CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE WASON CHINESE COLLECTION BL 1801.F°ii e " Universi, >' Librar v 3 1924 023 203 726 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023203726 INTRODUCTION SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. A CRITIQUE OF MAX MtTLLER AND OTHER AUTHORS. Rev. ERNST FABEE, RHENISH MISSIONABY IN CANTON. Bis laws our laws ; all honour to him done Returns our own. Milton, Paradise Lost, V, HONGKONG, LANE, CRAWFORD & Co. SHANGHAI, KELLY & WALSH. PRESBYTERIAN MISSION PRESS. )> VY. £/£43 PEINTED AT THE " CHINA MAIL *' OFtflCfi* SOKGICONG* INDEX, Page, Preface, -- i Introduction, Til I. Nature of Religion, -- 1 II. Religion in Fact, -------- 18 III. Religion and Theology, ------ 23 IV. Religion and Science, 27 V. Religion and Morals, 44 VI. Religion and Law (and Politics), - - - 51 VII. Religion and Civilization,- ----- 68 VIII. Religion and the Arts, 89 IX. Religion and Nature (and History), - - 102 X. Religion and Language, ------112 XI. Religion and Mythology - 122 XII. Classification of Religions, 129 XIII. True Religion, - - - - 135 XIV. Divine Education, 145 Conclusion, ---------- 152 PREFACE. The work I present to the public does not need an excuse. The importance of the subject will be felt by all readers. That I, a practical missionary and a German, have ventured to undertake such a thing is owing to the great fault of so many able writers not having done it before. They, of course, could have given a very superior production, if they only had put their pens to the task. But, as it is, much is written on Chinese religion, on the religion of other nations and on religion in general, that betrays on every page a great want of clearness in method and somewhat con- fused notions in regard to religion. I hope my little book will do some good service in this respect. The Science of Religion is very important indeed. More harm than good will, however, be done, if it is not treated inductively in a true scientific spirit. We n PREFACE. want to learn what religion really is and not what any author pleases to tell us about it or how he may think it ought to be. Religion must, besides, be treated in a highly religious spirit. Those who venture to write on fine arts without a cultivated artistic feeling* and taste must fail in their endeavours. To write on reli- gion in an unreligious mood is wasting paper. If the author combines with it great learning, and his book is for this reason read, it gives offence in proportion to its unbecoming language. The work of .... on Buddhism, not to mention others, is an example of bad taste in this respect. There are some writers who show a tolerable ac- quaintance with heathen religions, but betray astonish- ing ignorance in regard to the Christian religion. It is not sufficient to have read a few theological works or critical commentaries on the Bible; such give only an intellectual view of Christianity. We have to enter the inner sanctuary of Christian life to get a full under- standing of what Christianity really is; only then we can judge fairly. I hope my work will recommend it- self in this respect. I shall not boast of a well-trained intellect, nor of much learning, etc. I have done what I could in my circumstances. There is no large library at my disposal. The few authors quoted are not care- fully selected from among many others, but happened PREFACE. m to fall into my hands, and other works, perhaps more suitable to my purpose, are unknown to me. My ideas have, however, always been ready before I used another author. The work shows that I have to disagree with most of the writers referred to, but this deviation of opinion, or in some cases of principles, does not in- terfere with the respect and obligation I feel to the merits of those authors. As I suppose that most of the readers of this book will be residents of China living under the same disadvantage regarding the use of libraries, I have given a few quotations somewhat longer than I myself would prefer. But though eight or ten pages more are added to the book, it saves the trouble to those who have the authors, of wasting time in searching for the passages, aDd those who have them not will be glad to read such passages. The reason that I have written in English and not in German, my native language, is that a part of this work has been written for and read at the Conference of Missionaries in Canton. It is a great disadvantage to me that I have to write in three languages. Most of my time and strength is yet devoted to Chinese studies and Chinese work. The German language I have far more in my power than the English, yet English has for such subjects the great advantage of wider circulation. As I have spent the best years iv PREFACE. of my life among the Chinese in a country-station, I have not had much opportunity for cultivating English composition. I hope, however, that my style is at least intelligible and readable. In some respects it would have been better to defer publication till my work on Chinese Religion is completed. As, however, this Introduction has a more universal scope there can be no objection to a separate edition of it. The hearers of my two lectures expressed their wish to see what they heard in print. Rev. R. H. Graves, M.D., has been so kind to revise the sheets, and Mr. Geo. Murray Bain of the China Mail office has done me the great favour of reading the proofs. I hope sufficient buyers will turn up to pay the expenses. I have already convinced myself that to publish books in China or on Chinese matters is a somewhat costly pleasure. If, however, any good service is done by this publication to my fel- low-labourers, and perhaps to other persons interested, such uncomfortable considerations will subtract nothing from the joy in having performed this task. I myself have had already the great profit of giving some de- finiteness to my own ideas in writing these chapters, and I hope this is an inestimable preparation for some works I intend to write in Chinese for the enlighten- ment of this numerous race which is as yet over- shadowed by the darkness of Hades. PREFACE. v My sincere wish is, that the Lord may bless the little book to all readers, and especially induce many to be more earnest in their own Christian religion. We are yet far behind the ideals of the religion embodied in Christ. Many social evils and private bad habits are in striking contradiction to the clear meaning of the Gospel. Yet our belief is to overcome the world, i.e. is to become master over everything which is against God's plan. Love and peace in the mind and in the world — such is the Kingdom of Heaven. E. F. Canton, August 2nd, 1879. INTRODUCTION " The Chinese," Mr. Fairbairn* writes, " may be selected as a contrast to the Hebrew and the Teuton. They are a people singularly deficient in the religious faculty. They are a gifted race, ingenious, inventive yet imitative, patient, industrious, frugal. Their civi- lization is ancient, their literary capacity considerable, their classics receive an. almost religious reverence. But this people has a so attenuated religious faculty or genius, that it can hardly be said ever to have known religion (!), at least as Semitic and Indo-Euro- pean peoples understand it. Their notions of deity are so formless and fluid that it can be argued, just as one interprets their speech, either that they are theists or atheists. * Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, and Hittory : 1877, p,. 310. toe INTRODUCTION. " They reverence humanity as typified, not in the endless promise and hope of the future, but in the com- pleted characters and achievements of the past. Their piety is filial; their worship ancestral. There are, in- deed, three established religions, but, not to speak of an advice to have nothing to do with any one of them given by a late emperor to his people, two would hardly be classed as such in any other country than China, while the third is a religion imported from India, and so depraved by the change that the Buddhism of the civilised Chinese stands beneath that of Tartary and Thibet." This one quotation, taken from the recent work of an accomplished and erudite author, may suffice for many of a similar character. Most of the writers on China state that the Chinese are not a religious peo- ple, that they are indifferent to all religious creeds. Such vague assertions are commonly far from the truth. I, from my own observations, feel inclined to maintain that the Chinese belong perhaps to the most religious people (Acts xvii., 22, original) of the world. Only we must not look for any symptoms of reli- gion similar to those to which we are accustomed in Christian lands. There are however, comparatively, more temples and altars, more idols and more religious practices in China than in almost all other countries. INTRODUCTION. n The whole public and private life is impregnated by ? religious observations; we see every important action j of the government, as well as almost every move- ment in private life, inaugurated by different religious I rites. It is my purpose to investigate scientifically the Chinese religion. Such an undertaking is different from a description of the religious practices of the pre- sent time. Religion has in China, as everywhere, its history. We shall have to trace, as far as possible, every reli- gious practice to its origin, show the connexion between the present and the past, and explain, as far as pos- sible, the symbolical forms from their original ideas which they too often have only preserved in a petrified state. 1, as a missionary, want to understand the reli- gious state and condition of the people I have to deal with, just as a physician must know the nature of a disease, its origin and development, in order to bring the organism again to the wished-for state of health. The task is not an easy one. What Max Miiller says with regard to investigating other religions applies far more to the study of Chinese religion. " Any one who has worked at the history of reli- gion knows how hard it is to gain a clear insight into the views of Greeks and Romans, of Hindus and Per- x INTRODUCTION - . sians on any of the great problems of life. Yet we have here a whole literature before us, both sacred and profane, we can confront witnesses, and hear what may be said on the one side and the other. If we were asked, however, to say, whether the Greeks in general, or one race of Greeks in particular, and that race again at any particular time, believed in a future life, in a sys- tem of rewards and punishments after death, in the supremacy of the personal gods or of an impersonal fate, in the necessity of prayer and sacrifice, in the sacred character of priests and temples, in the inspira- tion of prophets and lawgivers, we should find it often extremely hard to give a definite answer. There is a whole literature on the theology of Homer, but there is anything but unanimity between the best scholars who have treated on that subject during the last two hundred years. " Still more is this the case when we have to form our opinions of the religion of the Hindus and Per- sians. We have their sacred books, we have their own recognised commentaries ; but who does not know that the decision whether the ancient Brahmans be- lieved in the immortality of the soul depends sometimes . on the right interpretation of a single word, while the question whether the Persians admitted an original dualism, an equality between the principle of Good and INTRODUCTION. xi Evil, has to be settled in some cases on purely gram- matical grounds f* Much has been written on China and its reli- gion, yet more has to be done fully to clear up the subject. Investigation is, however, much easier now than it would have been some years ago. The science of com- parative religion has made some progress, and I think it best to investigate the Chinese religion in the light of comparative religion. Not that I intend to compare the Chinese religion with other religions — other persons may be better qualified to do that. What I desire is to come to an adequate understanding of everything connected with religion in China, and so gain an idea of the fulness of religious life as it appears in its vari- ous forms. The results of the science of religion will prove a valuable help towards accomplishing the de- sired end. Eegarding the method I shall not presume to know nothing except my own ideas, but start honestly * Max Miiller, Is Fetishism a Primitive Form of Religion ? MacMillan's Magazine, 1878. I cannot agree, however, with this quotation without some reservation. The confusion about reli- gion and theology will be settled in Chapter III. Any attempt to solve religious problems "on purely grammatical grounds" shows a want of proper method. xn INTRODUCTION. from Max Midler's "Introduction to the Science of Eeligion."* It will, however, soon become apparent, that, though on the same road to the same destination, we cannot walk along hand in hand on our way. * Four Lectures with Two Essays: London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1873. INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. THE NATUEE OF EELIGION. It will be best to begin with a definition of the meaning we attach to the word religion. Max Miiller says, p. 16, "It will be easily perceived that religion means at least two very different things. When we speak of the Jewish, or the Christian or the Hindu religion, we mean a body of doctrines handed down by tradition or in canonical books, and containing all that constitutes the faith of Jew, Christian, or Hindu. Using religion in that sense, we may say that a man has changed his religion, that is, that he has adopted the Christian instead of the Brahminical body of reli- gious doctrines just as a man may learn to speak English instead of Hindustani. But religion is also used in a different sense. As there is a faculty of 2 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. speech, independent of all the historical forms of language, so there is a faculty of faith in man, in- dependent of all historical religions. If we say that it is religion which distinguishes man from the animal, we do not mean the Christian or Jewish religion, we do not mean any special religion, but we mean a mental faculty, that faculty which independent of, nay in spite of sense and reason enables man to apprehend the Infinite under different names and under varying disguises. Without that faculty, no religion, not even the lowest worship of idols and fetishes, would be possible, and if we but listen attentively, we can hear in all religions a groaning of the spirit, a struggle to conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing after the Infinite, a love of God." Max Midler is quite correct in distinguishing the first view as religious conviction from religion itself. But I never should call his " second thing " religion in the proper sense of the word. He says, p. 18, "We mean a mental faculty, the faculty of perceiving the Infinite, in German Vemunft, as opposed to reason and sense, in English the faculty of faith, but confined to those objects only which cannot be supplied either by the evidence of the senses, or by the evidence of reason." This second thing would be worse than the first, which consists in productions of this faculty and perhaps in something more. To define religion as " a mental faculty " is as great a mistake as to define philosophy or the fine arts as mental faculties. It is true without such faculties no reasoning nor perception of beauty would be possible. The faculty itself, however, is nothing but the subjective condi- THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 3 tion for those achievements, as there are objects needed besides. Max Miiller could have said more correctly, religion is the apprehension of the Infinite, instead of calling it the faculty which enables man to apprehend, etc. On p. 20, this faculty is called " a power indepen- dent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason." We are however t nowhere told how religion differs from superstition and i how far religions can be comprehended by reason. Max Miiller further states that " we hear in all religions a groaning of the spirit, a struggle, a long- ing after the Infinite ;" but neither a groaning, nor a struggle, nor a longing are religion ; a love of God even is not religion, though religious; so is the fear of God, the hope of a future life, etc. We see here Max Miiller going on from his faculty to an impulse or motive power, which is something very different^ as faculty according to Max Muller's note (p. 21) expresses " the different modes of action of our mind," but a power is the cause of a certain action. Faculty and power are (p. 21) left alone, and we are told that " comparative theology has to deal with the historical forms of religion, and theoretic theology to explain the conditions under which religion, whether in its highest or its lowest form, is possible ; it gives an analysis of the inward and outward conditions under which faith is possible" (p. 22), We see here a confusion of faith (in dogmas) and religion, in spite of the precaution taken (p. 16) above referred to. The historical form of religion would, according to Max Midler's premises, be nothing but a development of the 4 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. religious faculty. To theoretic theology a rather ridi- culous task is assigned if it has to show " the possibility of any religious form" as if there were no religious facts whatever. I suppose Max Miiller wanted to say that theoretic theology attempts to explain the why of the existence of religion in so many forms; comparative theology, on the other hand, only states and compares these different forms. The specific difference between the two sciences may be said to be that comparative theology is more descriptive and historical (p. 132), stating the facts and their development ; theoretic theology is scientific, showing the necessity of these facts. Each fact must be proved to be, the effect of a certain cause, etc. All the sentences, quoted from Max Miiller, point, ' however, to one and the same mistake — that religion is nothing but a natural outgrowth of the human mind, or a development of the faculty for the In- finite. Though I grant that the human mind is organised for religion, and so far I agree with Max Midler's religious faculty, yet I think this faculty alone insufficient to explain the multifarious facts of religion. Max Miiller strangely appeals (p. 135) to " the rational and to the moral conscience " against some out- growth of the religious faculty. Reason is, of course, a faculty, but what of morals ? Max Miiller has no other choice left but to create another peculiar faculty of the human mind for morals. There can be no doubt , that morality is neither from the senses, nor from rea- son (logical laws), nor from religion. But why do we not hesitate to ascribe to reason a distinct faculty of our mind, but feel rather unwilling to allow the same THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 5 privilege to religion and morals ? The answer is, the two latter are connected with our will and free deter- mination, but reason, as the faculty of our intellect, has its peculiar and definite laws in itself, any devia- tion from which is unreasonable. There are no such laws either in morals, in religion, or in political and social life. Though we are accustomed to speak of moral laws etc., the term only expresses what ought to be done according to the idea of some persons, from which idea other persons allow themselves to differ more or less, perhaps even diametrically. The laws of physics (including chemistry etc.), mathematics and logic are materially different. Of the first two branches the term law* does not express what ought to occur, but what really occurs ; law is there a definite formulation of the connexion of cause and effect, in mathematics of antecedence and consequence. Though the laws in logic are definite enough, yet reasoning is influenced by the compound human nature so much that the * "In its primary signification, a 'law' is the authoritative expression of human Will enforced by Power. The instincts of mankind, finding utterance in their language, have not failed to see that the phenomena of Nature are only really conceivable to us as in like manner the expressions of a Will enforcing itself with Power. But, as in many other cases, the secondary or derivative senses of the word have supplanted the primary signi- fication ; and Law is now habitually used by men who deny the analogy on which that use is founded, and to the truth of which it is an abiding witness. It becomes therefore all the more neces- sary to define the secondary senses with precision. There are at least Five different senses in which Law is habitually used, and these must be carefully distinguished : — First, we have Law as applied simply to an observed Order of facts. Secondly — To that Order as involving the action of some Force or Forces, of which nothing more may be known. Thirdly — As applied to individual Forces the measure of whose operation has been more or less defined or ascertained. 