come the state religion of China, and is maintained by the whole power of the emperor and the literary aristocracy. His books are published yearly by societies organized for that purpose, and are distributed gratuitously. His forty thousand descendants are treated with the highest consideration. There are sixteen hundred and sixty temples erected to his memory, and one of these covers ten acres of ground. On the two festivals in the year sacred to his memory seventy thousand animals of various kinds are sacrificed, and twenty-seven thousand pieces of silk are burned on his altars. But his religion has no priests, no liturgy, no public worship, except on these two occasions.

The system of Confucius is, as we have said, the established religion of the state. But there are two other religions in China— Buddhism and Tao-ism-which give the Chinese the element of religious worship and teach them the doctrine of a supernatural world, not found in the Confucian system, and which are simply tolerated as adapted to weak-minded persons. Confucianism, perpetually taught by the competitive examinations, controls the thought of China. It developed from the birth of Confucius to the death of Mencius-from B. C. 551 to B. C. 313. Its second period was from the time of Chow-tsze (A. D. 1034) to that of Choo-tsze (A. D. 1200). The last of these gave the real direction to Chinese philosophy, and was one of the great men of the empire. His works are mainly commentaries on the Kings and the Four Books, and are memorized by millions of Chinese who aspire to pass the publicservice examinations.

The Chinese philosophy which Choo-tsze established considers the Tae-keih, or Grand Extreme, as the highest and final principle of all existence. This principle is altogether immaterial, and the foundation of order in the universe; and all animate and inanimate nature emanate therefrom. It operates from all eternity by expansion and contraction, or by constant active and passive pulsation. The active expansive pul

sation is called Yong, the passive contracting pulsation is Yin, and these are regarded as the positive and negative essences of all things. When the active expansive pulsation has attained its farthest extreme, the operation becomes passive and intensive; and all material and mortal existences arise from these vibrations. Thus creation is constantly in progress. Matter and spirit being opposite results of the same force, the former tending to variety, the latter to unity. Variety in unity is a permanent and universal law of existence. Man originates from the highest development of these pulsatory operations. Man's nature, as the ultimate perfection, is good, embracing the five elements of charity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and sincerity. As man comes in contact with the exernal world evil follows. The holy man has an instinctive insight into the ultimate principle in its double operation, and therefore spontaneously and easily obeys his nature. quently all his thoughts are perfectly wise, his actions perfectly good, and his words perfectly true. Confucius was the last of these holy men. The fact that these holy men perceived instinctively the working of the ultimate principle has given their writings, the Sacred Books, infallible authority.

Conse

Confucian philosophy regards example as all-powerful, the happiness of the people as the security of the empire, the attainment of a knowledge of the essence of things as the result of constant solitary thought, and the virtue and contentment of the people as the object of all government.

The philosophy of Confucius teaches that the ultimate principle is not essentially identical with a living, intelligent and personal God. When Confucius spoke of Teen, or Heaven, he did not assert any faith in such a being. He neither asserted nor denied a Supreme Being. He simply ignored Him, as did the Buddha. The worship and prayer, according to Confucianism, does not necessarily imply such a belief. The prayer of Confucius was a prayer of reverence addressed to some sacred, mysterious, hidden power, above and back of all visible things.

He did not venture to intimate what that unknown power is. In the She-King, however, a personal God is addressed. The most ancient books recognize a Divine person. They teach that there is a Supreme Being, who is present everywhere, who sees everything, and knows everything; and that this Being desires all men to live together peaceably and as brothers. He requires right actions, pure desires and thoughts, a serious demeanor, "which is like a palace where virtue resides." He requires us to specially guard the tongue. "For a blemish may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polishing it; but, if your words have the least blemish, there is no way to efface that."

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues." "To acknowledge one's incapacity is the way to be soon prepared to teach others; for from the moment that a man is no longer full of himself, nor puffed up with empty pride, whatever good he learns in the morning he practices before night." "Heaven penetrates to the bottom of our

hearts, like into a dark chamber. We must confine ourselves to it, till we are like two instruments of music tuned to the same pitch. We must join ourselves with it, like two tablets which appear but one. We must receive its gifts the very moment its hand is open to bestow. Our irregular passions shut up the door of our souls against God."

