Chapter XV

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This is, so far as I know, the only monograph on Chinese mythology in any non-Chinese language. Nor do the native works include any scientific analysis or philosophical treatment of their myths.

My aim, after summarizing the sociology of the Chinese as a prerequisite to the understanding of their ideas and sentiments, and dealing as fully as possible, consistently with limitations of space (limitations which have necessitated the presentation of a very large and intricate topic in a highly compressed form), with the philosophy of the subject, has been to set forth in English dress those myths which may be regarded as the accredited representatives of Chinese mythology--those which live in the minds of the people and are referred to most frequently in their literature, not those which are merely diverting without being typical or instructive--in short, a true, not a distorted image.

_Edward Theodore Chalmers Werner_

_Peking_ _February_ 1922

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