Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 220

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Lian Char l' Ch

APRIL

Ỉ

ART. II. Liáu Chái Chi, or Extraordinary Legends from

Liáu Chải. Reviewed by a Correspondent.

MATERIALISM is the most prevalent system amongst the thinking Chinese. Without troubling themselves about a first cause, they con- trive to substitute a reciprocal working of the elements upon each other; and by this means they suppose matter was at first called into existence, and the present order of nature maintained. This is the orthodox creed, though not quite in unison with realities or facts. What is called the Course and Law of Nature by our infidel philoso- phers, to which they subject everything, the Chinese call revolving chaos and endless reproduction. Both parties are far enough from the truth, though the latter are more excusable. Most of the Chinese, however, admit the existence of spiritual beings, which are met with throughout all nature, though a few allow them to exert little or no influence in human affairs. Reason in whatsoever manner you will, you can never persuade them, that their whole being is mere mat- ter; and as some part partakes of a spiritual nature, there must like- wise be some connection between man and the world of spirits. In the same degree that man becomes enlightened, without the salutary influence of Christianity, he endeavors to rid himself of all relation- ship with the invisible world, and apparently succeeds in gaining this end, when he is again most forcibly thrown back upon a long ex- ploded creed, that there exists a most intimate union with beings unseen from whom he cannot sever himself. But the mass of the Chi- nese have not yet arrived at that manhood which coufers the privi- lege of believing nothing, except what is perceptible to the senses ; they have not yet cast off the bonds that link them to another world and as they do not know its nature, they have filled the universe with imaginary demons and spirits, to whom they suppose they owe some allegiance. That such is the case they prove mechanically, without any reflection, every day; and stores of incense and gilt paper bear evidence of a remembrance of their duty towards invisible beings. By a system of gross inconsistency, however, they bring down these existences to the level of sense, in images and prints, and look upon them as full substitutes for the originals. For though their represen- tations are in general nothing more than deified heroes and sages, they attach to their manes the same ideas, as to the spirits, genii, &c.

Such delusions, however, are not in strict accordance with the

;