of the axis have lively modeled carved dragons coiled around them that reach out toward the main axis with the sanctuary in the center (fig. 6).

The river flows by steep cliffs opposite the southeast of the city, where it is surmounted by the pagoda of the city. It is a rule in China to have a tower in the southeast of the city, either on the city wall or without in its outskirts, for Kueihsing, the god of literature, who dwells in the sky in the constellation of the Great Bear. In Shansi these detached towers are to be seen near every town and village and have often a pleasing and a varied form. In Kiatingfu there are many other features that are supposed to guarantee sanctity

and peace to the city besides the pagoda. Among these there are a great many images of Buddhas carved on the cliffs opposite the city, one of these standing, is 6 meters high, another gigantic image sitting is 30 meters high. Besides hallowed caves, filled with gods, ancient temples, and great stones carved with the holy trigrams as previously described. The embalmed and gilded mummy of a high priest sits in one of the temples, and there are temples for the poet Su Tung-po and others. Sanctity is thus concentrated in what is conceived to be the proper place southeast of the city. From the opposite side the great temple of the "Ancient of the mountain " looks down, while another pagoda in the city holds the balance

(beetween the two pagodas of southeast and northwest). The beauty of this region may be imagined and is expressed by an inscription in the mountain temple: "How propitious is this site! Here one sees the river winding around, the broad plains stretching out to the southward, and to the westward the three highest peaks of Omeishan."

The reference to this patriarch of the mountain, and the triad of its highest peaks are reflected by the triad of the chief god in the temple.

This is, on the part of the Chinese, at the same time, a reminiscence of the Buddhistic trinity and the trinity of Chinese religion: Buddha, Laotze, and Confucius.

Similarly located cities are found elsewhere than in the most beautiful Province of Szech'an. This feature is also characteristically seen in Canton, in the extreme southern part of Kuångtung. This city is also located near a mountain, its revered ancestral progenitor, with a pagoda to the southeast to guard the spiritual city. A five-storied temple on the summit has the two gods sitting in the uppermost hall, who constantly oversee and promote the daily life of the Chinese. These gods are Wên-chang, the good of knowledge and learning, and Lao-ye, the god of efficiency and bravery. The Chinese designate this duality as Wên Wu, which Europeans have correctly translated as civil and military, but the Chinese give that a more profound signification. They guard the city and all prosperity depends upon their aid.

Canton is connected to the northward with the famous mountain of the White Clouds, and the hill of the city forms, as it were, a spur of this mountain. The souls of the departed are conceived as white clouds, and when the mountain is most densely enveloped in clouds the Chinese think that the souls of all the departed are congregated on the mountain from which, on the other hand, all life came. It is thus a conception of the circle of all existence.

This conception is given sublime expression by the disposition of the graves which beginning in the north of the city extend to the mountain of the White Clouds, where in many splendid temples countless gods are sitting, who in this life as well as in the future one are man's guides and ideals. This necropolis is even for China, which can be designated as one large cemetery, something immense. This covers an area 12 kilometers long and 7 kilometers wide, and it is literally filled with graves on the slopes of the valleys and to the summit of the mountain. Without any exaggeration there are many millions of graves in this cemetery. Some of the graves are very simple, others have grand tombs, and many of them are great artistic works.

This has an important bearing on the religious conception that death produces life. The mountain is called the White Cloud for the souls of the departed, thus emphasizing, " From life to death, out of death life." Higher up the mountain there are imposing grave inclosures amidst luxurious trees and plants. And when the Chinese look down and contemplate the busy city of millions in Canton they realize the vanity of this world and the preciousness of the rest that follows death. All is vanity in the physical world. He is at once a Chinese and a Buddhist. These ideas are further embodied in the image of Shou-hsing, the wise ancient hoary god who displays the symbol of the world, the sacred eight trigrams which explain the circle of existence as the meaning of life (pl. 9, fig. 2).

The Chinese thus feels himself to be closely connected with nature. He knows that he originated from it (nature) and shall return to it, and shall return to the earth, but then reappears in the persons of his children and grandchildren. He feels himself to be but a guest on earth, an insignificant part of the whole that he conceives as oneness. This is the purest partheism, and a wellspring for the outspoken social instinct of the race.

There is, however, an essential difference between the Chinese and the Hindu. The ideal of the Chinese is the greatness and wholeness of creation, and he embodies this thought in his art and religion. But as a practical man he realizes that as long as he is sojourning upon this earth he should arrange this life as comfortably as possible. Hence his sober, businesslike sense, his perseverance in work which should afford him the means for life and enjoyment. This harmonizing of high idealism with practical sense gives the Chinese people vitality and the right to have their ideas considered and esteemed as on an equality with our purely individualistic culture. And it may be due to the considerable admixture of individualism in the Chinese pantheism that the Chinese in his disposition is nearer to us than the racially more closely related, but dreamy and otherworldly Hindu.

We have observed how both the country and its history have equally demonstrated to the Chinese the grandeur of their conception of unity. His system of the universe is thus divided into the forces in the circle of the two principles, the male and female; in the eight trigrams symbolizing the development of the variety of the rhythmic and harmonic physical world. Finally, the unity of man and nature. It is not very different from our division of natural philosophy in physics, mechanical energy, multiplicity, and logic and biology. It is always apparently the same with mankind. But the peculiar conception and combination of these elements with its trend to pantheism gives Chinese culture a reality that is the best conceivable preparation for artistic accomplishment.