the effect of modifying this feeling on the part of the leaders so far as to make them at length begin applying to us the term "barbarian," there still remained the essential circumstance that they called us "barbarian brethren," a conjunction in which the first word is necessarily much modified by the second. And, what is of most importance, they are themselves, in certain of their fundamental religious doctrines, sedulously diffusing principles by which that very claim to supremacy, which they now urge, will be overthrown in the minds of their own people, with their future certain increase in geographical and historical knowledge. Hence, with the establishment of the Tae pings, foreigners will be in no respect worse placed as to all legitimate international objects than they were before, while a broad and firm basis will be laid for the assimilation of national fundamental beliefs and for a consequent peaceable extension of free intercourse and commercial privileges. The last fifteen years' experience has finally proved that these advantages can be obtained from the present dynasty only by wars, bloody and disastrous for the Chinese; wars engendering long national hatred and tending directly to destroy that very national industry which alone makes commercial intercourse valuable.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NOTICE OF THE PHILOSOPHY, MORALITY, AND POLITY OF THE CHINESE, AND OF THE RELIGION OF THE GOVERNING CLASS.

THE Chinese have acquired, in the course of their long existence, more than one different kind of philosophy; that is to say, there exist in China several radically different ways of viewing the nature of the inanimate world and of man. The principal of these are the Taouist, the Buddhist, and what may in order to distinguish it from the others be called the Confucian. The Taouist is, like the Confucian, indigenous. Laou tsze the founder of Taouism lived in the sixth century before Christ. Buddhism penetrated into China from India in the first century after Christ. There was a long struggle for the mastery among the adherents of these three systems, a struggle which expressed itself in mutual proscriptions and persecutions. But the Confucian, which existed in China long before the others, has, since their rise, always succeeded in maintaining for itself the greatest ascendancy, except during some comparatively short periods; and it became definitively paramount fully ten centuries ago. From that time to this it has continued dominant in the country. It has been the philosophy and morality of all the great historians of China, and has formed the basis of her peculiar national system of legislation and administrative procedure. It may be described as the assemblage of those fundamental beliefs which are entertained by all cultivated Chinese on the phenomena of animate and inanimate nature. The literature in which it is set forth, and which it has moulded, whether

ontological, psychical, ethical, legislative or historical, is that exclusively, an intimate and extensive acquaintance with which has, for many centuries, been made indispensable to the passing of the Public Service Examinations; which are, for the talent and ambition of China, far more than the hustings, the avenues to church preferment, and the bar, all combined, are for the talent and ambition of England. Hence Confucianism is, and has long been in the fullest sense of the terms the national, orthodox philosophy and morality of the Chinese people. Taouist and Buddhist temples exist all over China, and in later centuries Mahommedan mosques have been erected in many of its cities; but the dominant Confucianism merely endures Taouism, Buddhism, and Mahommedanism as erroneous and superstitious systems of beliefs prevalent among, because most suited to people of uncultivated or weak minds, whether rich or poor; but which find most acceptance among the poorer, and therefore unlearned and unenlightened. classes. They have no influence on the national polity. The people are in nowise prohibited from worshipping in the Buddhist and Taouist temples, in other words they may regulate their purely religious life by the tenets of these, or indeed of any other sect. But where Taouism or Buddhism. would leave the region of Religion and, in the form of philosophy or morality, extend their direct influence into the domain of the Social Science and Art, there Confucianism peremptorily and effectually prohibits their action. Not only are the national legislation and administration founded exclusively on Confucian principles; it is by them also that the more important acts of the private life of the Chinese are regulated: as, for instance, marriage. The cause of the prevalence of Taouism, Buddhism, and Mahommedanism in China, in spite of discouragements, lies in the fact that Confucianism says little or nothing of a supernatural world or of a future existence. Hence it leaves almost unsatisfied those ineradicable cravings of human nature, the desire to revere and the longing for immortal life. That it has, notwith

standing its want of these holds on the human heart, maintained itself, not simply in existence, but as the ruling system, is a fact that must, so soon as it is perceived, form for every true thinker a decisive proof of the existence of great and vital truths in its theories, as well as thorough soundness and wholesomeness in the practical rules which it dictates.

By Chinese philosophy, then, I mean the Confucian philosophy; and by Chinese morality, the moral principles rooted in that philosophy. And my object being essentially practical, I shall take no account of the philosophical doctrines contained in Buddhism and Taouism in what is to follow; though I may have again to allude to the actual influence which these systems exercise as religions.

The Chinese philosophy, much as it has been written about, has never yet been rightly stated. The picture stood there in full view of the Jesuits, the first Christians who gained access to the literature of the Chinese; it was surveyed by them, and has since been surveyed by others; it has been long looked at and even minutely described; but it has never yet been described from the right point of view. Let the reader remark my allusion to a picture. A series of critical observers might place themselves, note-book in hand, before a large painting and might prolong their observations for years, but by placing themselves either on the right or the left of that true stand-point from which only each picture is to be rightly seen, they would fail to gain, and be unable to give a clear and right idea of what it expressed; and that though their descriptions left not an inch of it unnoticed. Now this is what has happened with the Chinese philosophy -a position that I must endeavour to establish before closing the chapter, there being unfortunately a large amount of error to be cleared away before the work of sound construction can be fully accomplished.

In order to get a distinct general conception of the Chinese philosophical literature, two epochs must be specially kept in mind.

The first began with Confucius (Kung tsze), who was born B.C. 551, and ended with Mencius (Măng tsze), who died about B.C. 317.

The second began with Chow leen ke or Chow tsze, who commenced his labours about A.D. 1034; and ended with Choo ke or Choo tsze, who died in A.D. 1200.

The first lasted for seven generations. It was separated by an interval of thirteen hundred years from the second; which lasted for five generations. Both were periods of revival of ancient learning and of further development. Both embraced several celebrated philosophers besides those mentioned; but in each case it was the originator and closer of the epoch who became most celebrated. The writers of the second are often mentioned as the philosophers of the Sung dynasty; which latter was established in A.D. 960, about 70 years before Chow tsze's labors began, and continued in possession of the sovereignty till A.D. 1271, till about 70 years after Choo tsze's labors closed.

Confucius, though his name has in the West become identified with Chinese learning, was by no means its originator. Authentic though not full records, embodying ethical and political doctrines, extend back to B.C. 2357, or to about eighteen hundred years before Confucius; while the Chinese philosophy originated with Fuh he, who lived, according to tradition, some twenty-three generations before, the exact chronological era; which latter took place B.C. 2637 with the institution of the national cycle of sixty years. Allowing thirty years to a generation,† this would place Fuh he about B.C. 3327. It was he who substituted writing for the knotted strings that had previously formed the only means of record;

It is a curious coincidence that the first was contemporary with an epoch of philosophical and literary activity equally important for the West; that which commenced with Pythagoras, a contemporary of Confucius; embraced Zeno, Empedocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates and Plato; and ended with Aristotle, who died about the same time as Mencius.

+ The long family histories of the descendants of Confucius and Mencius now living in China show that the average to a generation is thirty years.