of providence, are arranged according to, and may be discovered by, these numbers. Hence, their belief in "intelligible numbers," as the foundation of their cosmogony; and the employment of these numbers, to calculate destinies, by which unprincipled fortune tellers make a market of the simple hearted people.
In all bodies, the Chinese imagine that three things exist: first chĭh, tangible substance, which is the gross and sensible part of things; secondly, ke, primary matter, or the subtratum on which figure, and other qualities of bodies, are reared; and thirdly, le, an universal principle, which is present with every existence, inhering or adhering to it; but how or where attached, cannot be determined. This last, they call the principle of fitness, which corresponds nearly to what some Europeans denominate the eternal fitness of things, or the internal and essential forms. It is immaterial and incorporeal, without figure; but is a kind of principle of organization, inherent in material bodies, and considered as their root and origin. Le is almost uniformly believed to be an independent principle, not under the control of any superior being; while it regulates and remunerates the good and evil actions of men. After conversing long with the Chinese on the origin and superintendence of all things, and shewing them that the material heavens cannot rule, nor senseless numbers originate the animate and rational creation, they exclaim, "It is all to be resolved into this one principle of order." And yet they attach no personality to this principle; they do not speak of it, as willing, or acting, according to choice; nor do they pay divine honours to, or expect eternal favours from it; it is, after all, essentially connected with matter,
