extreamly liquid the Portuguese of the Indies do call it cange Meat-Broths are mortal at Siam because they too much relax the Stomach and when their Patients are in a condition to eat any thing solid they give them Pigs flesh preferable to any other They do not understand Chymistry although they passionately affect it Their Ignorance in Chymistry and their Fables about this matter and that several amongst them do boast of possessing the most profound secrets thereof Siam like all the rest of the East is full of two sorts of persons upon this account Impostors and Fools The late King of Siam the Father of the present Prince spent two Millions a great summ for his Country in the vain research of the Philosophers Stone and the Chineses reputed so wise have for three or four thousand years had the folly of seeking out an Universal Remedy by which they hope to exempt themselves from the necessity of dying And as amongst us there are some foolish Traditions concerning some rare persons that are reported to have made Gold or to have lived some Ages there are some very strongly established amongst the Chineses the Siameses and the other Orientals concerning those that know how to render themselves immortal either absolutely or in such a manner that they can die no otherwise than of a violent death Wherefore it is supposed that some have withdrawn themselves from the sight of men either to enjoy a free and peaceable Immortality or to secure themselves from all foreign force which might deprive them of their life which no distemper could do They relate wonders concerning the knowledge of these pretended Immortals and it is no matter of astonishment that they think themselves capable of forcing Nature in several things since they imagine that they have had the Art of freeing themselves from Death CHAP. XI What the Siameses do know of the Mathematics The great Heat of Siam repugnant to all application of Mind THE quick and clear Imagination of the Siameses should seem more proper for the Mathematics than the other Studies if it did not soon weary them but they cannot follow a long thread of Ratiocinations of which they do foresee neither the end nor the profit And it must be confessed for their Excuse that all application of Mind is so laborious in a Climate so hot as theirs that the very Europeans could hardly study there what desire soever they might have thereunto The Ignorance of the Siameses touching the principal parts of Mathematics The Siameses do therefore know nothing in Geometry or Mechanics because they can be absolutely without them And Astronomy concerns them only as far as they conceive it may be assistant to Divination They know only some Practical part thereof the Reasons of which they disdain to penetrate but of which they make use in the Horoscopes of particular Persons and in the Composition of their Almanac which as it were is a general Horoscope Of the Siamese Calendar and why they have two Epocha's It appears that they have twice caused their Calendar to be reformed by able Astronomers who to supply the Astronomical Tables have taken two arbitrary Epocha's but yet remarkable for some rare Conjunction of the Planets Having once established certain Numbers upon these Observations they by the means of several Additions Substractions Multiplications and Divisions have given for the following Years the secret of finding the place of the Planets almost as we find the Epact of every Year by adding eleven to the Epact of the Year foregoing The most Modern is evidently Arbitrary The most Modern of the two Siamese Epocha's is referred to the Year of Grace 638. I gave to Mr. Cassini Director of the Observatory at Paris the Siamese Method of finding the place of the Sun and Moon by a Calculation the ground of which is taken from this Epocha And the singular Merit which Mr. Cassini has had of unfolding a thing so difficult and penetrating the Reasons thereof will doubtless be admired by all the Learned Now as this Epocha is visibly the ground only of an Astronomical Calculation and has been chosen rather than another only because it appear'd more commodious to Calculation than another it is evident that we must thence conclude nothing which respects the Siamese History nor imagine that the Year 638 has been more Famous amongst them than another for any Event from which they have thought fit to begin to compute their Years as we compute ours from the Birth of the Saviour of the World The most Ancient also appears Arbitrary By the same Reason I am persuaded that their most Ancient Epocha from which in this Year 1689 they compute 2233 Years has not been remarkable at Siam for any thing worthy of Memory and that it proves not that the Kingdom of Siam is of that Antiquity It is purely Astronomical and serves as a Foundation to another way of calculating the places of the Planets which they have relinquished for that new Method which I have given to Mr. Cassini Some person may discover to