pa (1) pa (2) pa (3) pa (4)

To say, for example, pa (3) instead of pa (1) would be as great a mistake as to say ‘grasp’ instead of ‘trumpet.’  Correctness of tone cannot be learnt except by oral instruction.

Rhythm

What tone is to the individual sound rhythm is to the sentence.  This also, together with proper appreciation of the mutual modifications of tone and rhythm, can be correctly acquired only by oral instruction.

NOTES

[1] The inventions of the Chinese during a period of four thousand years may be numbered on the fingers of one hand.

[2] East of Asia Magazine, i, 15-16.

[3] Cf.  Aristotle’s belief that bugs arose spontaneously from sweat.

[4] For the Buddhist account see China Review, xi, 80-82.

[5] Compare the Japanese legend, which relates that the Sun-goddess was induced to come out of a cave by being tempted to gaze at herself in a mirror.  See Myths and Legends of Japan, F. Hadland Davis, pp. 27-28.

[6] See Myths of the Norsemen, by H. A. Guerber.  These resemblances and the further one—­namely, the dualism in the prechaotic epoch (a very interesting point in Scandinavian mythology)—­illustrate the danger of inferring identity of origin from similarity of physical, intellectual, or moral results.  Several remarkable parallelisms of Chinese religious and mythological beliefs with those recorded in the Hebrew scriptures may also be briefly noted.  There is an age of virtue and happiness, a garden with a tree bearing ’apples of immortality,’ guarded by a winged serpent (dragon), the fall of man, the beginnings of lust and war (the doctrine of original sin), a great flood, virgin-born god-men who rescue man from barbarism and endow him with superhuman attributes, discipleship, worship of a Virgin Mother, trinities, monasticism, celibacy, fasting, preaching, prayers, primeval Chaos, Paradise, etc.  For details see Chinese Repository, vii, 520-521.

[7] Cf. the dwarfs in the Scandinavian myth.

[8] See Legge, Shu ching, ii, 320, note.

[9] In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is as well to note that the mention of the t’ai chi in the Canon of Changes (I ching) no more constituted monism the philosophy of China than did the steam-driven machinery mentioned by Hero of Alexandria constitute the first century B.C. the ‘age of steam.’  Similarly, to take another example, the idea of the earth’s rotundity, though conceived centuries before Ptolemy in the second century, did not become established before the sixteenth century.  It was, in fact, from the I ching that the Chinese derived their dualistic (not their monistic) conception of the world.

[10] “Formerly, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt that I was a butterfly, flying about and feeling that it was enjoying itself.  I did not know that it was Chou.  Suddenly I awoke and was myself again, the veritable Chou.  I did not know whether it had formerly been Chou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or whether it was now a butterfly dreaming that it was Chou.” Chuang Tzu, Book II.