6 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. logical laws will never find their adequate expression by thought. We see besides a remarkable influence of language upon our thoughts. These remarks may suffice to show that Max Muller has not been very fortunate with his religious faculty. I even think that Max Muller has been carried to some of his well- known objectionable conclusions by this first proposi- tion and the indefiniteness of his notion (Begriff) of religion (comp. p. 270 ff ). It is, however, not Max Muller alone who is so unsatisfactory in his explanation of the origin of re- ligion. I must confess to have not yet met with a convincing solution of the problem. As proof I point to C. P. Tiele,* who rather evades our question by his definition of religion as " the relation between man i and the superhuman powers in which he believes." Mr. Tiele. adds in a foot-note that "this definition is by no means philosophical and leaves unanswered Fourthly — As applied to those combinations of Force which have reference to the fulfilment of Purpose, or the discharge of Function. Fifthly — As applied to Abstract Conceptions of the mind not corresponding with any actual phenomena, but deduced there- from as axioms of thought necessary to our understanding of them. Law, in this sense, is a reduction of the phenomena, not merely to an Order of facts, but to an Order of Thought. These great leading significations of the word Law all circle round the three great questions which Science asks of Nature, the What, the How, the Why :— ( 1) What are the facts in their established Order ? (2) How — that is, from what physical causes— does that Or- der come to be ? (3) Why have these causes been so combined ? What rela- tion do they bear to Purpose, to the fulfilment of Intention, to the discharge of Function? (The Reign of Law, by the Duke of Argyll, p. 64, 65). * Outlines of the History of Religion : London, Triibner & Co., 1877. THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 7 the question of the essence of religion. The powers are designedly not described as supersensual, as visible deities would thus be excluded. They are superhu- man, not always in reality, but in the estimation of their worshippers." We shall speak more of the " re- lation." Mr. Tiele has nothing more to say, and the reader feels, in going through his book, as if he were in a museum where animals are well preserved, but where life — nature — religion itself — are not met with. Far more interesting is A. M. Fairbairn in his " Studies in the Philosophy of Eeligion and History," but though deep and suggestive we see nearly the same indefiniteness as in Max Miiller. Mr. Fairbairn says (p. 12), " Faith is not the re- sult of sensations. Mind is not passive, but active in the formation of beliefs. The constitutive element is what mind brings to nature, not what nature brings to mind, otherwise no spiritual and invisible could be conceived. 1 ' This would exclude all immediate (direct) action of mind upon mind or spirit upon spirit ; the spiritual and Invisible thus conceived could be nothing but one's own mind. Such a proposition must be proved. We fully agree, however, with the first part of the statement that faith is not the result of sensation. Mr. Fairbairn speaks (p. 13) against "a primitive revelation as a mere assumption, incapable of proof, capable of most positive disproof. Eevelation may satisfy or rectify, but cannot create a religious capa- city or instinct.'" We have already spoken of this attempt to reduce religion to nothing but a subjective state of 8 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. mind. Of course the light is not light to us without eyes to perceive it. But what is the religious capacity or the instinct of the mind ? Are they not perhaps themselves revelations ? The question will be treated hereafter. The religious capacity or faculty is again de- scribed differently by Mr. Fairbairn and by other writers. " The Epicurean held that fear had created the gods (p. 8).* Hume tried to evolve the idea of gods out of the ignorance and fear that personified the ' unknown causes ' of the accidents and eccentri- cities of ' Nature ' " — but " causes " presuppose reflec- tion on causation, i.e. reason, and personification im- plies either abstraction or imagination or both; Hume would thus have been more correct to call reason and imagination the sources of any idea of God. " Dupuis, a French writer, held that all religions had their origin in a worship of nature pure and simple, and that les Dieux sont enfants des hornmes. But he did not explain the one thing needing explanation, how and why man had begun to worship at all They all suppose that man was originally destitute of religious belief and that religion is derived from the lower faculties and passions of man." We see that the assumption of a faculty of our mind for religion is rather old and of no service, because * Dr. Jos. Beck, "Encyclopaedia der Theoretischen Philoso- phic" aays (§380), " Epicur us ought to have added 'hope' that those powers would determine human destiny. This Theory is, however, a thoughtless confounding of effect and cause. The feeling of dependency is prius, fear and hope are sentiments, which follow the reflexion on conscious dependency." — A. Trende- lenburg is also defective in this respect; see Naturrecht, §171. THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 9 its signification is too general. Mr. Fairbairn is not satisfied, of course, with such low faculties ; he himself takes refuge in the highest faculties, conscience and imagination, p. 39. "Conscience knew of relation, dependent and obligatory, to Some One. Imagination discovered the Some One on whom the individual and the whole alike depended in the Heaven (or somewhere else). Neither faculty could be satisfied with the sub- jective (why not?), each was driven by the law of its own constitution to seek an objective reality. Conscience, so far as it revealed obligation, revealed relation to a being higher than self. Imagination, when it turned its eye to Heaven, beheld there the higher Being, the great Soul which directed the varied celestial move- ments and created the multitudinous terrestial lives. Without the conscience, the life, which imagination saw, would have been simply physical; without the ima- gination, the relation which conscience revealed would have been purely ideal, the relation 6f a thinker to his thought, not of one personal being to another ... Of course in terming these 'the faculties generative of the idea ' we do not mean that they acted alone. No faculty can be isolated in action, whatever it may be as an object of thought. We only mean that these, for the time being the governing faculties of the mind, were the two from whose continued instincts and actions the idea of God rose into form." Mr. Fairbairn here comes near to saying that it is human nature as such and not one faculty or two etc. But Mr. Fairbairn has to begin again his Sisyphus task. " In the oldest religion (p. 42) worship, sacri- fice, prayer and such rudimentary ideas as faith, piety, 10 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. holiness can be discovered, and their existence implies, as their creative faculty, a moral sense'''' (see above). "We require, therefore, a faculty, so Mr. Fairbairn says, generative of these primary religious acts and ideas, as we have it in conscience. " Consciousness and con- science rose together. Mind conscious of self was also mind conscious of obligation. The 'I am' and the ' I ought ' were twins, born at the same moment. But to be conscious of obligation was to be conscious of relation, and so in one and the same act mind was conscious of a self who owed obedience and a Not-self to whom the ebedienee was due. The idea of God was thus given in the very same act as the idea of self, neither could be said to precede the other. Mind could be mind as little without the consciousness of God as without the consciousness of self." Conscious mind is thus the religious faculty. On page 100 the same idea is expressed in another way. " Mind, the consciousness, in which both self and the universe (including God, see above) are revealed." (Mr. Fairbairn cannot help using here the word "revela- tion 1 ' before so much objected to). But Mr. Fairbairn seems not yet satisfied with the conscious mind. He says (p. 12), "Religion is a permanent and universal characteristic of man, a normal and necessary 'product of his nature (this must mean mind in its state of unconsciousness). Beligion is simply spirit expressing in symbol its consciousness of relations other and higher than physical and social.'" It is difficult to say whether the two sentences have the same meaning or not. Is this spirit the product of human nature ? And is religion nothing but the THE NATURE OP RELIGION. 11 expression of higher relations? Mr. Fairbairn must have still felt some doubts, for he surprises us with yet another turn of explanation. " The feelings of depen- dence, reverence, devotion are universal — everywhere seek out and worship an appropriate object. And the object must be personal,, a Being to love and command, be loved and obeyed." We see Mr. Fairbairn allows his readers a wide choice; the few passages quoted refer us to the religious capacity, instinct, faculties, conscience, imagination, moral sense, consciousness, product of the nature (of mind), spirit, feelings. From all the quotations given above one thing is apparent enough, viz. that our problem is far from be- ing settled, but is waiting yet for solution. Tnough in Germany all the great philosophers have treated the religious question, they have done so in connection with their metaphysical systems, and as their method has been logical, a mere logical explanation has been arrived at, which, of course,, always proves to be a. failure. Science on the other hand, starting from matter - and mechanical laws, though rather too often ven- turing into the sacred fields of religion and sometimes making crazy havoc among religious forms and para- sites, scarcely ever came in contact with the true life' of religion.* Most of the Theologians, in modern times at least (but it might be said from the 2nd century after Christ to the present day), have been led astray by the metaphysical aud scientific speculations * Jacobi said justly, "The belief in God is not science but a virtue;" see Dr. Jos. Beck, Ency. der Theor. Phil., §382. 12 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. of the day, or they have walked in the convenient rut of tradition, State church theories, hierarchical prero- gatives of priests and pastor's, 'rituals and creeds, etc. Schleiermacher was the man who with superior ability treated religion as a sphere of her own. He separated religion from the sciences of reason, but did not free her from the bondage of the abstract laws of logic to which metaphysics and all rationalistic systems are subject. Schleiermacher based religion on the feeling of dependence* — not on feelings, as he is often misunderstood to have done. This feeling did good service in so far as it allowed to religion a chance of escape from the torture it had to undergo in the systems of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel and his followers. Max Muller with his religious faculty is nothing but a Schleiermacherian.t The great objection to Schleiermacher is, therefore, the same as to Max Miiller already given above. Eeligion is made merely subjective, and as men differ in the intensity etc. of their feeling of dependence, their religion must differ, * His system, however, Schleiermacher construed more on a cosmical than on a moral dependence. His pantheistic-monistic mental philosophy influenced his theology. Religion is explained in a naturalistic way, even grace is made a cosmological power. Comp. D. Bender Schleiermacher's Theology, 1878. t Dr. Richard Rothe, one of the most distinguished followers of Schleiermacher, differs from his master in this respect. "There is no special faculty (Organ) for religion in man. Man has reli- gion because he is man, i.e. his I is the faculty, in it God can find a Thou and can have its Thou in man. God acts on the human conscience and becomes thus its object. The idea of God in man is God's own action (Wirkung) on him. In the relation between God and the creatures every impulse originates in God, human love to God comes from God's love to man, is its response," etc. See Theologische Ethik, 2nd Edition, §117 ff. 177. THE NATURE OP RELIGION. 13 and one religion must be as right and as good as the other because it is always the only possible expression of the human factor under the given circumstances. Such theories are ruinous to a healthy development of genuine religion and obstructive to' an appropriate understanding and hearty appreciation of religious truth. I may, therefore, be pardoned for a new at- tempt to find the proper key to the problem before us. I myself feel a lively interest in it, not only as a missionary, but as a human being. Religion is to me not an external calling but the element of my inner life. I find it not only in one faculty but in the very substance of my soul. Eeligion gives evidence of the human soul (spirit) as belonging to another world. Eeligion may therefore be called the manifestation of a spiritual world of which the human soul forms one link* — it is the shadow of Eternity cast upon Earth- life. It is thus not only the acknowledgement of a higher power as a source of life and happiness ap- parent in all religions, but also a feeling of man to be of the, same kindred with the supreme power and to be destined for some kind of divine blessedness. There is, on the other hand, penetrating the most religious minds, a deep and sad feeling of the loss of the once-existing state of direct intercourse with the world of Spirits' (of course not in the spiritistic sense) and with the heavenly regions. There are com- plaints heard from the highest geniuses and noblest * Those who take interest in the preexistence of the human soul may read what I. H. Fichte says on the subject in .his "An- thropology " and in his " Psychology." 14 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. men of all countries and ages, that we are strangers on earth and as it were in prison in our present body; that death liberates the soul and brings her home. The longing, groaning etc. of which Max Miiller speaks finds its satisfactory explanation only in this fact; the human soul does not find herself in her .congenial element, not in the region from which she his sprung and to which her very nature tends, where ,alone she can develope all her faculties, where alone she can feel free and happy. We may say her divine origin makes the soul religious. Man bears the image of God, mankind is a divine race, man may partake in the blessed state of the gods. Not only Jewish, Christian, Greek, Indian and Persian* authors contain sentences with such pur- port, even among Chinese writers similar passages may be found. Licius,t for example, says (I. 73) " the soul is the portion from Heaven, the body is the portion from Earth. What belongs to Heaven is clear and expand- ing, what belongs to Earth is turbid and contracting. When the soul leaves the (bodily) form each (soul and body) returns to its genuine being (truth). They (the deceased) are, therefore, called departed (here Kwei, the common word for demon is used). Departed (Kwei) means returned, returned to their true man- * See Bunsen, God in History, and E. H. Gillett, God in Human Thought. t Der Naturalismus bei den alten Chineaen, etc. oder sammt- liehe Werke des Philosophen Lieius, zum erstenmale vollstandig iibersetzt und erklart von Ernst Faber, 1877. Elberfeld R. L. Fridrichs, London, Trubner & Co.; Shanghai Press, Mission Press ; Kelly and Walsh ; Hongkong, Lane, Craw- ford & Co. THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 15 sion. The Yellow Emperor said, the soul {lit. sethereal < spirit) enters her gate, the body returns to its root; how may I remain !" The question at the end is doubtless put by Licius, as his doctrines are pantheistic. The con- tinuance of the terrestrial bodily personality must, of course, cease in death. In the designation " depart- ed " (daemon, Kwei), however, a continued existence as self-conscious and active spirit is expressed. This pas- sage reminds us besides of Plato's dualism. I shall for the present quote only one more re- markable passage from Licius, I., II. "Tsi-kung was tired of study and said to Confucius, ' I wish for rest. 1 Confucius (here always called Chung-ni) answered, ' In life there is no rest. 1 Tsi-kung said, 'Is there nothing then to give me rest? 1 Confucius answered, 'There is! Behold the graves yonder, hall-like, ridge-like, roof- like, hatchet-like ; there you will understand what gives rest. 1 '0 how great is death! 1 exclaimed Tsi- kung, ' The superior man it brings to rest, the low ones to submission. 1 Confucius said, 'Tshi (name of Tsi-kung) you know it now. Men all know the plea- sure of life, but they do not yet know life's bitterness; they know the frailty of old age, but do not know its ease ; they know the horror of death, but not the rest. in death. 1 'Beautiful was, 1 said Ngan Tsi,* 'the death of the ancients,^ — the humane come to rest, the inhu- mane to submission. Death is virtue's chance (re- * Premier of the State of Tshi; see Mayers' Manual, 917. f In the work ascribed to Ngan Tsi the text differs, : S i % ± ^ A. £ £E H #. " «»"*-* held the death of man as good." 16 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. compense). The ancients called the dead gone home (returned)." "If the dead are gone home, the living are pilgrims (compare Tao-te-king, XVI.) He who is a pilgrim and forgets to go home loses his home ; a man who has lost his home is blamed by the whole generation. But the whole world having lost their home there is nobody to blame them for it." So far a Chinese philosopher about 400 B.C. Such sentiments as these quoted from Licius, which can easily be multiplied from other authors of China and other countries, are a valid proof of the above-given theory of religion. I may, however, point to another not less valuable confirmation of it, that is the universal belief in a life hereafter.* I purposely do not say " immortality," as that term implies a more abstract philosophical notion. Our life, the soul we feel to animate our corporeal frame, will not be ex- tinguished after the frame is broken and dissolved into its chemical elements ; the thoughts we think, the feel- ings we foster, the will we obey, the self-consciousness we enjoy will not disappear after the organism which served as a medium for the connexion with this world has befm removed. "Death as annihilation," says Mr. Fairbairn (p. 115), "is a notion as little intelligible to a primitive or undeveloped mind as immortality. A child cannot understand death as loss of being, can- not imagine the dead as otherwise than still alive." (Why not? because against the nature of the human soul). "It thinks of them as existing somewhere, as * A very good work on this subject is that by Ed. Spiess, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Vorstellungen vom Zustande naoh dem Tode auf Grund vergleichender Religionsforschung. THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 17 doing something, and neither the lifeless body, nor the grave, nor the burial can break their simple faith. The very attempt to represent them in thought is an attempt to represent living not dead men." I further agree with Mr. Fairbairn (p. 116), — " But while the belief in the future life springs out of what we must call, for want of a better term, an instinct, its evolu- tion alike as the time occupied and the order of thought observed, depends on the development of the mental faculties as in their turn at once conditioning and conditioned by the history and situation of the people." The weakness however of Mr. Fairbairn's theory becomes apparent in the following sentence, p. 113: "Not as a dogma of religion, or a doctrine of philoso- phy, but as a specifically human property involved in the very nature of man, evolved in the evolution of that nature, the belief in immortality needs to be discussed." Does religion then not belong to human nature, and is religious belief not also developed with human nature 1 ? Mr. Fairbairn is here, to say the least, in contradiction with his own theory of religion, "We have, of course, to fall back on human nature in any thorough treatment of the question, but we have to take into account not only human nature as it is, but a whole other world with other connexions and other laws and forms of existence. Strictly speaking, how- ever, it is not human nature but the nature of the soul which forms the basis for the life hereafter. Human nature implies one important factor, the bodily or^ ganisation which is left behind. Morals and politics have to start from human nature, whereas religion and 18 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. immortality have their root in the nature of the soul, though they both culminate in the resurrection of the body.