THE WILL IN NATURE.
animals were sacrificed raw. The sacrifices offered up publicly at certain seasons or after great events by the Chinese Emperor and the chief dignitaries of the Empire, belong to this worship. These sacrifices are dedicated first and foremost to the blue sky and to the earth, the former to the blue sky in the winter solstice, the latter to the earth in the summer solstice and, after these, to every possible power of Nature: the sea, mountains, rivers, winds, thunder, rain, fire, &c, &c. A genius presides over each of these, and each genius has several temples. On the other hand, each genius presiding over every single province, town, village, or street, nay over family funerals and even sometimes over a merchant's warehouse, has also temples; only, in the two last cases they are destined exclusively for private worship. But public worship is besides offered up to former illustrious Emperors, founders of dynasties and to heroes, i.e. to all such as have benefited (Chinese) mankind by word or deed. Even these have their temples: Confucius alone having no less than 1,650 dedicated to him. This therefore accounts for the great number of small temples found throughout the Empire. With this hero-worship too, is associated the private worship offered up by every respectable family on the tombs of their ancestors. Now besides this worship of Nature and of heroes, which is universal, there are three other prevailing religious doctrines in China, more with a dogmatical intent. First among these is the doctrine of [[w:Tao|Tao-she], founded by Laotse, an older contemporary of Confucius. This is the doctrine of Reason [Vernunft], as the inner order of the Universe or inherent principle of all things, of the great One, the sublime Gable-Beam or roof–tree (Taiki) which supports all the Rafters, yet is above them (properly the all-pervading Soul of the World) and of Tao, i.e. the Way, namely to salvation: that is, to redemption from the world and its misery. We have an exposition of this doctrine taken from the fountain-head in
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[[w:Stanislas Julien|
