selves into Hedonism."1 "Conscience may act as human before it is discovered to be divine." 2 But if we seek for an explanation at all, we must ultimately choose between some form of theology or some form of Hedonism. "The attempts to construct intermediate theories have only shown by their instability, the irresistible logical tendency to the single line of cleavage, which puts religious thought on the one side, and the eudaemonist on the other" (p. 26).

There is no discussion of these questions in Aristotle. The moral faculty is reason, and reason is divine, but it is rather an immanent principle in man, leading him to know his own good, realized in the political community, and it is assumed that to know is to obey.

Moral evil. This brings Aristotle to the question of moral evil, so far as the question was known to the Greek world. Aristotle, like Plato, might have said of reason as Bishop Butler says of conscience, that "if it had might as it has right, it would govern the world." But it doesn't govern the world. Why is this? What is the explanation of åкparía? Socrates and Plato denied the existence of such a state, δείνον γὰρ ἐπιστήμης ἐνούσης ἄλλο τι κρατεῖν. Aristotle admits akpaoía, but, in explaining it, resolves it into a condition which is not akpaoía. The ȧkparns is the man who knows right and yet 1 Study, p. 26. 2 Ibid., p. 22.

does wrong, and all that the Seventh Book tells us is, how it happens that knowledge may be latent or dormant, and if not overpowered yet outwitted by passion. There is nothing in Aristotle of the sense of sin, for sin implies a personal God, as crime implies the laws of society.

And

Still the fact remains that the lower does triumph over the higher, the body over the soul, the selfish over the social, the animal over the divine. just as the family guards against atomism and leads on to the Tókus, so friendship guards against individualism and prepares the way for perfect justice. Friendship introduces the man to another self, repoç avròs, whom he loves unselfishly, and in whom he sees the extension and the counterpart of his own best self. The friendship of the good, which is the only true friendship, is thus a realized love of Tò kaλóv divested of the lower and selfish

elements of gain or pleasure. We live in our own acts, and in friendship we live in one another's acts. We need friends not for gain, for the perfect life is complete in itself, but because goodness loves to see itself reflected, and even the divine life of philosophy is twice blest when the philosopher finds a true ouveрyos, and God loves the philosopher because in him He sees a dim and imperfect reflection of His own θεωρία.

M

IX.

SOME CURIOUS PARALLELS BETWEEN GREEK AND CHINESE THOUGHT.

[A Paper read before the Aristotelian Society, April 29, 1889.1] THERE are at the present time three religions, if we are right in calling them religions (a question which we may postpone for the present), which have a legal standing in China. They are Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Of these, Buddhism has no claim to be indigenous, as it never found its way to China till after the Christian With regard to Taoism, we find ourselves at once in a difficulty; for Taoism, as it exists now, has little or no real affinity with the older Taoistic literature. Dr. Legge speaks of it as "begotten by Buddhism out of the old superstitions of the country;" and in his article on Lao-Tze in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," he draws a sharp distinction between Taoism as a philosophy and

era.

2

This paper embodies the substance of a note on Chinese Philosophy prefixed by A. L. M. to H. A. Giles's Chuang-Tzu, Mystic, Moralist, and Philosopher.

1

Taoism as a religion. Similarly, Mr. Giles 1 speaks of it as a hybrid superstition, a mixture of ancient nature-worship and Buddhistic ceremonial, with TAO as the style of the firm. Dr. Edkins, in his "Religion in China" (p. 58), says that the mass of the people believe in all three religions, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, and explains the fact by saying that they are supplementary to each other. Confucianism being moral; Taoism, materialistic; and Buddhism, metaphysical; in criticism of which we may suggest that, if this were true, even if we could accept the cross division implied in his theory, they would be, not supplementary to each other, but mutually destructive.

It is, however, with Chinese thought, rather than with Chinese religion, that I am concerned; and here we are on a surer ground, for we may at once put aside Buddhism as an exotic, and Taoistic religion as being largely composed of foreign elements.

We are left, then, with Confucianism and Taoism, meaning by the latter term the philosophical system, not the popular religion. Both probably arose out of a religion of which we know nothing, except so far as we can piece it together from the rival systems which claimed to represent it. But it is a question whether either can rightly be called religious. And, in any case, the parallelism to

Greek thought is independent of any religious elements which were contained in them, or lay behind them.

The main characteristics of Confucianism and Taoism are clear enough, and are independent of the question as to the authenticity of certain documents on which Sinologues are divided.

Confucianism is primarily a system of conduct; Taoism is primarily a mystical philosophy. And, whatever may have been the relation of their respective founders to one another, the documents which remain to us represent two rival systems. The one is moral, the other metaphysical. Confucianism is recognized by the state as orthodox; Taoism is a heresy. Yet both were attempts to interpret and to rationalize the religion out of which both grew. Neither Lao-Tzu nor his younger contemporary, Confucius, professed to be founders of systems. They were rival interpreters, and the Confucianist interpretation received State sanction. Hence Confucianism has become "the religion of China par excellence."1 Mons. Edgar Quinet's account of it is worth quoting. He says

"Rationalism is the religion of China; positive faith the only heresy; the strong-minded man the only pontiff. . . . Its principles are the equality of all its members, intellect is the sole ground of pre-eminence, personal merit the sole aristocracy. Everything there is exactly measured, cal

1 Legge, Sacred Books, III. pref. xiii,