Chinese philosophy

“ The Chinese are beginning to imbibe Western culture—especially Western science and philosophy—with avidity, and the more they do so the more ready will they be to abandon some of their traditional ideas with regard to demonology, fêng-shui, the burning of paper furniture and money, the worship of the "gods" of Taoism, and many other superstitious beliefs and practices; indeed this lopping off of the rotten branches of the religious life of China began several years ago, and is not likely to cease until there are no more rotten branches left on the tree. ”

“ It is not a small thing to have conquered myth with philosophy, especially at a time when the Western world was still steeped in the grossest superstition. Therefore we may be thankful that the Chinese were and are a peace-loving, sober, agricultural, industrial, non-military, non-priest-ridden, literary, and philosophical people, and that we have instead of great myths a great people. ”

“ Excellence in composition, therefore, consists in arranging anew orthodox phrases which are to be found in the ancient classics or in the formidable list of historical or poetical works that the scholar delights to study. Each branch, moreover, of Chinese literature possesses a peculiar style of its own. Any one who could read official Chinese, of which the Peking Gazette may be taken as a typical exemplar, would not necessarily be able to understand an historical work, while books on philosophy, on Buddhism or on Taoism would be almost unintelligible without a special study of their style. ”

“ This is all fanciful and fabulous enough; but it is undeniable that that indifference or aversion to vulgar objects of desire which characterises the true Taoist has laid China under many a debt of gratitude. The votary of the Naturalistic philosophy does not always become a hermit any more than the Christian always becomes a priest. He is often in the world, and occupies high offices of state. ”

“ It is certain that anything like a full and sincere observance of the Chinese rules of life would result in a community of human beings far ahead of the "pure men" dreamt of in the philosophy of the Taoists.
As has already been either stated or suggested, the Chinese seem to be actuated by precisely the same motives which actuate other peoples. They delight in the possession of wealth and fame, while fully alive to the transitory nature of both. They long even more for posterity, that the ancestral line may be carried on unbroken. ”

“ They organized the primitive religion of the Chinese into a sophisticated social philosophy, and over the centuries their work took effect. Chinese of different racial backgrounds, using different spoken languages and unable to communicate with one another by writing, living under different climatic and economic conditions, came to show a startling uniformity of behavior. Custom and common sense were woven into a solid pattern by the scholars and accepted by the masses. Everything in human life bore some relation to everything else, and the life of man was related to the world of nature. ”

“ Under his top dressing of Western learning, the Chinese remains true to type, instinctively detached from the practical and scientific attitude, contemplatively philosophical, with the fatalistic philosophy of the prophet Job, concerned rather with the causes than the results of things. ”

“ The proverbial philosophy of the Chinese is on a scale commensurate in every way with other branches of their voluminous literature. Most Western proverbs, maxims, household words, etc., are to be found embedded therein; sometimes expressed in strictly identical terms, at other times differing only in point of local colour. Thus the Chinese say (e.g.) ―
One actor does not make a play. ”

“ It is unnecessary to add that to philosophy, a higher and more refined form of play, the Chinese are peculiarly addicted, and philosophic discussion is naturally woven in with an “art of exquisite enjoyment”—carried probably to greater perfection than anywhere else in the world. ”

“ In discussing metaphysical subjects with a cultured Chinese it is almost impossible to make him distinguish clearly between the physical organ and the word in its popular acceptation of mind. In the study of Taoist books the distinction is still more difficult to trace. But it is in what may be called the popular philosophy of the common people that the most glorious confusion arises. There we find the actual blood-pump made the seat or embodiment of the man's mental and moral characteristics ”

“ Such a hold, however, as superstition on the minds of the best informed in a Chinese community, that under the influence of any real or supposed danger, philosophy and Confucius are scattered to the four winds of Heaven, and the proudest disciple of the Master proves himself after all but a man.
Leaving the literati to take care of themselves, and confining our attention to the good-tempered, joyous, hospitable working-classes of China, we find many curious beliefs on subjects familiar among western nations to every national school-boy. ”

“ This uniformity and unvariableness of the Chinese mind is to be traced to their possessing one set of opinions on philosophy and religion; which being laid down in their ancient books, and stereotyped from age to age, constitutes the public and universal sentiment on the above topics, and runs through the whole mass of society. ”

“ The oldest known Chinese sage is Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism. "Lao Tze" is not really a proper name, but means merely "the old philosopher." He was (according to tradition) an older contemporary of Confucius, and his philosophy is to my mind far more interesting. He held that every person, every animal, and every thing has a certain way or manner of behaving which is natural to him, or her, or it, and that we ought to conform to this way ourselves and encourage others to conform to it. "Tao" means "way," but used in a more or less mystical sense, as in the text: ”

“ The highest conventional refinement, of a certain kind, is apparent in all that belongs to the Chinese. The inviolability of custom has not made their life heavy, but shaped it to the utmost adroitness for their own purposes. We are now somewhat familiar with their literature, and we see pervading it a poetry subtle and aromatic, like the odors of their appropriate beverage. Like that, too, it is all domestic,—never wild. The social genius, fluttering on the wings of compliment, pervades every thing Chinese. ”

“ And yet, in spite of the extreme healthiness of Confucian ethics, there has grown up, around both the political and social life of the Chinese, such a tangled maze of superstition, that it is no wonder if all intellectual advancement has been first checked, and has then utterly succumbed. The ruling classes have availed themselves of its irresistible power to give them a firmer hold over their simple-hearted, credulous subjects; they have practised it in its grossest forms, and have written volumes in support of absurdities in which they cannot really have the slightest faith themselves. ”

