Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 656

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Defense of an Essay, &c.

Nov.

Physical: —“ all the production and changes of heaven and earth (i. e. that take place in the world), such as the flourishing and decaying of the blood and spirits of human life, the blooming and withering of plants and trees, with the living and dying of all kinds of things, are never without the kwei and shin, i. e. are invariably to be ascribed to the kwei and shin." Critical Commentary on 16th Sect. of Chung Yung. Moral:-"They (the kwei and shin) cause all the men in the Empire with evenly adjusted [minds] and pure clean [hearts], and arrayed in suitable apparel, to offer to them sacrifices." Confucius, Chung Yung, Sect. 16. The “all men,” who are the subjects of this moral influence, and whose minds are here said to be influenced by this kwei and shin to bring their sacrifices, are explained to mean "all men, from the son of Heaven to the common people."

The intellectual phenomena of the human mind are ascribed to k'i, the primordial substance, and not to li, the other eternally-exist-

ing first principle. E. g. “ƒ î¦ †

Á¤¤¤¤

者皆氣之所為也 that which we call the discerning fa-

culty and the power of consciousness of the animal spirits and of the human mind, are both derived from (k'i) the compound primordial substance."

What account do the men who teach this scheme of cosmogony

give of the human or human soul? Chú fűtsz' says, "kwan ché, K'í chí shinĦĦ the human soul is the skin of the

魂者氣之神 primordial substance. We have seen above that men, birds, beasts, &c., have the same shin with heaven and earth, the yin and yáng, &c., &c., and that the only difference among them is in form; and that the kwei and shin of the human body are the same as the kwei and shin who preside over the mechanism of nature. In their letter of the 30th of January, Dr. Medhurst and his friends urge it as their second objection to shin that, “It is applicable as well to the spirit of man,

and the living principle in irrational animals and plants as it is to the highest being of whom the Chinese have any conception.” According to the view of the Chinese pantheists, every pulse that throbs through universal nature is owing to the influence or energy of the shin; and this shin being inherent in every particle of matter, is expressly declared to be omnipresent, E. To contend whether this eternally-existing, universal agent, that lies at the foun- dation of all life, vegetable and animal, and that set the primordial mass in motion, is to be called Spirit or Divinity, would be a mere logomachy, if we could not show that shin is used by the Chinese

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