so. Mo's system was universal love. If by taking off every hair
from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he could have
benefited the empire, he would have done so. Neither of these two
doctrines is sound; a middle course is the right one."

The origin of the visible universe is a question on which Chinese
philosophers have very naturally been led to speculate. Legend provides
us with a weird being named P'an Ku, who came into existence, no one can
quite say how, endowed with perfect knowledge, his function being to
set the gradually developing universe in order. He is often represented
pictorially with a huge adze in his hand, and engaged in constructing
the world out of the matter which has just begun to take shape. With
his death the detailed part of creation appeared. His breath became the
wind; his voice, the thunder; his left eye, the sun; his right eye, the
moon; his blood yielded rivers; his hair grew into trees and plants; his
flesh became the soil; his sweat descended as rain; and the parasites
which infested his body were the forerunners of the human race. This
sort of stuff, however, could only appeal to the illiterate; for
intellectual and educated persons something more was required. And so
it came about that a system, based originally upon the quite
incomprehensible Book of Changes, generally regarded as the oldest
portion of the Confucian Canon, was gradually elaborated and brought
to a finite state during the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era.
According to this system, there was a time, almost beyond the reach of
expression in figures, when nothing at all existed. In the period which
followed, there came into existence, spontaneously, a principle, which
after another lapse of time resolved itself into two principles with
entirely opposite characteristics. One of these principles represented
light, heat, masculinity, and similar phenomena classed as positive;
the other represented darkness, cold, femininity, and other phenomena
classed as negative. The interaction of these two principles in duly
adjusted proportions produced the five elements, earth, fire, water,
wood, and metal; and with their assistance all Nature as we see it
around us was easily and rapidly developed. Such is the Confucian
theory, at any rate so called, for it cannot be shown that Confucius
ever entertained these notions, and his alleged connexion with the Canon
of Changes is itself of doubtful authenticity.

Chuan