interfered with by us to make it as we like it (as we find this the tendency of politics, certainly, and medicine)? May this be the truth: that man, having his interest devoted mainly to the spiritual, and suffering the phenomenal to. go with less devotion of thought and labor, would find it go better by that very letting alone? One great part of our mischief is, that we continually alter, or try to alter, all phenomena to please ourselves, and so spoil things; our whole interest and thought is to them, and it is the wrong attitude of man to them; they go wrong by that very activity; and the remedy for this evil is the devotion of our thoughts to the spiritual, the phenomenal therefore going better. May not this be in part the meaning of 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God,' etc.? Do not pay so much heed to make these things go as you like them, and they will go the better; for it spoils even the phenomenon to make it as man likes it to be." Does not this strange similarity of doctrine between thinkers so widely separated from each other by time and locality show that it must certainly have a natural basis of truth in the human mind? "Be careful," says Chuang-tze, "not to interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man. Man's heart may be forced down or stirred up. In each case the issue is fatal. By gentleness the hardest heart may be softened. But try to cut and polish it, it will glow like fire or freeze like ice. In the twinkling of an eye it will pass beyond the limits of the Four Seas. In repose, profoundly still; in motion, far away in the sky. No bolt can bar, no bond can bind, such is the human heart." The necessity of independence of judgment, and for the development of that principle in the individual upon which alone can be based the right government of life, is clearly laid down in the following passage: "Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse. Then I will place you upon that abode of Great Light which is the source of positive power, and escort you through the gate of Profound Mystery which is the source of the negative power. These powers are the controllers of heaven and earth, and each contains the other." That is to say, by dismissing acquired knowledge, and placing yourself on the basis of direct thinking, you will attain the highest power of the human mind. As the Yellow Emperor was going to see Tâ-kwei with seven sages in his train, he lost his way, and stopped to make inquiry of a little boy who was tending some horses. After receiving the required indication the Emperor proceeded still further to question the boy, and was so astonished at the answers given that he finally said to him, "Of course government is not your trade; still, I should be glad to hear what you would do if you were Emperor." The boy declined to answer; but on being again urged, he cried out, "What difference is there between governing and looking after horses? See that no harm comes to the horses, that is all." One hardly wonders that the Emperor was so struck with the boy's answer that, prostrating himself before him, he addressed him as "Celestial Instructor," and so took his leave. The worldly - indifferent Taoist does not look to the external for his satisfaction. He prefers to dwell, as many of the wisest of all ages have done, in obscure tranquillity, with the wide universe spread out before him, and its secret within his heart. To be greedy of knowledge is not satisfying, for a fullappetite asks for more. It is a part of his wisdom to know when he has had enough, and to stop on the hither side of the knowable. He accepts what he has as earnest of all the rest, and is satisfied to be a dweller in Tao, a denizen of the Infinite, an inhabitant of the Eternal. He asks neither place nor power, and is not to be won by the promise of office, honors, or reward. "Chuang-tze was fishing in the P'u, when the prince of Ch'u sent two high officials to ask him to take charge of the administration of the Ch'u State. Chuang-tze went on fishing, and, without turning his head, said: 'I have heard that in Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise which has been dead now some three thousand years; and that the prince keeps this tortoise carefully inclosed in a chest on the altar of his ancestral temple. Now, would this tortoise rather be dead and have its remains venerated, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?' 'It would rather be alive,' replied the two officials, and wagging its tail in the mud.' 'Begone!' cried Chuang-tze. I too will wag my tail in the mud.' 6 are not the loudest nor the most offi- The apparently extravagant character of some of the doctrines of Tao is very much modified in aspect if we look for it under other forms and names amongst Western nations. The claims for impressiveness made by the undemonstrative reticence and silence of the Taoist are not unexampled in the social life of to-day. The Taoist is said to do everything by doing nothing, to persuade If we compare the governing sentimore by the "argument of silence" than ment of Taoism with that of Vedantism, by the rhetoric of speech. "The true there is a considerable difference in the Sage," says Chuang-tze, "when in ob- points of view taken; also in the degrees scurity, causes those around him to for- of limitation and extension in the appliget their poverty. When in power, he cation of those views. The Vedantist causes princes to forget ranks and emol has the nobler outlook, the sublimer conuments, and to become as though of low ception of the spiritual life. He sees the estate. He rejoices exceedingly in all universe as a body of which intelligent