Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 416

378

Defense of an Essay, &c.

JULY,

Ruler, is just this l, i. e. the principle of order; it is not, that besides the heart there is this li, principle of order, or besides this li, principle of order, there is a heart."

And so in the Yih King, when we read that ★ ★ ^ * $ 天地合其德 "the great man with heaven and earth unites

his virtue," we fancy heaven and earth must be used metaphorically, but the word "tien heaven," in the phrase "heaven and earth" refers, the commentator expressly tells us, "to its form and substance." He also says, the virtue in which heaven and earth and the great man unite, is Táu.

The generation of all things is also ascribed to the yin and yáng, to theurh k'i, the two primordial substances, which are the same as the yin and yang, and to the wú hing, the five ele- ments. While the generation of all things is thus ascribed to so many different agents, the generating of the heavens and the earth is

never ascribed to Shangti. This generation however is ascribed to Yin Yáng chí k'i; as for instance in the following th

陽之物。依舊是陰陽之氣所生也

and “Heaven

earth are only a thing or creature of the Yin and Yáng; they are what the Yin-ed and Yáng-ed k'i, (i. e. the primordial substance of which we predicate Yin and Yang, activity and passivity) generated of old." To pursue this argument from the Chinese cosmogony any farther, we think useless. What Cudworth maintains is necessary to con- stitute imperfect theism, is certainly the minimum that we could consent, should be used as a test to prove whether Shangtí is truly and properly God or not. That he can meet the requirements of this test is not pretended on Shangti's behalf by Dr. Medhurst, as we have seen, and I am persuaded can not be shown from the Chinese classics by any one. So far from proving Shúngti to be God (propriè) he can not, judging from all that is predicated of him, (as far as I am in- formed,) be shown to be even a Demiurge. And to this assertion I beg to call Dr. Legge's attention particularly.

If Dr. Legge gives up the point of Shangti's self-existence from eternity, he can not abandon that of his having made the heavens and the earth, and still maintain that he is "God over all, blessed for ever," without the greatest inconsistency. This last point he must prove, for, if he fails to make it good, we must regard Shángtí as one of those gods, whose doom was long ago announced by the prophet: "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Jer. x. 11