(tetrados, 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 jidiao, 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;