GREEK AND CHINESE THOUGHT. 163 



Taoism as a religion. Similarly, Mr. Giles l speaks 

 of it as a hybrid superstition, a mixture of ancient 

 nature-worship and Buddhistic ceremonial, with 

 TAG 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, Confucian- 

 ism, 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 



1 Chuang-Tzii, pref. xv. 



