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360 THE WILL IN NATTJEE.
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 to the
blue sky in the winter solstice, to the earth in the summer
solstice and, after these, to every possible power of Nature :
the sea, mountains, rivers, winds, thunder, rain, fire, <fcc.
&c. A genius presides over each of these, and each genius
has several temples. On the other hand, each genius pre
siding over every single province, town, village, or street,
nay over family funerals and even sometimes over a mer
chant s warehouse, has also temples; only, in the two
last cases they are destined exclusively for private wor
ship. 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 doc
trines in China, more with a dogmatical intent. First
among these is the doctrine of Taossee, founded by Laotse,
an older contemporary of Confucius. This is the doctrine
of Reason, as the inner order of the Universe or inherent
principle of all things, of the great One, the sublime
Gable-Beam (Taiki) which supports all the Eafters, 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