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It is in us that God meets with Nature, and yesterday parts from to-morrow. The Present is the moving Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative. Relativity seeks Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism accepts the mundane as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and worry.
In my search for information in America I have had some singular experiences. I have made an examination of the many religions of the Americans, and they have been remarkably prolific in this respect. Nearly all are Christians, as we are nearly all Confucians. Unitarians, Universalists, Jews, and several others believe in the moral teachings of Christ, but hold that he was not of divine origin.
For a time it became the fashion at court to pass the time in learned discussions between Confucians, Buddhists, and Taoists, which were quite similar to the debates between learned men centuries earlier at the wealthy little Indian courts. For the court clique this was more a matter of pastime than of religious controversy.
Is it diamonds, or gold, or lands?" "We are the most vast of all companies on the earth," said the stranger; "and we are always growing. We have among us men of every race and from every land; the Esquimo, the Chinaman, the Turk, and the Englishman, we have of them all. We have men of every religion, Buddhists, Mahomedans, Confucians, Freethinkers, Atheists, Christians, Jews.
As early as 846 there came a reaction: with the new emperor, Confucians came into power who were at the same time Buddhists and who now evicted some of the Taoists.
The Mongol Emperors were Buddhists of the Lama religion, which still prevails in Tibet and Mongolia; but the Manchu Emperors, though also northern conquerors, were ultra-orthodox Confucians.
Thus the Mohists came forward everywhere with an approach entirely different from that of the isolated Confucians. When the Mohists offered their assistance to a ruler, they brought with them a group of technical and military experts who had been trained on the same principles. In consequence of its great influence this teaching was naturally hotly opposed by the Confucianists.
But since such matters are of great interest to mankind, he is naturally brought into contact with them and he has no more objection to a religious service for procuring rain than to a scientific experiment for the same purpose. Similarly Confucians follow a system of ethics which is sufficient for a gentleman and accords a decorous recognition to a Supreme Being and ancestral spirits.
Syngman Rhee, son of a good family, training in Confucian scholarship to win a literary degree and official position, heard with contempt and dislike the tales told by his friends of foreign teachers and foreign religion. His parents were pious Buddhists and Confucians, and he followed their faith.
Among the country folk, the "inaka" of Japanese parlance, Fetichism is seen in its grossest forms. Yet among probably millions of Buddhists, especially of certain sects, the Nichiren for example, and even among the rationalistic Confucians, there are fetich-worshippers.
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