CHINESE ARCHITECTURE—BOERSCHMANN. 547 
tensified elegance of China. It is proverbial that poets originate 
here, and truly the beauty of the landscape and of art is such that one 
almost must verily become a poet. A proverb says, “ Soldiers come 
from the north, and scholars from Hunan,” with reference to the 
ancient school in the capital, Ch’angshafu. For many reasons two 
cities are special centers of culture; one of these is Peking, in the 
north, the other Canton, in the south—the two poles, as it were, of 
China. 
Thus there is enough of variety, even in going from Province to 
Province. This also holds good for certain districts within the Prov- 
inces. But there is a common trait everywhere, and it is not only 
unity that meets us, but there is prominent the broad view, the wide 
outlook in appraising all relations which for the Chinese resulted 
from the nature of the country and its history. This feeling finds 
expression also in their con- 
ception of the universe, in 
their religion, which can be 
read in all their works of art 
and all other forms, and - 
which constitutes the common 
inheritance of the people, the 
soul of their culture, their 
even at present still classical 
art. 
Only in China and in no 
other country one sees a world 
conception, a philosophy, em- 
bodied in visible form. One 
sees an architecture that is a 
direct expression of this con- 
ception, a conception formed 
of the universe and its moving forces. Thus they have found it 
possible to express the idea in a visible concrete form. 
In the year 600 before Christ, Lao tze, the older contemporary of 
Confucius, taught: “ From one come out the two, from the two come 
out the three, and from the three the ten thousand things—the whole 
of the physical world.” This is illustrated in the diagram which 
already in his time belonged to hoary antiquity. The center consists 
of two fish-shaped forms that represent the male and female prin- 
ciples. But besides these two there is a third, the surrounding circle 
itself. This is the highest, the Tao, the eternal way leading to perfect 
virtue, the pole of the entire visible and ethical world, the compre- 
hension of existence, the eternal, which prevails in all phenomena— 
unity. How the various philosophers have designated it in their 
systems is immaterial. It is everywhere postulated as the Eternal 
Fig. 1—The drawing of the dual principles and the 
eight trigrams. 