them the Mistakes where in process of time this ancient Method must fall as in time we have found out the Errors of the Reformation of the Calendar made by the Order of Julius Caesar And is not taken from the death of Sommona-Codom The Historical Memoirs of the Siameses re-ascending as I have remark'd in the beginning to 900 Years or thereabouts it is not necessary to seek the Foundation of their Kingdom in the 545th Year before the Birth of Jesus Christ nor to suppose that from this time they have enjoyed a Succession of Kings which they themselves are absolutely ignorant of And tho' the Siameses do vulgarly report that this first Epocha from which they compute as I have said 2233 Years is that of the death of their Sommona-Codom and altho' it refers almost to the time in which Pythagoras liv'd who has sowed in the West the Doctrine of the Metempsychosis which he had learnt from the Egyptians yet it is certain that the Siameses have not any Memoirs of the time in which their Sommona-Codom might have lived And I cannot persuade my self that their Sommona-Codom could be Pythagoras who was not in the East nor that their ancient Epocha is other than Astronomical and Arbitrary no more than their Modern Epocha But if the Siameses do still make use thereof in their Dates The Variety of Style in their Dates after having relinquish'd it in their Astronomical Calculations it is because that in things of Style they do not easily alter the Usages unto which they are accustomed and yet they cease not to date sometimes with respect to that modern Epocha which they have taken as I have said from the Year of our Lord 638. But their first Month is always the Moon of November or December in which they depart not from the ancient Style even then when they date the Year according to
the other life with the faults which their Children commit in this and especially with the great want of respect which it would be in the Chineses towards their Ancestors to change the Laws which they have left them 'T is not therefore a vain Ceremony that they mourn for three years with an extream Austerity and separated from all public Employment which the Chinese Laws do order Children to observe at the death of their Father and Mother and from which they dispence not even their Kings They cannot too much imprint in their minds this respect which has always been their greatest support But what I most admire in the Laws of China is the care which they have taken to form the Morals seeing that it is only good manners which can maintain the Laws as it is only good Laws that can make good manners Plato methinks understood the whole importance of this Maxim and if my Memory fails me not he requires in some places of his Laws that they intermeddle with the privacy of the Oeconomy of his Citizens and because he feared that this might appear too new to the People so free as the Greeks were in his time he sought some excuse for the little which he delivered thereof The Chineses on the contrary have not scrupled to give Laws to almost all the Actions of men One of their most ancient Books regulates not only the Rites which concern Religion and the Sacrifices but all the Duties of Children to their Father and of the Father towards his Children of the Husband to the Wife and of the Wife to the Husband of Brethren and Friends to each other of the King to his Subjects and of the Subjects to their King of the Magistrates to the People and of the People to the Magistrates In this Book which has the Authority of a Law the old men are considered as the Fathers of all the People and of the King himself the Orphans are there considered as his Children and all the Citizens as Brethren amongst them Father Martinius reports Hist sin p. 352. that there is almost no humane action how small soever it be to which this Book prescribes not Laws even to cause trouble for an exceeding small particular I doubt not that all the Europeans would judge like him if this Book came to our knowledge but this is nevertheless a very ancient Testimony of the extream care which the Chineses have continually taken of good manners And because they knew the prevalency which the example of Kings has over People their greatest study has always been to inspire Vertue into their Kings The People they say is like the Ears of Corn wherewith a field is covered the Morals of the Prince are like the Wind which inclines them where it listeth Their Policy has therefore no particuluar manners for their Kings and other manners for the People Their Kings are obliged to respect old men they nourish them in every City and the Chinese History honourably mentions such of their Kings which have rendered them most respect and some others who have caused their illegitimate Brethren which precede them in Age to sit down at their Table and above them Their Kings are obliged to the three years mourning upon the death of their Father and their Mother and to abstain during this time from the