Historic China, and other sketches - University of Macau Library

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DYNASTIC SKETCHES.
remained open to receive any impressions that particular
circumstances might produce. Another of the Mencian
dogmas was that the people can be led in any given
direction, but cannot be made to understand the reason
why. Meanwhile, the country was flooded with philo-
sophical treatises of various kinds and values, some
of which have come down to us, while the great bulk
of them has disappeared.
It was then that Lao-tzii's speculations fell into the
hands of enthusiastic seekers after truth, and so much
more began to be read out of them than the old philo-
sopher himself had written in them. Foremost among
these was Chuang-tzii, who broached several extraordi-
nary theories of a socialistic and communistic character.
He argued that if all laws were abrogated, crime must
necessarily cease; and showed that if weights and
measures were abolished, the people could not cheat
each other in the exchange of commodities. But
Chuang-tzfi, like all those who have impugned in the
slightest degree the holy doctrines of Confucianism, has
been relegated to the limbo of heterodoxy. His work
remains, but it is not read except as a curiosity of
literature.
With the briefest possible allusion to three important
books, not otherwise mentioned, and a short paragraph
on the beginnings of modern Chinese poetry, this scanty
notice of the literary activity of the Chows will be
brought to an end.
The Book of Changes is the most ancient work
in the Chinese language. Its subject is a philosophic