CHAPTER VI.

Interview between Confucius and Laou-tsze-Some account of that philosopher and his doctrines-Difference between them and those taught by Confucius-Effect of Laou-tsze's conversation upon Confucius.

ONE of the most remarkable and interesting incidents connected with the visit of Confucius to the imperial capital, was his interview with Laou-tsze.

This great contemporary teacher was then living in the retirement which was so dear to him, at some distance from the city. His fame had been long established, and there was a universal feeling of respect towards one who was as much distinguished by the simplicity and purity of his life, as by his great learning and the exalted nature of his doctrines.

Born of peasant parents in that part of China now known as Honan, B.C. 604, Li-pe-yang, or Laou-tsze, the "Venerable one," the name by which he has become famous, was between ninety and a hundred years old at the time of his interview with Confucius. Very few incidents of his life are recorded, but, in

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accordance with the almost universal custom of associating the birth of great men with the miraculous, his entry into the world was said to have been marked by a variety of supernatural manifestations, some of which were of such an absurd and incredible nature, that it is difficult to understand how any one could have believed in them. It is chiefly through them, however, that his disciples, after his death, were enabled to claim for him a divine origin.

Of his early youth little is known, but it may be taken for granted that he possessed more than ordinary abilities and received a good education, or it would have been impossible for him to have held, whilst still young, the important post of imperial historiographer, in addition to some magisterial office. As imperial historiographer and keeper of the royal archives, he would naturally have had access to any writings, which might belong or refer to the literature of the Western world, and that some such writings were in existence is more than probable, since it is on record that, before his time, there had been a certain amount of intercourse between the part of China in which he lived, and the countries extending to the opposite extremity of Asia. This would account for the close resemblance to be found between many of his philosophic and religious theories, and those which were being formulated about this time

by Pythagoras, in the West, though they had received their highest development many centuries before in India, from whence, in the course of time, they were to penetrate, in the form of Buddhism, to the remotest confines of Tartary and China. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that his great work, the "Taou-te-King," dates from a period antecedent to that in which, according to tradition, he left his country and travelled for many years in distant lands, so that personal contact with those who professed these doctrines could hardly have influenced his teaching, though it may have somewhat modified the opinions of his extreme old age.

But there are those who declare this account of a journey into remote regions-the first of which Chinese historians make mention as having been undertaken by any philosopher or public teacher— to be apocryphal, so that we have no other alternative than either to go back to our original surmise, or to conclude that the extraordinary similitude which has been found to exist between many of Laou-tsze's opinions and those held by Pythagoras, and, in even a still greater degree, to that which was the original source of the latter's teaching, the fundamental doctrine contained in the Sanscrit Vedas, which belong to a date five centuries earlier, was a mere accident. But, in connection with this view, it has to be remem

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bered that the age in which he lived was not without its beliefs, and that an obscure kind of monotheism and an ingenious-if incomprehensible-system of cosmogony had previously received a very general philosophical acceptance.

Be this as it may, his great literary legacy, the “Taou-te-King," bears the impress of much original thought and of that deep religious feeling which made him always place the spiritual life before the material. Unfortunately, many passages of this work are extremely obscure, partly from the style in which it is written, and partly from the nature of the subjects of which it treats, so that the Chinese commentators are often at a loss to give them their exact meaning. This has led to many divergent conclusions; but these are, in many cases, to be traced to the commentators having approached the subject with some preconceived idea of the author's intention. Thus, one set of commentators have for their chief object, the reconciliation of the text with certain passages in the ancient classics; others again find in it all the leading tenets of Buddhism, and have no other aim than to show that Laou-tsze's teaching was based upon them; whilst a third body of critics-and that perhaps the most numerous one -have discovered a hidden occult meaning, only to be penetrated by the initiated. And so it is that the

followers of this great teacher, the Taou-sze, or Taouists of the present day, seek to obtain through the study of his writings a knowledge which will enable them to transmute the baser metals into gold, to acquire the elixir of life, and to lay bare the secrets of the future. To such bad uses have the results of this great thinker's many years of unremitting mental labour, been turned by the miserable magicians, necromancers, and diviners, who profess to be the reverent followers of his doctrines. But these corruptions no more belong to the spiritual and farreaching subtleties of Laou-tsze's teaching than do the acts of cruelty and gross superstition to be found amongst professing Christians, belong to the pure and humane tenets, impressed upon the world by the crucified Jesus.

In Europe, within the last century, the "Taou-teKing" has received an increasing amount of attention from the students of Chinese literature, and several translations exist in English, French, and German. But the translators have met with even greater difficulties than the commentators. The style of the ancient Chinese classics-setting aside the frequent antitheses and metaphors—is at the best so concise, and each character is so pregnant of meaning, that anything like a verbal rendering into a European language is out of the question. The ideas which