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. 