cares of the Government altho perhaps this Law has lost it Vigour in the last times When China was as yet divided into little States which were as so many Fiefs of this great Empire Ven-cum King of Cin chased out of his little Kingdom by his Step-mother would not undertake a war to re-enter till he had mourn'd for his Father three years They believe amongst other things that their dead Parents can shorten or prolong the life of their Children they desire of them a long and happy life and upon this ridiculous ground they have in the same terms with us this precept which we have from God himself and of which his eternal verity is protecter unto us Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thou mayest enjoy a long life Xin the first King of the Race Cina having banished his Mother for her incontinence and because that his Adulterer made use of the favour of this Princess to revolt and to assemble a great Army was constrained by all his Ministers to recall her from exile altho he had made himself King by force and that thereby he seemed to be stronger than the Laws Hoei the second King of the Race Hana having also an unchast Mother dared not to punish her but not being willing to reign and suffer her debaucheries he abandon'd the Government to her out of an extream Piety and plunged himself into debauchery so that Hiaovu the sixth King of the same Race put the Queen his wife to death for fear of leaving behind him a debauched Widdow and a Mother incommodious to his Successor I should not end if I would relate all the examples of the extream respect which the Chineses have for their Father and for their Mother I will add only that they change not their Officers as they innovate nothing in their Laws They are instructed also not to have less respect for their Governors than particular persons have for their masters Their Governor they call Colao whom they generally make their chief Minister as the Grand Segnior calls his Grand Vizier Lala that is to say Governor This respect is so entire amongst them that they chastise as I have said in some place of my Relation the Governor of the Prince the presumptive Heir of the Crown for the faults which that Prince commits and that there are found some Princes who being become Kings have revenged their Governors Besides the Colao who is the King 's principal Council he has other Officers whose sole Function is to reprehend him publicly for his Faults Yvus the first King of the race Hiaa who according to their History began to reign 2207 years before Jesus Christ gave full liberty to all good persons to give him counsel and yet because that he found himself once reproved with too much sharpness in the presence of his principal Councellors he was so vexed thereat that he had resolved to put him to death who had given him this affront but his Wife appeased him Being adorned more than ordinary she presented her self before him and as he was smitten with this dress which in the perplexity wherein he was seemed to him improper she told him that she came to congratulate him for having in his Court such couragious and faithful Servants as dare to tell him the truth This liberty of admonishing the Prince passed afterwards into a Law There were as I have said some Offices purposely created for the exercising it yet without taking it away from any other Officer of State and the Chineses have always been so jealous of this Prerogative that several have died to maintain it and that there have been some examples
enough to be free from touch and sight tho' they believe that if any one be wounded the blood which flows from its wound may appear Such were the Manes and Shades of the Greeks and Romans and it is by this figure of the Souls like unto that of the Bodies that Virgil supposes that Aeneas knew Palinurus Dido and Anchises in Hell The Absurdity of their Opinion Now what is altogether impertinent in this Opinion is that the Orientals cannot tell why they attribute the humane Figure rather than any other to the Soul which they suppose able to animate all sorts of Bodies besides the humane Body When the Tartar which now reigns at China would force the Chineses to shave their hair after the Tartarian fashion several of them chose rather to suffer death than to go they said into the other World to appear before their Ancestors without hair imagining that they shaved the head of the Soul by shaving that of the Body Of the Punishments and Recompences of the Soul after death The Souls therefore tho' material are yet imperishable in their Opinion and at their departure out of this life they are punished or recompenced with Punishments or Pleasures proportioned in greatness and duration to their good or evil works until they re-enter into the humane Body wherein they must enjoy a Life more or less happy according to the Good or Evil they have committed in a former Life How they explain the Prosperity of the Wicked and the Misfortunes of the Good If a Man is