200 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



won its way to security, and the mystical got left 

 out in the cold, perhaps persecuted, certainly sus- 

 pected and treated as heterodox, and naturally 

 retaliating by scornful criticism of the dominant 

 view. When this stage is reached, Mencius regards 

 Lao-Tzu as a heresiarch, while Chuang-Tzu often 

 treats Confucius with contempt and ridicule. For 

 " the Way that is walked upon is not the Way," 

 and "the TAG which shines forth is not TAG" 

 (p. 25). But Confucianism being " established," 

 the Taoists are now "dissenters/ 5 and not being- 

 strong enough to disestablish Confucianism become 

 more and more mystical, and content themselves 

 with a policy of protest. 



If there is little direct evidence for this theory as 

 to the relations of Taoism and Confucianism, there 

 is a curious parallel in Western thought. When 

 Plato was known only in a neo-Platonic disguise, 

 and Aristotle judged by the " Organon," it was pos- 

 sible for partisans to represent the two philosophers 

 as typical opposites, and to assume that " every 

 one is born a Platonist or an Aristotelian," for- 

 getting that Aristotle was Plato's pupil, and both 

 were followers of Socrates. Later on, when Aris- 

 totelianism became " established " as the Christian 

 philosophy, Platonism, which survived in the more 

 mystical schoolmen, fell under suspicion, and not 

 unfrequently justified the suspicion by developing 

 in the direction of Pantheism. It was not till the 