“ They never ask the why or the wherefore of a fact; suffice it for them that such a thing exists—that such a custom is followed, such a theory held—and it would never occur to a Chinese to inquire into the reason of it, or to test its truth. Innovations are regarded with suspicion almost amounting to horror; and no arguments have any force to a Chinese mind in proving the elementary and insufficient nature of the methods so long in vogue. It is, indeed, undeniable that the Chinese are bound hand and foot by custom. ”

“ He is theoretically perfect in thought, word, and deed, and is entitled not only to the reverence and obedience of his subjects, but also to their religious homage. Larger acquaintance with other peoples has doubtless led educated Chinese to regard him as only one among several great kings in the world, but for the people at large he is still practically a god. ”

“ He was a personal God, as we know from the ancient character by which He was designated in the written language of early ages, that character being a rude picture of a man. This view was entirely set aside by Chu Hsi, who declared in the plainest terms that the Chinese word for God meant nothing more than "abstract right;" in other words, God was a principle. ”

“ But, aside from this, almost every department of mental productiveness is represented in China by hosts of works, ancient and modern: in history, in biography, in geography and ethnology, in jurisprudence, in the grammar and lexicography especially of their own tongue, in natural history and science, in art and industry, in the various branches of belles-lettres, as poetry, romance, the drama, the Chinese have produced in abundance what, tried even by our own standard, is worthy of high respect and admiration. ”

“ Taoism, however, does not seem to have succeeded altogether, any more than Confucianism, in altogether estranging the Chinese people from their traditions of a God, more or less personal, whose power was the real determining factor in human events. ”

“ Never doubting that it is our first duty as a Christian nation to disseminate those truths that come from an inspired source, why should we, under the influence of a false sympathy, strive to do for the Chinese what so many of our own people yet require. The Chinese have an advantage over many of our lower classes; they are intelligent and reflective, and have Confucian maxims daily brought even in the highways before their notice, that enjoin most of the social duties that render man’s life more in accordance with the Divine wish. ”

“ Contemplative, gentle, and metaphysical in their habit of thought, the Chinese have reflected profoundly and worked out many riddles of the universe in ways peculiarly their own. Realization of the value and need to us of a more definite knowledge of the mental processes of our Oriental brothers, increases wonderfully as one begins to comprehend the richness, depth, and beauty of their thought, ripened as it is by the hidden processes of evolution throughout the ages. ”

“ This is apparent in their religion, their morality, their poetry, and their science. The explanation is to be sought in the strength of their feelings, coupled with a certain intellectual force. The same intellect, without the feelings, would have issued differently. The Chinese are the exception. They want the feelings, and they want the imagination. They are below Europeans in this respect. When we bring before them our own imaginative themes, our own cast of religion, accommodated as it is to our own peculiar temperament, we fail in the desired effect. ”

“ The Chinese have been pointed to, by a moral philosopher, to point his moral, which is, the desolating tendency of secularism—they having learnt practically, as well as theoretically, to think of themselves as mere transitory beings, who have no future life to expect, and no present Providence to reverence or fear; and the result he takes to be, that they are the meanest, the most deceitful, and one of the most vicious nations in the world—a people who literally sit in darkness, and whose lives are passed in the shadow of death. ”

“ Our own Scriptures are full of similar prophecies, and what is good for us is good for the Chinese. If the celestial movements can be foretold, why not corresponding terrestrial movements, each corner of the earth being on the meridian of something? In the infancy of science, it is rather a question of good faith than of truth; and even the truth, if we insist on expecting it, was rudely guessed at by such great thinkers as Tsz-ch'an and Shuh Hiang. ”

“ We talk of the peculiarities of the Chinese mind, and doubtless there are many which have been formed by the education and environments of centuries of time; but the Chinese education is more responsible for the Chinese mind than nature is. ”

“ Now without committing myself to exaggeration or misdirection as to the practical value of these treasures, I dare assert that the old pride, arrogance, and exclusiveness of the Chinese are readily intelligible to any one who has faithfully examined the literature of China and hung over the burning words of her great writers. I do not flatter myself that all the extracts given will be of equal interest to all readers. I have not catered for any particular taste, but have striven to supply a small handbook of Chinese literature, as complete as circumstances would permit. ”

“ Points of this kind are, no doubt, trivial, as I have said above, and may be regarded by many even as flippant; but the fact is that a successful study of the Chinese people cannot possibly be confined to their classics and higher literature, and to the problem of their origin and subsequent development where we now find them. It must embrace the lesser, not to say [206] meaner, details of their everyday life, if we are ever to pierce the mystery which still to a great extent surrounds them. ”

“ The genius of the Chinese civilization, which is characterized by the greatest persistence in primitive or early forms, is illustrated equally in their religion as in their government. The two are, indeed, to a great degree united. The duties which are paid by all to their parents and sovereign while living, are continued in their worship after death. ”

“ Mere education in the science of the west, mere contact with western civilization, commerce, railways, telegraphs, mines, etc., can not be expected and are not calculated to regenerate China, because they have no direct moral or spiritual value, and the Chinese seem never to have been profoundly moved by other than moral and spiritual forces. ”

“ Leaving out of the question the extreme difficulty of the language, now gradually yielding to methodical and persevering study, the peculiar bent of the Chinese mind, with all its prejudices and superstitions, is quite as much an obstacle in the way of eliciting truth as any offered by the fantastic, but still amenable, varieties of Chinese syntax. ”