unfortunate before he has done amiss as if he is dead-born the Indians believe that he has merited it in a former Life and that then perhaps he caused some Great-belly'd Woman to miscarry If on the contrary they observe a wicked Man to prosper they believe that he enjoys the Recompence which he has merited in another Life by good Actions If the Life of the Man is mixt with Prosperity and Adversity 't is because every Man they say has done Good and Evil when he formerly lived In a word no Person suffers any Misfortune according to their Opinion if he has always been innocent nor is he always happy if he has at any time been culpable nor does he enjoy any Prosperity which he has not merited by some good Action Of the several places where the Soul passes after death Besides the divers manners of being of this World as of Plant or of Animal to which the Souls are successively linked after death they reckon several places out of this World where the Souls are punished or rewarded Some are more happy and others more miserable than the World wherein we are They make all these places as Stages in the whole extent of Nature and their Books do vary in the number tho' the most common Opinion is that there are nine happy and as many unhappy The nine happy places are over our heads the nine unhappy are under our feet and the higher a place is the happier it is as also the lower it is the more unhappy it is so that the happy extend far above the Stars as the unhappy do sink a great way beneath the earth The Siameses do call the Inhabitants of the superior Worlds Theuada those of the inferior Worlds Pii and those of this World Manout The Portugueses have translated the word Theuada by that of Angels and the word Pii by that of Devils and they have given the Name of Paradice to the superior Worlds and that of Hell to the inferior It there revives again But the Siameses do not believe that the Souls in departing out of the Body do pass into these places as the Greeks and Romans thought that they went into Hell they are born according to them at the places where they go and there they do live a life which from us is conceal'd but which is subject to the infirmities of this and unto death Death and a new Birth are always the road from one of these places to another and it is not till after having lived in a certain number of places and during a certain time which ordinarily extends to some thousands of years that the Souls there punished or recompenced do happen to spring up again in the World wherein we are Now as they suppose that the Souls have a new habitation in the places where they revive they think they stand in need of the things of this Life To live a life full of Cares like this and all the ancient Paganism believed the same With the body of a dead man the Gauls burnt the things which he had most esteemed during his Life Moveables Animals Slaves and even free Persons if he had any singularly devoted to his Service They still practice worse than this if it is possible Why the Indian women burn themselvs with the body of their Husband among the Pagans of the true India where the Wife glories in burning herself alive with the body of her Husband to meet his Soul in the other world I well know that some presume that this Custom was formerly introduced in the Indies to secure the Husbands from the Treason of their Wives by forcing them to die with them Mandesh reports this opinion and Strabo had reported it before him and had disapproved it thinking it improbable either that such a Law was established or that such a reason for establishing it was true Indeed besides that this Custom is extended to the Moveables and Animals things all innocent it is free in regard of the Women none of which dies after this manner if she desires it not and it has been received in too great a part of the Country to imagine that the Crimes of the Women have given occasion thereunto Wives to be Slaves or as Slaves to their Husbands are not either more dissatisfied with their Condition nor greater Enemies to their Husbands and they change no part of the Condition as to this regard by a second Marriage Thus it is observed that the Indian Women have always look'd upon the Liberty they have of dying with their Husbands not as a Punishment but as a Felicity which is offered them The Women Slaves do sometimes follow their Mistress to the Funeral Pile but voluntarily and without compulsion And moreover it is not a thing without precedent in the Indies that an Husband enamour'd with his Wife will burn himself with her in hopes of going to enjoy another Life with her Navarette reports it is a Custom of the Tartars This Custom is received among the Tartars and is not without example among the Chineses that when there dies one amongst them one of his Wives hangs herself to follow him into the other World but that the Tartar which reigned at China in 1668. abolished this Custom and he adds that though it be not common to the Chineses nor approved by Confucius yet it is not without example He relates one in his time of the
