subsequent movements. Taoism was an active power during the
Shin dynasty, that epoch of Chinese unification from which we
derive the name China. It would be interesting had we time to note
its influence on contemporary thinkers, the mathematicians,
writers on law and war, the mystics and alchemists and the later
nature-poets of the Yangtse-Kiang. We should not even ignore
those speculators on Reality who doubted whether a white
horse was real because he was white, or because he was solid,
nor the Conversationalists of the Six dynasties who, like the Zen
philosophers, revelled in discussions concerning the Pure and
the Abstract. Above all we should pay homage to Taoism for
what it has done toward the formation of the Celestial character,
giving to it a certain capacity for reserve and refinement as
"warm as jade." Chinese history is full of instances in which the
votaries of Taoism, princes and hermits alike, followed with
varied and interesting results the teachings of their creed.
The tale will not be without its quota of instruction and amusement.
It will be rich in anecdotes, allegories, and aphorisms. We would
fain be on speaking terms with the delightful emperor who never
died because he had never lived. We may ride the wind with
Liehtse and find it absolutely quiet because we ourselves are
the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the Aged one of the Hoang-Ho,
who lived betwixt Heaven and Earth because he was subject
to neither the one nor the other. Even in that grotesque apology
for Taoism which we find in China at the present day, we can revel
in a wealth of imagery impossible to find in any other cult.

But the chief contribution of Taoism to Asiatic life has been in the
realm of aesthetics. Chinese historians have always spoken of
Taoism as the "art of being in the world," for it deals with the