* Our theory makes it comparatively easy to treat these difficult problems. The soul enters with death into her own natural sphere, only her relation to the material world is then changed. Such at least are the clear statements of all religions of the world. Against Mr. Fairbairn we may also add, that the belief in a life hereafter is everywhere connected with religion, and most naturally so. The exception of very few metaphysicians only confirms the rule. II. RELIGION IN FACT. Max Miiller says, p. 153, " We may distinguish religion as a silent power working in the heart of man from religion in its outward appearance." The science of religion, however, cannot confine herself to the lat- ter only. Although we are unable to investigate the inner heart as we scrutinize outward actions, etc., yet we may perceive the influence of religious feelings, thoughts and maxims on the common practices of * The Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body sanctions and involves the notion that there is some deep con- nexion between Spirit and Form whioh is essential, and which cannot he finally sundered even in the divorce of Death. The Btign of Law, by the Duke of Argyll, p. 309. KELIGION IN FACT. 19 individual, social and political life. Purification and sanctification of soul and body are required by many religions. It is, perhaps, of more interest in some respects to learn how different religions differ therein, than to know all their different names for God, sacri- fices, etc. The practice of benevolence is inculcated by all religions, but again in different ways and it may be for different purposes. Max Miiller says on another page (263) : " The in- tention of religion, wherever we meet it, is always holy. However imperfect, however childish the conception of God may be, it always represents the highest ideal of perfection which the human soul, for the time being, can reach and grasp. Religion, therefore, places the human soul in the presence of its highest ideal, it lifts it above the level of ordinary goodness, and produces at least a yearning after a higher and better life, a life in the light of God." Max Miiller also quotes (p. 152) Sir H. Maine, that in ancient times religion as a divine influence was "underlying and supporting every relation of life and every social institution. A supernatural presidency is supposed to consecrate and keep together all the car- dinal institutions of those early times, the state, the race and the family ;" and (p. 224) " Neither their art, nor their poetry, nor their philosophy would have been possible without religion, that is, religion cannot be separated from anything human, but art can, poetry can, philosophy can." Such are to us strong proofs that religion is not the development of one mental faculty, but is spirit and inspiration to all faculties, to the whole man. 2D THE. SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIOION. Man as a being in the universe has relations to his fellow-men and to nature. These relations are mediated by sensations, actions and reactions through the body upon the soul. As a religious being man feels another relation to a superior power, to an invis- ible world, to a Something kindred to the intelligent and self-conscious life within himself, to which however he feels himself more or less estranged and opposed ; there again is action and reaction, but different from the first mentioned. Any action, however, of Spirit on Spirit in an- other way than through bodily sensation and common reflection we must call revelation. Revelation is thus taken in a wide, yet in the most proper sense. Reve- lation is, to our mind (soul or spirit), what the light is to the eyes. We may boldly assert, without revelation no religion! Every religion leans on revelation, is occasioned by it, the lowest religions perhaps more than the higher. But we are sure to find revelation in a different state in different religions. We have nothing to fear from the objection made by Schelling that a primordial revelation makes the natural man altogether void of religion— "an original Atheism of consciousness.'" No ! Man is conscious of his con- nexion with G-od and the invisible world till the grow- ing consciousness of nature overwhelms the other. If man had remained in his status integritatis he could have lived with his mind in connexion with the spiri- tual world, as he now does with the material. But it is not all lost. Religion shows the remaining portion of the life of the soul in those higher spheres. We have to gather carefully what each religion takes as revela RELIGION IN FACT. 21 tion. We shall find, even in Chinese religion, quite a number of facts, perhaps astonishing to many scholars to whom it seems without doubt that the Chinese do not believe in revelation ; they do believe in it, perhaps too much. We may distinguish revelations of the past which happened only once, as the creation of the world, certain miracles called forth by peculiar circumstances, as at the birth of great men, etc , and revelations which may occur even at the present time through dreams, divination, etc. Without revelation, especially of the second kind, no religion could keep its influence upon the minds of the people. As a revelation we have fur- ther to consider anything taken as an indication of the divine guidance of the world, especially of human af- fairs, as retribution, rewards or punishments of a superhuman kind. We shall have to look at the manifestations (at least so far as they are believed in) of an evil power or perhaps evil powers. Many natural calamities are taken as caused by evil spirits^ there are dsemoniac influences, and even possessions. We have for our immediate purpose nothing to do with the explana- tion of such things, but have to state them as religions facts, as traces of a preternatural revelation. But, though revelation is the principal factor in religion, it is not the ' only one. Man is the reli- gious subject. We find in all religions a more or less developed religious psychology, something on the ori- gin of man, his spirit, soul, the great problems of life, the temptations from within and without, a spi- ritual life contrary to the natural life, sin, sickness, 22 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. death, the life hereafter — all as topics of almost every religion. Lastly, we see many things done through the in- fluence of religion as an expression of the relation between man and the spiritual world, performances which have no other meaning whatever. Indications of such we see in all the temples, altars, sacrifices (human, animal), offerings (vegetable and mineral, wine, spirits, etc.), vessels used for sacred purposes, clothes and ornaments, idols and other representa- tions of gods and spirits. We meet with prayers, curses, blessings, oaths, fastings and watchings and other purifications, different modes of augury and divination, sorcery, charms, mediums, priests, saints, clairvoyance and ecstacy. We find peculiar religious virtues, as faith, devotion, abstinence, martyrdom, etc.; we find holy scriptures and inspirations, etc. Eeligion, to judge from all these facts, is animated by a life of a peculiar character, different in many respects from our common life whose face is towards earth and whose connexions are with the mundane world ; but religion has her face towards heaven, i.e. to the supramundane (though immanent), the Spiritual, the Divine world. We shall see all these things verified even in China. RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. 23 III. RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. From religion we have carefully to distinguish theology. Religion is nature, theology is art, i.e. not a necessary growth out of the nature of the human soul, but it is explanation and structure, a deed of the intellect of man. The religious facts and their intellectual interpretations, the religious ideas and the theological developments and systems built upon them, are very different things. As an intellectual science theology is subject to the laws of reason, and is conse- quently in its most perfect systems always rationalistic. Even Max Mfiller acknowledges (p. 17) that religion is in a certain sense necessarily, because naturally, con- tradicted by reason. Theology and religion, therefore, can never become identical, but only more or less adequate to each other. In Max Miiller's lectures, however, religion and theology run, imperceptibly but continuously, one into the other. This serious fault is not Max Miiller's alone ; our whole age is sick from the same disease. There are only very few booksj 24 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. if any, written on religion in general or on the religion of a certain nation, where mistakes of this kind are avoided. Views and theories of renowned or obscure authors are not religion. They may, perhaps, be of some help to us towards a better understanding of the mean- ing of a strange religious practice or idea, but they may also, which is oftener the case, be misleading. We find among the adherents of every religion different explanations of the same religious facts, different views in regard to the same religious ideas. These dif- ferences of theological opinion may be tolerated by a religion and remain more in books than in public life, as is now the case in China ; or they may lead to the formation of different churches and creeds, as in India and among Mohamedans and Christians. Yet all these controversies belong to theology and not to religion. I do not mean to disparage theology : theology is necessary ; man cannot remain in the primitive and more intuitive state of religion; he must make attempts to understand what he is doing and believing. Never- theless, what I think of greatest importance is to raise the voice* again and again against every identification of theology with religion, which mistake is doing great damage to the churches and to scientific endeavours. Nearly all the works written on religion belong, with very few exceptions indeed, to theology or philosophy, but not to religion. They may be religious in an eminent sense, yet so far as they contain reflections and reasonings they have to be distinguished from religion itself. Where reason gains the sway over reli- gion, religious life will turn shallow and more super- RELIGION AND THEOLOGY. 25 stitious in other respects. Scepticism will be a sure re- sult of every undue entrance of reason upon the domain of religion. Reason has only a purifying and healthy effect on religious life if it clears up the true nature of religion and its laws. But this nature and these laws must be found by induction from religion itself; it must be proved that such laws are really the laws of religion. Too often metaphysical or even physical notions have been smuggled in. By a legal use of reason superstition can be dispelled, as it will be shown to be contrary to the nature and the laws of true religion. Much has been spoken of a natural or rational religion, which commonly meant a religion developed from the laws of logic without any other than formal contents — a mere negation of revealed religion ; a ra- tional belief, Denkglaube, " which thinks to believe and believes to think." Other theologians and philosophers assumed a universal primitive revelation. Max Miiller says of it (p. 137), "This universal primeval revelation is only another name for natural- religion, and it rests on no authority but the speculations of philosophers." This is true in so far as the two terms have been used as synonyms. In another sense revelation is the germ and the human mind the congenial soil (p. 133, 140) of religion. " The controversial writings of different schools of thought and faith, all claiming to be orthodox, yet differing from each other like day and night," Max Miiller (p. 110) calls, " The inevitable parasites of theological literature." From the statements above we may take warn- 26 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. ing not to call the science of religion "theology." I have to disagree with Max Miiller, who makes com- parative theology the equivalent, or synonymous with comparative religion. Comparative theology ought to compare the theological speculations of all nations and times, the problems they have treated, the methods they have pursued and the results they have gained. Comparative religion, however, ought to confine itself to a comparison of all religious facts and beliefs, as stated above. Theoretical theology may investigate the metaphysical questions connected with both reli- gion and theology. Any confusion of these three distinct seienees is unscientific, will produce miscon- ceptions and lead to misunderstandings. Another source of serious mistakes we have yet to mention, of which Max Miiller, however, is free — that is, the promiscuous use of authorities from different epochs and from far differing parties. Such nonsense, if one may use the most appropriate expression, pre- vails to a nauseating extent in works on the religion of China; this ought not to be tolerated in the future. What should we say if a Chinaman in England or America were to write a book on Christian Cosmo- gony and mix up in it the views of modern writers on Geology and Darwinism, together with quotations from church-fathers, scholastics, gnostics, and passages from the Bible ; or if one were to take the views of David Strauss as those of Christ, because they are generally (though fortunately with many exceptions) believed in by the educated classes in Germany ! No Chinaman has yet done such a thing, but Western scholars have done it in works on China. It may RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 27 suffice to mention the subject without exposing any author. As I have already criticised Max Muller very freely, and as 1 shall be under obligation to state some further disagreements in the following chapters, I take here a welcome opportunity to express a sincere agreement with Max Miiller's chapter on false analogies in com- parative theology (p. 283-334), and would warmly recommend it to all who undertake to write on similar topics. IV. RELIGION AND SCIENCE. By Science a systematic knowledge of nature is here understood. Nature we call the realm of mat- ter, its various forms of existence, appearances and changes. The human mind desires to understand the world around itself - r man attempts to interpret nature He may do so in two different ways : starting from his mind, nature is then understood when it is made to conform to mind, the laws of mind are shown to be those of nature ; nature is thus only another appearance of one and the same mind. This is the idealistic interpretation of nature. The other explanation starts from the external realities of nature ; all facts, though represented by the mind, are supposed to be beyond 28 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. any influence of the mind. Abstractions are made and laws established by induction, and mind itself is then made only another appearance of nature or matter. This is the realistic interpretation of nature. The re- sults of both interpretations are, of course, very dif- ferent, we may say, exclusive of each other. The reason is, they are both onesided and delusive. It is a delusion of idealism that for mind unconsciously and commonly the human mind is taken and not the uni- versal mind (different from a mind of the universe) : It is a delusion of realism that nature is considered the cause of mind and mind is thus more or less a mere abstraction, different from the real human mind. We here merely point to these difficulties. Religion, itself is little affected by any explanation of nature, perhaps even less than poetry. But religious specula- tions may be upset by scientific researches. " Im- perfect and transitory doctrines in theology can, how- ever, as little disprove religion as provisional theories in science can discredit nature. 11 * Religion shows the connexion of the soul with an- other world. There is, however, a relation between this Spiritual world, or the divine world, or God, how- ever we may call it, and the material world. This relation may be conceived under forms the most varied. Mr. Fairbairn says, (p. 22), " Man borrows from na- ture the symbols by which he tries to articulate his faith. The phenomena of generation have suggested an emanational relation of Deity to the world ; those * Fairbairn, Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and His- tory, p. 72. RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 29 of organic life an immanent, those of adaptation an architectonic. " The deistic idea and the cosmic form may thus so grow together as to seem indissoluble aud even iden- tical. In ages when science is active and progressive, it may so revolutionize our knowledge of natural pro- cesses and laws as to break up our cosmic conception, and change into antiquated errors the forms in which the theistic idea had been expressed. This decay of old cosmic notions may involve the decay of theolo- gical formulae, but need not touch the truth they provisionally expressed." " The world needed God (p. 8 ff.) to become intelli- gible ; God did not need the world to become credible. Men were theists before they were scientists, believed in the Being of God before they had thought of either a creator or a cause. And even where he was conceived as creator, he was not conceived as a manufacturer or mechanic, but as a maker by a pro- cess as natural and immanent as the thinking, the speech and the, volition of man. Any interpretation of nature that leaves out any creative and causal energy or force must be inadequate. Any concep- tion of God that leaves out His active qualities, His energies and their action, must be insufficient." So far all is true and well said, and has my full consent. I must however ask permission to disagree with Mr. Fairbairn's following sentence, "Nature realises our idea of God " — has the idea no reality elsewhere ? — " shows His energies in action, His life in contact with ours." True again, if we do not presume that God's energies are, as it were, exhausted in nature. 30 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. We must at least guard against here confining the meaning of nature to the nature of this world, which is subject to our sense-perception. Our Spirit (soul) has a nature too; God himself has a nature, the inaccessible light, the eternal glory that surrounds him. His divine nature is the adequate manifestation of the divine Being, the outside of the inner thought of God, the external formation of the eternal ideas, a world which is an emanation of God, not a creation, as the material world is. Only by thus distinguishing the nature in God which emanates — His only-begot- ten son, the " brightness of His glory and the express image of His person" — from this material and creat- ed world, can we escape pantheism in all its vari- ous forms.* Though God is not separated from the material world, though he to a certain degree is im- manent in it, as all life is in close connection with Him the source of life, as every action is conneeted with Him the supreme cause, yet this world in all its beauty, etc. cannot reveal the fulness of the riches of the divine Being. God is also eminent, high above the nature of our world. This world is only one of the manifestations of God's Being, not the Being of God itself. Besides the manifestation of God through the nature of this world is not yet finished, i.e. this world is yet in a state of imperfection, partly even of cor- ruption. Science takes nature as it is, religion not only so, but more as it ought to be. Religion wants a nature which is in fact the revelation of Spirit, in and * This view may be said to be the characteristic feature of Franz v. Brader's philosophy in distinction from Schelling's. RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 31 through which mind can manifest all its powers in the most perfect manner without ever suffering from the pernicious influences of this nature. It is not alone the Christian religion that speaks of another world where no more death and corrup- tion reign, where the nature is completely subject to Spirit and God. Other religions also affirm that the abode of the gods is a region where other laws of existence reign, and that death cannot reach the gods, or if it does for a time, death is to be overcome in the future by one of the gods. Our human existence even i has not yet reached its highest form of perfection, the natural development has been checked by sin, death breaks it off, and a new beginning is to be made. The Chinese are not at all ignorant of this feature of reli- gion. It is again Licius who furnishes us with mate- rials in this respect. I shall however not enter into details at present, but point to another fact. Perhaps all religions without exception know of a peculiar power of mind over nature. Not only may the mind (soul), by help of a special preparation, become temporarily freed from the bonds of the body, but we are also told, and facts are related in proof, that the mind can gradually gain a miraculous power over the body so far that the body seems no more'subject to physical laws but must follow unconditionally the will of mind, its master. Taoism is the most developed system in this respect, Buddhism and even Confucianism contain many such elements. We have only to remember the miracles wrought by their Saints. Though of Confu- cius himself no miracles are recorded, yet the power of the Saint is described as equal to Heaven and Earth. 