of philosophy "have not troubled themselves to verify this or any other of the guesses of their predecessors. Chu remarks: "Heaven and earth, with all they contain, are nothing but transformations of one primitive force." And in another place, not quoted by Dr. Martin:
The primary matter in its evolutions hitherto, after one season of fullness has experienced one of decay; and after a period of decline it again flourishes, just as if things were going on in a circle. There never was a decay without a revival.
To be sure, here is the idea of transformation, but scarcely that of equivalence and conservation. Conservation implies quantitative relations, and such are certainly not expressed here or in the high-spun theories of the context, just as they are lacking in the common affairs of the people. The action and reaction of impact are expressed, but the statement contains no hint of the principle of conservation of momentum. And besides there is evident confusion, perhaps in the translation only, between "force" and "energy."
Can any proper conception of the ether and of the conservation of energy be ascribed to a man (and he, the best of their philosophers) who in the same connection in which occur the other passages already given, writes:
Primary matter consists, in fact, of the four elements of metal, wood, water and fire, while the immaterial principle is no other than the four cardinal virtues of benevolence, righteousness, prosperity and wisdom. The great extreme, a principle centered in nothing, and having an infinite extent, is the immaterial principle of the two powers, the four forms and the eight changes of nature; we can not say that it does not exist, and yet no form or coporeity can be ascribed to it. From this point is produced the one male and the female principle of nature, which are called the dual powers; the four forms and eight changes also proceed from this, all according to a certain natural order, irrespective of human strength in its arrangement. But from the time of Confucius no one has been able to get hold of this idea.
And we might add, nor is it likely any one ever will.
6. Evolution.—Dr. Martin suggests that the fundamental idea of evolution was entertained by early Chinese sages. He quotes from Mencius:
The study of nature has for its object to get at the causes of things. In causes the ground principle is advantage. [The italics are ours.] Though Heaven is high and sun and stars are far away, if we could find out the causes of their phenomena, we might sit still and calculate the solstice of a thousand years.
In this word, written 400 b.c., Dr. Martin seems to find an indication that Mencius knew how to set about the study of nature, and though not going so far as to say that in the word "advantage" we have an anticipation of Darwin's principle, he believes that this obscure hint, if followed up, might have led to Darwin's doctrine. But alas f the author of the quotation and all his followers for these two thousand
