2. _The Nestorian Christians._--Date between 600 and 1200 A.D. The _extent_ of the influence of these early missionaries will be examined in the section upon the Syrians. It is the second of the great external civilizing influences that have acted upon China. Without carrying my scepticism so far as to limit the antiquity of the Chinese history to the epoch of the Nestorians, I cannot but put a high importance on the introduction of Syrian literature, Syrian theology, and Syrian science. 3. _The Buddhism of India._--This is generally believed to have been introduced into China in the first century after Christ. I have not seen the translation of the Annals of the Han Dynasty by the Archimandrite Hyacinth; so that I cannot say at what period they profess to represent cotemporary events. Whatever, however, that period may be, it is the extreme date of Chinese history: now this cannot be earlier than B.C. 200; that being the epoch when the Han dynasty began to reign. Viewed in respect to our reasons for concluding that such or such a fact took place, there are five grounds of belief:-- 1. _Historical grounds._--Here the facts are believed on _testimony_; the testimony of men who had means of knowing them. That such witnesses should have lived at the time when the facts in question took place, is the great and essential condition of their credibility. 2. _The belief ex necessitate._--A fact which, at the time of its first announcement could only have been known from having been witnessed by a cotemporary, but which at some later period is shown from other facts to have been real, is to be admitted unreservedly; the evidence in its favour being of the highest kind. Of this sort are such astronomical facts as, in the present state of our knowledge, can be ascertained independently of experience, but which, when first notified, could only have been ascertained _by_ experience. 3. _Traditional Grounds._--Here the _immediate_ authority to the person who is informed of a real or supposed fact, is some one who had not the possibility of knowing the facts in question from being contemporary with them; but who heard it from some one who was so contemporary--or else heard it from some one who heard it from some one, &c., _ad infinitum_. Here the statements are possible or impossible, probable or improbable. If possible, they _may_ be true; if probable, they are likely to be so. In neither case, however, are they historical facts; that is, there is no _testimony_ founded upon a knowledge of the event.