THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 6 1 



free personality is attributed with unlimited power. Objective relig- 

 ion, where the divinity as an unspiritual nature being is conceived as 

 limited and subordinated to an unchanging and eternal world order. 



The general effect of these two opposite phases of religious 

 thought will be readily apparent. The former, with its free person- 

 ality and high conception of divine power, will equally emphasize the 

 personality and moral activity of the individual, and there will arise 

 a consequent dissatisfaction with the present natural state. The 

 second, with its contradiction of free personality in the divine, will 

 be wanting in moral activity and individuality, and tend rather to a 

 uniform submission to the natural world order, as found in man and 

 the outer world, personality thus becoming passive and obedience 

 the highest virtue. 



We stated a few moments ago that the apparent toleration of 

 the various systems of religion in China was explained chiefly by the 

 fact that they all rested on a primitive form of nature worship. In 

 this system heaven and earth are set forth as the Great Father and 

 Mother of the universe. By heaven, however, is meant but the 

 pure physical ether, which first spontaneously organized itself out of 

 chaos ; while earth represents the coarser and heavier elements. 

 These two, representing the male and female elements in nature, 

 produced the seasons, and these latter the products of the earth. 



The adoration of heaven and earth, as the parents of all things, 

 forms the hfe centre of the whole of China's religious thought ; and 

 to this day the most solemn religious ceremony in the national 

 worship is to be seen when, twice each year, the Emperor, as the 

 high priest of China, enters the Temple of Heaven at Peking to 

 offer up his devotions for a propitious year. 



On this conception of nature rests that remarkable ceremony 

 which may be called the real religion of China, ancestral worship. 

 When the ancient worship treats its chief god, heaven, as the male 

 principle, and relates it to earth as the female element, we can see 

 that two opposite conceptions are likely to arise in the national mind. 

 First, the corresponding physical relationship of husband and wife 

 is prone, by its similarity to the national religion, to be to a certain 

 extent deified. Second, religion itself, by its resemblance to the 

 common place of every day life, will tend to become rational and 

 material, the practical will tend to overshadow the spiritual. 