32 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. A third instance consists in the power of the mind even over external nature ; many phenomena of nature are considered as under the influence of some persons who exert a magical power over it. Not only are there rainmakers in all countries, but the common belief of ancient and modern Confu- cianism maintains also that any irregularity in the administration of social and political life will produce a corresponding disorder in the course of nature. We see the idea clearly enough : nature is considered to be the body of mind (Spirit), as the human body is of the human mind. The whole nature is under the in- fluence of mind. That this must be the universal mind is forgotten, and as the human mind is the only one of which man has a clear and immediate concep- tion he is misled to take his own mind as the mind of nature. This is the source of many superstitions. Other heathen, however, are fully aware, that there is another mind in nature than in us, that there are even different minds in different parts of nature. Man then attempts to influence those minds by his mind. Thus man will not himself influence nature directly, but by influencing the gods he will induce them to do in nature what he wants to be accom- plished. The mean% used to arrive at this end are different among different people. Some allow only religious means, conformity of the heart to the will of the gods ; others use moral means, perfection in what is good, or holiness ; others employ physical contrivances, elixirs, etc.; but there is besides used a good deal of mere formalism, as enchantments, pecu- liar rites, symbols, etc. The power of mind over RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 33 nature is evidently overrated in such religious pro- ceedings, even where a knowledge of the universal mind is retained. The mistake is, that such people are not more conscious of the important fact, that the universal Mind acts in accordance with the eternal laws of His own nature (and will), but never with any whimsical notion of a human being. Science, on the other hand, denies too much. There are not only mechanical laws acting in nature, mind is also acting in it ; a personal God is be- hind nature and is manifesting Himself in nature and through nature. I myself entertain, therefore, not the least doubt that God answers prayer. I even believe that no sincere prayer will remain unanswered ; but the divine answer will always be in accordance with divine will and not exactly in accord with human wishes. Mr. J. A. Froude* objects. " To pray," he says, "is to expect a miracle. When we pray for the recovery of a siok friend, for the gift of any bless- ing, or the removal of any calamity, we expect that God will do something by an act of His personal will which otherwise would not have been done, that He will suspend the ordinary relations of natural cause and effect, and this is the very idea of a miracle. The thing we pray for may be given us, and no miracle may have taken place. It may be given to us by natural causes, and would have occurred whether we had prayed or not. But prayer itself in its very essence implies a belief in the possible intervention of a power which is above nature." This is a clear — # * Short Studies on Great Subjects, 3 vols,, vol, I. p. 228, 34 THE SCIENCE '©F CHINESE RELIGION. statement of the common disbelief of our age. It contains, however, more thoughtlessness than thought, more nonsense than sense. We could as well argue that to call a physician for a sick friend is to ex- pect a miracle. Every sickness is a natural occurrence and to interfere with it is an attempt to suspend the ordinary relations of natural cause and effect. The friend may get well without medicine ; to call a phy- sician implies a belief in the possible intervention of his power as being above nature. It is scarcely credi- ble how blind people are made by their favourite theories. People of common sense perfectly under- stand that a physician acts by natural agencies as well as the disease is brought on and developed by such ; the physician's work consists in an intelligent direction of one natural agency against another. There is no suspension of ordinary relations of natural cause and effect, but by the superiority of mind above nature some natural agencies may be brought in direct action upon the desired point which will produce in the most natural way the wished-for effect. " There are nd phenomena visible to man of which it is true to say that they are governed by any invariable Force. That which does govern them is always some variable com- bination of invariable forces. But this makes all the difference in reasoning on the relation of Will to Law ; this is the one essential distinction to be admitted and Observed. There is no observed order of facts which is not due to a combination of Forces ; and there is no combination of Forces whieh is invariable, none which are not capable of change in infinite degrees. In these senses, and these are the common senses in which Law RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 35 is used to express the phenomena of Nature, Law is not rigid, it is not immutable, it is not invariable, but it is, on the contrary, pliable,- subtle and various. In the only, sense in which- laws are immutable this immu- tability is the very characteristic which makes them subject to guidance through endless* cycles of design. We know this in our own case. It is- the very cer- tainty and invariableness of the laws of Nature which alone enables us to use them, and to yoke them, to our service." " Now, the laws of Nature are employed'. in> the system of Nature in a manner precisely analogous to that in which we ourselves employ them. The diffi- culties and obstructions which, are presented by one law in the way of accomplishing a given, purpose, are met- and overcome exactly on the same principle on which they are met and overcome by Man, viz*,, by knowledge of other laws, and by resource in applying them,, that is by ingenuity id mechanical contrivance. It cannot be too much insisted- on, that this is a con- clusion of pure science."* If the knowledge and power of God were not far superior to our very limited knowledge of the laws of nature, etc., I should,, of course, think prayer useless. But as it is, I g " Every thing which men rightly accomplish is indeed done by Divine help, but under a consistent law which is never departed from." Who ever denied such a law ? What is denied is that the law is mechanical and not personal or dynamic; we prefer to say it is religious and moral law. " All things are possible to well-directed labour," is, to say the least, a hyper- bolical saying. Put all writers of our present time together and well direct their labour, you will not produce one Sheakspeare, nor from all painters one Raphael, nor from the sculptors a Michael Angelo. RELIGION AND THE ARTS. 91, Mr. Buskin says (p. 48), " The operation of formative art on religious creed is essentially twofold ; the reali- zation of their imagined spiritual persons and the limitatiou of their imagined presence to certain places." Mr. Ruskin uses the expression "religious creed " not " religious life ;" our readers already know the vital difference of the two terms. Mr. Ruskin continues (p. 49), " There are thus two distinct operations upon our mind : first, the art makes us believe what we would not otherwise have believed ; and secondly, it makes us think of subjects we should not otherwise have thought of." Mr. Ruskin is altogether mistaken in these two points. Art never creates religion or religious belief, but is the expression of it and may help some individuals who have already a tendency towards it by their definite formation, or, we might say, formulation of a distinct belief or thought. Rather strange is what Mr. Ruskin says (p. 51), " If the Greeks, instead of multiplying representations of what they imagined to be the figure of the god, had given us accurate drawings of the heroes and battles of Marathon and Salamis,* . . . they would have served their religion more truly than by all the vase- paintings and fine statues that ever were buried or adored." I beg permission to disagree on this point with the professor of fine arts. Statues or portraits of individuals can never become universal; we may * Compare also Ruskin's Lectures on Architecture and Paint- ing, IV., " Of all the wastes of time and sense which Modernism has invented — and they are many — none are so ridiculous as this endeavour to represent past history." 92 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. admire them as exhibiting mastery in technic art, but we want more. Alexander is only one king, Zeus is the king, etc. Superior art must be generic without becoming indefinite, the very characteristics of the class must be apparent in the most perfect way. We see the same thing before our own eyes. The statue of Schiller is not only a true portrait of his person but a representation of the idealistic Poet. I must, however, not enter too much in the realm of arts, as that is not my province. The close connection between arts and religion, especially in ancient times, is acknowledged not only by Mr. Buskin but by almost all authorities. Not much, however, has been done yet to show the difference of the religions in that respect. Of the sacred poetry of different nations we have already fine collections to enable the student of comparative religion to investi- gate his subject and tell us what immediate purpose each poem had, whether it was in praise of some gods or of ancestors, or whether it had any other aim. We want then to know how this is accomplished, — are deeds related (epic) or are effusions given of the feelings of the poet's heart (lyrics) 2 It is further of interest to observe how the secular poetry branched off from the sacred stem, and what kind of relation existed between the two kinds? How much of the human sphere was considered sacred may be learned from the religious poetry of the period. We may besides gather many indications if not revelations of the intercourse between the divine and the human world. Sacred lyrics open the innermost heart of man, RELIGION AND THE AET8. 93 and we are allowed to see into the most secret recesses of the human soul, and become witnesses of its intercourse with the Unseen world, its delights in the enjoyment of it and its sorrows at any interruption with it. We feel with the poet his troubles caused by adversaries, his scorn at them and his hope that his God must triumph over all enemies. It will be of great interest to learn how the religious sentiment differs in different religions, and how it expressed itself in poetic language, in peculiar metaphors, etc. — Perhaps as old as poetry is architecture. We find everywhere the noblest edifices dedicated to the gods. The structure of such buildings is, however, different from all other buildings, why? What was the original meaning of such a peculiar form? In connection with the temples we observe peculiar or- naments to which a symbolical meaning is attached; those symbols and other ornaments are again different in different periods and among different nations, but must be shown always to correspond with the reli- gious ideas. In the temples and on the altars a certain variety of vessels were used made of different materials and all in a more or less artificial form, as lamps, in- cense burners, vases, cups, etc. Man seems every- where to have striven to do his very best for his gods, and other' objects of his worship.— Music is also one of the earliest sacred arts. What kind of instruments were used, which in solo and which in concert with others! There is no pos- sibility to compare the tunes of sacred music of ancient 94 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. religions, as the tones of music were not yet written down, though we find names for the different tones, yet their succession in a melody has not been so denoted to enable us to reproduce it. But we know the keys of the music of many nations and a little of the time or rhythm. We find it strange, however, that no- thing has been done yet to collect the most charac- teristic pieces of sacred music of the different religions and nations of the present day. Many interesting inferences could' be drawn from such a collection. Music has been accompanied by song, but not al- ways nor everywhere. Mimics and dances were also performed in connection with music. Then the drama followed in later periods. We see again secular music branch off and become developed in connection or oftener in opposition to sacred music. As we have at present Choral and Oratorio as sacred, People-song and Opera as secular music, so even the Chinese had something of the kind (mutata mutandis) long before the time of Confucius. What was the original idea of using music for sacred purposes and how did the vari- ous religions differ in their respective usages ? — Sculpture is another branch of the fine arts which became developed by religion. Designs were made of the gods, of their symbols, representations of their deeds, etc. How did men of different religions express their ideas of God in these sculptures ? We see at one superficial glance that there is a great difference be- tween the sculptures of Egypt, of Assyria, Greece, India, China, and other countries. We find in Greek sculptures the most ideal human figures but always ex- pressive of one side of the human nature, as majesty in RELIGION AND THE ARTS. 95 Jupiter, sensuality in the Fauns, loveliness in Venus, self possession in Minerva, etc. If we knew nothing of the Greek belief in such gods we would take Greek sculp- ture for nothing but fine idealised statues of excellent human beings.* The gods were thought like man (anthropomorphism) and man like the gods (apotheo- sis). It is different with Assyrian sculptures, where everything pertaining to the gods is colossal to indi- cate their, the human world far surpassing, greatness. Worse even it is with the Indian plastic arts, as the divine attributes are expressed on the figure in a sym- bolic form. But it is not the place here to enter into details. We see sculpture is not only the product of mythology, there are other peculiarities of religious and of national abilities made apparent in those works of art. We have, however, to remember that no artist could create a god or even another form of a god, such would never have become recognised by any worship- per. The artist had to take the religious idea from the common belief of his time and give it an artistic form according to his abilities. Painting, though later developed than the other" arts, is known in remotest antiquity. The colours were distinguished and a symbolic meaning attached to them. It is again of interest to learn which colours were preferred by a special religion, and what combina- tions of colours. When we meet with pictures it is of interest to know what ideas there are expressed by them, and how this is done. * Aristotle already said, "the gods that have human form are nothing but eternal men." 96 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. Mr. Ruskin* gives us again some very valuable hints which may serve as a pattern how to treat the different branches of the fine arts for the purpose of the science of religion. Mr. Buskin says : " You have then these two great divisions of human mind: one, content with the colours of things, whether they are dark or light; the other seeking light pure, as such, and dreading darkness as such. One, also, content with the coloured aspects and visionary shapes of things; the other seeking their form and substance. And, as I said, the school of knowledge, seeking light, perceives, and has to accept and deal with obscurity; and seeking form, it has to accept and deal with formlessness or death. " Farther, the school of colour in Europe, using the word Gothic in its broadest sense, is essentially Gothic Christian ; and full of comfort and peace. Again, the school of light is essentially Greek, and full of sorrow. I cannot tell you which is right, or least wrong. I tell you only what I know— this vital distinction be- tween them: the Gothic or colour school is always cheerful, the Greek always oppressed by the shadow of death; and the stronger its masters are, the closer that body of death grips them. ..... " But remember, its first development, and all its final power, depends on Greek sorrow, and Greek religion. "The school of light is founded in the Doric wor- ship of Apollo and the Ionic worship of Athena, as the spirits of life in the light, and of life in the air, * Lectures on Art, p. 147, ff. , RELIGION AND THE ARTS. 97 opposed each to their own contrary deity of death — Apollo to the Python, Athena to the Gorgon — Apollo as life in light, to the earth spirit of corruption in darkness, Athena as life by motion, to the Gorgon spirit of death by pause, freezing, or turning to stone; both of the great divinities taking their glory from the evil they have conquered ; both of them, when angry, taking to men the form of the evil which is their opposite — Apollo slaying by poisoned arrow, by pesti- lence; Athena by cold, the black aegis on her breast. These are definite and direct expressions of the Greek thoughts respecting death and life. But underlying both these, and far more mysterious, dreadful, and yet beautiful, there is the Greek conception of spiritual darkness ; of the' anger of fate, whether foredoomed or avenging ; the root and theme of all Greek tragedy ; the anger of the Erinnyes, and Demeter Erinnys, com- pared to which the anger either of Apollo or Athena is temporary and partial; — and also, while Apollo or Athena only slay, the power of Demeter and the Eumenides is over the whole life ; so that in the stories of Bellerophon, of Hippolytus, of Orestes, of Oedipus, you have an incomparably deeper shadow than any that was possible to the thought of later ages, when the hope of the Resurrection had become definite." I cannot enter here into a philosophy of aesthetics. Those who take interest in the subject can easily get a library of well-written books in reference to it. My object here is only to point out, as briefly as possible, the relation between the fine arts and religion. We have again to be on our guard not to mix up religioa with fine arts or aesthetic feelings. The arts have 98 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. their origin in our sense of beauty and in imagination (phantasia). Art may separate itself from religion, and has done so. Men of high artistic genius and culture have been most unreligious persons. John Euskin says (p. 11) " I need scarcely refer, except for the sake of completeness in my statement, to one form of de- mand for art which is wholly unenlightened, and powerful only for evil; namely, the demand of the classes occupied solely in the pursuit of pleasure, for objects and modes of art that can amuse indolence or satisfy sensibility. There is no need for any discus- , sion of these requirements or of their form of influence, though they are very deadly at present in their opera- tion on sculpture, and on jewellers' work. They cannot be checked by blame, nor guided by instruction ; they are merely the necessary results of whatever defects exist in the temper and principles of a luxurious soci- ety; and it is only by moral changes, not by art- Criticism that their action can be modified." Art in its highest perfection is nature, but nature idealized, glorified. Nature as it is, shows not beauty in an unmixed form, but contains everywhere features of ugliness, of disfiguring death and corruption; the finest forms and views are, besides, transitory, momen- tary and therefore, illusory. Art makes those moments permanent. In religious service (Oultus) the arts, as nature in its ideal form, are made subservient to the worship of God. In such use we find, if nowhere else, a clear distinction of sacred arts from the profane. Not every kind of architecture is thought fit for places of worship, not every kind of sculpture, music and .painting is allowed to enter the sacred halls. It RELIGION AND THE ARTS. 99 may be difficult to find out why this kind of art was considered sacred and the other profane, yet the fact remains, and careful investigation may perhaps succeed in discovering some of the characteristics of them. By genuine religious art, I think, commonly is understood what is properly called sublime. Another of Mr. Buskin's fine sayings (p. 62) is also to the point, " In Reverence is. the chief joy and power of life — Reverence, for what is pure and bright in your own youth, for what is true and tried in the age of others ; for all that is gracious among the living, great among the dead, and marvellous in the Power that cannot die." Any art that creates such Reverence is reli- gious or sacred art ; though, to guard against mis- understanding, sacred, in this sense is far from being sacred or holy in the specific Christian sense. We find again that the meaning of many forms of worship, of symbols, etc. has been lost, and things are performed as opus operation. There is one of the great dangers to which religion is brought by the fine arts. Another danger is, that the real object of worship is lost sight of, and the performances of arts absorb all the atten- tion, a reverie of feelings is mistaken for devotional spirit. In such periods the arts will also exert a debasing influence on morality. Mr. Ruskin says very well, p. 26: "The art, or general productive and forma- tive energy,, of any country, is an exact exponent of its ethical life. You can have noble art only from noble persons, associated under laws fitted to their time and circumstances . . . Men's best arts and brightest happiness are consistent, and consistent only, with their virtue " 100 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. When the mind is not carried up by the enjoy- ment of beauty in the fine arts to the eternal regions of beauty in the ideal and Divine world, it will sink down deeper in sensual enjoyments. The fine arts form the golden link between the Spiritual and the sensual beauty. We can find sensualistie arts, with or without a religious fig-leaf put on, among almost all nations. As soon as religion becomes conscious of itself again, it turns with disgust from such arts to rigoristic morals. Mr. Ruskin says emphatically and truly, p. 60: "Must it not then be only because we love our own work better than His, that we respect the lucent glass, but not the lucent clouds, that we weave em- broidered robes with ingenious fingers, and make bright the gilded vaults we have beautifully ordained — while yet we have not considered the heavens the work of His fingers, nor the stars of the strange vault which He has ordained. And do we dream that by carving fonts and lifting pillars in His honour, who cuts the way of the rivers among the rocks, and at whose reproof the pillars of the earth are astonished, we shall obtain pardon for the dishonour done to the hills and streams by which He has appointed our dwell- ing place . . . as if we laboured only that we might be able to give the lie to the song " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of all creatures, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy glory?" We may grant so much and go one step farther rejecting all fine arts as detrimental to true religious life, yet even the severest Puritanism cannot altogether free itself from some arts in the worship of God. RELIGION AND THE ARTS. 101 There is singing done which implies poetry and mu- sic. There is some mimic at praying by kneeling and folding or stretching out the hands. There are sym- bols used, if not in sculptures and paintings yet in actions, as baptism and the Lord's supper ; and exten- sive use is made of allegories and figures in speech. We see Comparative Religion has a wide field of in- vestigation in the regions of the beautiful. Winkel- mann, the renowned explainer of Greek art, says, " Beauty is one of the great mysteries of nature, we all see and perceive its effects, but a general and clear notion of it belongs to those tenets of truth which have not yet been found out." As " Highest beauty " is in God, and in every pure and perfect work of God, the missing notion is certainly not far from religion. 