creation. He exults to see Tao diffused essential being is the soul. He sees in among his fellow-men, while suffering no his own life and being a manifestation loss himself. Thus, although silent, he of the Eternal, the universal thinkcan instill peace, and by his mere pre- er, worker, sustainer, dissolver. The sence cause men to be to each other as Taoist also sees and feels around him father and son. From his very return the larger influence, the wider power; to passivity comes this active influence and his object is the same as that of for good. So widely does he differ in the Vedantist, to identify himself with heart from ordinary men." the all-sustaining, the continually endurThe men of the greatest influence ing. But he does not dwell upon the intellectual nature of this Being; he separates it from all possible conditions and qualities. It is neither thought, nor act, nor anything for which he has a name. It declines all predicates, and is the sublime nothing, the dark inscrutable, to all human intelligence. The soul of the Vedantist is the universal soul. Tao has neither soul nor spiritual being. The term God, as used in modern forms of religion, might in many instances be applicable to the Brahman of the Vedânta, though it is by no means synonymous with it. But it could hardly be employed for Tao in any just sense or significance. Tao, as has been said, is without predicates, whereas the term God in its usual acceptation implies them. The Vedantist appeals to the soul within, as it exists; the Taoist leaves the soul and time, and soars, as he says, on the wings of nothingness in the realm of nowhere. But these are not mere phrases to him. He grasps what he holds; and though the goal of his efforts and desires is substantially unknown and incomprehensible to him, he is as well assured of its reality as he is of his own existence. The world of his sense is not a finality; and though he refuses to define what may be called the heavenly support which underlies all being, he is not, for that reason, disposed to consider it a figment. Upon this his rule is laid and his life based. But though his outlook has not the spiritual⚫ sublimity of the Vedânta, it often reaches a moral grandeur which is in itself sublime. Which of us can read the words of the ancient sage without feeling the strength of their appeal to that elemental part of the soul which unites us to the Eternal, and confirms us children of the Infinite, that something within us which is as the echo to sound, the messenger of the voice we recognize as familiar to us? "That Self (the Tao) is eternal; yet all men think it mortal. That Self is infinite; yet all men think it finite. Those who possess Tao are princes in this life, and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess Tao behold the light of day in this life, and become clods of earth in the hereafter. Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust, and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of eternity into the domain of infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of heaven and earth. I know not who comes nor who goes. Men may all die, but I endure forever." Thus speaks the Tao. Let us compare the utterance with the words of David the Psalmist, and we shall see how nearly related they are to each other, how similar are the loftiest emotions of the soul and its language at all times and in all generations : "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. "They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: "But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee." To show where the Taoist really stands, and in further explication of his doctrines, we will give a final extract. It must, however, be premised that the term Thien (Heaven), translated by Mr. Giles "God," must not be understood to imply a personal deity, for that does not enter the category of the Taoist. "The foot treads the ground in walking; nevertheless, it is the ground not trodden on which makes up the good walk. A man's knowledge is limited; but it is upon what he does not know that he depends to extend his knowledge to the apprehension of God. Knowledge of the great ONE, of the great Negative, of the great Nomenclature, of the great Uniformity, of the great Space, of the great Truth, of the great Law, this is perfection. The great ONE is omnipresent, the great Negative is omnipotent, the great Nomenclature is all-inclusive, the great Uniformity is all-assimilative, the great Space is all-receptive, the great Truth is all-exacting, the great Law is all-binding. The ultimate end is God. He is manifested in the laws of nature. He is the hidden spring. At the beginning He was. This, however, is inexplicable. It is unknowable. But from the unknowable we reach the known. Investigation must not be limited, nor must it be unlimited. In this vague undefinedness there is an actuality. Time does not change it. It cannot suffer diminution. May we not then call it our great Guide? Why not bring our doubting hearts to investigation thereof, and then, using certainty to dispel doubt, revert to a state without doubt, in which doubt is doubly dead?" A Chinese commentator, speaking of the section to which this is the conclusion, says, "The force of language can no further go." Nor can it. William Davies. IN A PASTURE BY THE GREAT SALT LAKE. THE word "pasture" as used on the shore of the Great Salt Lake conveys no true idea to one whose associations with that word have been formed in States east of the Rocky Mountains. Imagine an extensive inclosure on the side of a mountain, with its barren-looking soil strewn with rocks of all sizes, from a pebble to a boulder, cut