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fused to supply distinctions. In fact, the differentiation of literature from science, however "natural " it may now look to us, was a process of slow and fitful evolution dependent not only on individual intelligence but on social development. The dependence of the ideal ends of literature on such development might be illustrated from the writings of every people, every social group, which has produced a literature of its own. If it may be seen from Spenser's introductory letter to his Faerie Queene that our modern democratic conceptions of literature have no place in his knightly theory of poetry as intended "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline," similar contrasts might be easily discovered between the early and modern ideals of song in France, or Germany, or Spain. But we need not confine our examples to European nations. The paternal government of China and the sentiments of family life which form the striking social characteristic of that vast empire have left their marks upon the ideals of Chinese literature in general and upon that of the Chinese drama in particular. "Chinese poetry," says M. Bazin (introduction to his Théatre Chinois, p. xxvii.), "requires every dramatic work to have a moral end or meaning. For example, the moral purpose of the play called Tchao-meï-hiang, or A Maid's Intrigues, discovers itself in the words addressed by the lady Han to her daughter, 'Know you not that now, as in ancient times, the marriage of husband and wife needs to be consecrated by rites and ceremonies?' The dénoûment is the triumph of virtue. Any play without a moral purpose is in Chinese eyes only a ridiculous work in which one can find no meaning. According to Chinese authors the object aimed at in a serious drama is to present the noblest lessons of history to the ignorant who