Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 403

1850.

Defense of an Essay &c.

365

empire of China; they likewise preside over the five portions which form the entire heavens, and the five seasons of which the year is composed." These Genii are the five shin, who preside over the five elements who are styled, Azure Ruler, Vermilion Ruler, Yellow Ruler, White Ruler, and Black Ruler.

While quoting the opinions of others on this subject, I will cite again a few passages from Dr. Medhurst's " China, its State and pros- pects" that were quoted in my Essay;-"There are in the works of the Philosopher (Confucius) some allusions to heaven as the presid- ing power of nature, and to fate (li) as the determiner of all things, but he does not appear to attribute originality to the one, or rationality to the other; and thus his system remains destitute of the main truth which lies at the basis of all truth, viz, the being of a self- existent, eternal, all-wise God." Again; "From these expressions about "Heaven", the "Supreme Ruler", and the "principle of order", we might infer that the Chinese had some knowledge of the Ruler of the universe, and honored him as such, were we not baffled by the very incoherent manner in which they express themselves, and shock- ed at the propensity to materialism which they constantly exhibit." Again;

"No first cause" characterises all the sects, and the supreme self-existent God, is scarcely traceable through the entire range of their metaphysics; and yet the Chinese manage to combine the appar- ently irreconcileable principles of atheism and polytheism. 'Gods many and lords many' are adopted by every sect, and it is more easy to find a god than a man in China. Though they account no divinity to be eternal, yet they discover a god in every thing."

I quote these words as furnishing important testimony on the point now under discussion, and also to afford me an opportunity of com- menting on Dr. Medhurst's observations on my quoting from the "State and Prospects" in my Essay. Dr. Medhurst had been a stud- ent of the Chinese language for twenty years, and was justly consider- ed an excellent Chinese scholar at the time that work was written. 'There could be surely therefore no impropriety in quoting from such a work. The fact that it was written as Dr. M. alledges, in a po- pular style, has nothing to do with the object for which it was quoted, which was, to show that the Chinese were polytheists and that they did not know any being who is truly and properly God. These are facts, which one narrates according to the best of his knowledge and belief, whether he writes in a philosophical, or easy flowing popular style. Had I quoted this work, on any nice point of Chinese criti- cisin, some complaint might have been made, but as it is, we think