102 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. IX. RELIGION AND NATURE. As there is already a chapter on Religion and Science it will be understood at once that no theory on nature is meant here, but simply the world around man, even including human life in its everyday ap- pearance. "There are more ways than one of studying na- tural history.* There is Dr. Dryasdust's way, which consists of mere accuracy of definition and differentia- tion; statistics as harsh, and dry as the skins and bones in the museum where it is studied. There is the field-observer's way ; the careful and conscientious accumulation and record of facts bearing on the life- history of the creatures ; statistics as fresh and bright as the forest or meadow where they are gathered in the dewy morning. And there is the poet's way ; who looks at nature through a glass peculiarly his own; the * The Romance of Natural History, by Philip Henry Gosse. Preface. RELIGION AND NATURE. 103 aesthetic aspect, which deals, not with statistics, but with the emotions of the human mind, — surprise, won- der, terror, revulsion, admiration, love, desire, and so forth — which are made energetic by the contemplation of the creatures around him. " In my many years' wanderings through the wide field of natural history, I have always felt towards it something of a poet's heart, though destitute of a poet's genius. As Wordsworth so beautifully says, — ' To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often He too deep for tears.' " One method of studying nature Mr. Gosse has, however, left unmentioned, that is the religious method Though somewhat resembling the poetical treatment it will become soon apparent that the differences are even greater than the resemblances. Though as in poetical sentiments the feelings depend on association and contrast, yet the religious view brings the appear- ance of natural life in contact with some eternal truth. Every religion shows, however, some peculiarity in this respect. As individual men are differently disposed towards nature and natural life, one enjoying everything in kind and generous sympathy, another taking scarcely any notice of these same things ; one seeing beauty every- where, another only decay ; one feeling the pulsations of life, another the approachings of death, etc. — so the different religions. But not only the general view of natural life which different religions take, is of interest to us, but perhaps more so the many details connected with religious 104 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. teachings and religious life. Some devoted persons may leave human society and live among wild beasts, others allow men to die from hunger and nurse ani- mals. Confucius liked to stand still at a river and look into the constant flowing of its water with exalta- tion of his mind. " The wise ones love the water, the humane ones love mountains," is an old Chinese saying, Every religion and every nation has some peculiarity in that respect. Certain trees were thought sacred to some divinities. Pliny mentions that in Greece the oak-tree was sacred to Jupiter, the olive-tree to Minerva, the myrtle to Venus, the laurel to Apollo, the poplar to Hercules. In India the Banian tree or Indian fig is regarded as sacred. In China the Cypress, Pine and other trees as well, the lotus flower in India and from there by the Buddhists of other countries. The altars on the fields have commonly a sacred tree to overshadow them, near temples and monasteries trees are cultivated, on or near the graves trees and flowers are planted. Each religion and per- haps each country differs in its predilection. So it is even with animals. Some are regarded as sacred, others as unclean. Many natural objects are used as symbols or emblems. Others of rare occurrence are regarded as ominous, as in China the phoenix (phea- sant?), the appearance of a comet, etc. The life of every individual is written in the stars, not only birth and death, but his success in trade or literature, in marriage and descendants. Many beautiful sentences can be gathered from the illustrations taken from nature given in the teach- ings of different religions. I shall here only point to .RELIGIOtf AITC) NATURE. 105 the Bible. The Old Testament is full of it. Even our Lord Jesus speaks commonly in parables, and takes nature, as it appears to every man, as the language of God, full of meaning and eternal truth. He refers to lightning in various senses, to the colour of heaven, the gathering clouds, to wind, rain and floods, to the sand or rock as foundation for buildings, to the depth of the sea, to fire and salt ; he refers to plants and their life, mint and other spices, the reed on the banks of Jordan, the lilies growing in the desert, to the grapes on the vine, the fig-tree, the grain and its develop- ment ; to different animals as to little gnats and large camels, sparrows and eagles,, fish and birds, snakes and doves, wolves and sheep, foxes having dens, a hen gathering her chickens under her wings, etc. The everyday life of human society is referred to even more frequently: the leaven which a. woman took, her lost piece of silver, fishermen casting their nets, husbandmen sowing their seed, old and new vessels for wine, cloth for repairing clothes, bread for children and feeding dogs, children playing in the market, asking their parents for food, a miser (Luke 12, 16, ff.), and his rich harvest, an unjust judge, a wedd- ing feast and going to meet the bride, the relation of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. He speaks too of the pleasures of the rich and the misery of the poor, of hiring workmen and paying their wages, of nobles and servants, palaces and prisons, etc. How striking is Christ's fondness of little children, his placing one child as a pattern before his disciples, his pure friend- ship even with females (Martha and Mary), his tender love to his mother even on the cross ; how superior is 106 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. his usage of common events, as the woman's drawing water, the widow at the treasury, Siloah's tower, Pi- late's murder of the Galileans, John's living and preaching, etc. Christ also points to historical facts well known to all his hearers, as the creation, the first man, the first bloodshed of Abel, Noah and the flood, Abraham, Sodom, Israel in the desert, at mount Sinai, King David, Elijah, Jonas, etc. We could go on and gather many more references to nature from the writings of the apostles. But completeness is not my purpose at present. So much is elear that the religion of our Bible has the most intimate and noble relation to nature and history. But a mind without peace cannot enjoy nature, and a mind without hope cannot understand history. This is the reason that many so- called Christians failed in recognizing the above indi- cated Gospel-truths and went astray in monkish and eremitical negation of nature, though even this seldom has gone so far as to be dead against the beauty of fine landscape, but only against nature relating to men. It is greatly to be regretted that the religious preaching, teaching and writing of our age is com- monly either dogmatical, abstract moral or fictitious. Especially the latter kind is now a great danger to religion and to the health of social and individual morality. A quotation from an author* who deserves to be not forgotten may give a few suggestions. " To affirm, that it is necessary for the entertainment of the human mind to have recourse to fictitious scenes and * Thomas Dick, LL.D. The Philosophy of Religion, p. 155, ff. Hartford, 1846. r ' RELIGION AND NATURE. 107 narratives, and to the wild vagaries of an unbridled imagination, is, in effect, to throw a reflection upon the plans and the conduct of the Creator. It im- plies, that, in the scenes of nature which surround us, both in the heavens and on the earth, and in the ad- ministrations of his moral government among men, God has not produced a sufficient variety of interesting objects for the contemplation, the instruction and the entertainment of the human race — and that the system of the moral and physical world must be distorted and deranged, and its economy misrepresented and blended with the creations of human folly, before its scenery be rendered fit to gratify the depraved and fastidious tastes of mankind. And is it indeed true, that there is not a sufficient variety to gratify a rational mind in the existing scenes of creation and providence ? If we survey the Alpine scenes of nature ; if we explore the wonders of the ocean ; if we penetrate into the sub- terraneous recesses of the globe ; if we direct our view to the numerous objects of sublimity and of beauty to be found in every country; if we investigate the structure and economy of the animal and the vegetable tribes; if we raise our eyes to the rolling orbs of heaven ; if we look back to the generations of old, and trace the history of ancient nations ; if we contemplate the present state of civilized and of savage tribes, and the moral scenery which is everywhere displayed around us — shall we not find a sufficient variety of everything which is calculated to interest, to instruct, and to entertain a rational mind 1 I am bold to affirm that were a proper selection made of the facts connect- ed with the system of nature, and with the history and 108 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. the present state of human society, and were th© sketches of such facts executed by the hand of a master, and interspersed with "rational and moral re- flections — volumes might be presented to the public,- no less entertaining and certainly far more instructive, than all the novels and romances which the human imagination has ever produced ; and that, too, without distorting a single fact in the system of nature or of human society. " If man were only the oreature of a day, whose whole existence was confined within the limits of this sublunary scene, he might amuse himself either with facts or with fictions, or with any toys or gewgaws that happened to strike his fancy while he glided down the stream of time to the gulf of oblivion. But if he is a being destined for eternity, the train of his thoughts ought to be directed to objects corresponding to his high destination, and all his amusements blended with those moral instructions which have an ultimate re- ference to the scene of his immortal existence. When I read one of our modern novels, I enjoy for a few hours, a transitory amusement in contemplating the scenes of fancy it displays, and in following the hero through his numerous adventures ; I admire the force and brilliancy of the imagination of the writer (for I am by no means disposed to underrate the intellectual talent which has produced some of the works to which I allude), but when I have finished the perusal, and reflect, that all the scenes which passed before my mental eye, were only so many unsubstantial images, the fictions of a lively imagination — I cannot indulge in rational or religious reflections on the subject, nor RELIGION AND NATURE. 109 derive a single moral instruction, any more than I can do from a dream or a vision of the night. When I survey the scenes of creation ; when I read the history of ancient nations ; when I peruse the authentic nar- ratives of the voyager and traveller; when I search the records of revelation ; and when I contemplate the present state of society around me. — I learn something of the character, the attributes, and the providence of God, and of the moral and physical state of mankind. From almost every scene, and every incident, I can deduce instructions calculated to promote the exercise of humility, meekness, gratitude, and resignation — to lead the mind to God as the source of felicity, and as the righteous governor of the world — and to impress the heart with a sense of the folly and depravity of man. But it is obvious, that no distinct moral in- structions can be fairly deduced from scenes, circum- stances, and events 'which never did nor can take place.' Such however is, at present, the tide of public opinion on this subject, that we might as soon attempt to stem a mountain torrent by a breath of wind, or to interrnpt the dashings of a mighty cataract by the waving of our hand, as to expect to counteract, by any considerations that can be adduced, the current of po- pular feeling in favour of novels, and tales of knights and of tournaments, of warlike chieftains and military encounters. Such a state of feeling, I presume, never can exist in a world where moral evil has never shed its malign influence." It is always a symptom of decay when the mind turns away from nature and seeks gratification in mere fiction. It will be understood that I only mean works 110 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. which, though productions of the imagination, are not art, but artificial or opposed to nature. Such produc- tions spoil the taste alike for nature and for genuine art. Not only our modern time suffers from the disease described by Mr. Dick, all nations have had such periods. The Eabbinical writings, for example, are full of it. Religion is, at first, a check to the growth of fiction, but may give way to it sooner or later. The classical periods are commonly free from it. In China the Confucian writers keep clear for a long period, but fiction has crept in during the Han dynasty. The Taoist writers are much sooner spoiled, as the work of Licius already clearly shows, and the next writer, Chancius (Chang Tsz) goes already a step further. From these few indications the importance of a treat- ment of the different religions with respect to nature and fiction is manifest enough to make further remarks here unnecessary. A few lines in another direction must however not be omitted. Nature cannot give true peace to our soul; we have to find this in religion. If our mind is gratified with the enjoyment of eternal blessings we are prepared to see and cherish all the glimpses of this same Divine goodness and glory in the creation surrounding us. Such joy is superior to any other joy dependent on human contrivance. What the vulgar voice calls pleasure is in many instances a painful sight to a religious mind. True enjoyment of nature is far, however, from senti- mentality. As food taken regularly and properly will not weaken but" strengthen the body, so will the in- nocent intercourse of the mind with nature and history invigorate us to perform our duties with more cheer- RELIGION AND NATURE. Ill fulness and mental health. Mr. Buskin* says well, " This infinite universe is unfathomable, inconceivable, in its whole ; every human creature must slowly spell out, and long contemplate such part of it as may be possible for him to reach ; then set forth what he ha8 learned of it for those beneath him; extricating it from infinity as one gathers a violet out of grass ; one does not improve either violet or grass in gathering it, but one makes the flower visible ; and then the human be- ing has to make its power upon his own heart visible also, and to give it the honour of the good thoughts it has raised up in him, and to write upon it the history of his own soul. And sometimes he may be able to do more than this, and to set it in strange lights, and display it in a thousand ways before unknown : ways specially directed to necessary and noble purposes, for which he had to choose instruments out of the wide armoury of God. All this he may do : and in this he is only doing what every Christian has to do with the written as well as the created word, ' rightly dividing the word of truth. 1 Out of the infinity of the written word he has also to gather and set forth things new and old, to choose them for the season and the work that are before him, to explain and manifest them to others, with such illustration and enforcement as may be in his power, aud to crown them with the history of what, by them, God has done for his soul." * The Stones of Tenioe, see Selections from the writings of John Buskin, p. 315. 112 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. X. RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. Max Mullet takes it for granted that all words found to be the common property of different branches of one language belong to the primitive language before the separation of these branches : This is certainly true of most of the words in question, yet gentle doubts may be allowed with regard to some words at least. We have not sufficient knowledge of the intercourse of the primitive tribes and nations to enable us to deny a migration of roots or of words which were accommo- dated to the peculiarities of the different languages by other pronunciation, writing and then changed ending, perhaps even by a modified initial syllable etc. Other words, though they belong to the primeval period, have not yet had the peculiar meaning latter times attached to them. This is the case even with the ancient word for Heaven. Max Miiller says (p. 206) " Everywhere they begin with the meaning of sky, they rise to the meaning of God and they sink down RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 113 again to the meaning of gods and spirits." Has not such been the case everywhere, i.e. not only among the Turanians but among all nations t and if so, what does it prove? I suppose in many instances nothing but some common psychological laws, but not yet a closer relation of different nations and tribes. It does even not yet follow that, because those tribes named God heaven or sky, they thought heaven or the sky to be God, (see Fairbairn, p. 32). Max Miiller is cau- tious enough not to conclude from the occurrence of the most widely-spread form of natural religion that all those tribes in Africa, on the Islands in different Oceans, in Asia and in America, have got their notion from their ancestors before they became separated, and that what they have in common now is the very feature of most primitive religion. Such has indeed been done by Herbert Spencer, who considers as the rudimentary form of all religion the propitiation of dead ancestors who are supposed to be still existing and to be capable of working good or ill to their descendants.* Mr. Fairbairn (p. 23) says well " Resemblances that may be classed as coincidences evolved in the course of sub- sequent development, must, of course be excluded. Under this head many of the points comparative my- thology seizes, may be comprehended. The same faculties in men of the same race, working under different conditions indeed, but with kindred materials, could hardly fail to produce similar results." * See Principles of Sociology (quot. by P. p. 9\ The same view is taken by W. H. F. Sleek, the distinguished investigator of the South African languages. See F. Goldzieher . Mythology among the Hebrew*, p. 3. 114 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE KELIGUON. To return again to language I must confess finding a most striking mistake of Max Mttller in his confusion of language and religion. He says, p. 153, "A few words recognised as names of the deity, a few epithets . . . . lastly some more or less technical terms, expressive of such ideas — sacrifice, altar, prayer, pos- sibly virtue and sin, body and spirit — this is what constitutes the outward framework of the incipient religions of antiquity. If we look at this simple manifestation of religion we see at once why religion, during those early ages of which we are here speaking, may really and truly be called a sacred dialect of human speech ; how at all events early religion and early language are most intimately connected, religion depending entirely for its outward expression on the more or less adequate resources of the-language." We may ask Max Miiller what was first, religion or the word for it, religious life or adequate language to express it, altars and sacrifices, etc. or names for them? If, however, all those religious realities are first, how can they depend on language, i.e. on the words used to designate them? Religious life is as much or as little dependent on language as natural life. We do not eat and drink such kind of food because we use such words, but we use such words because we use the things. In primitive religion things were not wor- shipped because they had, by mistake of one or the other kind, received the name of gods, but they were named gods because people considered them for one or the other reason fit objects for worship. It is the same with all other designations in language. A horse is not used for races because some persons call it so, but it is RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 115 so called because it is considered fit for races. Nor does the word " elephant " make elephants or influence these animals in the least, nor do we say, if it can be proved where and when the word first occurs, that then elephants first came into existence. The term " law of gravitation " does not form this law, nor has it intro- duced it into nature, for it existed even before language and before man existed. Thus it is even with things pertaining to human nature, and accomplishments. Man did speak a language perhaps for centuries be- fore he got a word " language" probably the word for "tongue" served for this purpose in many languages. So for mind, etc. It is a fact that in the Hebrew of the Old Testament there is no word for conscience. Does this prove that the Hebrews had none? Not in the least. We know they had, but expressed it by the general term for "heart." Max Miiller is wrong in his statements, and the cause thereof is a confusion of rea- lities with human knowledge about them. Language is nothing but the result and depository of man's know- ledge. Man names what things he knows and how far he knows them. The more adequate our knowledge of things becomes the more adequate our language will grow. On the other hand, however, we must not over- look the fact that language is Ihe currency* for our * " Words axe wise men's counters ; they do but reckon by them ; but they are the money of fools." Hobhes. "In a sense, it is not the individual, but the community, that makes and changes language. . . . The community's share in the work is dependent on and conditioned by the simple fact that language is not an individual possession, but a social. It exists not only partly, but primarily, for the purpose of com- munication ; its other uses come after and in the train of this." W. D. Whitney, The Life and Growth of Language, p. 149. 