in these matters appears to be swinging the other way, and it is the fashion to find influences flowing from East to West rather than in the apposite direction.
In a word, I would venture to claim for the Chinese conception that it is indigenous, and propound a theory based upon the hypothesis of unity in human thought and aspirations, justified, I think, in the light of our survey. First, man's instinctive longing for a haven of rest from this world's tribulations found satisfaction in a nebulous paradise imagined in the East, the quarter specially associated with the celestial vitalizing force called Yang, of which the quintessence is the sun. No date can be assigned, except that by the fourth century b.c. the notion was sufficiently established to lead a feudal prince to make search for the Isles of the Blest. At that time the Chinese national vision of an after-life was as cheerless as that vouchsafed to Ulysses in his descent into Hades, and Buddhism with its promise of salvation had not yet arrived. We can picture the belief eagerly accepted by a people yearning for a happier fate, and hope stimulated by exaggerated tales of sailors' discoveries, as it was in our own classical instances of the Carthaginians[1] and Sertorius.[2] Thus the island paradise took definite shape in the East as did the Insulae Fortunatae in the West.
The Chinese Isles first appear in the pages of authentic history in association with the less reputable exponents of TAO—men who thrust themselves into notice while interpreting and exploiting the doctrine to suit their own ends. These parasitical Taoist adventurers figure prominently in the remaining part of the paper, which deals with the historical development of our subject.
Thus Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien, after mentioning five Taoists by name, says—