across by an irrigating ditch or a mountain brook, dotted here and there by sage bushes and patches of oak-brush and wild roses, and one has a picture of a Salt Lake pasture. Closely examined, it has other peculiarities. There is no halfway in its growths, no shading off, so to speak, as elsewhere; not an isolated shrub, not a solitary tree, flourishes in the strange soil; trees and shrubs crowd close together as if for protection, and the clump, of whatever size or shape, ends abruptly, with the desert coming up to its very edge. Yet the soil, though it seems to be the driest and most unpromising of baked gray mud, needs nothing more than a little water to clothe itself luxuriantly; the course of a brook, or even an irrigating ditch, if permanent, is marked by a thick and varied border of greenery. What the poor creatures who wandered over those dreary wastes could find to eat was a problem to be solved only by close observation of their ways. "H. H." said, some years ago, that the magnificent yucca, the glory of the Colorado mesas, was being exterminated by wandering cows who ate the buds as soon as they appeared. The cattle of Utahor their owners have a like crime to answer for: not only do they constantly feed upon rose buds and leaves, notwithstanding the thorns, but they regale themselves upon nearly every flower plant that shows its head; lupines were the chosen dainty of my friend's horse. The animals become expert at getting this unnatural food; it is curious to watch the deftness with which a cow will go through a currant or gooseberry bush, thrusting her head far down among the branches, and carefully picking off the tender leaves, while leaving the stems untouched, and the matter-of-course way in which she will bend over and pull down a tall sapling to despoil it of its foliage. In a pasture such as I have described, on the western slope of one of the Rocky Mountains, desolate and for bidding though it looked, many hours of last summer's May and June "went their way," if not “As softly as sweet dreams go down the night," certainly with interest and pleasure to two bird - students whose ways I have sometimes chronicled. a Most conspicuous, as we toiled upward toward our breezy pasture, was a bird whose chosen station was a fence, wire fence at that. He was a tanager; not our brilliant beauty in scarlet and black, but one far more gorgeous and eccentric in costume, having with the black wings and tail of our bird a breast of shining yellow and a cap of crimson. His occupation on the sweet May mornings that he lingered with us, on his way up the mountains for the summer, was the familiar one of getting his living, and to that he gave his mind without reserve. Not once did he turn curious eyes upon us as we sauntered by, or rested awhile to watch him. Eagerly his pretty head turned this way and that, but not for us; it was for the winged creatures of the air he looked, and when one that pleased his fancy fluttered by he dashed out and secured it, returning to a post or the fence, just as absorbed and just as eager for the next one. Every time he alighted, it was a few feet farther down the fence, and thus he worked his way out of our sight without seeming aware of our existence. This was not stupidity on the part of the crimson-head, nor was it foolhardiness; it was simply trust in his guardian, - for he had one, one who watched every movement of ours with close attention, whose vigilance was never relaxed, and who appeared, when we saw her, to be above the need of food. A plain personage she was, clad in modest dull yellow, the female tanager. She was probably his mate; at any rate, she gradually followed him down the fence, keeping fifteen or twenty feet behind him all the time, with an eye on us, ready to give warning of the slightest aggressive movement on our part. It would be interesting to know how my lord behaves up in those sky parlors where his summer home is made. No doubt he is as tender and devoted as most of his race (all his race, I would say, if Mr. Torrey had not shaken our faith in the ruby-throat), and I have no doubt that the little redheads in the nest will be well looked after and fed by their fly-catching papa. Far different from the cool unconcern of the crimson-headed tanager were the manners of another red-headed dweller on the mountain. The green-tailed towhee he is called in the books, though the red of his head is much more conspicuous than the green of his tail. In this bird, the high-bred repose of his neighbor was replaced by the most fussy restlessness. When we surprised him on the lowest wire of the fence, he was terribly disconcerted, not to say thrown into a panic. He usually stood a moment, holding his long tail up in the air, flirted his wings, turned his body this way and that in great excitement, then hopped to the nearest boulder, slipped down behind it, and ran off through the sage bushes like a mouse. More than this we were never able to see, and where he lived and how his spouse looked we do not know to this day. Most interesting of the birds that we saw on our daily way to the pasture were the gulls, great, beautiful, snowy creatures, who looked strangely out of place so far away from the seashore. Stranger, too, than their change of residence was their change of manners, from the wild, unapproachable sea birds, soaring and diving, and apparently spending their lives on wings such as the poet writes of: "When I had wings, my brother, Such wings were mine as thine;" and of whose lives he further says:"What place man may, we claim it, But thine, whose thought may name it? Free birds live higher than freemen, And gladlier ye than we." |