116 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. mental intercourse, by it the usage of words, etc. is conditioned, and not by etymology, which shows the first formation. With the language we learn all the mental accomplishments of a people, get the results of the mental activity of all ages before us. Our in- tellect is dependent on language for its development; this is not the case so much with our feelings and our will, though some kind of influence of one faculty upon the other faculties is beyond doubt, as human na- ture forms an organic whole. Max M tiller goes even farther (p. 268.) " There are two distinct tendencies to be observed in the growth of ancient language. There is on the one side, the strug- gle of mind against the material character of language, a constant attempt to strip words of their coarse cover- ing and fit them, by main force, for the purposes of abstract thought. But there is on the other side, a constant relapse from the spiritual into the material, and, strange to say, a predilection for the material sense instead of the spiritual " (explained by the use of language as currency above referred to). "This action and reaction has been going on in the language of religion from the earliest times, and it is at work even now. It seems at first a fatal element in religion that it cannot escape from this flux and reflux of human. thought 1 ' (oftener perhaps thoughtlessness!) "which is repeated at least once in every generation, between father and son, between mother and daughter; but if we watch it more closely, we shall find, I think, that this flux and reflux constitutes the very life of reli- gion." Talk and mere words — the very life of religion I RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 117 how strange that a man like Max Miiller can enter- tain such a view. Language only gives us the reflec- tion of our life in a mirror, not the life itself, it gives the intellectualised life, although imagination al- so asserts a great influence over language.* We shall see hereafter that what Max Miiller really means is conflict of reflection and imagination and their in- fluence on religion, but it is certainly an unpardonable error to ascribe such power to mere language; how could words do such miracles? Many readers will, doubtlessly, be interested to find my views on the bearing of language upon religion corroborated by no less an authority than H. Maine who, though not a philologist, is one of the best judges of the peculia- rities of antiquity. " It is conceded on all sides," he says,t "that the earliest language of the Christian Church was Greek, and, that the problems to which it first addressed itself were those for which Greek philo- sophy in its later forms had prepared the way. Greek metaphysical literature contained the sole stock of * " The same Divine Mind (Vernunft) that rules in nature and in human thinking, giving them their laws, also reigns in language, and it is the imagination which in language realizes the thoughts and idealizes the things. The Divine and the human penetrate each other. Man has in his mind (faculty of thinking) the logical law, and goes on reasonably — though not scientifical — reasonably — in the development of language. His spirit (soul) makes its nature to its deed. The idea of language is God's thought and it forms the foundation of every language ; but the realization in peculiar languages is man's own deed. Our thinking lays hold of the nature of things and pronounces it in words, because all things are originally thought in the Divine Spirit, are founded in the Eternal Word and are thus created. To him who looks deeper God is incarnate everywhere." M. Car- riere, Die Kunst im Zusammenhang der Culturentwickelung und die ldeale der Menschheit, Yol. I., p. 16, 21. f Ancient Law, p. 344, ff. 118 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. words and ideas out of which the human mind could provide itself with the means of engaging in the pro- found controversies as to the Divine Persons, the Di- vine Substance, and the Divine Natures. The Latin language and the meagre Latin .philosophy were quite unequal to the undertaking, and accordingly the Western or Latin-speaking provinces of the Empire adopted the conclusions of the East without dis- puting or reviewing them. ' Latin Christianity,' says Dean Milman, 'accepted the creed which its narrow and barren vocabulary could hardly express in ade- quate terms. Yet, throughout, the adhesion of Eome and the West was a passive acquiescence in the dog- matic sytem which had been wrought out by the pro- founder theology of the Eastern divines, rather than a vigorous and original examination on her part of those mysteries. The Latin Church was the scholar as well as the loyal partizan of Athanasius. 1 But when the separation of East and West became wider, and the Latin-speaking 1 Western Empire began to live with an intellectual life of its own, its defence to the East was all at once exchanged for the agitation of a number of questions entirely foreign to Eastern speculation. ' While Greek theology (Milman, Latin Christianity, Preface, 5) went on defining with still more exquisite subtlety the Godhead and the nature of Christ, while the interminable controversy still lengthened out and cast forth sect after sect from the enfeebled community 1 — the Western Church threw itself with passionate ardour into a new order of disputes, the same which from those days to this have never lost their interest for any family of mankind at any time RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 119 included in the Latin communion. The nature of Sin and its transmission by inheritance, the debt owed by man and its vicarious satisfaction, the necessity and sufficiency of the Atonement, above all the apparent antagonism between Free-will and the Divine Pro- vidence, these were points which the West began to debate as ardently as ever the East had discussed the articles of its more special creed. Why is it then that on the two sides of the line which divides the Greek- speaking from the Latin-speaking provinces there lie two classes of theological problems so strikingly dif- ferent from one another? The historians of the Church have come close upon the solution when they remark that the new problems were more ' practical,' less absolutely speculative, than those which had torn Eastern Christianity asunder, but none of them, so far as I am aware, ha3 quite reached it. I affirm without hesitation that the difference between the two theologi- cal systems is accounted for by the fact that, in pass- ing from the West, theological speculation had passed from a climate of Cheek metaphysics to a climate of Boman law. For some centuries before these contro- versies rose into overwhelming importance, all the in- tellectual activity of the Western Romans had been expended on jurisprudence exclusively. They had been occupied in applying a peculiar set of principles to all combinations in which the circumstances of life are capable of being arranged. No foreign pursuit or taste called off their attention from this engrossing occupation, and for carrying it on they possessed a vocabulary as accurate as it was copious, a strict method of reasoning, a stock of general propositions 120 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE KELIGION. on conduct more or less verified by experience, and a rigid moral philosophy. It was impossible that they should not select from the questions indicated by the Christian records those which had some affinity with the order of speculations to which they were accustom- ed, and that their manner of dealing with them should borrow something from their forensic habits. Almost everybody who has knowledge enough of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal system, tbe Roman theory of the obligations established by Contract or Delict, the Roman view of Debts and of the modes of incurring, extinguishing, and transmitting them, the Roman notion of the continuance of individual existence by Universal Succession, may be trusted to say whence arose the frame of mind to which the problems of Western theology proved so congenial, whence came the phraseology in which these problems were stated, and whence the description of reasoning employed in their solution. It must only be recollect- ed that the Roman law which had worked itself into Western thought was neither the archaic system of the ancient city, nor the pruned and curtailed juris- prudence of the Byzantine Emperors; still less, of course, was it the mass of rules, nearly buried in a parasitical overgrowth of modern speculative doctrine, which passes by the name of Modern Civil Law. I only speak of that philosophy of jurisprudence, wrought out by the great juridical thinkers of the Antonine age, which may still be partially reproduced from the Pan- dects of Justinian, a system to which few faults can be attributed except perhaps that it aimed at a higher degree of elegance, certainty, and precision than human RELIGION AND LANGUAGE. 121 affairs will permit to the limits within which human laws seek to confine them.' 1 We see that which Max Miiller calls the power of language, H. Maine correctly ascribes to the mind. Eastern thought and education and Western thought and education, Metaphysics and jurisprudence had a great influence on religious thought in the respective countries. We find a repetition of the same thing as often as a religion spreads over another country. The language has to be conquered by the invading reli- gion, i.e. the mind must be filled with the new thoughts and find adequate expression in a modified use of the existing language of the people.* Not the language of Canaan makes children of God, but godly sentiments create a godly language. I hope neither Max Muller nor any other scholar can entertain any doubts in re- gard to the soundness of the views given above. * " There is always and everywhere an antecedency of the conception to the expression. In common phrase, we first have our idea, and then get a name for it. . . . The dootrine that a conception is impossible without a word to express it is an inde- fensible paradox — indefensible, that is to say, except by mis- apprehensions and false arguments." Whitney, The Life and Growth of Language, p. 137, 139. 122 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. XI. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. Max Muller says (p. 353) " Mythology is inevitable, it is natural, it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognise in language the outward form and mani- festation of thought^ it is in fact the dark shadow which language throws on thought, and which can never disappear till language becomes altogether com- mensurate with thought, which it never will. My- thology (p. 355) in the highest sense, is the power ex- ercised by language on thought in every possible sphere of mental activity." This is again one of the hyperbolic effusions of Max MUller ; language cannot do such great things, but imagination can and thoughtlessness can, for the latter is perhaps a greater power than thought, in some instances at least. I can see nothing in mythology but the predominating influence of imagination or, we may say, of natural poetry over religion. We see the same tendencies even in our time ; people prefer their own KELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. 123 fancies and sentimental feelings to genuine religious truth. Max Miiller's explanation of polytheism is con- sequently shallow and misleading. Though, what he says on the polyonomy of language is true, his assertion that this is what we are accustomed to call polytheism in religion is decidedly wrong. We are accustomed to call polytheism idolatry, i.e. a worship of false gods ; worship however is human action, not mere " inevitable words" or " language." Mythology is thus inevitable in religion as weeds are inevitable in the fields, but if you allow them to grow, the fruit-plants will become suffocated. Epizoons are inevitable too, if cleanliness is neglected. But the language in its dialectic growth and decay is not the cause of idolatry. We may speak of the head, the face, the mouth, the lips, the breath, the word, the arms, etc. of God ; such is language of child- hood, a parler enfantin of religion. But to make the head, the face, etc. other gods and then gradually forget the one and true God; such is not the fault of language, but of human imagination and religious darkness. Mr Fairbairn* says: "The Indo Eu- ropean mythologies are simply the interpretation of nature by the imagination, acting spontaneously. They became unintelligible to a later age, because the later lost the mind of the earlier. The notion that they must have been concealed science, or disguised philosophy or distorted traditions, or misunderstood history, was the result of a reflective trying to interpret through itself a spontaneous age and faith. The my- thologies had arisen without purpose or design, even, it * Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, p. 365. 124 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. might be said, without thought. They were creations of the imagination clothed in forms supplied by the senses and the memory. To it heaven and earth were alive ; the words that denoted natural denoted living objects. There was no death. The dread thing so named was by its very name realised and vivified. The universe pulsed with multitudinous life ; what was in man was in nature — in nature, therefore, in him. The forest was musical with living voices, the midnight heaven alive with listening stars, the pale faced moon full of wierd influences, and the glorious sun as it broke from the bosom of the dawn a glad presence scattering the darkness that terrified. And when these fancies were thrown into speech the speech formed a mythology, a veracious reflection of mind in a period of beautiful yet creative simplicity, a dark enigma to mind perplexed with a thousand problems, seeking in the ancient beliefs a wisdom higher than its own. 11 Mr. Fairbairn is quite correct in this excellent passage as far as Mythology is " nascent literature, spontaneous poetry." But he himself, Max Miiller and all other writers do not take Mythology only in the sense of poetry but of religion, and even Mr. Fairbairn's explanation is thus insufficient and mis- leading. We might call the sky Jupiter and believe in a personality of every power of nature, in mountains, rivers, etc. The Christian religion even believes in innumerable hosts of Angels, of principalities and po- wers, speaks of a prince of this world and of many spirits as adherents to him; we may speak in poetry and prose of saints, heroes, ancestors, etc., yet there EEL1GI0N AND MYTHOLOGY. 125 is no danger of polytheism therein. As soon, how- ever, as a personal relation between us and them is sought, when means are used to propitiate their favour, then worship begins, idolatry, i.e. polytheism commences. It is true that there are some religious ideas expressed in all kinds of mythology, just as the same physiological laws and ideas can be discovered in a diseased body as in a healthy, sometimes perhaps better in an advanced state of sickness. Certain conditions allowed, everything else is a matter of course ; tumors and elephantiasis grow quite naturally, but are they natural in themselves ? Delirium appears more natural than poetry, idiocy more than deep philoso- phy, death than life, and pain or pleasure are the same to natural laws. We find a far better solution of the pro- blem of mythology in what Mr. Fairbairn says on the religion of the Aryans, p. 38, " To Indo-European man Heaven and God were one, not a thing, but a person, whose Thou stood over against his I (man). His life (man's) was one, the life above him was one too. Then, that life was generative, productive, the source of every other life, and so to express his full concep- tion, he called the living Heaven, Diespiter, Dyaus- pitar,— Heaven— Father, (p. 42,) Dyaus' oharacter, though shadowy and fragmentary, reveals moral ele- ments transcending the conception of a mere physical deity. In the next period of religion, behind the Vedas and Avesta, we see the point where mind be- comes conscious of a dualism in its faith, and by ex- clusion of the moral element, the Naturalism of the first (Vedas) is developed, by exclusion of the physical, the Spiritualism of the second (Avesta). But behind 126 , THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. this point stands the ancient and common Indo-Eu- ropean faith, in whioh the two elements existed to- gether as matter and form, spirit and letter, not in a consciously apprehended dualism, hut in a realised unity — (p. 44). But though the conceptions (creation of Varuna and Mitra after Dyaus)* graduate to Na- turalism, they are not yet purely natural-creations indeed of the imagination hut of it as still influenced by the moral faculty. But the conscience also acted in- directly on what we may term, after Schelling, the theo- gonic process. In prompting to worship, it furnished objects that could be personalized. The earliest wor- ship was indeed, simple, but its tendency was to multi- ply acts and ceremonies. The first priests were the fathers of the family, but as life became more toilsome and occupied, the father was fain to delegate his priest- ly office to another. The sense of faults and sins too began to affect the worshipper, to force him to dis- tinguish between secular and sacred, until he came to think that the man acceptable to God must be a man divorced from secular and devoted to sacred things. With a professional priesthood forms of worship in- creased, the ritual form became the matter of religion. What could reveal deity was deified. What made the worshipper accepted, forgiven, was idealized into the aecepter, the forgiver. And hence sacerdotal deities were evolved alongside the natural." (Soma, juice of the plant). * Chr. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, 2nd Edit. Vol. L, p. 891, ff., gives the principal features of the history of Indian religion with more details but less philosophic clearness than Mr. Fairbairn, thoiigh Mr. Lassen gives us an excellent digest of all materials at this disposal. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. 127 P. 47, " The theogonic process thus operates afc the beginning in two distinct spheres, the natural and the sacerdotal. Its action is influenced in the one by geographical conditions, in the other by social and poli- tical. The mythical faculty pursued in each sphere a different course, descended in the one, ascended in the other. But now, while this double theogonic process goes on, exhausting the natural and sacerdotal objects it has to deify, the necessary evolution of the human mind leads to another theogonic process, also double and starting from two opposite sides. This process, as it affects the gods, is anthropomorphism, as it affects man, apotheosis. The first by ascribing human forms and relations to the gods, prepares the way for the second, the deification of man. The one springs from the worship, the other from the unconscious poetry of a people. After the death of the mythical faculty the creation of new gods ended, but then combination begins. The gods of different tribes and nations be- come blended together." We see Mr. F.'s description of the mythological or theogonic process materially differs from Max Mul- ler's. Nothing is said of language, but imagination and even moral sense and conscience are given as factors, and as I think in truth. We have already reason and imagination pointed out as sources of error in religion. Conscience is not less dangerous, as it lays, with its binding obligations, unbearable burdens on the soul. All ritualism and empty formalism has its root in a morbid conscience. Here we see again how important it is to get the whole hitman nature rectified. Mr. Fair- bairn does not indicate, that the well-described theo- 128 THE SCIENCE OP CHINESE RELIGION. gonio process is not one of the healthy, but of the disordered organism of the human mind. Mythology is religion defiled by unsanctified imagination and mor- bid conscience, whereas reason makes itself conspicu- ous, in the creation of mythology, only by its absence, is active however, in later periods, in combination and explanation, and finally, if reason continues in office, it is utterly demolishing the mythological fancies. I cannot enter here in a discussion on the merits of the modern writers on mythology. Suffice it to give a quotation from an elaborate work:* " Both in Germany and England this school has notable adversaries . . . some worthy partisans of the study of classical litera- ture refuse to receive the results of the science of Comparative Mythology. One of these is K. Lehrs; another is the latest German editor of Hesiod, who objects to the modern science of Mythology, that it ignores historical and philological criticism and seizes upon every passage of an author that suits its theory, without regard to its value and genuineness. Among the English scholars it is no less a writer than Fergusson who declares, ' So far as I am capable of understanding it, it appears to me, that the ancient Solar Mythology of Messrs Max Mtiller and Cox is very like mere modern moonshine.' And Mr. George Smith, the renowned pioneer of the ancient Assyrian literature, seems not to have much confidence in the latest method of my- thological investigation ; for he says in his latest book, ' The early poems and stories of almost every nation are by some writers resolved into elaborate descriptions * F, Ctoldziher, Mythology among the Hebrews ; London, 1877. