165 ASSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



easy to speak, because we have less trustworthy 

 documents. If the " Tao-te-Ching" is genuine, as 

 Dr. Legge believes, it is the only work of Lao-Tzu 

 which we have. If not, we know nothing of Lao- 

 Tzu's teaching except through his followers. But, 

 without deciding this question, its contrast with 

 Confucianism is obvious. It is idealistic and mys- 

 tical, it is metaphysical from first to last. It is 

 contemptuous of Confucius and Confucianism. In 

 its opposition to a mere practical system, a religion 

 limited to the finite, Taoism must have appealed 

 to those deeper instincts of human nature to 

 which Buddhism appealed later on. Action, effort, 

 benevolence, usefulness, all these, in theory, have 

 a place in Confucianism. But its last word is 

 worldly wisdom. To the Taoist all this savours 

 of " the rudiments of the world." Its " charity 

 and duty," its " ceremonies and music," are the 

 "Touch not, taste not, handle not," of an ephemeral 

 state of being, and perish in the using. And the 

 sage seeks for the Absolute, the Infinite, the 

 Eternal. He would attain to Tao. 



It would have seemed as if in these rival systems 

 we should look in vain for parallelisms to Greek 

 thought. Metaphysics and morals were never 

 separated in the best days of Greek life, as we 

 find them separated in Taoism and Confucianism. 

 Socrates professed to deal with ethics, and put 

 metaphysics aside ; but the questions which he 



