1250.
Defense of an Essay, &c.
441
good things they sought. But we may observe that heaven, earth, and ancestors were the brings on whom they relied, and their spirits were prayed to only as connected with those beings. They would not have prayed to the kwei, if those kwei had not belonged to their own an. cestors. So also they would not have called upon the shin and k'i, if they had not belonged to heaven and earth; which great powers of nature were the objects of their worship.”
Thus we see there are four or five views taken of this subject by different Chinese writers, and there may be as many more for all I know. The holders of these views all agree in calling t'ien, Shángti, "the Supreme Ruler," whether they understand by this name t'ien, on the one hand the material heavens, or a lifeless, senseless, principle ; or on the other, the shin of heaven, i. e. a spiritual being, a god, who resides in or rules over heaven; or the informing divinity, spirit, or soul of the compound being called Heaven, or the divine energies of heaven-all agree in calling tien, in whichever of these ways they understand the word, “the Supreme Ruler." This shows that Shángti is, as Dr. L. contends, a relative term, and does "not indicate the essence, or express anything of the being" of the supreme ruling pow- er; and it has been for the purpose of illustrating this important point, much more than to defend myself against the ridicule of Dr. Legge, that I have thus commented at length on his remarks on my views of Shangti and Tien.
From the views of the Chinese writers introduced above, another fact is apparent which is worthy of our especial notice: it is that the only ray of theism that breaks in upon us from these various explanations of t'ien, is through the word shin. From the phrases
Expansive Heaven, the Supreme Ruler" (with its immense k'i substance and ruling seat on high), and Tàu, Primitive Reason, and li, destiny, fate, we get no indication that Tien, the Supreme Ru- ler is "an understanding being" (to use Cudworth's phrase): it is
When we address a man, we surely do not anatomize him after Dr. M.'s method, and consider whether we are speaking to the material or immaterial part of him. If by the shin and k'i here referred to, we understand the inde- peudent, separate spiritual beings, who preside over heaven and earth, it is as Pasy to understand why they are considered more honorable and more power- ful than any of the other Shin, as it is to understand why his Imperial Majesty, the Hwangtí, is considered more honorable and more powerful than
皇帝
any other man. It is not as a mere man, that he is made so much an object of
honor, but as the ruler of so great a nation: So here, the shin of heaven, who
is called Shangt #
is not superior to the other shin, on the score more.
ly of being a shin, but is regarded as the chief of the shin, and the Supreme
Ruler over them all because of his imperium-- heaven,
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