1850.
Defense of an Essay, &c.
611
otherwise, that the word by which we must render Elohim (our great weapon against all false objects of worship), although it specially de- signates the Olympian gods, yet, by Chinese usage ready to our hand, has had its meaning so extended as to make the blow aimed at objects of false worship equally fatal to deceased ancestors and the terrestial K'i, as to the celestial gods themselves? As the Chinese are so inve- terately addicted to the worship of their deceased ancestors, should we not be obliged to extend, by our explanations, the meaning of what- ever word we use to render Elohim in the First Commandment, so as to include these manes? If this is so, surely it can not be an insupe- rable objection to the use of Shin, that the Chinese have preceded us in so extending its meaning.
The error of extending this name, the distinctive name of the celes- tial beings worshiped, to the terrestrial and man-derived, was a poly- theistic error, one into which the Chinese polytheists naturally fell, for it is of the very nature of polytheism to go on from age to age in- creasing the number of its gods. The other error referred to above- that of calling the soul of a living man Shin, is of much more recent date I judge, from all I can learn; and has, I think, grown out of the pantheistic system of cosmogony taught in the Yik King.
As in the previous instance, so here, it is important to remember that the original name of the human soul in Chinese is hưran in not shin. I have taken great pains to ascertain if the word shin oc- curs anywhere in the Five Classics, or in the Four Books, as the name of the soul of a living man, and have not been able to find an instance of such a use of the word. The calling the hwan, the human soul or mind of man shin, is said to have been introduced by the medical men. It appears to me to be a mere reversal of the process by which pantheism was conceived.
The Chinese philosophers, in endeavoring to form a scheme of the universe, regarded man as a microcosm, his constitution and nature formed their model. This model they conceived to consist of a body which had hing form, and of a hwan, animus, and 'a peh, anima, which were invisible, and were regarded as the depositories of human life, intelligence, powers of locomotion, &c., &c. As we have seen (see p. 370), when discoursing of their cosmogony, the Confucian system of philosophy assumes the existence of two eternally-existing principles, li and ki. Of these, the philosophers of this sect affirm that li neither "wills nor wishes, plans nor makes;" but that "ki can collect together, make and do," "can ferment and settle, and generate things." The 'i, primordial substance, is viewed under the two