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY. 129 of natural phenomena ; and in some cases, if that were true, the myth would have taken to create it a genius as great as that of the philosophers who explain it." There is, of course, some analogy between all that's living under the sun with the apparent life of the sun. The science of religion has to do yet much work in ex- plaining the mythologies of the different religions, and the scientific treatment of Chinese religion will become, a valuable help towards the solution of various questions in connexion therewith. XII. CLASSIFICATION OF EELIGIONS. Max Mtiller says much on the principles of the classification of religion, and we have to agree with his polemic against canonical and uncanonical, revealed and natural, national and individual, polytheistic, duaUstic and monotheistic, religions. But to take lan- guage as the principle of classification does not improve the matter. It may be of some help to classify the so- called primitive religions of which we know little more than what philologists read from a few words which have happened to be preserved to the present day. (p. 156) Max Miiller thus gets only three groups of religions— the Turanian, Semitic and Aryan. Of the Turanians the Chinese is the earliest representative, (p. 193), " The popular worship of ancient China was a 130 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. worship of single spirits, of powers, or, we might al- most say, of names ; the names of the most prominent powers of nature which are supposed to exercise an influence for good or evil on the life of man. In addi- tion to this, we likewise meet with the worship of ancestral spirits, the spirits of the departed, who are supposed to retain some cognisance of human affairs, etc. This double worship of human and of natural spirits constitutes the old popular religion of China, and it has lived on to the present day, at least in the lower ranks of society, though there towers above it a more elevated range of half-religious and half-philoso- phical faith, a belief in two higher Powers, which in the language of philosophy may mean Form and Mat- ter, in the language of Ethics, Good and Evil, but which in the original language of religion and mytho- logy are represented as Heaven and Earth." As the Chinese religion shall be treated in detail hereafter, I shall not make any comment upon it now. " The reli- gion of the Semitic race (Max Mtiller says) including the polytheistic religions of the Babylonians, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, as well as the monotheistic creeds of Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, was pre-eminently a worship of God in History, of God as affecting the destinies of individuals and races and nations rather than of God as wielding the powers of nature" (was that not the case also among the ancient Chinese ? I shall give sufficient proofs that it was so). The ancient wor- ship of the Aryan race he calls " a worship of God in Nature, of God as appearing behind the gorgeous veil of Nature, rather than as hidden behind the veil of the sanctuary of the human heart." CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 131 Mr. Fairbairn says (p. 20), " The Homeric Poly- theism is successive, i.e. its gods have each a history and a place in a definite system ; but the Vedic Poly- theism is simultaneous, i. e. has no developed system — now one god, now another is supreme. The simul- taneous is much more primitive than the successive stage. There has been time to create, not to systema- tize. 1 ' I think no objection can be raised against both statements, but where lies the supposed distinction between the ancient Aryan and Turanian religions? The languages of the two branches on the other side differ so widely that the greatest linguists despair of ever finding a connecting link. If religion and lan- guage were so vitally connected in those early times, as Max Miiller supposes, how is the above stated fact to be explained, how again could from one language (Semitic) religions be born so thoroughly different as those of the Phoenicians and the Jews, of the Phari- sees and of Christ? And how is it possible that religions can be transplanted as Buddhism and Christi- anity have been, the first of Aryan origin finding ac- ceptance and fuller development amqng Turanians, the other of Semitic birth among the Aryans? Max Miiller will not be able to give a natural solution of these difficulties. His serious fault is, that he mis- takes the early records of religion, records in the language of an early period, for the religion itself of that period. Language has about the same relation to religion which it has to race. " And here we have to make the unreserved confession that the two do not by any means correspond and agree: wholly discordant Ian- 132 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. guages are spoken by communities whom the ethno- logist would not separate in race from one another; and related languages are spoken by men of apparently different race . . . there is no necessary tie between race and language ; every man speaks the language he has learned, being born into the possession of no one rather than another ; and, as any individual may learn a language different from that of his parents or of his remoter ancestors, so a community (which is only an aggregate of individuals) may do the same thing, not retaining the slightest trace of its ancestral speech. The world, past and present, is full of examples of this, of every class and kind ... as the combina- tion of heterogeneous elements, now using only English as their native tongue, found in the American commu- nity ; the Celts of Gaul, the Normans of France, the Celts of Ireland and Cornwall, the Etruscans of Italy, and all the other communities whose idioms have been Crowded out and replaced by the Latin, the English, the Arabic. There are conquering languages which are al- ways encroaching upon the territory of their neighbours, as there are others which are always losing ground. r 'The testimony of language to race is thus not that of a physical characteristic, nor of anything founded on and representing such ; but only that of a transmitted institution, which, under sufficient inducement, is capa- ble of being abandoned by its proper inheritors, or as- sumed by men of strange blood. And the inducement lies in external circumstances, not in the nature of the language abandoned or assumed. Political control, so- cial superiority, superiority of culture— these are the leading causes which bring about change of speech. . . CLASSIFICATION OF RELIGIONS. 133 " There is one more point calling for brief notice in connection with our classification of the dialects of the world. That classification aimed at being a strict- ly genetical one, each family embracing those tongues which, by the sum of all available evidences, were deemed traceable to a common ancestor. To the his- torical philologist, still deep in the labor of determining relations and tracing out the course of structural de- velopment, this is by far the most important of all; Indeed, the value of any other at present is so small as to be hardly worthy of notice. The wider distinction of languages as isolating, agglutinative, and inflective, which has a degree of currency and familiarity, offers a convenient, but far from exact or absolute, test by which the character of linguistic structure may be tried; the three degrees lie in a certain line of pro- gress, but, as in all such cases, pass into one another. To lay any stress upon this as a basis of classification is like making the character of the hair or the color of the skin a basis of classification in physical ethnology, or the number of stamens or the combination of leaves in botany : it ignores and overrides other distinctions of an equal or of greater importance. If the naturalist had the actual certainty which the linguist has of the common descent of related species, he would care lit- tle for any other classification, but would spend his strength upon the elaboration and perfection of this one. The linguist has enough of this still left to do; and till it is all accomplished, at any rate, any other is of small account to him. 1 '* * The Life and Growth of Language, by W. D. Whitney, p. 271, ff. 134 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE EELIGION. It seems rather strange, at first view, that a gene- tical classification of languages must differ from the ethnological classification of races. There can be no doubt that originally language and race must have coincided. Languages only branched off from their primitive stem after the formerly united races had be- come separated. If the separation had always been quite complete, we should at present find as many languages as races. But as different races and dif- ferent languages came in contact with each other, became mixed and partly absorbed one by another, incalculable varieties have been produced. So it is with the genesis of religions. We may take it as un- questionable that originally each race had its peculiar form of religion as peculiar as its language. But the separation of religion and language may have become effected even sooner than that of language and races. We may find the proof in our present age. The English language, for example, is the medium of dif- ferent Christian denominational dogmas, Jewish, Ma- homedan and various polytheistic creeds, of atheists, materialists and pantheists, of sceptics and supersti- tious formalists. If in coming centuries a learned pro- fessor would make an attempt to write an outline of the English Religion from a newly discovered copy of Webster's dictionary, after all other religious records happened to be lost and forgotten, this professor would certainly produce a very learned and, perhaps, interest- , ing work, and that English Religion may perhaps find, at such a time, as many scientific admirers as all the volumes on the Indo-European religion, on the Semitic religion, etc. find at present. My own unpretentious ■ TRUE RELIGION. 135 opinion is, that such undertakings are of little value, as the result must be an abstract theory altogether dif- ferent from real religious life. To classify religions according to languages is as appropriate as to classify languages according to the length of tongues or shape of mouths, and plants according to the animals that live on them. All classification has to keep in its own sphere, has only to distinguish general and specific characteristics. Language is no characteristic feature of religion, but worship is, and the objects of worship, etc. are (see Religion in Fact). As I do not intend to write a work on comparative religion, but only on that of the Chi- nese, I have here nothing more to do with classification. XIII. TRUE RELIGION. Max Miiller says, (p. 261), "In one sense every religion was a true religion, being the only religion which was possible at the time, which was compatible with the language, the thoughts and sentiments of each generation, which was appropriate to the age of the world. I know full well," Max Miiller continues, "the objections that will be made to this. Was the wor- ship of Moloch, it will be said, a true religion when they burnt their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods? Was the worship of Mylitta, or is the worship of Kali a true religion, when within the sane- 136 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. tuary of their temples they committed abominations that must be nameless % Was the teaching of Buddha a true religion, when men were asked to believe that the highest reward of virtue and meditation consisted in a complete annihilation of the soul i "Such arguments," Max Miiller continues, " may tell in party warfare, though even there they have provoked fearful retaliation. Can that be a true religion, it has been answered, which consigned men of holy innocence to the flames, because they held that the Son was like unto the Father but not the same as the Father, or because they would not worship the virgin and the Saints?" — Where does the Christian religion command or sanctify such things? Max Miiller mistakes here human passion, party-spirit, a peculiar theology which inflamed the minds and hierarchic despotism for reli- gion. If Christ and his apostles had . given such examples or taught such doctrines Max Miiller would be right, but as things stand Max Miiller shows a great want of discernment really astonishing for a student of his accomplishments. How different from Max Miiller's view is what Mr. Thomas Dick says on the very same topic. " What a dreadful picture would it present of the malignity of persons who have professed the religion of Christ, were we to collect into one point of view, all the persecutions, tortures, burnings, massacres, and horrid cruelties, which, in Europe, and Asia, and even in the West Indies and America, have been inflicted on con- scientious men for their firm adherence to what they considered as the truths of religion ! When we con- sider, on the one hand, the purity of morals, and TRUE RELIGION. 137 the purity of faith which generally distinguished the victims of persecution ; and, on the other, the proud pampered priests, abandoned without shame to every species of wickedness, we can scarcely find words suf- ficiently strong to express the indignation and horror which arise in the mind, when it views this striking contrast and contemplates such scenes of impiety and crime. Could a religion, which breathes peace and good will from heaven towards men, be more basely misrepresented? or can the annals of our race present a more striking display of the perversity and depravity of mankind ! To represent religion as consisting in the belief of certain incomprehensible dogmas, and to attempt to convert men to Christianity, and to in- spire them with benevolence, by fire, and racks, and tortures, is as absurd as it is impious and profane; and represents the Divine Being as delighting in the torments and the death of sinners, rather than that they should return and live. 1 '* I think all my readers and, perhaps, Max Miiller himself, if he should ever happen to see this, will fully agree with Mr. Dick T s excellent and fair judgment. About Buddhism Max Miiller 1 s Christian con- science compels him to confess (p. 242), " In no religion are We so constantly reminded of our own as in Buddhism, and yet in no religion has man been drawn away so far from the truth as in the religion of Buddha; Buddhism and Christianity are indeed the two opposite poles with regard to the most essential points of religion, Buddhism ignoring all feeling of dependence * The Philosophy of Religion, Thomas Diek, LL.D., p. 172. 138 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. on a higher power, and therefore denying the very existence of a supreme Deity ; Christianity resting en- tirely on a belief in God as the Father, in the Son of Man as the Son of God, and making us all children of God by faith in His Son.'" We have nothing to say against this statement. Max Muller, however, goes on in his unjust strain (p. 262), "Can that be a true religion which screened the same nameless crimes behind the sacred walls of monasteries V Max Miiller means " immorality :" does the Christian religion approve such things ? Max Miil- ler doubtless knows it does not. If, however, corrupt persons seek to gratify their low passions under the shelter of a religious name — is that the fault of reli- gion 1 I take the liberty to confront Max Muller with an- other witness whose testimony is apparently free from any partiality in advocating Christianity. " There are also particular kinds both of virtue and of vice which appear prominently before the world, while others of at least equal influence almost escape the notice of history. Thus, for example, the sectarian animosities, the horri- ble persecutions, the blind hatred of progress, the un- generous support of every galling disqualification and restraint, the intense class selfishness, the obstinately protracted defence of every intellectual and political superstition, the childish but whimsically ferocious quarrels about minute dogmatic distinctions, or dresses, or candlesticks, which constitute together the main fea- tures of ecclesiastical history, might naturally though very unjustly lead men to place the ecclesiastical type in almost the lowest rank, both intellectually and mo- TRUE RELIGION. 139 rally. These are, in fact, the displays of ecclesiastical influence which stand in bold relief in the pages of history. The civilising and moralising influence of the clergyman in his parish, the simple, unostentatious, un- selfish zeal with which he educates the ignorant, guides the erring, comforts the sorrowing, braves the horrors of pestilence, and sheds a hallowing influence over the dying hour, the countless ways in whioh, in his little sphere, he allays evil passions, and softens manners, and elevates and purifies those around him— all these things, though very evident to the detailed observer, do not stand out in the same vivid prominence in histori- cal records, and are continually forgotten by histori- . ahs."* Such facts cannot be altogether unknown to Max Miiller, who betrays here perhaps mora ill-temper than ill-judgment. " Can that be a true religion," Max Miiller goes on, " which taught the eternity of punishment without any hope of pardon or salvation for the sinner, however penitent?" Max Miiller is again in error; as he states the doctrine, it belongs to theology and not to religion. The Christian religion speaks of eternal punishment because there is no more a possibility of penitence and not in spite of it. The rich man's complaint in hell was surely no repentance but continued excuse. Those who wish to save even " the poor devil," ought to read Milton's Paradise Lost. Milton himself was a strong character, and thus he was able to depict in Satan a real satanic character. Our modern sentimental writers, weak from book-dust and indigestion, do not any more * History of European Morals, by W. E. H. Lecky, M.A., second ed., vol. I., p. 159, if. 140 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. understand the real 'power of will. Max Mijller ought to have seen that this " fearful retaliation " is alto- gether harmless except to bring ridicule on its inventor and tools. Nothing of that kind has ever been a wor- ship to the Heavenly Father, the God of Christians, it proves, therefore, nothing for a worship of Moloch, of Mylitta, K&li, nor for the teachings of Buddha. Bad religions are also not made better by calling what makes them bad the '* inevitable excrescences" of all religions. We want to know whether the so-called excrescences are essential to a religion — a worship— or whether they were accidentally introduced in spite of religion, from other quarters, worldly motives, etc. We partly agree with Max Miiller, that religion has to accommodate itself to the intellectual capacities of those whom it is to influence. Accommodation to the intellectual capacities is necessary, but accommodation to perverse tendencies or passions is a religious crime, Where such perversities of the human soul are deified, or where they are sanctified by religious acts, there we have false religion. True religion teaches man to sanctify heart and body and make them the abode of the most holy Being, God. False religion allows the gratification of bad desires and deifies the natural ten- dencies of the human heart, makes idols. True religion reveals the ideals, the typical nature of man by which he is the image of the most perfect being. False reli- gion leaves man in his corruption and rather helps to make him sink deeper ; true religiqn will bring man to- wards accomplishing his ideals. , Max MiiHer now and then has a glimpse of the truth, (p. 263), he says, " the intention of religion (of TRUE RELIGION. 141 course true religion must be meant) wherever we meet it, is always holy ; it always represents the highest ideal of perfection which the human soul, for the time be- ing, can reach and grasp." Of Greek religion we find (p. 355, ff., 339, ff.) an account rather in contradiction to the sense of the quoted passage. Common thinkers thus must draw the conclusion that Greek religion is a false religion.