These are the teachings of the Books of Kings, the oldest remaining productions of the human intellect. They appear to have been almost forgotten in the time of Confucius, when their precepts were entirely neglected. Confucius revised them, with additions of his own explanations and comments, and near the end of his life called his disciples around him and solemnly dedicated these Sacred Books to Heaven. He built an altar, placed the books upon it, adored God, and upon his knees humbly returned thanks for the life and health bestowed upon him to complete his undertaking.

AO-ISM is one of the three religions of China, the other two being Confucianism and Buddhism. Tao-ism comes under three distinct forms; I, as a philosophy of the absolute or unconditioned, in the great work of its founder Lao-tse; 2, as a system of morals of the utilitarian kind; 3, as a system of magic, connected with a belief in spirits. The Tao-te-king gives us the ideas of Laotse, which Chinese commentators themselves regard as very obscure and hard to understand.

The Tao, the origin of heaven and earth, cannot be named. As that which is namable, it is the mother of all things. These two are necessarily one. Being and not being are born from each other. The Tao is empty, but cannot be exhausted. It is pure

and profound, and existed before the gods. It can not be seen. It returns into not-being. It is vague, confused, obscure. It is small and powerful. It is present everywhere, and all beings return into it. It has no desires and is great. All things are born of being. Being is born of not-being.

Thus it appears that the philosophy of the Tao-te-king is that of absolute being, or the identity of being and not-being, thus corresponding with the philosophy of Hegel, twenty-three centuries later. It teaches that the absolute is the source of being and of not-being. Being is essence, and notbeing is existence.

One attains to all that is not-being by identifying himself with being, which is the source of not-being. Therefore the wise man will avoid knowledge, instead of seeking it. He refuses to act instead of acting. The wise man

is like water, which appears weak but is strong; which yields, seeks its lowest level, and which appears the softest thing and breaks the hardest thing. One can only be wise by renouncing wisdom. He can only be good by renouncing justice and humanity. He can only be learned by renouncing knowledge. One must have no desires, must renounce all things, and be like a new-born babe. From everything comes its opposite, the easy from the difficult, the difficult from the easy, the long from the short, the short from the long, the high from the low, the low from the high, ignorance from knowledge, knowledge from ignorance, the first from the last, the last from the first. These various antagonisms are related by the principle of Tao. Nothing is independent, or can exist without its opposite. The good man and the bad man are equally necessary to each other. To have a right desire is not to have any desire. The saint is able to do great things because he does not try to do them. The unwarlike man conquers. He who yields to others rules them. By thus denying all things we attain possession of all things. Not to act is consequently the secret of all power.

The same doctrine of opposites appears in the Phædo, in the Sánkhya philosophy of the Hindoos, and the doctrine of the Monad behind the Duad in the Zend-Avesta.

The result so far is to an active passivity. Lao teaches that not to act involves the highest energy of being, and produces the greatest results. By not acting one becomes identified with Tao and

receives all its power. Here the Chinese philosopher reasoned like Gautama and Buddha. The Tao of Lao-tse is the same as the Nirvana of Gautama. The different career of each is owing to the different motive in his mind. Gautama sought Nirvana, or the absolute, the pure knowledge, to obtain a release from evil and to overcome it. Lao appears to have sought it to attain power. On this point Buddhism and Taoism disagree. Buddhism is generous, benevolent, humane, seeking to help others. Tao-ism is selfish, striving for its own. This is the cause of the selfish morality pervading the Book of Rewards and Punishments. Every good act receives its reward. is the cause of the degradation of the system into pure magic and spiritualism.

This

In the Tao-te-king, the element afterwards expands in the system of utilitarian and eudæmonic ethics in the Book of Rewards and Punishments. The principle that by putting one's self into a wholly passive state one can enter into communion with the unnamed Tao, and thus obtain power over nature, leads to magic. The Tao-te-king says that he who knows the Tao needs not fear the bite of serpents, nor the jaws of wild beasts, nor the claws of birds of prey. He cannot be reached by good or evil. He does not need to have any fear of the rhinoceros or the tiger. In battle he does not need either cuirass or sword. The tiger is not able to tear him to pieces. The soldier is unable to inflict any wound upon him. He is absolutely invulnerable and secure against death.