 collections. I specify these two subdivisions, because they embrace the Works of schools or sects antagonistic to that of Confucius, and some of them still hold a place in Chinese literature, and contain many references to the five Classics, and to Confucius and his disciples. 10. The inquiry pursued in the above paragraphs conducts us to the conclusion that the materials from which the classics, as they have come down to us, were compiled and edited in the two centuries preceding our Christian era, were genuine remains, going back to a still more remote period. The injury which they sustained from the dynasty of Ch'in was, I believe, the same in character as that to which they were exposed during all the time of 'the Warring States.' It may have been more intense in degree, but the constant warfare which prevailed for some centuries among the different states which composed the kingdom was eminently unfavourable to the cultivation of literature. Mencius tells us how the princes had made away with many of the records of antiquity, from which their own usurpations and innovations might have been condemned [3]. Still the times were not unfruitful, either in scholars or statesmen, to whom the ways and monuments of antiquity were dear, and the space from the rise of the Ch'in dynasty to the death of Confucius was not very great. It only amounted to 258 years. Between these two periods Mencius stands as a connecting link. Born probably in the year B.C. 371, he reached, by the intervention of Kung Chi, back to the sage himself, and as his death happened B.C. 288, we are brought down to within nearly half a century of the Ch'in dynasty. From all these considerations we may proceed with confidence to consider each separate Work, believing that we have in these Classics and Books what the great sage of China and his disciples gave to their country more than 2000 years ago. 1 道家者流. 2 墨家者流. 3 See Mencius, V. Pt. II. ii. 2. CHAPTER II. OF THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS. SECTION I. FORMATION OF THE TEXT OF THE ANALECTS BY THE SCHOLARS OF THE HAN DYNASTY. 1.