Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of Writing, in a Letter to John Vaughan, Esq. IT is a just and true remark of the Rev. M. Gutzlafl', that nothing has so much puzzled the learned world in Europe as the Chinese We need not go very far to find out the cause of this embarrassment. It is produced, like many other difficulties that occur in almost every science, by the abuse of words, by the use of metaphors instead of plain intelligible language, and by looking beyond nature for the explanation of her most simple operations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.