The City of Merguy lies on the North-West Point of a great and populous Island which at the extremity of its course forms a very excellent River which the Europeans have called Tenasserim from the Name of a City seated on its Banks about 15 Leagues from the Sea This River comes from the North and after having passed through the Kingdoms of Ava and Pegu and enter'd into the Lands under the King of Siam's Jurisdiction it discharges itself by three Chanels into the Gulph of Bengal and forms the Island I have mention'd The Ports of Merguy which some report to be the best in all India is between this Isle and another that is inhabited and lies opposite and to the West of this wherein Merguy is situated CHAP. III. Concerning the History and Origine of the Siameses The Siameses little curious of their History THE Siamese History is full of Fables The Books thereof are very scarce by reason the Siameses have not the use of Printing for upon other Accounts I doubt of the report that they affect to conceal their History seeing that the Chineses whom in many things they imitate are not so jealous of theirs However that matter is notwithstanding this pretended Jealousy of the Siameses they who have attain'd to read any thing of the History of Siam assert that it ascends not very high with any character of truth The Epocha of the Siameses Behold a very dry and insipid Chronological Abridgment which the Siameses have given thereof But before we proceed it is necessary to tell you that the current year 1689 beginning it in the month of December 1688 is the 2233 of their Aera from which they date the Epocha or beginning as they say from Sommona-Codom's death But I am persuaded that this Epocha has quite another foundation which I shall afterwards explain Their Kings Their first King was named Pra Poat honne sourittep-pennaratui sonanne bopitra The chief place where he kept his Court was called Tchai pappe Mahanacon the situation of which I ignore and he began to reign An. 1300. computing after their Epocha Ten other Kings succeeded him the last of which named Ipoja sanne Thora Thesma Teperat remov'd his Royal Seat to the City of Tasco Nacora Louang which he had built the situation of which is also unknown to me The twelfth King after him whose Name was Pra Poa Noome Thele seri obliged all his People in 1731 to follow him to Locintai a City seated on a River which descends from the Mountains of Laos and runs into the Menam a little above Porselouc from which Locontai is between 40 and 50 Leagues distant But this Prince resided not always at Locontai for he came and built and inhabited the City of Pipeli on a River the mouth of which is about two Leagues to the West of the most occidental mouth of Menam Four other Kings succeeded him of which Rhamatilondi the last of the four began to build the City of Siam in 1894 and there established his Court. By which it appears that they allow to the City of Siam the Antiquity of 338 years The King Regent is the twenty fifth from Rhamatilondi and this year 1689 is the 56th or 57th year of his age Thus do they reckon 52 Kings in the space of 934 years but not all of the same Blood The Race of the present King Mr. Gervaise in his Natural and Political History of the Kingdom of Siam gives us the History of the now Regent King's Father and Van Vliet gives it us much more circumstanciated in his Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam printed at the end of Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels into Persia I refer the Reader thither to see an Example of the Revolutions which are common at Siam for this King who was not of the Royal Race tho' Vliet asserts the contrary took away the Scepter and Life of his Natural Lords and put to death all the Princes of their Blood except two which were alive when Vliet writ but of whom I could not learn any News Without all doubt this Usurper put them to death like the rest And in truth John Struys in the First Tome of his Voyages asserts that this was the Fate of the last of these two Princes who was alive in the year 1650 and was then 20 years old the Tyrant put him to death that very year with one of his Sisters upon an Accusation notoriously false But a remarkable Circumstance of the History of his Usurpation was that entering by force of Arms into the Palace he forced the King to quit it and flie into a Temple for refuge and having drag'd this unfortunate Prince out of this Temple and carry'd him back a Prisoner to the Palace he caus'd him to be declared unworthy of the Crown and Government for having deserted the Palace To this Usurper who died in 1657 after a Reign of 30 years succeeded his Brother because his Son could not or durst not then to dispute the Crown with him On the contrary to secure his Life he sought a Sanctuary in a Cloyster and cloath'd himself with the inviolable Habit of a Talapoin But