* We must also keep in mind that of most religions of ancient nations we only have some records, perhaps their sacred books, but we must take for granted that the practical religious life never has reached its professed standard. Of our Christian reli- gion we see the practice imperfect and contradictory ,t * " The Roman religion, even in its best days, though an admirable system of moral discipline, was never an indepen- dent source of moral enthusiasm. It was the creature of the State, and derived its inspiration from political feeling. The Roman gods were not, like those of the Greeks, the creations of; an unbridled and irreverent fancy, nor, like those of the Egyp- tians, representations of the forces of nature ; they were for the most part simple allegories, frigid personifications of different virtues, or presiding spirits imagined for the protection of dif- ferent departments of industry. The religion established the sanctity of an oath, it gave a kind of official consecration to certain virtues, and commemorated special instances in which they had been displayed; its local character strengthened patriotic feeling, its worship of the dead fostered a vague belief in the im- mortality of the soul, it sustained the supremaoy of the father in the family, surrounded marriage with many imposing solemnities, and Greated simple and reverent characters profoundly submissive to an overruling Providence and scrupulously observant of sacred rites. But with all this it was purely selfish. It was simply a method of obtaining prosperity, averting calamity, and reading the future. Ancient Rome produced many heroes, but no saint. Its self-sacrifice was patriotic, not religious. Its religion waa neither an independent teacher nor a source of inspiration, al- though its rites mingled with and strengthened some of the best habits of the people." History of European Morals, by W. E. H, Lecky, vol. I., p. 176, ff. . . + We ought, moreover, to he careful in distinguishing be- tween the Christian religion and Christians, as many so oalled, 142 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. and too often the standard in the Holy Scriptures is forgotten. We also should not judge a whole nation after one man or a few writers ; they may have been isolated in their views or may have been like the pro*- phets among the people of Israel. Those who reach a relative perfection are but few, not only in religions, in arts, seienee, military skill, etc. as well. Most of the religions even point out the difference between the few true believers and the world around them. In times when religious feeling and conviction is most in- tense there will be caused the separation of a religious society from the secular, or at least of individuals from it* Though some may pursue a secular profession, yet they avoid any other intercourse with the world except the professional. The Science of comparative Religion ought to pay special attention to such phenomena of religious life. True religion has been too often not with the domineering and proud majority but among a despised minority, hidden from the eyes of the luxu- rious and profligated world. True religion is sometimes misunderstood to mean perfect religious life. We have to distinguish between these two notions. Logic remains true even if all men should use argument illogically. A religion may be true even if all its followers are sinners against it. The Christian religion considers only one man as perfect, that is Jesus Christ ; he, therefore, is the only Master to Christians. Other religions must be treated in a similar way. " In tracing the religious instincts of humanity,' 1 Christians are not true adherents and' even true adherents are only partly influenced by the genuine Christian spirit. TRUE RELIGION. 143 says a recent writer,* " we are tracing the working out of the law of its well-being. Wherever a religious in- stinct appears it must be noted, for it is the voice of the spiritual nature clamouring for food necessary for its life and perfection. Wherever a religious instinct leads awrong, it is not that the instinct is wrong, but that it runs counter to or overrides correlative instincts^ When man has pursued one instinct across and' athwart other instincts, which it tramples down in its fanaticism, he fails through exaggeration. " Religious instincts resemble political instincts^ Every form of government is based on a right prin- ciple, but where other and equally right principles have been overlooked, misery ensues. Political mis- takes have their origin in a lack of knowledge. There were ten famines in France in one century ;: the country had bred soldiers, not farmers. " When a religious instinct produces error — that is, when religion becomes superstition, there is something wrong in its organisation. There is an undue prepon- derance given to this truth, and there is a forgetfulness of that truth. Every phase of religion the world has> yet seen has broken down through exaggeration of one truth at the expense of another. The history of reli- gious experiments is exceedingly instructive, for it- shows us, first, what are the religious instincts of humanity ; and secondly, failure, through imperfect co- ordination of these instincts. A review of the religions- of the world will show us of what nature that religion must be which alone will satisfy humanity — a religion- * The Origin and Development of Religious Belief, by S. Baring Gould, M. A., Fart I., Heathenism and Mosaism, p. 53, if. 144 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. in which those inherent tendencies of the mind and soul which produced Fetishism, Anthropomorphism, Poly- theism, Monotheism, Spiritualism, Idealism, Positi- vism, will find their co-ordinate expression;- a religion in which all the sacred systems of humanity may meet, as in a Field of the Cloth of Gold, to adorn it with their piety, their mysticism, their mythology, their sub- tlety of thought, their splendour of ceremonial, their adaptability to progress, their elasticity of organiza- tion — and, meeting, may exhaust their own resources— By this to sicken their estates, that never They shall abound as formerly {Henry Till., Act i. sc. 1.).'' This statement seems to imply that all actual religions are false* or, more correct, are imperfect because onesided. There is some truth in that, which is, however, often a cause of great error. Mr. Baring Gould does not say that he includes Chris- tianity, but other writers do, for example S. Johnson.* „ I hope the pattern of the Romish Church is convincing to Mr. Baring Gould that Christianity is not improved by eclecticism from other sources. If the pope, how- ever, were Christ in person, if the priests were angelic saints and the statutes not human ordinances but divine maxims, I myself should indeed join their church and recommend the same step to everybody. As things stand now I look with disgust on this motley of truth and errors and have nothing but pity for the slaves of such a system. If we speak of the Christian Religion we must take a distinct view of it. Not this church or * Oriental Religions and their Relation to Universal Religion. Boston, 1873. THE DIVINE EDUCATION. 145 that one is the Christian religion, but the idea Christ him- self gives of it, which is contained in the canon of the New Testament. This idea is working among the Christians, but has not yet found its full realization. In its com- pleted development the Christian religion will contain in perfection what any religion of the world can boast of truth, divine or human instincts, etc. It is greatly to be regretted that only very few writers on religion have an idea of the idea of the Christian religion. We may, however, find many writers who have a pretty fair idea of Brahmanism, Buddhism and even Fetishism, and thus involuntarily misrepresent the relation of Christi- anity to those religions. XIV. THE DIVINE EDUCATION OF THE HUMAN RACE. Max Miiller complains (p. 223), and we with him, " that there are people who believe that all the nations of the earth, before the rise of Christianity, were mere outcasts, forsaken and forgotten of their Father ia heavenj without a. knowledge of God., without- a hope of salvation." It is, however, going as much to the other side of the mistake to continue as Max Midler does, — "If a comparative study of the religions of the world produced but this one result, that it drove this godless heresy out of evefy Christian heart, and made us see again in the history of the world the 146 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. eternal wisdom and love of Ged towards all His crea- tures, it would have done a good work." Yes, the eternal wisdom and love of God we ought to see in the history of the world, bat our eyes must not be shut to the dark shades, to human sin, cor- ruption and wickedness, even enmity against God. I agree with Max Miiller and other writers that neither the art of ancient (and modern) nations, nor their poetry, nor their philosophy would have been possible without religion; that "there is no religion which does not contain some grains of truth," only some grains, alas ! among heaps of sand and uncouth rubbish. I must confess of myself that the history of the ancient religions has not enabled me to see therein " more clearly than anywhere else — the Divine educa- tion of the human race," nor do I know of any modern author who has seen it and could show it to his readers. A few high-sounding phrases one can meet here and there, but phrases cannot be accepted as proofs. Such Divine education as indicated by Max Miiller would have to be pronounced an utter failure. None of those ancient religions has been developed to higher perfection and purity, but all have degenerated in the course of time. Though usually, some errors have become modified in later periods, jother errors, perhaps more serious, have grown up. Yea, the noblest and purest religious ideas have in all religions— except the Christian— been neglected in the course of time, and superstitions and nonsense have grown up like weeds in a neglected field. Though I myself believe in a con- tinuous Divine work among all men, yet I know besides, from my own experience, thegxept power of oounfrerac- THE DIVINE EDUCATION. 147 tion in the natural heart of man, with its selfish, sensual and worldly propensities. Mythology has many elements of this kind. But what is said under the head " Reli- gion and Mythology " may suffice for our purpose here. The Divine Education of the human race is one of the most difficult subjects for a scholar to deal with. A good work of that kind would be a philosophy of history from the theosophic point of view. The writer must be imbued with the Spirit of God to understand the Divine plan, detect the Divine means employed and see their working to the end in spite of all obstructions and apparent frustrations by human obstinacy and per- verseness. Baron Bunsen is an authority highly respected by Max Miiller, yet Max Mttller never refers to his friend's work "God in History," which is, perhaps, the best at- tempt in the direction spoken of. Bunsen's own opinion about the writers on this subject before him may be seen in the following passage.* " Noble and enlighten? ed minds have from early times sought to justify the Moral Order of the world, according to which all evil is self-destructive and is finally doomed to perish, but not until after apparent victory and lengthened domina- tion; while the good prevails at last, but only after an arduous struggle, and often after a long period of misconception and oppression. This justification may either seek its ground in fact or in thought. The conception of the Divine Providence, as con- sistent with human conscience and reason, is presented among the Semitic peoples, in the history telling how, * God in History, or The Progress of Man's Faith in the Moral Order of the World, by Baron Bunsen, Vol. I., p. 23, etc. 148 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. from Abraham to Moses, God delivered His people with a strong hand, and again in the book of Job, as the lesson of submission to His mighty arm. Among the Hellenes, the triumph of Divine Justice was cele- brated in Epos and Drama. The exhibition of the Divine Nemesis in the destruction of Troy is the im- mortal type of the former kind, the epic Theodicy ; the vivid representation of an avenging Fate in the tragedies of iEschylus and Sophocles is an equally immortal hymn to the moral order of the world. Finally, in the his- torical work of Herodotus, the same circle of ideas is exhibited in contrast with the actual destinies of na- tions and their leaders. " Leibnitz was the first to attempt a philosophical Theodicy. An attempt-to reach the same goalby other paths was made by Lessing and Herder without a phi- losophical system, and by Kant, Sohelling and Hegel, with one (p. 23, 24), Leibnifezs not only recognized, like Bacon, what was wanted for historical science ; he also laid the foundations of this science in all three depart- ments, philologioal, historical, and speculative. Kant, however, set this problem still more definitely before himself, and endeavoured to solve it by means of his fundamental Theory of Ethics, starting from the poli- tical, cosmopolitan point of view, as Herder, in his * Ideas towards a Philosophy of the History of Man- kind,'' started from the anthropological and humanita- rian. Lessing's scattered but pregnant hints first bore fruit in the writings of Fichte, Sehelling, and Hegel. Fichte, like a Titan, only touched history on her moun- tain summits, but Schelling's mighty utterance in his • Orations on Academic Study,' knit for ever the bond THE DIVINE EDUCATION. 149 between Idea and History. It is, however, generally acknowledged that Schelling occupied himself but little with the actual details of history, and not at all with the method of its organic connection with pure specu- lative thought. Hegel, on the other hand, has indeed contemplated such a method, but from the one-sided, logical point of view ; he has linked the construction of scientific history to universal formulas, at which b.& ar- rived without paying due regard to the process of the mind's evolution in history" (p. 11). The lessons of the Divine Education of the human race have yet to be found out. It is, without doubt, a most instructive work if executed in a devoted spirit. It would be at the same time a most heart-refreshing 'thing ahd give' highest -satisfaction to" the mind. The great danger, however, is that most of the writers will begin with their own metaphysics and a priori con- struction, which is worse than a mere relation of facts. The safest way certainly is to begin with an investiga- tion into all traces of this kind found in the literature of different nations. The Chinese will contribute not a small share. We shall see that the Chinese have especially "the moral order" in view as the Divine plan. The education of man consists in Heaven's dealing with them in a way that they feel happy and flourishing when agreeing with the moral order, but calamity and destruction surely comes over them as goon as the moral order is disturbed. For moral causes are believed to produce physical effects. Another idea connected with the Divine plan is the most perfect development of Heaven-conferred hu- man nature, etc. We, in comparing from our point of 150 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. view the Chinese, nation with other nations, would find the good they have developed for the benefit of many other races in their state-organism. Politics and laws are founded on ethics, ethics again on the typical hu- man nature. Whether China has fulfilled her task in the Divine plan or not we cannot yet tell ; it may, how- ever, soon become apparent. The Divine education is most conspicuous in the history of the Jews. Abraham, the great ancestor of the nation, was singled out from his relationship and had to become a stranger in Canaan. There he was taught to believe without seeing. His seed had to go to Egypt to school, got lessons of discipline, etc. under the summit of Sinai, then in possession of the promised land, other important lessons began, which the nation as such proved unable to master. Only a few out of the great number of the Jewish people were sufficiently prepared to appreciate the person of the Messiah and accept his new covenant. Yet to this Messiah and to the Kingdom of God approaching in his person the whole plan of divine education had its climax for the Jewish race. My meaning will be already clear enough against Max Midler's sentiment. Not the peculiarity of Chi- nese seclusion, nor of Jewish Bigotry and Pharisaism show the Divine education of those races, but what has been done by them towards perfecting human nature, human society and especially human relation to God. Another feature of the Divine education of the human race is that God allows men to develope some peculiarity of their own to the extreme in order to break down such artificial edifices. We know the THE DIVINE EDUCATION. 151 extreme monotheistic formalism and sacerdotalism of the Jews in the time of Jesus. It had to be broken down by force of heathen soldiers. Only the Spirit of the old covenant went into the new Christian commu- nion. The Greeks were so wise in their own opinion that they regarded all other nations as barbarians, yet simple fishermen from Galilee aud a tent-maker from Asia Minor had to teach them true wisdom. The Ro- mans had excellent laws, yet became a most lawless people, and the rude Teutonic tribes were used to hum- ble them. The Teutonic tribes crushed the more civi- lised Roman Empire, yet they themselves became the propagators of Roman and Greek civilization. The degenerated Christian orientals had to be taught first lessons again by the Mohamedans. The Saracens brought not only their strict monotheism as an im- provement for worship or better named perhaps, idola- try of pictures, but also sciences and arts to Europe. By the fall of Constantinople the hidden Greek culture became scattered over Europe, ete. In our present time we see how the Divine education brings all na- tion! and tribes of the whole Earth in contact with each other. iEvery achievement, bad as well as good, is made a common inheritance to the whole human race. 152 THE SCIENCE OF CHINESE RELIGION. CONCLUSION. The contents of the fourteen chapers given above show, I hope, incontestibly the great extent and power of religion. Though I could not spend so much time on the subject as it is worth, the reader will probably get the impression that the treatment has been both penetrating and comprehensive. If I cared to give more colour to the pages the effect would be increased, but I do not intend to present to the public a painting but only a drawing, perhaps even nothing but a sketch. Such sketches are useful in many respects. If we have beforehand an idea of the field we intend to enter we may save ourselves from much rambling. If in-. vestigation is well directed it may accomplish great results. My sketch will be of service in this respect not only to Missionaries in the field but to all who 1 take a scientific interest in religion. I hope, however, that even those well enough educated persons' who de- vote' themselves chiefly to the practical side of religion' will derive some profit from any attention they pay ta the questions touched in my Httle book. CONCLUSION. 153 I have already gathered materials for writing on the Chinese religion. If God spares life and strength I hope to carry out my plan as exactly as possible. The undertaking is surrounded with many difficulties, as the greatest portion of the literature that must be treated is not yet translated. It takes much time to wade through old Chinese works. Yet the important thing is to use originals as far as they go and not secon- dary writers. But ewn if I jshould feel unable to ac- complish the work, the plan here given will enable other students to go on with it. A treatment of comparative religion executed as eomprehensively as sketched above is not yet possible, as too much preliminary work has to be done before- hand. If, however, a nnmber of scholars would direct their labours towards it we might see something of the kind in a few years. The advantage gained will be immense. I anticipate this not only for the science of religion and for other sciences connected with it, but especially for our practical religious convictions. I do not believe that any science can give a new basis to religious belief, but some sciences do their best to dis- turb the harmonious peace of religious life at present. A proper, ix. congenial, scientific treatment of com- parative religion must of necessity put a stop to such disturbances. This is one great advantage. Another is the removal of some gross prejudices. Many scien- tific men and other persons boasting themselves of a higher education are accustomed to look down upon religion as below their accomplishments. They may learn that a man with the lowest form of religion is above one who has none at all. Not the least ad- 154 THE SCIENCE OE CHINESE RELIGION. vantage derived from an exhaustive treatment of the Science of Eeligion is a deeper understanding of the last commandment of our Lord Jesus regarding the Christian Mission to all nations and tribes. We shall see in it really one of the manifestations of Divine love towards all men. May we more and more succeed to be influenced only by this Divine, agency and not by worldly motives or human passion, and may we see more of its realization in the spheres of our labour ! Eeligion is the life of Eternity in midst of the transitory scenes of this world. If our work has something in it of the true religious spirit it will in so far outlive the perishableness of other things' — it is done for Eternity. REV. ERNST FABER'S WORKS. The Doctrines of Confucius. A Systematical Digest, accord- - ing to the Analects, Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean, with an Introduction On the Authorities upon Confucius and Confucianism. Translated from the German hy P. G. von Moellendorff (with Chinese text), Imp. 8vo. pp, 132, viii., paper cover ........ $1.50 Introduction to the Science of Chinese Religion. A Critique of Max Muller and other authors. Imp. §vo. pp. 154, • xii .......: : ... 1.20 Hine Staatslehre auf ethischer Grundlaye oder Lehrbegriff des chinesischen Philosbphen llencius. Aus dem Urtexte iibersetzt, in systematische Ordnung gebracht und mit Anmerkungen und . Einleitungen versehen. Imp. 8vo. pp. vii. 274 1.50 Die Grundgedanken des ulten chinesischen Socialismus oder die Lehre des Philosophen Micius zum ersten Male vollstaendig aus den Quellen dargedegt. Imp, 8vo. pp. 104 ...... ,..■ 0.75 Der Naiuralismus oei den alten Chinesen sowohl nach der Seite des Pantheisnius als des. Sensualismus oder die saemmtliehen Werke des Philosophen Licius zum ersten Male vollstaadig iibersetzt und erklart. Imp. 8vo. pp. xxvii, 228 1.50 In Chinese Book Style (men-li). Ex2>ositions on the Gospel of Mark, in 5 vols, (printed by and sold for the British and Foreign lieligious Tract Society) per copy 0.60 On Western Schools and Examinations .....,,.....- 0.10 On Education . . .,...,'» 0.10 The Human Heart Illustrated 0.02 Practical Lessons for Writing (in preparation) ....'. To be had at the German Mission House, Canton. , Lane, Crawford &, Co., Hongkong. Presbyterian Mission Press, ...... Shanghai. Kelly & Walsh, . . .; Do. In Shanghai, the Prices are somewhat different. iBlil Till! :•;.- :'•-;• I dH ii «*■ HUT ■ ■ tHR fHI