gitimate successor Zennism, represents the individualistic trend of
the Southern Chinese mind in contra-distinction to the communism of
Northern China which expressed itself in Confucianism. The Middle
Kingdom is as vast as Europe and has a differentiation of idiosyncrasies
marked by the two great river systems which traverse it. The
Yangtse-Kiang and Hoang-Ho are respectively the Mediterranean and the
Baltic. Even to-day, in spite of centuries of unification, the Southern
Celestial differs in his thoughts and beliefs from his Northern brother
as a member of the Latin race differs from the Teuton. In ancient
days, when communication was even more difficult than at present, and
especially during the feudal period, this difference in thought was
most pronounced. The art and poetry of the one breathes an atmosphere
entirely distinct from that of the other. In Laotse and his followers
and in Kutsugen, the forerunner of the Yangtse-Kiang nature-poets, we
find an idealism quite inconsistent with the prosaic ethical notions of
their contemporary northern writers. Laotse lived five centuries before
the Christian Era.

The germ of Taoist speculation may be found long before the advent
of Laotse, surnamed the Long-Eared. The archaic records of China,
especially the Book of Changes, foreshadow his thought. But the great
respect paid to the laws and customs of that classic period of Chinese
civilisation which culminated with the establishment of the Chow dynasty
in the sixteenth century B.C., kept the development of individualism
in check for a long while, so that it was not until after the
disintegration of the Chow dynasty and the establishment of innumerable
independent kingdoms that it was able to blossom forth in the luxuriance
of free-thought. Laotse and Soshi (Chuangtse) were both Southerners and
the greatest exponents of the New School. On the other hand, Confucius
with his numerous disciples aimed at retaining ancestral conventions.
Taoism cannot be understood without some knowledge of Confucianism and
vice versa.

We have said that the Taoist Absolute was the Relative. In ethics the
Taoist railed at the laws and the moral codes of society, for to
them right and wrong were but relative terms. Definition is always
limitation--the "fixed" and "unchangeless" are but terms expressive of
a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen,--"The Sages move the world." Our
standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is