finds in it a resemblance to the Christian Bible may be rejected at the outset as valueless, for the religious element in the work is extremely tenuous. Our readers, however, shall judge for themselves. The first chapter contains speculations respecting the nature and attributes of God, and the processes of Creation, which, as far as they go, are striking enough, and illustrative of that singular independence and originality of thought which forms so honourable a characteristic of the Taoist school. Here, for instance, is a piece of transcendentalism which occurs on the second page of the book. It would have shocked Confucius.
The Origin of Life and Motion.
There is a Life that is uncreated;
There is a Transformer who is changeless.
The Uncreated alone can produce life;
The Changeless alone can evolve change.
That Life cannot but produce;
That Transformer cannot but transform.
Wherefore creations and transformations are perpetual,
And these perpetual creations and transformations continue through all time.
They are seen in the Yin and Yang:
They are displayed in the Four Seasons.
The Uncreated stands, as it were, alone;
The Changeless comes and goes;
His duration can have no end,
Peerless and One—His ways are past finding out.[1]
The philosopher, taking as his text a very obscure passage in the Tao Tê Ching—though he quotes the Book of the Yellow Emperor as his authority—then proceeds to show how it is that the Creator is uncreated and the Transformer changeless; averring that the Supreme
- ↑ Dr. Ernst Faber, commenting on this passage, says, "The doctrine here is pantheistic."
