plendor of China was to come from their inner coalescence.
Chu Hsi, the greatest of the Sung philosophers of the brilliant
twelfth century A.D., says that "Buddhism stole the best
features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism:
as if the one took a jewel from the other, and the other
recouped the loss with a stone." * This is exact: the jewel
stolen by Buddhism was Laotse's Blue Pearl,--Wonder and Natural
Magic; the stone that Taoism took instead was the priestly
hierarchy and church organization, imitated from the Buddhists,
that grew up under the successors of Chang Taoling.

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* _Chinese Literature:_ H.A. Giles
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If Laotse founded any school or order at all, it remained quite
secret. I imagine his mission was like Plato's, not Buddha's:
to start ideas, not a brotherhood. By Ts'in Shi Hwangti's time,
any notions that were wild, extravagant, and gorgeous were
Taoism; which would hardly have been, perhaps, had there been a
Taoist organization behind them;--although it is not safe to
dogmatize. It was, at any rate, mostly an inspiration to the
heights for the best minds, and for the masses (including Ts'in
Shi Hwangti) a rumor of tremendous things. After Han Wuti's next
successor, the best minds took to thinking Confucianly: which
was decidedly a good thing for China during the troublous times
before and after the fall of the Western Hans. Then when
Buddhism came in, Taoism came to the fore again, spurred up to
emulation by this new rival. I take it that Chang Taoling's
activities round about this year 165 represent an impulse of the
national soul to awakenment under the influence of the recurrence
of the Eastern Han Day half-cycle. What kind of reality Chang
Taoling represents, one cannot say: whether a true teacher in
his degree, sent by the Lodge, around whom legends have gathered;
or a mere dabbler in alchemy and magic. Here is the story told
of him; you will note an incident or two in it that suggest the
former possibility.

He retired to the mountains of the west to study magic, cultivate
purity of life, and engage in meditation; stedfastly declining
the offers of emperors who desired him to take office. Laotse
appeared to him in a vision, and gave him a treatise in which
were directions for making the 'Elixir of the Dragon and the
Tiger.' While he was brewing this, a spirit came to him and
said: "On the Pesung Mountain is a house of stone; buried
beneath it are t