imself as a teacher of
virtue, not of religious doctrine; his watchword was "propriety," the
dutiful observance of all right and customary rules of conduct. Yet
there is not wanting an ideal element in his doctrine. He enounces
the theory, of which the whole of Chinese religion is the outward
expression, that the universe in all its parts, in nature and in man,
is an order; that that order is declared to man alike in the
ordinances of outward nature, in the constitution of society with its
various ranks and classes, and in the ritual of religion; and that it
is the whole duty of man to know that order and to conform himself to
it. The theory is one in which the state is all, the individual
nothing, and in which the present is entirely crushed under the dead
hand of the past, and all originality and progress condemned even
before they appear. If religion has been delivered from all that is
unseemly and irrational, it has also, at least to Western eyes, lost
much of its interest; the enthusiasms and excitements of its early
stages have departed, and no new enthusiasm has come in their place;
no great god-wrought deliverance thrills the memory of posterity, no
local cults excite exceptional devotion, no divine historical figure
attracts to itself personal affection. Religion has cast off fear but
has not yet risen to the inspiration of love. The domestic worship
came nearest to this, for the other worships are cold and distant
indeed; but that worship was a powerful influence for the prevention
of progress. The Christian text which hallows individual daring and
innovation, by bidding a man put his convictions above his father and
mother, would be a shocking impiety to Chinese ears.

A temple was built to Confucius after his death and his worship was
added to the state religion. The attempt made by the emperor
Shi-Hoang-Ti in the third century after his death to suppress his
memory and the books connected with his name, was, though conducted
with great vigour, unsuccessful. The teaching of Mencius (371-288
B.C.), the most distinguished of his disciples, added no new element
to that of Confucius. Two movements, however, have to be noticed,
which in different ways aimed at giving something richer and deeper
than Confucianism, and to which China owes the two additional
religions of Taoism and Buddhism.

Taoism looks to Lao-tsze as its founder; but it has no personal
founder and is composed of older elements. Lao was a philos