LITERATI (letrados, lettered), an epithet given to such persons amongst the Chinese as are able to read and write their own language. The literati alone are capable of being made mandarins. Literati is also the name of a particular sect, either in religion, philosophy, or politics, consisting principally of the learned men of that country, amongst whom it is called jukiao, or learned. It had its rise in the year of Christ 1400, when the emperor, to awaken the native affection of the people for knowledge, which had been quite banished by the preceding civil wars, and to stir up emulation amongst the mandarins, selected forty-two of the ablest of the doctors, to whom he gave a commission to compose a body of doctrine agreeable to that of the ancients, which was then become the rule or standard of the learned. The delegates applied themselves to the business with very great attention; but some fancied them rather to have wrested the doctrine of the ancients to make it consist with their own, than to have built up theirs upon the model of the ancients. They speak of the Deity as if that being were no more than mere nature, or the natural power or virtue that produces, disposes, and preserves the several parts of the universe. He is, say they, a pure, perfect principle, without beginning or end;
Litharge the source of all things, the essence of every being, and that which determines it to be what it is. They make God the soul of the world; they say he is diffused throughout all matter, and produces all the changes which occur in it. In short, it is not easy to determine whether they resolve God into nature, or lift up nature into God; for they ascribe to it many of those things which we attribute to the Deity. This doctrine introduced a refined kind of atheism, instead of the idolatry which prevailed before. The work, being composed by so many persons of learning and parts, and approved by the emperor himself, was received with infinite applause by all the people. Many were pleased with it, because it seemed to subvert all religion; others approved of it, because the little religion that it left them could not give them much trouble. And thus was formed the sect of the literati, consisting of the maintainers and adherents to this doctrine. The court, the mandarins, and the persons of fortune and quality, and others, are generally amongst its adherents; but a great part of the common people still hold to their worship of idols. The literati freely tolerate the Mahomedans, because they adore, with them, the king of heaven, and author of nature; but they entertain a perfect aversion to all sorts of idolaters, and it was once resolved to extirpate them. The disorder this would have occasioned in the empire prevented it; and they now content themselves with condemning them, in general, as heresies, which they do solemnly every year at Pekin.