he afterwards so politickly took his measures that he dispossess'd his Uncle who flying from the Palace on his Elephant was slain by a Portuguese with a Musquet Ferdinand Mendez Pinto relates that the King of Siam Another Example of the Revolutions of Siam who reigned in 1547 and to whom he gives great Praises was poyson'd by the Queen his Wife at his return from a military Expedition This Princess deliberated thus to prevent the vengeance of her Husband by reason that during his absence she had maintain'd an amorous Commerce by which she prov'd with Child And this Author adds that she soon after destroy'd the King her own Son in the same manner and had the Credit to get the Crown set upon her Lover's Head the 11th of November 1548. But in January 1549 they were both assassinated in a Temple and a Bastard Prince the Brother and Uncle of the two last Kings was taken out of a Cloyster to be advanced on the Throne The Crowns of Asia are always instable and those of India China and Japan much more than the others As for what concerns the Origine of the Siameses it would be difficult to judge whether they are only a single People A Doubt as to the Origine of the Siameses directly descended from the first Men that inhabited the Countrey of Siam or whether in process of time some other Nation has not also setled there notwithstanding the first Inhabitants The principal Reason of this Doubt proceeds from the Siameses understanding two Languages viz. the Vulgar which is a simple Tongue Two Languages at Siam consisting almost wholly of Monosyllables without Conjugation or Declension and another Language which I have already spoken of which to them is a dead Tongue known only by the Learned which is called the Balie Tongue and
They are innumerable at the Isle of Luban which is one of the Phillipines And a little after he subjoyns the Seguejes are brought from the Isles of Baldivia which are the Maldiviae 'T is not easie to say how far the use of this Money extends it self How much the use of this Money is extended It is current throughout India and almost over all the coasts of Africk and some have informed me that it is received in some places of Hungary but I can hardly believe it by reason I see it not worth the trouble to carry it thither It breaks much in the use and as there is less of it it is more worth in respect to the Silver Money as likewise it lowers its price when there arrives any considerable cargo by any Ship for it is a kind of Merchandise The ordinary price at Siam is that a Fouan or the eighth part of a Fical is worth eight hundred Coris or that 7 or 800 Coris are hardly worth a Penny The lowness of Money being a certain sign of a good Market or rather of the cheapness of Commodities CHAP. XV. A Character of the Siameses in general AS easiness of living consists in the reasonable price of things necessary for life The Siameses are good People and as good manners are more easily preserved in a moderate easiness than in a Poverty attended with too much labour or in an over-abundant Idleness it may be affirm'd that the Siameses are good men Vices are detestable amongst them and they excuse them not as witty conceits nor as sublimity of mind A Siamese never so little above the refuse of the people is so far from making himself drunk that he accounts it a shame to drink Arak Adultery is rare at Siam Adultery is rare at Siam not so much because the Husband has the power of doing himself Justice over his Wife that is to say to kill her if he finds her in a palpable offence or to sell her if he can convict her of Infidelity as because the Women are not corrupted by Idleness for it is they that maintain the men by their Labour nor by the Luxury of the Table or of Cloaths nor by Gameing nor by Shows The Siamese Women do not play they receive no Visits from men and Plays are very rare at Siam and have no appointed days nor certain price nor publick Theater It must not however be thought that all Marriages are chaste but at least any other Love more immoderate than that of the Wives is they say without example Jealousie is amongst them only a meer opinion of Glory The Jealousie of the Siameses to their Wives which is greater in those that are most highly advanced in Dignity The Wives of the People managing all the Trade do enjoy a perfect Liberty Those of the Nobles are very reserved and stir not abroad but seldom either upon some Family visit or to go to the Pagodes But when they go out they go with their face uncovered even when they go on foot and sometimes it is hard to distinguish them from the Women-slaves which accompany them In a word they not only find nothing austere in the constraint under which they live but they place their glory therein They look upon a greater liberty as a shame and would think themselves slighted and contemned by a Husband that would permit it them They are jealous for them as much as they are themselves The Glory of the Asiatick Women There is not a