ON ITEMS OF CHINESE ETHICS AND PHILOSOPHY. 65 



iu the sense in which we understand the word, no single divinity 

 to which the nation turns as the deity it worships. There is one 

 Supreme Ruler, to whom the monarchs of old sacrificed, and to whom 

 the present monarchs sacrifice. I suppose there is no worship on 

 earth to which we can assign a continuous existence of 3,000 years, 

 except this worship of the emperors, and some learned men go 

 the length of believing, with Px^ofessor Legge of Oxford, that the 

 supreme rider of China is none other than the God of Revelation. 

 I think it is very presumable that the divinity still sacrificed to 

 by the Emperor of China did once represent the true God, early 

 known, and long since lost ; but I do not gather from Chinese 

 literature that we have the right to say that the Supreme Ruler of 

 China is beyond dispute the God of Revelation. Be this as it may, 

 the individuality of this divinity was very early merged in an 

 undefined godhood. In the Canon of History, an ancient work 

 from which we learn what we know of the ancient constitution of 

 what was not yet by a good deal the Chinese Empire, but mex^ely 

 a central state attaching to itself barbarous nations around and 

 gradually civilizing them, I think we see clearly that the word 

 Heaven began very early to be interchanged with the word 

 Supreme Ruler. In fact, in regard to the obligations of men, high 

 and low, you meet with the word Heaven very much more often 

 than you do with the Chinese term Shang Ti (Supreme Ruler), 

 But as regai-ds the translation in the paper as sky, I do not 

 think that is sustainable. The Roman Catholics had considerable 

 difficulty in finding a term to render the word God, and they 

 finally settled on The Lord of Heaven. Therefore we may be quite 

 sure in that combination The Lord of Heaven was not intended to 

 mean the sky that you see. There is, it is true, in Chinese phil- 

 osophy, a great modern philosopher who has made Confucius his 

 own, or has almost substituted himself for Confucius, and it is 

 manifest in one passage of his writings that he is seeking to disen- 

 tangle for himself the material from the immaterial. Still the 

 ordinary Chinese when speaking, not of the sky but of the deity, 

 use Heaven in the sense we use it in such phrases as "Heaven's 

 will be done "; that is as immaterial. The Jesuits appear to have 

 accepted that view, and allowed them to continue their homage 



