The following translations are from the work on China by R. K. Douglas, in the series entitled, Story of the Nations. Here, first, is what Carpini says of the Chinese (p. 27):

They seem indeed to be kindly and polished folks enough. They have no beard, and in character of countenance have a considerable resemblance to the Mongols, but are not so broad in the face. They have a peculiar language. Their betters as craftsmen in every art practised by man are not to be found in the whole world. Their country is very rich in corn, in wine, in gold and silver, in silk, and in every kind of produce tending to the support of mankind.

And here is Rubruquis (p. 28):

Those Cathayans are little fellows, speaking much through the nose, and, as is general with all those Eastern people, their eyes are very narrow. They are first-rate artists of every kind, and their physicians have a thorough knowledge of the virtues of herbs, and an admirable skill in diagnosis by the pulse. The common money of Cathay consists of pieces of cotton paper about a palm in length and breadth, upon which lines are printed resembling the seals of Mangu Khan (the third in succession from Jenghiz Khan); they do their writing with a pencil such as painters paint with, and a single character of theirs comprehends several letters so as to form a whole word.

Again in these passages, as in all those quoted before in this chapter, a people is described endowed with many excellent qualities; a people industrious, intelligent, friendly. On the other hand, the Chinese character has not been well adapted to impose restraint on the vices of rulers, or to shake off customs of long standing when these are shown to be injurious. These defects are capable of being amended by intercourse with other nations; and the positive proficiency of the Chinese in stability and force is an element that must never be forgotten, when the general progress of mankind is being recounted. Perhaps their greatest want has been in the region of idealism, of ardent love, of high enthusiastic hope reaching out into the far future. To send fire into the earth has not been their province.

If in this chapter I have said more about the Chinese character and philosophy than about the Chinese religion, this is because religious problems have been less to the forefront in China than problems of morality and of character. It is not that the Chinese have been, or are, irreligious. Certainly they are not atheistic, and the worship of parents and ancestors, which forms the greater part of their practical religion, is not devoid of true feeling, and even of some true instinct. But though there may be true instinct in it, the instinct is an imperfect one, and does not reach to the root of human nature. A real share in the development

of mankind has belonged to China; but the most profound causes of development have lain elsewhere.

I must not close this chapter without some remarks on that other race of the far east, akin to the Chinese and yet different from them—the Japanese. Japan arrived at civilisation, and at conscious religion, much later than China. Tradition in Japan goes no further back than about 600 B.C., and though religion under the form of ancestor-worship existed from time immemorial, the softening of religion by morality, and the consequent removal of barbarous rites does not appear to have begun earlier than the Christian era1. The great refining influence of Buddhism was introduced into Japan about the sixth century of our era; it existed for centuries side by side with the primitive religion of Japan, called Shinto-ism; to-day it is declining as a creed, though the moral work that it has done is not small. As well as I can gather from what I have read on the subject, religion2 and morality have not been marked by that strong originality in Japan which we find in China; and yet it is difficult to say that the Japanese are inferior to the Chinese. The balance on the Japanese side is restored by the extraordinary power of initiative which the Japanese have always possessed, and in which the Chinese have been somewhat lacking. I cannot in the present work recount, even cursorily, the history of Japan; but every reader of that history must be struck with the swiftness and energy of purpose which has always marked the Japanese conduct of affairs, in contrast with the comparatively slow and acquiescent type of the Chinese practical conduct. The Japanese repelled the great Mongol sovereign, Kubla Khan, who had conquered China; they have always held their own as against foreign nations with singular independence, and I need not say what remarkable evidence their recent history has given, both of the power of internal change and of self-sacrifice and vigour in war. Yet it would be incorrect to think that these qualities, admirable though they are, reach to the profoundest depths of the human heart, or supply a foundation on which to build for eternity. To show how such a foundation can be attained, belongs to a future part of this work.

Meanwhile, in my next chapter I shall return from the far east to the west, and begin the account of religion as it existed in those nations which we call classical-the nations of Greece and Rome.

1 See Lafcadio Hearn's Japan: an Interpretation, p. 46.

This is the impression that I have derived from Lafcadio Hearn's works; and he was, I suppose, more intimately acquainted with Japan than any other European

writer.

CHAPTER VI

ANCIENT RELIGION: GREECE

IN the foregoing chapters I have dealt with the religion of nations who were in their different ways famous before the Christian era, but whose fame to us of the twentieth century of the Christian era is much dimmed by the obscurities which time has thrown in our way, and by the scantiness of extant historical records. It is true that the history of China shines to us with a clearer light than the histories of India and Persia; and possibly if Chinese literature were better known to us, this superiority of China might be yet further accentuated, but I speak of history as it appears to us Europeans now, with our present means of knowledge. These three vast countries, when studied in their remote epochs, have a real store of spiritual light for us at the present day; but the details of their history are for the most part shrouded in darkness. Coming from the histories of ancient China, India or Persia, to the histories of Greece and Rome, is like leaving a scene of dim twilight for the full blaze of day. The history of Israel, to which I must presently come, may be placed, for clearness of illumination, intermediate between the history of China and the history of Greece. We know nearly as much about king David as we know about Socrates, or about Cæsar. But there is no other hero or prophet of Israel of whom this can be said; about Isaiah, for instance, we hardly know as much as we do about Confucius.