vertuous Woman in Asia who in time of War chuses not rather that her Husband should kill her than that he should suffer her to fall under the power of the Enemies Tacitus in the Twelfth Book of his Annals gives an example thereof in Zenobia the wife of Rhadamistus The Husbands themselves do think it the most shameful thing in the world to them that their Wives should fall into the Enemies hands and when this happens the greatest affront that can be done them is not to restore them their Wives But tho the Women of Asia be capable of sacrificing their life to their glory there ceases not to be some amongst them who take secret pleasures when they can and who hazard their glory and their life upon this account 'T is reported that there have been some examples hereof amongst the King of Siam's Wives How closely soever they be shut up they do sometimes find out a way to have Lovers Some have assur'd me that the ordinary method by which this Prince punishes them is first to submit them to a Horse accustomed I know not how to the love of Women and then to put them to death 'T is some years since he gave one to the Tygers and because these Animals spared her at the first he offered her a Pardon but this Woman was so unworthy as to refuse it and with so many affronts that the King looking upon her as distracted ordered again that she should dye They irritated the Tygers and they tore her in pieces in his presence It is not so certain that he puts the Lovers to death but at the least he causes them to be severely chastized The common opinion at Siam is that 't was a fault of this nature which caused the last disgrace of the late Barcalon elder Brother to the King of Siam's first Ambassadour to the King The King his Master caused him to be very severely bastinado'd and forbore to see him yet without taking away his Offices On the contrary he continued to make use of him during the six months that he survived the blows which he had received and he with his own hand prepared all the Remedies which the Barcalon took in his last sickness because no person dared to give him any for fear of being accused of the death of a man who appeared so dear to his Master Bernier relates some examples by which it appears that the Great Mogul does not always punish the Women of his Seraglio that offended in their duty nor the Men that are their Accomplices with death These Princes consider these sorts of Crimes like the others which may be committed against their Majesty unless any sentiment of Love renders them more sensible of Jealousie The Jealousie of the Siameses towards their Daughters The Siamese Lords are not less jealous of their Daughters than of their Wives and if any one commits a fault they sell her to a certain man who has a priviledge of prostituting them for Money in consideration of a Tribute which he pays the King 'T is said that he has six hundred all Daughters of Officers in esteem He likewise purchases Wives when the Husbands sell them being convicted of Infidelity Their respect towards Old Men. Disrespect towards Old Men is not less rare at Siam than at China Of the two Mandarins which came on board the Kings Ambassadours Ship to bring them the first Compliment from the King of Siam the younger tho the
Indians have added to these Errors The Indians do now believe like the ancient Chineses some Souls as well good as bad diffused every where to which they have distributed the Divine Omnipotence And there is yet found some remains of this very Opinion amongst the Indians which have embraced Mahumetanism But by a new Error the Pagans of the Indies have thought all these Souls of the same nature and they have made them all to rowl from one body to another The Spirit of the Heaven of the ancient Chineses had some Air of Divinity It was I think immortal and not subject to wax old and to die and to leave its place to a Successor but in the Indian Doctrine of the Metempsychosis the Souls are fixed no where and succeeding one another every where they are not one better than another by their nature they are only designed to higher or lower functions in Nature according to the merit of their work Why the Indians have consecrated no Temple to the Spirits not even to that of Heaven The Antient Chineses have divided the Justice of God The Justice of Heaven was principally busied in punishing the Faults of the Kings of China Thus the Indians have consecrated no Temples to the Spirits not so much as to that of Heaven because they believe them all Souls like all the rest which are still in the course of Transmigration that is to say in Sin and in the Torments of different sorts of life and consequently unworthy of having Altars But if the ancient Chineses have as I may say reduc'd the Providence and Omnipotence of God into piece-meals they have not less divided his Justice They assert that the Spirits like concealed Ministers were principally busied in punishing the hidden faults of men that the Spirit of Heaven