Taouism

M. Constant's opinion concerning the Chinese, we are sorry to say, has a great deal of truth in it : they are, he observes, of all people the most attached to materialism, they have no notion of spirituality, they are blind fatalists ; their doctrine is far more dry than any other pantheistic scheme : - "it supposes the existence of one only substance, without attributes, without qualities, without will, without intelligence ;" (we suppose he means the le of Confucianists-see Morrison's Dictionary 6942,) "it knows of no motives but blind fatalism, and of no perfection but a blind apathy, without virtue and without vice, without pain and without pleasure, without hope and without fear, without desire and without dislike, and finally without immortality." (Here there is a good deal of Taouism set forth.)

Among these recluses arose one who was noted as a deep and original thinker, and who became the founder of Taouism. This was Laou-tsze, the old philosopher, who was born about fifty years before Confucius.