It is Greece, not Rome, to which the credit of this illuminating power chiefly belongs; for Greece initiated what Rome inherited. The early days of Roman history, from the times of the later kings onwards, seem to have been recorded more or less by contemporary annalists; but the vast range which belongs to the human intellect, and the infinite charm of literature and art, were wholly unsuspected by the Romans until, in the third century before Christ, they began by slow steps to derive instruction from the Greeks. Greece is as wonderful on the human side as Israel

is on the religious side, but the humanity of the Greek genius is very different from the solemn law-abiding tenderness which characterises the teaching of Buddha and Lâo-tsze and Confucius; it is full of vivid emotions which seek for a law but do not find a law. The Greek spirit vivified those who came under its influence abundantly, but it was imperfect on the side of ruling and guiding power; and yet the noblest Greek minds were ardently in search after that ruling and guiding power, the want of which was so manifest in the Greek race of their own day. The variety of the Greek impulses was in truth not favourable to the attainment by the entire race of dominating power in any single definite line, but the capacities of mankind, if not organised or made permanent by the Greek spirit, were most notably enlarged by it, more than by any other race in ancient times-and may we not also add, more than by any single nation in modern times?

Moreover, there was one particular kind of virtue, not in itself of a ruling character, but still indispensable to rulers, the virtue of a just scepticism, which owes its origin to the Greeks. Not to be too ready to say "I know"; to hold back from absolute assertions, where probability only is attainable; this is a very general characteristic of the Greek mind, and a salutary one. Hence it was that accurate science and accurate history took their rise in Greece, and the courage of Socrates brought this scepticism to bear on the highest subjects of human thought, religion and ethics. Had Socrates been an irreligious man, this scepticism would have been a destructive force in his hands; but religious feeling, and an obedient orderly spirit, were strong in him. All things considered, the influence of Socrates, though never recognised in such formal ways as the influence of Buddha and Confucius and Zoroaster, has been fully as great as that of any of those famous teachers. In Socrates, quite as much as in Buddha, we feel that we are approaching, though not attaining, the ultimate goal of a spiritual command which should gather all the emotions of men under its fostering charge.

With this explanatory preface, let me begin my sketch of the development of the spiritual elements in ancient Greece.

The primitive religion of the races inhabiting Greece, like the primitive religion of all Aryan races, was the worship of personified natural forces. Zeus was the god of the heaven; Poseidon, of the sea; Demeter, the goddess of the earth regarded as nourishing men; Gaia, the earth in a more general sense; Hades, the god of the regions below the earth, whither the shades of men.

went after death; Hephæstus, the god of fire, especially of volcanic fires; Dionysus (who later was called Bacchus) the god of the vine, with its wonderful intoxicating force; Apollo, probably the god of the sun at all times, certainly from the time of Æschylus onwards; though this his central signification was sometimes forgotten (as for instance in Homer and Hesiod) amid the abundance of functions attributed to him. But the Greek mind, with its extraordinary rapidity of imagination, could not rest, as the poets of the Rig-Veda rested, in simple personification; the Greek gods became a picturesque assemblage of beings in no way differing from men, except in their greater power; beings who quarrelled and fought, who ate and drank, who married and begat children, who debated in political fashion, and formed political parties. This is the aspect of religion which we find in Homer; a most singular and unparalleled stripping away of mystery from the most mysterious of all subjects! Yet, with all the sensuous descriptions of divine things in Homer, it is plain that there was a certain subtlety in the Greek mind even at that date; or how else should we find Athena, the goddess of wisdom, in the list of Greek divinities? That is not quite an obvious conception to a rude race; nor perhaps is even Aphrodite, the goddess of love, an obvious conception to a mind from which an intellectual interest in the world is wholly absent. It was not for nothing that the Greeks sprang from the Aryan race, the race of nobles; an intrinsic breadth of conception belonged to them; but must we not add, with some rare exceptions, an intrinsic want of depth also?

When we seek to penetrate into the first formation of that people whom in their later development we call Hellenes or Greeks, and whom under either name we know so well, we are baffled by cross lights coming from many quarters with uncertain meanings. Hellas is recognised by Homer as but a small tract of country; the Hellenes as apparently but a small tribe; at least the only line of Homer in which they are mentioned with a more extensive signification was rejected in ancient times as spurious. Are we to suppose that this small tribe expanded until it filled the whole peninsula, casting out all its rivals? There is not the smallest scrap of legend or myth, much less of trustworthy history, testifying to such an expansion. How came it then that the whole race acquired the name of Hellenes ? What was that other race whom we read of in very ancient times as overspreading not only Greece proper, but the islands and part of Asia Minor, the Pelasgians? What are we to think