punished the faults of the King the Ministring Spirits of Heaven the faults of the King's Ministers and so of other Spirits in regard of other men On this Foundation they said to their King that though he was the adoptive Son of Heaven yet the Heaven would not have any regard to him by any sort of Affliction but by the sole consideration of the good or evil that he should do in the Government of his Kingdom They called the Chinese Empire the Celestial Command because said they a King of China ought to govern his State as Heaven governed Nature and that it was to Heaven that he ought to seek the Science of Governing They acknowledged that not only the Art of Ruling was a Present from Heaven but that Regality it self was given by Heaven and that it was a present difficult to keep because that they supposed that Kings could not maintain themselves on the Throne without the savour of Heaven nor please Heaven but by Vertue How they believe their Kings responsable to Heaven for the manners of their Subjects They carried this Doctrine so far that they pretended that the sole Vertue of Kings might render their Subjects Vertuous and that thereby the Kings were first responsible to Heaven for the wicked manners of their Kingdom The Vertue of Kings that is to say the Art of Ruling according to the Laws of China was in their Opinion a Donative from Heaven which they called Celestial Reason or Reason given by Heaven and like to that of Heaven The Vertue of Subjects according to them the regards of the Citizens as well from one to another as from all towards their Prince according to the Laws of China was the work of good Kings 'T is a small matter said they to punish Crimes it is necessary that a King prevents them by his Vertue They extoll one of their Kings for having reigned Twenty two years the People not perceiving that is to say not feeling the weight of the Royal Authority no more than the force which moves Nature and which they attribute to Heaven They report then that for these Twenty two years there was not one single Process in all China nor one single Execution of Justice a Wonder which they call to govern imperceptably like the Heaven and which alone may cause a doubt of the Fidelity of their History Another of their Kings meeting as they say a Criminal which was lead to Punishment took it upon himself for that under his Reign he committed Crimes worthy of Death And another seeing China afflicted with Sterility for seven years condemned himself if their History may be credited to bear the Crimes of his People as thinking himself only culpable and resolved to devote himself to death and to sacrifice himself to the Spirit of Heaven the Revenger of the Crimes of Kings But their History adds that Heaven satisfied with the Piety of that Prince exempted him from that Sacrifice and restored Fertility to the Lands by a sudden and plentiful Rain As the Heaven therefore executes Justice only upon the King and that it inflicts it only upon the King for what it sees punishable in the People the Ministers of Heaven do execute Justice on the secret Faults which the King's Ministers commit and all the Officers which depend upon them and after the same manner the other Spirits do watch over the Actions of the Men that in the Kingdom of China have a rank equal to that which these Spirits do possess in the invincible Monarchy of Nature whereof the Spirit of Heaven is King Besides this the natural Honor which most men have of the dead The Chineses fear their dead Parents whom they knew very well in their Life-time and the Opinion which several have of having seen them appear to them whether by an effect of this natural Honor which represents them to them or by Dreams so lively that they resemble the Truth do induce the ancient Chineses to believe that the Souls of their Ancestors which they judged to be of very subtile matter pleased themselves in continuing about their Posterity and that they might though after their death chastise the Faults of their Children The Chinese People still continue in these opinions of the temporal Punishments and Rewards which come from the Soul of Heaven and from all the other Souls though moreover for the greatest part they have embraced the Opinion of the Metempsychosis unknown to their Ancestors But by little and little the Men of Letters that is to say The Impiety of the present Chineses which are men of Learning those that have some degrees of Literature and who alone have a Hand in the Government being become altogether impious and yet having altered nothing in the Language of their Predecessors have made of the Soul of Heaven and of all the other Souls I know not what aerial substances uuprovided of Intelligence and for the Judge of our Works they have established a blind Fatality which in their opinion makes that which might exercise an Omnipotent and Illuminated Justice How ancient this Impiety is at China belongs not to me to determin Father de Rhodes in his