es B.C., with the
result that he put much time and energy into the glorification of Lao
Tz[)u] and his doctrines. Possessed of a brilliant style and a master
of irony, Chuang Tz[)u] attacked the schools of Confucius and Mo Ti
(see below) with so much dialectic skill that the ablest scholars of
the age were unable to refute his destructive criticisms. His pages
abound in quaint anecdotes and allegorical instances, arising as it
were spontaneously out of the questions handled, and imparting a
lively interest to points which might otherwise have seemed dusty and
dull. He was an idealist with all the idealist's hatred of a
utilitarian system, and a mystic with all the mystic's contempt for a
life of mere external activity. Only thirty-three chapters of his work
now remain, though so many as fifty-three are known to have been still
extant in the 3rd century; and even of these, several complete
chapters are spurious, while in others it is comparatively easy to
detect here and there the hand of the interpolator. What remains,
however, after all reductions, has been enough to secure a lasting
place for Chuang Tz[)u] as the most original of China's philosophical
writers. His book is of course under the ban of heterodoxy, in common
with all thought opposed to the Confucian teachings. His views as
mystic, idealist, moralist and social reformer have no weight with the
aspirant who has his way to make in official life; but they are a
delight, and even a consolation, to many of the older men, who have no
longer anything to gain or to lose.

Confucius.

Confucius, 551-479 B.C., who imagined that his Annals of the Lu State
would give him immortality, has always been much more widely
appreciated as a moralist than as an historian. His talks with his
disciples and with others have been preserved for us, together with
some details of his personal and private life; and the volume in which
these are collected forms one of the Four Books of the Confucian
Canon. Starting from the axiomatic declaration that man is born good
and only becomes evil by his environment, he takes filial piety and
duty to one's neighbour as his chief themes, often illustrating his
arguments with almost Johnsonian emphasis. He cherished a shadowy
belief in a God, but not in a future state of reward or punishment for
good or evil actions in this world. He rather taught men to be
virtuous fo