and Yn), heaven and earth
(Kien and Kouen). We have here nature-worship in its beginnings. In this
stage, even less than in fetichism, is there a definite idea of God,
much less a conception of him as personal and spiritual lord. The
Chinese, from the practical, empirical point of view peculiar to him,
recognizes the spiritual only in man and chiefly in the state. His
religion, therefore, is confined exclusively to the faithful keeping of
the laws of the state (the Celestial Kingdom), in which he sees the
reflection of heaven, to the recognition of the Emperor as the son and
representative of heaven, and to the worship of the forefathers,
especially of the great men and departed emperors, to whose memory the
Chinese temples, or pagodas, are dedicated. The origin of this religion
dates, according to the tradition, from Fo-hi (2950 B.C.), the founder
of the Chinese state. In the fifth century before Christ, Kong-tse, or
Kong-fu-tse (Confucius), appeared as a reformer of the religion of his
countrymen, and gathered the ancient records and traditions of his
people into a sacred literature, which is known by the name of the
"King" (the books), "Yo-King" (the book of nature), "Chu-King" (the book
of history), "Chi-King" (the book of songs). The contents of the "King"
became later with the Chinese sages Meng-tse (360 B.C.) and Tschu-tsche
(1200 A.D.) an object of philosophical speculation. The doctrine of
Lao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as the
basis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supreme
principle, _Tao_, or _Being_, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine of
the Indians, among whom he lived for a long time; but this doctrine
never became popular in China.

3. THE EGYPTIANS.

The worship of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among the
Chinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form as
theogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two
fundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature,
Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of
nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy
of the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (none
has as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character.
Fruitfulness and drought, the results of the Nile's overflowing and
receding, are imaged in the myth of _Osiris_, _Isis_, and _Typhon_. Th