a few years to their lives, nor as the rich and great, who surround themselves with every luxury to nourish their bodies and every gratification to nourish their senses, forgetting that these are but as so many axes which before long will hew down the tree of life which they vainly hope to support; but as the true Taouist, who, by seeking something beyond the body, nourishes the body.

"How best can I prolong my life?" asked the Emperor Hwan-te of the celebrated Kwang-chingtsze. "By keeping yourself pure and still," answered the hermit; "and above all things by avoiding lust. Let not the form of a woman meet your eyes, and let not the thought of her cross your mind. Of all the temptations men are heir to, she is the most dangerous. It is by following these rules that I have attained to my present advanced age."

This care for life, however, was quite compatible, according to Chwang-tsze, with an indifference for death; and when his own end approached he met it with perfect calmness, telling his relations not to mourn over that which was inevitable. On the subject of his funeral he declared, "I will have heaven and earth for my sarcophagus, the sun and moon shall be the insignia when I lie in state, and all creation shall be the mourners at my funeral." When his relatives remonstrated, saying that the birds of the air would tear his corpse, he replied, "What matters it? Above there are the birds of the air, and below there are the worms and ants; if you rob one to feed the other, what injustice is there done?" 1

1 Mayers's "Chinese Reader's Manual."

CHAPTER V.

LATER TAOUISM.

THE Chinese have no natural taste for philosophical speculations, and the Taouists, therefore, following the bent of their nature, threw aside the deeper musings of Laou-tsze with the same ease and indifference with which the followers of Confucius discarded the abstruser portions of the Confucian system. A few years sufficed to cast entirely into the background all metaphysical considerations enunciated by the old philosopher, and to construct out of the remnant of his teachings a system which might be applied to the practical concerns of life. How this new school came into existence, and who were its apostles, we have no means of knowing, but the fact that Che Hwang-te made an exception in favour of Taouist works when he ordered the destruction of the books, may possibly indicate that in the third century B.C. its adherents were a large and powerful body.

At a very early date the followers of Taou seem to have rejected Laou-tsze's doctrine of self-emptiness as insufficient to attract them, and to have sought to supplement it by making it a means to the attainment of everlasting life. The legend that Laou-tsze secured for himself immortality may have given rise to

this desire, or possibly, conversely, this desire may have given rise to the legend of Laou-tsze's triumph over death. But, however that may be, we find that at the time of Che Hwang-te, there was a very wide-spread belief in the existence of charms which had the power of conferring imperishable life. Che Hwang-te himself was a firm believer in this and kindred superstitions. He allowed himself to be persuaded into the belief that in the eastern sea there were golden islands of the blest, where dwelt genii, whose business and delight it was to dispense to all visitors to their shores a draught of immortality compounded of the fragrant herbs which grew in profusion around them. So sincere was his faith that he fitted out a naval expedition to discover these much-to-be-desired regions, and placed a professor of magical arts, named Seu She, at the head of the undertaking. On the plea that it had been revealed to him that the expedition was likely to meet with a more favourable reception at the Golden Isles if a company of youths and maidens accompanied it, Seu She persuaded the emperor to send several thousands of girls and young men with him. On the return of the voyagers they reported that they had sailed within sight of the islands, but had been driven back by contrary winds.

Nothing daunted, the emperor despatched a second expedition to bring back some of the waters of lite. This also failed. But private individuals were, it is stated, more fortunate than the emperor, and the people living on the sea-board of the states of Ts'e and Yen-a part of the modern provinces of Shantung and Chihli,—were visited

by numbers of travellers who had landed on the fairy islands, and who imparted to their countrymen some of the secrets which had been communiIcated to them. Thus they learnt the arts of fusing metals, and of transforming themselves by the means of magical incantations. But no failure roused the emperor to a recognition of the imposture that was being played upon him. Countless sums were spent in vain, and profitless adventures at the command of Seu She, or other professors of magic. A prophetic announcement made to him that his dynasty would be overthrown by Hoo (the Huns) was sufficient to induce him to send an army of 300,000 men against those northern borderers. With the successful conclusion of the campaign the emperor believed he had falsified the prophecy, but the Taouists claim its fulfilment in the ruin which overtook the dynasty in the fall of his successor, Hoo Hai.

During the reign of Che Hwang-te the more eminent of the professors of the magical arts adopted for themselves the title of Chin-jin, or True men. These magicians professed to have mastered the powers of nature. They threw themselves into fire without being burnt, and into water without being drowned. They held the secret of the philosopher's stone, and raised tempests at their will. They were on terms of familiarity with the immortal inhabitants of the Isles of the Blest, who made known to them future events, and imparted to them the secret mysteries of Taou. But the time came when these men had to die, and as the acknowledgment of their deaths would have falsified their lives, it was

given out, as each disappeared from view, that he had been carried off to some unknown paradise.

Not being willing to recognise for their religion a foundation so modern as the time of Laou-tsze, the Taouists claimed Hwang-te, the third of the mythical five rulers, who is said to have ascended the throne in the year 2697 B.C., as the real author of their faith, and asserted that he never saw death, but was borne away from the earth on the back of a dragon. Unfortunately, however, the tomb of Hwang-te was known to exist, and this discrepancy was urged on the Taouists by the Emperor Woo, of the Han Dynasty (140-86 B.C.), who seems to have imitated Che Hwang-te in his patronage of the new sect. The answer of the priests was that the court officials of that day, being unwilling publicly to acknowledge his translation, made a pompous funeral over the clothes of their deified master, and that if the coffin were opened its contents would substantiate their story.

Woo accepted this explanation, and allowed himself gradually to fall under the entire dominion of the priests. At first he was inclined to question their statements, but by degrees so entirely did his judgment become perverted, that he reached a stage when nothing became too hard for his faith. Like Che Hwang-te he despatched several expeditions in quest of the Fortunate Isles, but with no better success than that which attended the efforts of his predecessor. He himself visited the Eastern Pung Mountain, and was shown the footprints of a gigantic genii who had appeared to the imperial professors of magic in the preceding night in the form of an old