society to remain always the same? The observance of communal traditions
involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education,
in order to keep up the mighty delusion, encourages a species of
ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave
properly. We are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious. We
nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to others;
we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to
ourselves. How can one be serious with the world when the world itself
is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honour and
Chastity! Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,--a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honourable citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why
do men and women like to advertise themselves so much? Is it not but an
instinct derived from the days of slavery?

The virility of the idea lies not less in its power of breaking through
contemporary thought than in its capacity for dominating subsequent
movements. Taoism was an active power during the Shin dynasty, that
epoch of Chinese unification from which we derive the name China. It
would be interesting had we time to note its influence on contemporary
thinkers, the mathematicians, writers on law and war, the mystics and
alchemists and the later nature-poets of the Yangtse-Kiang. We should
not even ignore those speculators on Reality who doubted whether a white
horse was real because he was white, or because he was solid, nor the
Conversationalists of the Six dynasties who, like the Zen philosophers,
revelled in discussions concerning the Pure and the Abstract. Above all
we should pay homage to Taoism for what it has done toward the formation
of the Celestial character, giving to it a certain capacity for reserve
and refinement as "warm as jade." Chinese history is full of instances
in which the votaries of Taoism, princes and hermits alike, followed
with varied and interesting results the teachings of their creed. The
tale will not be without its quota o