222 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



Although he instituted no religious system, Confucius never- 

 theless enjoined the observance of the already existing forms of 

 worship, and after death became himself the object of a wide- 

 spread cult, which still persists. "In every city there is a temple, 

 built at the public expense, containing either a statue of the 

 philosopher, or a tablet inscribed with his titles. Every spring and 

 autumn worship is paid him in these temples by the chief official 

 personages of the city. In the schools also, on the first and 

 fifteenth of each month, his title being written on red paper and 

 affixed to a tablet, worship is performed in a special room by 

 burning incense and candles, and by prostrations 1 ." 



Taoism, a sort of pantheistic mysticism, called by its founder, 

 Taoism Lao-tse (600 B.C. ), the Tao, or ' ' way of salvation," was 



embodied in the formula "matter and the visible 

 world are merely manifestations of a sublime, eternal, incom- 

 prehensible principle." It taught, in anticipation of Sakya-Muni, 

 that by controlling his passions man may escape or cut short an 

 endless series of transmigrations, and thus arrive by the Tao at 

 everlasting bliss sleep? unconscious rest or absorption in the 

 eternal essence? Nirvana? It is impossible to tell from the lofty 

 but absolutely unintelligible language in which the master's teach- 

 ings are wrapped. 



But it matters little, because his disciples have long forgotten 

 the principles they never understood, and Taoism has almost 

 everywhere been transformed to a system of magic associated 

 with the never-dying primeval superstitions. Originally there was 

 no hierarchy of priests, the only specially religious class being the 

 Ascetics, who passed their lives absorbed in the contemplation of 

 the eternal verities. But out of this class, drawn together by their 

 common interests, was developed a kind of monasticism, with an 

 organised brotherhood of astrologers, magicians, Shamanists, 

 somnambulists, "mediums," "thought-readers," charlatans and 



1 Kivong Ki Chin, 1881, p. 875. Confucius was born in 550 and died in 

 477 B.C., and to him are at present dedicated as many as 1560 temples, in which 

 are observed real sacrificial rites. For these sacrifices the State yearly supplies 

 26,606 sheep, pigs, rabbits and other animals, besides 27,000 pieces of silk, 

 most of which things, however, become the " perquisites" of the attendants in 

 the sanctuaries. 



