6o JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



Science and Art. Of these three, the former, thought in its relation- 

 ship to the universal, may be said to be above, and in a certain 

 sense to direct the course of the other two. In fact so true is this 

 of some nations (e. g. the one before us) that we find it impossible 

 to distinguish clearly between the two, religion and ethics or morality. 



Ethical writers distinguish three sources of ground work upon 

 which the social morality of a people may rest : rational ethics, 

 based on the nature of necessary thought ; theological ethics, on the 

 revealed will of God ; emperical ethics, on observation and induc- 

 tion. 



While Chinese morality may, in some of its aspects, be said to 

 fall under the third phase, yet to such an extent has their ethical 

 life been influenced by their conception of the nature of the deity 

 that we shall best understand the nature and relationship of the 

 whole by approaching their social and practical life from the reli- 

 gious side. 



The religious life of the Chinese, in some of its respects, may 

 be said to be unique. They are credited with being the possessors 

 of three systems of religion which may be termed national, and 

 which for centuries have lived peaceably side by side ; and to-day 

 it is no uncommon thing to find the same person boasting himself 

 an adherent of all three of the national systems. This, at first sight, 

 might seem to argue much for the religious toleration of the people, 

 but its true explanation lies elsewhere. It is to be explained partly 

 by the fact that these systems in a manner supplement one another, 

 partly in the fact that they have each been in a manner identified 

 with the state administration, but more largely by the fact that they 

 all have been made to rest on and harmonize with a more primitive 

 form of nature worship and ancestral idolatry. 



Of the three so called religions of China only two, Taouism and 

 Buddhism, are properly religious systems. The third, Confucianism, 

 is rather a system of imperial ethics, but founded in harmony with 

 the religious conceptions of the nation. 



The influence which any religious system will exert over the life 

 and actions of its adherents will be found to differ according to the 

 conceptions which it forms of the universal. 



In general, all religions may be divided into two classes under 

 this head. Subjective religion, in which the deity as pure spirit and 



