China and the West

Godwin, William. An inquiry concerning political justice and its influence on general virtue and happiness [ID D27224].
Vol. 1 :
"While the French, the Greeks and the Persians have been remarkable for their gaiety, the Spaniards, the Turks and the Chinese are not less distinguished by the seriousness of their deportment."
"In China hieroglyphical writing has never been superseded by alphabetical, and this from the very nature of their language, which is considerably monosyllabic, the same sound being made to signify a great variety of objects, by means of certain shadings of tone too delicate for any alphabet to be able to represent. They have however two kinds of writing, one for the learned, and another for the vulgar. The learned adhere closely to their hieroglyphical writing, representing every word by its corresponding picture ; but the vulgar are frequent in their deviations from it. Hieroglyphical writing and speech may indeed be considered in the first instance as two languages, running parallel to each other, but with no necessary connection. The picture and the word each of them represent the idea, one as immediately as the other. But, though independent, they will become accidentally associated ; the picture at first imperfectly, and afterwards more constantly suggesting the idea of its correspondent found. It is in this manner that the mercantile classes of China began to corrupt, as is is styled, their hieroglyphical writing. They had a word suppose of two syllables to write. The character appropriate to that word they were not acquainted with, or it failed to suggest itself to their memory. Each of the syllables however was a distinct word in the language, and the characters belonging to them perfectly familiar…"
Vol. 2 :
"There are various methods by the practice of which population may be checked; by the exposing of children, as among the ancients, and, at this day, in China ; by the art of procuring abortion, as it is said to subsist in the island of Ceylon ; by a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, which is found extremely hostile to the multiplication of the species; or, lastly, by a systematical abstinence, such as must be supposed, in some degree, to prevail in monasteries of either sex."